The Underground Pass

My dad’s mate had took us to this old national park that he had went to when he was a kid. He had used to come and watch the helicopters depart from the base with his parents. It was quite a long drive going in.

When we had arrived at the park, we parked near the helicopter base, finding out it is no longer used. The weather was quite muggy and I had a thousand flies stuck to me, though we still decided to go along and check out the park. We walked around and had admired the beautiful horizon. It was my first time there, and I found it quite spectacular, as if I was in another country. I had never heard of this place, or what it was.

We ascended further into the park, walking past an abandoned pistol range with a sign that says “KEEP OUT”. On the path I was walking on, I could see large tubes that were blocked off and an underground stairway that was full of graffiti and heavily padlocked on my left. I was quite intrigued by these tubes and I wanted to check them out. I pulled out my phone and activated the torch. I had shone my phone torch through the tube, though the torch was not strong enough for how deep this tube was. I asked my dad’s mate what these tubes and underground passages were out of curiosity.

“These are old abandoned bunkers, they were used when the Japanese invaded here” he said

Walking further down the path, there were old electricity panels going underground. My dad bizarrely noticed how fresh cables were also going underground too. I really wanted to know what was happening down there.

My dad and his mate were sweating like pigs and had called it a day.

I went home that night, finding it quite disturbing how not a soul was roaming around there. It didn’t really click to me while I was there…

Several days after, my mate and I decided to go play football at the park. We played every Thursday night and we despised busy parks; we always refused to play when we saw crowds of people. The national park I had been taken to came into mind, and for some reason, without hesitation, I suggested that we should play football at the park as it was not crowded.

He agreed.

I had sent the address to my friend and had met up near the abandoned helicopter base. It was fairly dark, but it was quite normal as we had always played at this time. The park was just how we imagined… so quiet, we could hear pins drop.

Ascending further into the park, I had found something very peculiar, it frightened me. Those tubes had a glimmer of yellow,  as if a light was on. Also, the underground passages had no padlocks on them as they previously did. As much as I was curious to find out what was happening beyond the entrance, my conscience did not allow me to go through. My mate also wanted to go through, though I did not allow him; mainly due to the fact that it was fairly dark and we had no permission to be down there.

I disregarded the entrance and eventually found a good place to play football. My mate and I played for a solid hour until my mother had messaged me. Our game came to an end, and I had read my mothers message. The message had arrived to my phone half an hour later from when she sent it due to the terrible reception quality I had.

“Come home, it’s late!”

After reading the message, I turned around and yelled out to my mate to get going, though he was no where to be seen.

My heart dropped, and I had no idea what to do. My mate had always been the one to be eagerly curious about everything, so I had guessed he had gone to the underground passage. I ran down to the passage, seeing the door wide open with pitch black beyond the entrance.

“Come out Gerald!” I yelled

Suddenly, a force had closed the doors to the entrance and the tubes lost its glimmer. There was nothing left to do but to notify the emergency hotline and to get home as soon as possible.

and I did…

Today I had received a call from the local police about their investigation about my mate, they said that they had found my mates phone outside of the national park; hiding in grass. They also stated that they had afterwards searched his phone for any evidence on how my mate went missing.

“Look, we only found one thing on his phone. I am going to text with an attachment of an image we found on his phone, I will let you evaluate this.”
A minute after, I had been sent a text with an attachment, the text was empty. I opened the attachment and a image popped up of a person with salient eyes with a toothy grin. The colour scheme of the image was yellow and parts of the persons face were hardly visible. When I had first seen the image, I was scarred. I knew that it would never leave my mind. Words could not explain how I felt

The image didn’t just scare me, it ruined me…