Ignore the whiner; you have to get shelter fast
From Create Your Own Story
You ride forward in silence. The leaves are rustling in the chill breeze. Your thin tee-shirt is flapping against your skin. You force yourself to look back and smile.
"Not far now," you reassure your siblings.
And that is when it happens.
The path opens out into a clearing, fringed by high lalang grass and thick bamboo. There, in the centre, stand a ruined bungalow, the most forlorn house you have ever seen. It must have been a mansion once. The remains of a gravel drive, overgrown with trees, wind up to its old porchway. Tree roots and vines twist around the huge columns. The walls are streaked with black and green. Empty windows stare at you like eyes. Rotting shutters hang beside them. Above the second floor, the roof had partly caved in, leaving rafters sticking up like fingers into the sky.
"Wow!" Kwan gasps. "Just like the movies..."
Suddenly, there is a shattering explosion of thunder. The rain hammers down.
