I was driven to a tiny glimmer of light, out of the darkness, creeping deeper and deeper, until I knew I was way past the edge of reality and consciousness. It wasn't the first time I was having this particular dream, but it resounded the same note of dread as it had the first time. The all-familiar red door loomed over me, waiting for me to step inside and revisit the deeper horrors within. My stare-off with the large door lasted only seconds before a small brown-haired girl pushed through it, oblivious to the vile aura it emitted. Daunting as it was, I followed her inside. 

Ear-piercing screams enveloped me as soon as I entered. The walls echoed with the wails and high pitched squeals of... humans? No. They definitely sounded like pigs. It had to be pigs; but the more I listened, the more unconvinced I was. I wanted to run back to the front door, however, my feet seemed to have a life of its own and I helplessly gave up control, allowing my avatar to lead me on, hanging on to the hope that it will all end soon.

I entered a room, the floor painted in blood. A maid was scrubbing the wood, knelt on the ground with a sly grin on her face. She seemed to be enjoying herself but her eyes told a different story, as if she was dead on the inside. The small girl was there again, stepping into another room, giggling all the way.

"Jasper, come on!" she said, as she pulled my arm and led me into the hall of torture. All around me butchers were slicing people up, alive, as they gave out their last attempts at escape. I could only watch as the victims screamed for help. The girl skipped along the hall, without flinching; even as a legless man with two bloody stumps crawled to us, pleading, her expression was unwavering.

At length, we stepped into another room, and I gasped in horror. There was a mass of human heads floating overhead; all with smiles on their faces, strung to the ceiling. It was only then that the girl finally stopped in her tracks, now with a deadly look on her face, eyes fixated at a certain spot on the ceiling. I wondered what made the girl stop, if the random slaughter and gruesome killing couldn't. Before I knew it, we were outside. The show's big finale. A woman in white stood before us, dark eyes puffed up and streaming with black tears. Despite the sorrow in her eyes her blood red lips revealed a wicked smile. She put a finger to her lips.

'Shhhhhhh..."

The little girl screamed.

***

Gasping, I woke up with the image of the woman still imprinted onto my waking vision. It was strange how I could not recognize my little sister, Penny, the brown-haired girl, during the nightmare. The former confusion I had felt in that dream quickly was replaced by understanding and anguish over my missing sibling. I looked out the window to find a cloudy sky hovering over my neighborhood of decorated houses. Of course, how could I forget?

"Halloween," I muttered. They had out-done themselves this time. Every house that I could see was adorned in dim lighting, with occasional mummy props or vampire coffins. I sighed, thinking, "It was her favorite holiday. Wait... Halloween! What time is it?"

I quickly glanced at the watch on my arm, which was cramping due to my former awkward sleeping position. I was supposed to meet up with Naomi an hour ago! I turned on my phone to find several missed calls. Sending a hurried text of apology, I quickly got up and rushed to meet my friend.

***

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Despite my late arrival, I was surprised by her soft words. Naomi's face was scrunched up in concern as she waited for me to respond. I repeated the question in my mind. Was I really prepared to go back there again?

The Slaughterhouse. It had been two years since I allowed myself to celebrate another Halloween. Not that I was afraid of the walk-through set up every year in my town, however, I wouldn't be surprised if some people left that place traumatized. The realistic scenes of chopping off human flesh were still vivid in my mind. As disturbing as it was, Penny and I loved going there... or used to. We would attend it every year until she had gone missing, just a day after Halloween. I had lost my best friend, and ever since then, I stopped going out on Halloween. It just didn't feel the same anymore.

My dream resurfaced my thoughts. Sure, it was a much exaggerated version of what had actually happened. My sister didn't laugh at every scene, however, I admired her courage. Being two years younger than me didn't have any effect on her independence; she was as tough as a lion.

Now that I thought about it, Penny had been acting quite strange back in The Slaughterhouse. But it was just that one day when she stopped mid-laughter, eyes fixed on the ceiling. We were at the "Trophy Room" at the end of the ride, where a bunch of human heads was strung to the ceiling, occasionally dripping blood on the audience.

"What, cat got your tongue? Where's the usual smart-Alec remark?" I said, jokingly, being the big brother I was. She didn't respond then, just kept looking overhead. This part had never scared her before but for some reason, she went speechless. She didn't even want to retort to my jests or hit me like she always used to. Since then, all she wanted was to go home, suddenly feeling sick. If I had only known she would go missing the next day...

I had thought long and hard about where she could be. Did she run away, or was she kidnapped? Both possibilities had terrified me down to the core. I should've looked after her better, soothed her after the ride had ended instead of making fun of her. And of course, the guilt hadn't left till this day.

"Hey, you ok?" Naomi asked. I had zoned out longer than I had expected. Naomi had just moved to this town, and as we were in the same grade, I had offered to show her around. We became fast friends and besides knowing her for such a short time, she seemed to understand me pretty well. I had told her about Penny and tried to convince her that I was well over the trauma. I shouldn't be scared of going into a prank house.

Mustering up a confident smile, I said, "Yeah! Let's go."

Judging by her face, I knew she didn't buy it.

***

I had remembered the red door to be larger in my dream but it was terrifying all the same. I noticed Naomi fidgeting beside me and gave her a reassuring nudge, trying to be braver than I felt. It wasn't fear of the walkthrough but the memories of Penny that might come back to me. Nevertheless, Naomi would be missing out on one of the best parts of the town if no one agreed to take her here. We had bought our tickets before hand and were waiting for the doors to open. It was the most famous walkthrough of Halloween and only ten tickets were available each year. Despite my hesitation, I felt a rush of adrenaline surge through me. I was excited to watch the show again after so long. Not only did they manage to make it realistically disturbing, but the victims could interact with the audience as well. Without a doubt, it was the best part of Halloween.

I readied myself as the red door slowly creaked open. Deep maniacal laughter echoed through the speakers. "Welcome to The Slaughterhouse."

And a slaughterhouse it was. The wooden floors groaned loudly as the group stepped through, all apprehensive, but excited more so. Just when the last person was inside the house, the doors boomed close, enveloping us in darkness. No one dared to move until their eyes adjusted and noticed the glow-in-the-dark arrows on the floor. Slowly, we followed, excited whispers all around us. Eerie music started playing in the background. Then out of nowhere, lightning flashed, revealing a woman floating in front of us. Shrill screams escaped from everyone. She was hanging from the ceiling with a rope around her neck. A chair lay toppled nearby; the first jump scare. Startled, Naomi had grabbed my arm and kept holding on to it the rest of the night. Not that I minded; I was glad to know I wasn't alone.

The effects didn't last long and soon, nervous laughter broke out as we all recovered from our shock. I was about to shrug it off as well until I noticed there was something written in red on the woman's forehead:

SILENCED

For some reason, I had never noticed that word the last few times I've been here, and it sent chills down my spine. I stopped myself from mentioning this to Naomi as she was already frightened out of her wits. I wondered if she could last the entire hall.

The group moved on, entering another room through an archway. Before any of us entered we heard a rasping voice, "NO, STOP!"

I knew what I would see next and the buzzing sound confirmed it. Naomi covered her eyes as soon as she realized what was happening. A man strapped to an electrocution chair sat, face clenched tightly, veins jutting out, screaming when the electricity hit him. The group kept moving after that, slowly, but without stopping to watch more than a few seconds. From the corner of my vision, I watched steam rise from the man's singed body as we left the room.

Next, we were met by a man with a chainsaw, drilling through a man's feet while the man screamed for mercy. The people closest to the chainsaw were splattered with the blood and they shrieked in disgust, some with half-attempts to laugh it off. Then came the long hallway, reeking of blood. An armless woman hobbled down the hall, rushing toward the audience, desperately looking for a way to escape. Blood was spewing from her cut arm stumps, spilling on the floor.

"Jasper, she's going to hit us!" Naomi panicked.

Before we could even sidestep to the walls the armless woman's eyes ran back around her head as a knife was put to her throat. Horrified gasps escaped from the audience.

"WANTING TO ESCAPE, ARE WE?" shouted the man with the knife, in anger. His voice boomed across the hall, sending shivers up my spine. He was wearing a white apron with a label in the middle, 'The Butcher.'

The woman was still writhing on the floor, blood spurting everywhere.

"WANT TO SEE YOUR CUT LEGS AS WELL?"

And with that he started hacking her legs off on the spot. Blow after blow, the man laughed maniacally, but the woman wasn't done yet. She kept flailing, spurting out blood, the life in her not wanting to give up.

"Fighter, aren't you?" the butcher mumbled, right before he brought his knife down on her throat, her body now in five mangled pieces.

"I can't watch anymore," Naomi whispered, hiding behind me. I couldn't blame her. Seeing this for the first time was hard for everyone. A more serious note took on the audience after that. Now all anyone wanted to do was end this. The creepy music in the background was not helping with the mood either.

The Butcher then started heaving the pieces to the other side of the room, throwing them on the counters, behind which stood a woman in a similar apron, this one labeled as 'The Chef'. Without warning, she chopped of one of the arms of the dismantled woman into small "edible" pieces, humming while she did it. I recoiled in disgust. Whoever orchestrated all the scenes must've been a sick, sick man. I tried focusing on the arrows, narrowly avoiding the pools of blood as we walked through to the next stage.

Farther down the hall, a man was screaming. His back was glued to the wall and his lips were stitched closed. That did not stop him from making the most horrendous sounds as he struggled, with tears in his eyes, to ask us for help.

On and on it went, starting from bones being broken to a man being skinned alive. The screams, the blood and the cruel slaughterers managed to haunt us all. I kept reminding myself that it was just a show. It was just show. But the last part of the hall was the most horrifying of it all. The chef reached a dining table, where a family of four was seated.

"What shall we have today, Martha?" asked the father.

"Leg chops!" the chef exclaimed, revealing her dish of dark red meat in a red broth. The family clapped proudly at her 'masterpiece'. Their drinks were sparkling crimson.

To stop myself from gagging, I turned to Naomi, still with her face hidden behind my back, and whispered, "It's almost over now."

The last door stood before us, and without further ado, we left the hall, not wanting to spend another second there. A sign read above the door "The Trophy Room."

The room was bare, with dim lighting. It echoed the sounds of dripping liquid, some of which were falling on the guests' heads. Instinctively, we all looked up. Some gasped; some vomited on the spot, while Naomi's face remained shielded.

But it was I, who stood rooted to the spot, fear finally engulfing me. I was unable to tear my eyes off from what seemed so familiar in the ceiling. Naomi, noticing my lack of movement, asked me what was wrong. I either didn't listen or couldn't answer, for the smiling head that stood out to me shook me to the core. Tears formed as my mind filled with bitter rage. The ocean of heads above looked ghostly from this angle and even more with the words "Silenced" written on some heads. One of which I recognized instantly.

I have to get out of here, my instincts screamed. The group continued to move while I stood perplexed, petrified by the scene. It was only after Naomi tugged me along the room that I found the courage to tear my eyes away from my sister's smiling head. My legs felt weak and throat parched. She was here, she was here all along.

We reached the rest of the people in time, who were standing outside for the closing scene. The woman in the ghostly white dress stood with her strange combination of forlorn eyes and her red smile, menacing on her face. She delivered the final words, taking the breath out of my lungs.

"Shhhhhhh..."

This time, she looked directly at me.