The Dare

He hated dares. They were stupid.

He hated dares. They were stupid.

He had always thought of them as the way stupid people asked you to do stupid things.

Without the power of words and persuasion, the simple phrase., “I dare you,” was as much as their limited intellects could muster.

Why was it though, that dares so often worked?

It was a dare that brought him that afternoon to Halford House.

Once a magnificent estate, Halford House had been left to rot after the Halford fortune was spent and foolishly invested and gambled away until there was nothing left.

In the surrounding forest were warning signs saying to keep out. Warnings that had been ignored for generations.

The dare was simple. Climb to the top of the spiraling staircase.

Stephen knew better, but a dare was a dare and, as stupid as it was, he had to do it.

He hadn’t yet found the words needed to talk his way out of a dare.

He stood just inside the doorway and hesitated.

The other boys teased, calling him “chicken”.

Stephen was sure that even a chicken would have more sense than to go up there.

He held his breath and was about to take the first step when a shout came from outside.

“Stephen! Oh Stephen! Are you in there?!”

It was Emmie, his younger sister.

He was sure she had been in her room when he left the house.

“You go on home, Emmie. Git.”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere. Whatcha doin’ in there, Stephen?”

The other boys butted in, talking about the dare to go up the stairs.

“Ain’t scary!” piped Emmie bravely. “I cin do it!”

Without hesitating, she started up the steps alone.

That girl had less sense than a chicken.

“You git back down here,” Stephen demanded, going up the stairs after her.

The boys teased that she had bigger balls than he had.

“You shut up!” he told them as he took more steps.

Emmie was still moving. He called again for her to stop, but she just teased in a sing-songy way that she had the biggest balls.

It wasn’t funny.

Or at least Stephen didn’t think it was.

The boys by the door thought it was hysterical.

“Emmie. I’m warnin’ you. You better stop!”

It was a surprise, but she did stop. Emmie turned around, looked him dead in the eye and said, “or else what?”

She stomped her foot…

… which was a mistake.

The step she was on buckled. The railing next to her cracked and she began to fall.

Stephen dove forward and was able to grab her hand just before she slipped over the edge.

He held on as long as he could.

Dust shot out from the breaking steps directly into his right eye.

At that moment his grip on his sister’s hand failed and she fell to the floor below.

The other boys cursed and ran.

For fear that he would fall too, Stephen scooted down the stairs as quickly as he could.

When he reached Emmie, she was breathing, but just barely.

He didn’t know what to do.

He didn’t know if he should try to move her, but he didn’t want to leave her there by herself either.

He shouted for help. For the other boys to come back.

No help came.

Emmie’s fingers and toes wiggled slightly.

She moaned.

He took that as a sign that he might be able to move her, so he lifted her up into his arms.

His eye, the one the dust stung. He kept it closed as much as he could as he hefted his sister through the trees.

He nearly tripped over a stick or a tree root. He didn’t know what.

Emmie gasped.

Stephen’s close eye shot open for just a moment as he regained his balance.

He could have sworn there was a sort of hooded figure made from sticks in front of him, but when he looked again, with just the one, good eye, it was gone.

Emmie was becoming heavier. Limp.

She stopped moaning.

He did not stop to make sure she was breathing.

He had to get her home.

He had to get her to help.

He was close.

He made it to the edge of the forest to the street. He wanted to run, but he didn’t have the strength.

The pain in his right eye had become unbearable, but he could not stop to wipe the dust away.

Whenever he opened it, the world seemed different.

Paler somehow.

He thought it was his eye adjusting to the light, nothing more.

The clouds looked different.

Things were just slightly off.

His house was ahead.

The dusty eye opened again.

The world through that eye was… off somehow. It was as if his left eye and his right eye were not seeing the world at the same time, or from different angles, or, or he didn’t know what.

The leaves swayed differently from each eye.

The water from the sprinkler on the neighbor’s lawn was in two different places.

Stephen didn’t have time to think about that. He closed the dusty eye and kept on.

When he got to his front door, he set Emmie down as gently as he could on the porch, then rang the doorbell.

His mother opened the door.

She looked panicked.

“Oh ma God! Emmie!”

Stephen opened his dusty eye when she came out.

One mom fell to her knees, hugging and kissing… sobbing… screaming “what happined? What happined to mah baby?!?!”

The other mom. The dust eye mom seemed to look through Stephen like he wasn’t there.

Like he was invisible.

Just then the strangest thing happened.

Emmie… she… she stepped through him and hugged his mother.

Emmie was covered in dust and dirt and there was a large cut on her arm.

“Mama! Mama! It’s Stephen. He fell! Come quick!”

Stephen’s mother and sister grabbed hands and ran together through him.

He turned around to watch them go the way he had just come.

What?

What was happening?

With both eyes open he saw both things. Both worlds.

He couldn’t take it. It was too confusing.

Stephen fell to his knees and closed both eyes.

Tears already flowed from his dusty eye. His good eye began to cry too.

What would happen when he opened them again?

Would he see both worlds still?

Would Emmie’s body still be there?

Would he be there?