A Secret Place Have you ever discovered a secret place in your very own house? Have you ever been attacked by a creature thrice the size of you before? Well, I have. And they were experiences I’d never forget. One day, I was tasked to clean the shelf in the storeroom of my house. Reluctantly, I proceeded to do my task. As usual, the storeroom was dusty, covered in cobwebs with dully painted walls. I had always felt something mysterious whenever I go to the storeroom, but had never got to see anything unusual, except for a small door behind the shelf. Unfortunately, I was never allowed to open or enter it. This day, in order to clean the shelf spick and span, I had to move the shelf away from the wall it was leaning on to clean the back of it. When I moved the shelf away, I noticed the small door again. This time, there was nobody around. If I could just sneak in to see what’s inside the door, come out; put the shelf back to its original position, nobody would find out. Out of curiosity, I pulled the handle of the small door. It creaked open. It was pitch-dark. The air was moist in the secret place; there was no light, just complete darkness. Suddenly, I sensed some movement in the air around, and I went further in. I saw a dark patch of figure, like a silhouette. As I went closer, I seemed to be able to see his face although there was no light around, and I got the first clear look of the creature. He was seven feet tall, his arms and legs like something from the cover of ‘Muscle Man’ magazine – bulging biceps and triceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. Coarse brown hair started at about his bellybutton and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes and horns. I recognized the creature immediately, it was from one of my Greek myths book. A Minotaur – half-bull, half-man. I let out a loud, piercing yell. I mean, that’s what a normal twelve-year-old child would do when they see a creature thrice the size of them, not to mention the horns. Provoked, the Minotaur attacked. He ran straight towards me at lightning speed. I managed to dodge him at the last moment, making him slam head-on to a weird-looking tree, but that just made it more furious. I turned and dashed towards the small door and managed to jump out into the real world from the secret enchanted place right before I was slammed into a pancake. I closed the door and put the shelf back. My heart was racing, at least one thousand beats per second. My instincts told me to confide in my grandfather.
I ran as fast as a jackrabbit into my grandfather’s room. I waited a few seconds just to catch my breath and then blurted out the whole story. After hearing my ‘cock and bull story’, grandfather didn’t look surprised at all, he just frowned and then sighed. “The secret place is enchanted with magic, where all sorts of creatures and living things can be found. The Minotaur you had seen is one of the fiercest creatures there. I had found the secret place the first time we moved here, and had understood much of it. You must not reveal this place to anyone, not even your parents. This is a secret between only me and you, do I make myself clear?” Grandfather told me in a serious tone. I nodded, still in disbelief. How could a secret place exist in my very own house without me knowing it? I decided to go back to the storeroom, just to make sure the small door was properly closed and the shelf was leaning on it, so the mythical creatures inside have no chance of escaping. When I reached there, my jaw dropped wide open. To my horror, the small door leading to the secret place was left ajar. I approached it, thinking who or what might have possibly gotten in or out. When I stepped into the secret place, my heart skipped a beat. Right in front of me, my younger brother, Austin, was groaning in agony on the ground, the Minotaur behind him. I immediately knew that Austin had somehow come into here and was attacked by the Minotaur. Without hesitation, I screamed at the top of my voice, “Grandpa!” Fortunately, grandfather came in the nick of time. He said some magic words at the Minotaur and he immediately stopped attacking Austin and retreated back into the bushes. Austin’s face was pale, as white as sheet. He was trembling from head to toe and he had a few scratches on him. Grandfather and I quickly lifted him up and carried him back to his room. He took out a magic potion from a secret shelf in his room and fed Austin. The potion worked very fast, in a few seconds, Austin regained consciousness. He told us the whole story about how he had overheard grandfather and my conversation, and went to the secret place to check it out. Grandfather reprimanded him for going to the secret place despite the fact that he knew he was not allowed to, and had almost gotten himself killed. After much discussion, we decided that the safest thing to do was to hide the secret place. We sealed the entrance of it with cement, and agreed to pretend that none of this had ever happened. What happened to the secret place still remains a mystery.
