the thief, the rat, and the basement start!!! written by jihee yun

The Thief, the Rat, and the Basement

Start!!!

Written By Jihee Yun

You wake up unusually early on a Saturday morning. Your parents are getting prepared for a business trip. They will be away for 3 days. Excited to have the house for yourself, you gladly send your parents away and head for your laptop. You reach your room and open the door. You notice something different and alert your senses. Then it comes to you. Your bed sheets are crumpled, your clothes are on the floor, and your homework is gone!After a long minute, you realize it was always like that. You grab your laptop and jump onto your bed when you hear a thump from the basement.

THUMP

Click to investigate

Click to stay and surf the

net

You freeze. After a moment of eerie silence, you turn back to the bright screen of your laptop. Your senses are alert, so you pick up a sound close to a lock getting picked. The basement door! Grabbing your baseball bat and the phone, you cautiously creep downstairs to the living room. You deduct that nothing has come up to the living room yet. You want to dart to your room and crawl into a ball in your closet, but you know that wouldn’t solve the problem. With your phone at ready, you tip-toe to the basement. It’s so dusty! You don’t know why your parents never bother to clean up down here. The rats and cockroaches literally took over the place. Carefully, you edge around the old stuff and take a peek over the pile of junk.

You see a man like figure, but much taller than a regular man. Trying to get a closer look, you lean onto the old books, when cockroaches crawl up your arm! The stupid bugs! You frail about silently, but knock over the pile of dirty books you were hiding behind. The dark shadow turns to you. When you rid the bugs and look around, the man is charging at you with a metal baton! Surprised, you run back upstairs. Luckily, your house has 2 sets of stairs. You run up one and dart down the other. Turns out the thief is not the sharpest tool in the shed. He runs around and around, assuming he’ll catch up. You keep this going, but you know this isn’t going to save you. Tired, you try to reach the front door to get out when your legs fail underneath you and you tumble down the stairs back into the basement.

When you come back to your senses, your feet can’t touch the ground. The thief is holding you by your shirt collar about 2 feet off the ground. He aims the baton and tries to hit you but misses as you struggle to escape. You bite the man’s hand and tumble down towards an old fruit basket lying on the ground. After recovering, the thief walks towards you furiously. You take a closer look. The man is a bulky, tall man. He’s wearing a ski mask, a thick jacket, and ripped jeans. You know he wouldn’t let you get outside after knowing a guy broke into your house, much less let you live.

Beg the thief to let you live

Try to stay alive by fighting back

You reach for something in the darkness and grab something mushy. You throw the thing at the thief and it smacks right on his face with a satisfying squish. You quickly find a dry towel and wipe the disgusting stuff off. The thief staggers backwards, and falls into a pile of rotten wood. Earning yourself some time, you stumble for the stairs when the thief grabs onto your shoulders. Somehow, the thief stood up from underneath the wood. He grabs you by the collar again, careful not to get his hands in the way of your mouth. You’re dangling in the air against a wall, and you have nothing to defend yourself with. The thief raises his baton, preparing for a strike. You close your eyes and brace yourself for a deathly blow. You wait 2… 3… 4 seconds. You feel a second of dark surprise when you suddenly fall to the ground.

You slowly open your eyes to see the thief standing on a small, broken table, looking like the world was going to end. Things are scrambling up the leg of the table. You’re still on the ground when the man sees you. Without knowing what happened, you dash upstairs. When you reach the top, you dare to look back. The nasty man was thundering up the stairs towards you! Hurriedly, you grab your baseball bat and the your phone. You try to run, but trip on your rug and fall face first. The thief is close enough to knock you out now. Expecting the man to crush your skull in, you can’t hide your surprise when the man stampedes towards the front door. He only staggers a few feet outside until he crumples to the ground.

911

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4 5 6

1 2 37 8 9

Emergency Call

Call 9-1-1

Take a selfie with the unconscious

thief

When the police arrive, they explain what actually happened. You apparently threw rotten fruit. That’s what attracted the pests. The thief fainted because he has a fear of rats. What a damsel! Your parents arrive just as the police shove the thief into the police car. You’re smothered with kisses from your parents. Unfortunately (or fortunately), your family gets rid of the rats and cockroaches. As the pest patrol rush into the basement, you’re overwhelmed with emotions. You both feel thankful and disgusted for the crawling creatures, and also glad you’re alive with all your limbs attached. Your parents ask if you want this event to be on the newspapers, but you decide to keep this quiet. On that coming Monday, your friends ask you what you did during the weekend. You answer with a simple ‘nothing’ and your friends go back to bragging about their awesome weekend. You decide to keep quiet and keep your friends happy.

Start from choice slide

Start from beginningStart Again?

You decide to stay in your room and browse the internet. There can’t be anything better that your laptop, and going down a dusty basement was not on the list of thing to do on a Saturday. After a bit of surfing, you hear another thump, but closer, like the living room. A bit nervous, you open the door by a crack. A tall, buff man is standing in the living room, trying to steal your things! Trying to call 9-1-1, you grab your phone when your friend calls!

Anonymous LOL

The ring tone echoes throughout the house, and the thief spots you. For a few awkward seconds, you stare at the man.

He finally realizes the danger and stampedes towards you! You quickly shut the door and lock it. You struggle against the force of the thief trying to open the door. Eventually, he bursts through and

you tumble to the floor. Without the thief seeing you, you crawl into your closet. You

try to think of a plan. Movies make it sound so easy! Your friend calls you again.

You stare at the phone screen.

The thief spots you by the sound of your phone. Suddenly, rage fills inside you. Why did your friend call again? Does she not have other friends? Why you? Your rage turns toward the thief. Why did he decide to rob your house? Couldn’t he have at least taken his shoes off? He’d make a mess everywhere he goes! Forgetting the dangerousness of the situation, you throw your phone so hard that the screen cracks when it smacks the thief’s head. You stare at the now unconscious thief in awe. Quickly, you grab you phone and call 9-1-1.

Start from beginning

Start from choice slide

Start Again?

You decide to take a picture. This is a huge issue! This won’t happen again, and you want to capture the memory on your phone. What’s the harm? The thief is knocked out pretty hard. It’ll just take a moment to take the photo. As

you click the capture button, you see the thief gaining consciousness behind you! Instead of going against you, the thief runs for the door again. You call the police, but you know they won’t come for a while, especially when the

thief is running. You decide to leave that to the experts. But when you head up to your room and reach for your laptop, it not there! The

thief! He must’ve snuck it out when you were unconscious! Many things slip by your mind in a

second. All your photos, homework, and money… Let the grown-ups

handle this Chase the thief!!!

You decide to let the police handle the “adult stuff”. Just then, you hear police cars outside your house. When you reach the door, the police has caught the thief! The thief is now in the cruiser, but your laptop was nowhere to be found. Well, at least you have your picture. You post the picture on every social media app, but it’s pushed down by pictures of cats and food other people posted, too. Nothing changed.


Start from choice slide Start Again?

You decide to dramatically beg for your life. You get out your cuteand innocent puppy face and talk about the reasons you should stay in this world. For a few seconds, the thief is still. It’s working!... Why do you think a puppy dog face is going to work on a burglar? The man hits you on the head, and you blank out. When you come back to reality, you check your room to see if anything’s gone. Obviously, your laptop is gone. Half of your clothes are missing, and your room is a disaster, although it’s ALWAYS A MESS. You call the police. Lesson learnt: A thief will not be stopped with a kid trying to look cute.

Can I please live?



You think about the good times you and your computer had. You’ll never let go of it. Mind full of determination, you run out the door dramatically and run for the thief. Luckily, the thief is a slow runner. You sprint towards him and grab him by his ski mask and rip it off his head! He-no, she- was your friend Susan! When did she get those muscles? Confused, you watch her go until she meets up with a monkey to fight a robot that’s taking over the world. You think. This doesn’t make sense. That’s when you opened your eyes to the birds chirping. It was all a dream.



? !