It was difficult to look ahead. There was screaming at the back of his mind,
telling him to look away. Telling him to
run lest the shadow returned for him. He
realized that he was terrified. Despite
the fact that he is a twenty-year-old grown man, he was terrified of what could
be up those stairs. Years of knowing
that ghosts and hauntings weren't real did nothing to calm him. This sure felt pretty damn real. Another chill ran up his spine at that
thought and he rubbed his arms to help calm his nerves. Hauntings aren't real.
He stood at the bottom of the steps for a long while, just
staring at the dark, shadowed floor in front of him. He could hear the house creaking above
him. It almost sounded like the wind had
picked up outside but for some reason he doubted it. He was starting to doubt many things.
The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle, a soft
sigh seeming to come from nowhere.
Suddenly he spun, falling backwards over the first two steps and onto
the landing. He could have sworn that
something touched him and whispered directly into his ear. His shoulder still tingled where the fingers
had been and the feel of warm breath on his ear still sat heavily in his mind.
Leaning against the wall and closing his eyes, he
sighed. There was nothing behind him. "I swear, this has to be a bad
dream." His fingers became damp
with sweat as he wiped his brow.
"No use sitting here... The faster I get up there, the faster I can
get out." Even still, his first few
steps up the stairs after standing were hesitant at best.
He noticed as he climbed the steps that the house had gone
silent. Every noise he made seemed amplified,
as if it was echoing in a cave around him.
An inky black wall waited at the top of the stairs, almost as if the
dark had gathered in that one spot, drinking in any light it could find. He found himself frozen to the steps just
below it, hand plastered to the banister, staring into the haze. Prying himself loose, he took one more deep
breath and stepped forward into the murk.
His stomach curdled as he passed through the wall, the cool
clammy air of the main floor giving way to a hot, steamy froth. The suddenly sticky air tasted sickly in his
mouth. His hand found the wall to steady
himself with and he waited there for a moment, trying to get his stomach to
stay down. It seemed no use but was
worth a try. He still could not see.
Suddenly he felt that the house was living again. He could feel a faint but steady in-and-out
breeze moving past him though it did nothing to alleviate the nauseatingly
soupy feeling of the air. The floor
beneath him seemed to sway slowly from side to side, not helping his nausea at
all. Despite this, he continued forward. He realized that now, even his movements were
silent as the grave. The house was so
quiet that it was deafening.
The door to the first room was soon under his hand. The door was closed now. It wasn't before. Still, something told him to continue on. He felt as if he was being pulled further
down the dark hallway. Another door soon
passed by, the room with the green bed not feeling right either. Finally he stopped, standing just outside the
room with the pink bed. He knew this had
to be it. There was no other place for
her to be.
He turned slowly, still hardly able to see in the dark. The door was closed, the knob almost seeming
to glow faintly in the gloom. Everything
seemed to be drawing him to that. There
was an air of hauntingly bizarre excitement in the house. The rhythmic breeze had slowed, then stopped altogether,
as he stood there, transfixed by the little round object on the door in front
of him. He slowly reached out and
grabbed the knob, another shudder streaking through him as he turned it and
pushed the door forward on its hinges.
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