Walking through the hallways of the abandoned building, I began to realize what my friends meant when they said the place was haunted. No, it wasn’t necessarily infested with ghosts or had suspicious creaking walls and floating objects, but the old mansion was definitely crumbling, rotting, and molding. It had an air to it that made you jump at shadows and whip your head around at even the littlest of sounds. Every room or two you could see cigarette butts lining the floors and graffiti across the walls displaying names of who-knows-what. The old building looked like a serial killer hideout, being hidden away in the woods and having ivy and other plants growing in through the windows and under the cracks of the doors.
I pushed open yet another door, leading me into what looked like the kitchen. The ancient stove was rusted, and I as I approached closer, covered in raw meat. The odor filled the room and I gagged, my blue eyes widening at the rotting flesh. I held my breath as I took a better look at it.
I was wearing gloves from the cold fall, so I poked the meat with my finger and decided that it was, in fact, dead, before I looked at it more closely. From the aging and the amount of mold and dust on it, the raw…steak, I assumed, was only about a week old, at most two. I backed away, the stench of the dead animal making me feel lightheaded, and I fell to my knees as soon as I was out of there, my long, curly brown hair falling into my eyes, obstructing my view. I took a few deep breaths and stood up, brushing off my ripped jeans and continuing on my journey through the old mansion.
The house had been abandoned for as long as I could remember. Even as a little girl, I could still recall my friends telling stories about the monsters that inhabited that old place. I shuddered as a cold gust of wind burst through a broken window and I rubbed my arms in a vain attempt to keep warm. A small scratch on my left arm stung in the chilly air as I entered another room. I was only hear to dispel the rumors. That was all. Get in and get out.
But it was more than that. I’d been in that dark building for nearly thirteen hours. My goal was only an hour away. To make things more clear, anyone who knows me knows that I’d never back down from a dare, and I was told to spend fourteen hours in this boarded up old shack, and if I were to die and people were to be questioned, they were going to say I did it to prove everyone wrong about the ghosts and the crazy psychos who now resided there. I had to keep that mindset while I was in there, searching amongst rooms, trying to find anything interesting. It was the only thing that kept me sane at that point. I pulled out a granola bar from a pocket in my dark purple jacket and began to munch on it. God, I needed that, I thought, savoring every bite of the dry, stale oats glued together with sticky maple syrup.
I entered my ninth bedroom of the night and took a look around. Surrounding me was a broken crib, a motorized baby mobile, which I assumed was a new addition by the people who liked to come hang out here, an old dresser with half the handles missing, and a baby doll lying on the floor with both of the eyes missing. I let out a sharp laugh.
“Something to make the unwanted guests run, I suppose,” I muttered, picking up the doll and dropping it out of the window of the bedroom, letting it fall two stories to the ground below. Like all the rest, this window was shattered as well, and the wooden boards were rotted out, giving me a perfect view of the trees. I found myself uninterested with the room and turned to leave, when soft music began playing out of tune. I rolled my eyes and went over to the mobile to turn it off, but the little switch was jammed, so I just broke off a plank of wood from the crib and beat the mobile until the slow music final shut off. I dropped the wood and sighed in relief; I did not need anything else to add to the creepiness factor of this house.
Quickly leaving the room, I stumbled over a sharp, overgrown plant and swore, earning a new scratch on my ankle. Great, I thought, ripping a piece of my sock off and tying it around the scratch, hoping it would hold at least until my time was up.
It was nearing a half an hour left when I found the library, up on the fourth floor. There was only one more floor to scavenge and that was the one above me: the attic. I was not looking forward to that.
The bookshelves were strangely overflowing with books. Books ranging from the late 1800’s all the way to modern-day were crammed into the old, wooden shelving, some even spilling onto the floor where heaps of books lay in piles. I smiled for the first time while in this haunted mansion and went looking through some of the books I recognized. Through the Looking Glass sat proudly on a shelf, while The Return of the King lay on the desk, open to page 174. The Harry Potter series was lined up on top of another bookshelf, followed by all the companion books and even the movies. Nothing in the room was dusty, and I was amazed at the incredible condition of everything in there.
Until I heard footsteps.
I quickly dove behind one of the many shelves and curled myself up into a ball, hoping to conceal myself. It was considerably dark in this portion of the room, but that would do me no good if they had a flashlight.
Words were rapidly being thrown, and I realized there were two people in there. I forced myself to calm my racing heart and I quieted my breathing, making myself perfectly still and perfectly silent. I had to keep my cool. I needed to get through this.
“Where do you think she is?” A female voice hissed. “She’s got to be in here somewhere, I saw her come in here.”
“Jeez, Mira, she’s not dead, okay? The room’s huge, we’ll find her,” The other voice, a male one, responded. The footsteps continued and I leapt up onto my feet as they searched.
I tiptoed my way towards the front entrance, then spun and hid behind the wall when the boy came out from behind a shelf. He then turned and continued down another aisle of bookshelves, and I quietly slipped out of the door.
Taking a glance at my watch, my eyes widened. My time was up twenty minutes ago! I slid down the banister and bolted down the stairs as fast as possible. I heard yelling and thumping footsteps above me but I had to keep running, keep going, never stopping until I got out.
I burst out the front door where my best friend, Kiara, stood, grinning, standing next to her brother, Raiden. “You did it! You actually did it!” she laughed, hugging me. Her short black hair whipped around in the swirling wind and her dark brown eyes were filled with excitement. “You have to tell me all about it. You’ve set a record, Emma! Fourteen hours, that’s absolutely crazy. How was it? What happ-”
“Kiara, shut up. Let the girl talk,” Raiden snapped playfully. He swept his hair to the side, raven black contrasting with the bright blue at the ends. I pulled away from Kiara and backed away hastily.
“Em? Are-are you okay?” Kiara asked, concern filling her voice. My mind was on overdrive. Who were those people in there? What did they want? The experience in the old house left me shaken and I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t even think straight. All my thoughts were jumbled up and they ran together like paint. I paced back and forth, muttering nonsense and shoving my hands into my jacket pockets, then removing them and fiddling with them, then running my hands through my hair, all while my friends stared at me like I was insane.
Now that I look back on it, I was.
And I still am.
That experience changed me. Being alone so long, having that mindset for so long, it drove me to insanity.
I guess some people react to situations differently than others. I went crazy.
Maybe you will too.