Vanishing light in the gazebo
Although August was coming to an end, the town of Quercus was still drowning in warm evening sunshine. The park behind the high school was usually a place for chance encounters, stealthy conversations and a bit of an escape from reality, but on this night something completely different was about to happen there.
Magda, always with her camera slung over her shoulder, was the first on the scene. She clambered over the creaking boards of the old gazebo, listening to the breath of the city. Her friend Kuba, a fan of history and old maps, followed her, closely followed by Ada, able to conjure up amazing stories from nothing. They were yet to be joined by Bartek, a quiet computer genius, and Lena, whose passion was chemistry and all kinds of experiments.
They had gathered here not by chance. In the school library the previous day, Kuba had come across a strange annotation in an old chronicle - a short paragraph about a "light in the gazebo" that had appeared and disappeared for decades. Someone had added the date next to it: 28 August, today.
"It's definitely a joke," muttered Ada, glancing uncertainly at her watch. "Or one of the teachers is trying to scare us."
Magda turned to her, adjusting her camera strap. "We can find out or go home. But if it's something more interesting than another headmaster ghost story..."
Bartek came in a little late, with a barely visible smile. Lena, holding matches and a tiny test tube of white dust, looked around alertly.
They spread out old newspapers and chronicle notes on the bench. Cuba was trying to put them together in a logical way, tracing the repeated names. Suddenly, Lena noticed something under the floorboards - a tiny piece of parchment sticking out of a crevice. She pulled it out carefully and raised it to the light of the torch.
"This looks like... a fragment of a map?" she asked, trying to decipher the faded lines and symbols.
Bartek took out his phone to take a picture, when suddenly the torchlight began to flicker and then went out completely. Only the moon illuminated their faces. Then, deep in the park, they saw a flash - a faint, strange, pulsating light that floated between the trees.
"We shouldn't go there..." whispered Ada, but no one moved. Everyone was paralysed by tension. Did what they saw have something to do with the old notes and the map? Were they on the trail of something that had been waiting to be discovered for years?
As the light began to move towards them, all five held their breath, unable to take their eyes off the unknown phenomenon....
Author of this ending:
English
polski
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