Echoes from the basement

Three friends discover an old sealed door during an unexpected storm and decide to solve the mystery behind their school.

The night air was thick with moisture and bubbling thunder pierced the silence as Lena, Igor and Tom waited in the empty classroom for the storm to end. Everyone had long since left school, but they were to stay another hour for a physics project. Lena, impatient as usual, suggested a break:

They walked quietly, only the echo of their footsteps bouncing off the walls. Up close, the door seemed older than the whole school, rusty, with a strange symbol carved just below the handle. Igor took a closer look at the sign.

Tom pulled the handle, but the door didn't even budge. For a moment everyone was silent, listening to the howling of the wind and the rumbling of the rain overhead. Lena, with the zeal of an explorer, pulled out her smartphone and shone her torch. In the glare of the light, they noticed a small crack under the door. Igor slipped his hand in there and after a moment pulled out a key....

For a moment they hesitated; each felt they were crossing some invisible boundary. Lena turned the key in the lock. The gears clicked with an ecstatic creak and the door swung open with a barely audible groan. There was a chill blowing from inside and something that resembled... a whisper?

They walked carefully, the light from the phone cutting through the darkness. After a few steps, an old, cracked floor and something that looked like a dilapidated box appeared to their eyes. Suddenly, a door slammed behind their backs. Lena turned abruptly, and then a quiet knocking came from the crate. Igor froze with his hand outstretched to the handle of the crate, and Tom dimmed the light, as if he hoped it would all stop then.

Still catching their breath, they heard the same whisper - this time clearer, as if someone was asking: "Help me..."