The Voice in the Cement

Five years ago in the School of the Town, there was a water well that had been sealed decades ago. Matías and Lucas, children from sixth grade, decided to spend the night locked inside to prove their courage.

They hid in the bathroom after closing hours. It was getting darker went out the bathroom. The silence of the empty school was frightening.

They went to where the sealed water well lay, marked by a circle of cracked cement. “They say a teacher fell in there in the fifties,” Lucas whispered. “Pure nonsense,” Matías replied, his voice shaking slightly, giving the cement a soft kick.

At that moment they hear a scratching sound coming from the cement. Then a close, child voice begins counting aloud: “eighty-seven… eighty-eight…” was the counting for the game… When the voice reaches one hundred it turns into a scream: “The last one out plays with me!” The boys run.

Only Matías is found the next morning. Lucas is missing.

In the cement over the well, there is a new crack. And if you listen closely, you hear a constant tap-tap. It’s a ball bouncing.

And the count keeps repeating from below “one… two… three…”