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He had to find her. That was why he was here. Luke stared up at the house. It must have been a lovely house back in its day but now appeared as if it had been left to rot in the woods for years. The driveway had been long and winding through the trees as if leading him deep under its spell. All the way back there had been a mailbox but the name had been violently scratched off, adding no details to the people who used to live there. And yet, here he was; standing at the front of an abandoned house. Abandoned, except, for the rays of light that let themselves be known in slivers in a room at the very top. That was his ultimate goal.
The house itself was white, well, it used to be white. So much mildew and plant life had spread out onto it that it appeared almost more of an eerie green with bits of white. It appeared to be about three stories tall with a small porch and black shutters and a deep maroon door. On the porch was a swing, dangling on only one chain and hanging baskets with dead flowers rotting through. Beside it was a large attached garage and a backyard that seemed to sprawl out infinitely, only contained by a black metal fence that vanished somewhere back into the trees. In the backyard were the covered remains of a mossy swimming pool and an old childrens’ playhouse that was even more dilapidated than the main structure.
Luke stepped out of his rusty, red, second hand car. From nowhere, there was a sound of footsteps, like someone was running in circles around the driveway. A sudden cold swept in that made Luke tighten his jacket, even though it was only around 6 pm in mid autumn. He felt for the knife in his right jacket pocket, just in case. There was nothing there, though, and the sound soon faded. Cautiously, he began to head for the door. The walkway past the garage was covered in spreaded roots from a nearby tree that cracked up through the pavement. The entire porch smelled of rotting flowers. Now, standing on a surprisingly intact welcome mat, Luke twisted the handle of the door and it swung smoothly open without so little as a creak.
There were four directions to go in, once through the door. There were two doors to both his left and his right, one hallway in front of him, and a flight of stairs to the next level. He should probably look around here first, though. Luke decided to start with the door on the right. This door also opened easily. The first thing that got him was the smell. There was a dead goldfish on the floor by a shattered fish tank, along with piles and piles of dirty cups and plates, seemingly forgotten. He turned to the right to see a desk with an old desktop computer, surrounded by papers. He tried to read them, but they were all in gibberish. Also on the desk was a photo of three people all standing together by a fountain, but their faces were hidden, as if someone took a marker and scribbled over their features. Before he could poke around more, though, the smell finally got him and he had to leave.
The door on the left was a sitting room. It was perfectly posed, as if the old occupants had merely stepped out into the next room; the complete opposite of the room across the hall. There was a fireplace that was dusty and uncleaned, still having little bits of paper and china left amidst the rotted logs in the bottom. On the table in the middle of the uncomfortably expensive-looking chair and sofa set, was a tower of tea cakes, somehow still looking fresh, and full cups of tea. Luke picked up one of the cups. The tea inside it was merely dusty coloured resin. He then picked up one of the cakes. It, too, was plastic. Behind the couch was a grand piano. He hit a key, out of curiosity, and it was painfully warped. It did cause something, somewhere, to sturr. Distant sounds of talking began to be heard from somewhere nearby, not yet fully noticeable. He continued on his search, leaving the parlor and headed down the hall. He was once again faced with a door on the left and a door on the right. Now that he was in the hall, Luke could hear the talking properly. It seemed to be getting slowly louder.
Not wanting to face the mysterious voices just yet, he decided to head to the left first this time. It was a kitchen. Luke flipped a light switch on instinct only to realize that, of course, this house didn’t have power anymore. He turned a faucet in the sink and first poured sand, and then a dark red liquid that he couldn’t tell if it was wine or blood but he was too scared to taste it to find out. He quickly shut it off. The fridge was half open with all of its contents spilled out onto the floor. This, like the cakes in the parlor, looked completely fine, so he picked it up to see if it was also plastic. However, the second it was in his hand, it began to rot. All of the food on the floor began to decay, as if time was catching up to it. He didn’t even bother with the pantry; Luke just headed out to see the final room.
Once the door was open, the voices could be fully heard. It sounded like people arguing, but blurry almost, like when you hear people fighting from far away, even though he was at the source. This was a dining room. There was a crunch underfoot when he walked in. Luke looked down and saw the remains of a broken wineglass and a stain, as if someone had thrown a still full glass. Now he fully pulled out his knife. Luke had had a vice grip on the handle this whole time, but at the source of the voices, he wanted to be extra safe. Only now did he notice the figures sitting in the chairs at the dining table. The table was fully set in an extraordinary manner, with a full set of six chairs, yet only three places were set. There were figures with their backs to him in two of the three place settings. There was a singular working light overhead, directly at the spot of the third setting, and Luke was too busy with everything else to notice that was odd. His foot crunched on another bit of shattered dinnerware on the floor, louder this time, and the heads of the figures snapped around directly towards him. Luke’s jaw dropped as the breath was knocked out of him.
The true face of these creatures was something dead. Eyes gone from sockets, skin somewhere between decomposing and drying out; they were certainly not alive. From an empty, toothless gaping mouth they shrieked a loud inhuman cry and Luke couldn’t cover his ears due to not wanting to drop the knife. They stood up, lumbering like puppets on strings slowly towards him, seeming to not care about the piles of shattered ceramics littering the floor and covering the rug. Now standing, he could see tattered, decayed remains of a nice suit on one and a comfortable sweater and skirt on the other. The way their bodies moved and twisted was unnatural as they reached out their arms towards Luke, crying out something that sounded almost like a name. An arm from the one in the sweater reached out, trying to touch him on the shoulder but he cut it with the pocketknife and it felt surprisingly fleshy going through but all that pours out is the dust of long crumbled bones. It retracted back and screamed, something warbling, and as it’s distracted, Luke took the chance to start trying to slice and stab, mind frenzied with panic, as he realized he was not properly prepared for this. They started pouring bone-sand from where they were slashed and started to collapse, losing shape and form. Luke took the chance to run, progressing up the stairs and leaving them to slowly disintegrate and vanish.
Upstairs has a hallway with three doors. He opened the door directly in front of the stairs. It’s a small bathroom. Unlike the previous floor, nothing was rotted. In fact, it looked completely normal. There was a shower, a toilet, and a sink. Above the sink was a big mirror. Luke stared at his reflection. It was fuzzy around the edges like smeared ink. It felt like the longer he stared, the blurrier and blurrier it got. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there for but his reflection was almost gone. He was finally snapped out of it by a pain in his arm, causing him to look down. The veins in his arm had turned dark, like liquid ink and shadow flowing through his body. Luke ran out and into the door on the right at the other end of the hall, furthest from the stairs.
This room was the main bedroom. As soon as he walked in, Luke felt a presence, like something looming over his shoulder just barely. He also could have sworn he saw a shadow sweep by, but only in the corner of his eye. He tried, slowly, to try and spot it, catching only a flash, but a terrifying one nonetheless. It seemed to stretch up infinitely past the ceiling, a tall, skeletal creature hunched over on all fours, its neck twisting down and around to stare at Luke. All light was completely removed in the area surrounding it, leaving it in a jet black void. That was all he was able to see, but it was still there. Its birdlike beak hinged open to a darkness darker than any known shade and began to consume. All the furniture in the room was swallowed into the mouth of the skeletal horse-bird-like creature. Luke found he couldn’t move. His feet were like they were glued to the carpet as everything got sucked into the black hole coming from the open mouth. He started to struggle violently; he had to escape. He still hadn’t fulfilled his mission. As soon as he’d begun thinking about the girl whom he was looking for, he suddenly found himself able to move. Fighting the pull, Luke pushed the bed towards the thing, hoping it was large enough to block its mouth. It wasn’t an entirely correct plan, but it worked well enough, managing to stop the suction enough to get the door open and run out. As he left, a photo on one of the nightstands fell off and shattered.
There was only one door left. She had to be there. Behind this door was a flight of stairs. He climbed. It seemed almost impossibly long. As he got higher, he started to hear a whisper. Not like it was coming from somewhere above, but like it was on the outside of his ear, trying to squirm and wiggle its way into his skull. There were two different voices, one in each ear, but they were both speaking similar, indecipherable things. Right as he was about to open the door at the top of the stairs, Luke blacked out.
When he came to, he was back in the second floor bathroom with the window open. The window opened out onto the section of roof that covered the back porch and displayed the whole backyard. He checked the mirror and it wasn’t fuzzy anymore, but displayed his reflection as almost a glitch effect. Shaking and intercutting, with coloured silhouettes trailing after his movements. The ink began to fill his veins again as the shaking worsened, now with dead pixel spots scattered through the reflection.
“There’s only one way to stop this, you know,” said one of the voices from before, now clearly distinguishable over the static finding its way to his brain. He looked down at his arm which was getting fuzzy around the edges for real. A golden glint on the counter caught his eye: his pocket knife. Yet, it had been altered. It, too, looked surreal and buzzed with static. It was now a warped gold, with black detailing.
“Don’t you want to get it out?” The voices were blending together, one causing the other. “It’s an easy fix…”
Luke’s hand brushed the handle. From the handle, the infection quickened; he could feel his heart drown in the ink, burying his consciousness in static as his skin turned black and gold. He raised the knife to his wrists; he had to get it out. But something in his mind cried out.
“Don’t listen to that. It wants you to continue to suffer. To aim for something that’ll never be. Come on… Fix it.” The voices were getting urgent. Their prey was ensnared and they were ready to feast.
“No.” Even though Luke felt his voice was higher than it should be, he still said it. “It’s not something impossible. It’s a goal fully in my grasp.” The static began to fade from his heart and the ink receded. “This is something that I can do.” He let go of the knife on the counter, not needing it for any reason anymore. He turned out the door to the bathroom, leaving the two monsters to starve.
Suddenly, once out the door, he was at the top of the staircase. There was a final door here. He had reached his objective. He could tell. All the other doors had an ominous aura about them, but not this one. This one had drawings taped all across it and a warmth nothing else in the house had. Right in the center was a small index card with a name written on it: Rosabelle. It was her bedroom. He gently opened the door. The walls were a soft pink. There was a small white bed in the middle of the room with a canopy. Pushed up against the wall next to the door was a large dresser. Toys and costumes littered the room. It was lit by a blue night light next to a door to a closet in the very back corner. And then he had found her. A little girl about 8 or so was crying in the corner next to the closet door; the farthest place away from the outside. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her head was pressed between them. From somewhere ethereal, a familiar music box tune was playing to try and soothe her. He started slowly walking towards her, careful not to seem scary. There was a discarded stuffed animal on her bed, so he picked it up to bring it to her. It was her favorite.
He walked around the bed and over to where she was sitting on the floor.
“Hey. Is this yours?” Luke held out the stuffed bear to her. She looked up at him, seemingly confused, but still took it from him.
“May I sit next to you?” he asked, and she nodded, tears still flowing.
“What happened this time?”
“It was another fight… Why does this happen? Why do they do this? And also… Just last week, my friend moved away so now I’m all alone…” Rosabelle’s voice was shaky and intercut with hiccups from the crying.
“You’re not alone. I… I know there’s nothing you can do and none of it is your fault. Please believe me when I say that. It gets so much better. I know that for a fact.” She looked up and saw a glimmer of something familiar in his eyes.
“You…?” Her eyebrows furrowed. He just smiled.
“Can I give you a hug?”
“Um, ok. No one’s ever asked me if it was ok before…”
“I know. Come here.” He opened up his arms to the little girl and she accepted, sinking into his chest and the hug. Luke just petted her hair and found himself rambling small comforts; exactly the thing he knew that she longed for for decades. Even now he would find himself still longing for it on particularly bad nights. He let her cry in his arms until there was no more desire to cry anymore.
A light began to spread through the house, starting from their hug. It went down through every floor and shook out the monsters.
“Do you want to get out of here?” he offered. She nodded; the realization of who he was had left her in awe. “Let’s go.”
Holding hands, they stepped out of their bedroom and headed down the stairs. The bathroom door was still open on the second floor but there was nothing in there anymore. His knife still lay on the counter, though, now back to its normal colouration. It could stay there. They didn’t go past the main bedroom, but it was also now monster-free, suffering only from a broken photo of the girl and an old friend on the nightstand. Downstairs on the first floor, everything was cleaned up. The office didn’t smell anymore. The parlor was swept up and the piano was tuned. All the food that was on the kitchen floor was now fresh and neatly put away. The dining room china cabinets were full again and the table would be empty until their parents got home. Outside the house, the plant growth was gone and the swing was repaired. As Luke opened the door and stepped out, Rosabelle vanished into the same light that had overtaken the house. He knew they were going to be alright. The sun was now just rising. It was still chilly from the night air but the orange in the sky was going to be bringing warmth soon. He waved a last goodbye to his childhood home, specifically to his old bedroom and the girl who used to live in it. He could leave and forget everything else that was in it, but never her. Parts of her would remain with him forever.
Mission completed, Luke drove off down the long forest driveway with a new sense of closure and hope in his chest. Life was getting better.