Into the cellar

Generally speaking, it wasn’t your immediate impulse to do things Zoe suggested. Peer pressure aside, the girl just also seemed to derive entertainment from a number of things people would find uninteresting or bizarre, and after being subject to the decor of your bedroom you aren’t necessarily in the mood for more of the same. It’s only moments after Zoe descends into the basement, when you hear a clattering and a few thuds that you make for the cellar door with a pit in your stomach. Even if you aren’t really friends, you don’t like the idea of Zoe getting hurt fumbling around by herself in the dark. You also don’t like the idea of getting an earful from Candy and/or your mom if she breaks anything important, and with a twinge of guilt you wonder which possibility worries you more.

“Zoe?” You call into the dark and dusty cellar. The few bare bulbs hanging down don’t do much to brighten the place up, various piled boxes and shelves casting shadows over most of the chilly cement floor and matching walls. You don’t hear a response, but can see Zoe with her back turned rummaging through the debris, and so you move a bit further in stepping over the items you heard fall— a… geode? And another figurine, this time of what seemed to be some kind of alien woman, her shiny silver underwear leaving most of her green skin on display. It’s not hard to imagine that this is where most of the items belonging to the previous inhabitant of your bedroom wound up, the crème of the creepy crop winding up in the room above.

“Zoe?” You call again, closer to her this time, and she jolts, bumping into the table in front of her. You notice a stack of rolled up posters fall over, and hear some other small plastic something go rolling off into the darkness. Zoe turns around, relaxing as she sees you, and her face lights up as she gestures around the room.

“Sam, look at all this stuff!” she says gesturing to the towers of cardboard boxes, some of which were taller than her, not that such a thing was too difficult.

“It’s hard to miss,” you say, nudging a plastic spider away from your foot.

“Like this!” Zoe says, having not picked up on your ****. She turns and grabs something off the table, shoving it into your face in excitement. You have to take a second to push it back before you can even get an good look at the item, which appears to be…