Sonya

Sonya is a scary story about a young girl from a small village who wants to prove how brave she is by spending the night in a haunted house.

In the city, there is a lot of hustle and bustle, but in small villages life can sometimes be boring. Teenagers who live there are always looking for excitement and thrills.

There was a young girl named Sonya who lived in a small village in Russia. She had a small group of friends she had known all her life and they did everything together. Sonya was the life and soul of the group. She was always suggesting new activities and she was never afraid to do anything.

There was an abandoned house in the village that was said to be haunted. Nobody had lived there for decades and the windows and doors were all boarded up. Adults warned their children to keep well away from the old place.

One day, Sonya and her friends were hanging out near the abandoned house. They were discussing ghost stories and the supernatural when one of the boys said, “I bet none of you would be brave enough to spend the night in this haunted house.”

“Everyone knows ghost stories aren’t real,” Sonya quickly replied. “They’re just made up by adults to keep kids in line. There’s nothing but dust and rats in this old house.”

The teenagers walked around the house, looking for a way to get inside. One of the boys found some loose boards over the door to the cellar. With little effort they managed to pry off the wood and opened the door. There was a flight of stairs, covered with moss, that led down into the darkened basement. There was a stench of damp and a cold breeze blowing up from the darkness.

“Just like the tomb of the Pharaoh in Egypt!” said Sonya.

“I hope we don’t find a mummy down there,” said one of the other girls.

One by one, they walked down into the cellar. The walls were dripping with moisture and there was rubbish all over the floor. They found another set of steps that led up into the house. They climbed up to the first floor of the abandoned house. Thin rays of sunlight streamed through the slits between the boarded windows and provided just enough light to see. The rooms were filled with broken furniture, paint brushes, buckets and flat coils of old wire. Lying on the table were bundles of old newspapers.

“Wow! A newspaper from 1948!” exclaimed one of the boys.

“Let’s go upstairs!” said Sonya.

They tramped up the creaking and rotten stairs. At the top, there were 6 rooms, all of them with some kind of old furniture and one moldy bed. They opened wardrobes and drawers and looked at the contents.

All of a sudden, they heard the sound of footsteps coming from the ground floor. All of them froze and listened.

“Maybe someone came in behind us,” one of the boys whispered.

All of the teenagers were creeped out. Just then, they heard a loud bang from the attic.

“Let’s get out of here,” another boy whispered.

Sonya just laughed at him. “You’re such cowards!” she said. “I’m not afraid of anything. In fact, I’ll prove to you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m going to spend the night here.”

Cautiously looking around, the teenagers quickly made their way down to the basement and up the stairs that led to the cellar door. Suddenly, they heard a crash behind them as if something heavy had fallen over. It spooked them so much that they ran out into the street. The sun was shining brightly and they had to squint their eyes because of the sharp transition from darkness to light.

When they looked around, everybody noticed that Sonya was missing.

“Where is she?” asked one of the boys nervously.

“Scaredycats!” cried a voice from the darkened basement.

Footsteps came clomping up the stairs and Sonya appeared from the darkness, squinting her eyes and smiling. In her hands, she was carrying a beautiful brooch with coloured stones.

“Look what I found,” she said proudly. “While you were running for your lives, I happened to open one of the cabinets and this was lying inside. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Were you really serious when you said you were going to stay the night in this house?” asked one of the girls.

“I told you that I’m not afraid of anything,” said Sonya. “The rest of you are all superstitious idiots. There’s nothing in this house except old rags, dusty frniture and rats.”

“Well, then we’ll wait for you outside,” said one of the boys.

Sonya rolled her eyes and turned to go back inside.

“If you need us, just scream,” said another boy. “OK Sonya?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t need you!” Sonya replied. “You’ll see! I’ll meet you back here at exactly 6 AM.”

With that, Sonya disappeared back into the darkness of the basement.

Her friends sat down on a bench nearby and waited. The night was warm and they talked and laughed to stave off the boredom.

Around 3 AM, their conversations were suddenly interrupted by a loud bang. It sounded as if something in the house had fallen over or collapsed. They did not hear Sonya scream, so the teenagers were not sure what to do. None of them wanted to venture into the abandoned house.

“Probably just a rat,” said one of the girls.

And the conversation flowed on.

At 6 AM, the friends were still waiting, but Sonya didn’t show up. By 6:30 AM, they were wondering what had happened to her. Around 7 AM, the worried teenagers decided they had to go into the house and find her.

Clutching each other tightly by the hand, they went down into the cellar, then climbed the stairs that led into the house. There was an eerie silence.

When they reached the first floor, they couldn’t see anything at first. Then, one of the boys noticed a small figure curled up in a corner. It was Sonya, disheveled, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. When the boys approached her, she couldn’t even move. Her whole body was trembling, her clothes were torn and there was blood all over her face.

The girls stayed with Sonya and held her hand while the boys ran outside to call the police and an ambulance. When the police arrived, they searched the house from top to bottom, but found nobody else, not even rats. No one could have gotten in or out of the house without being noticed. Apart from the cellar door, every other entrance was securely boarded up and untouched.

After these events, Sonya spent more than a year in a mental hospital. The doctors counted on her body about 50 human bites and a lot of scratches. Two of her teeth were broken. How that could happen in a house where there was not a single human being, was something her friends could never understand.

After her discharge, she was sent home to live with her parents. She wasn’t able to speak and only communicated by writing short answers on slips of paper. Whatever happened to her in the house, no one knows.

Two months after her discharge from the hospital, Sonya committed suicide.

This story was told to me by a very serious man of 54, who claimed he was one of the boys who witnessed these strange events.