THE ABANDONED HOUSE

The abandoned house stood at the edge of a nondescript, vacant cul-de-sac, with patches of ghost-grey fog being inhaled by the sky. The street lights indicated that the torch in my hand was the only reliable source of light. The fog dragged a cold breeze, which sent a chill up my spine. As I walked closer to the house, I saw things hinting that the place had been desolate. There were three steps to the huge wooden door, denuded of paint. The door was covered in cobwebs and grime. As I was about to open the door, from my peripheral vision, I saw a wooden horse—the rocking type—with a torn-apart seat made of leather. The horse was sitting on a thin layer of ice on the grass. It was a bleak mid-winter night, and it was showing

I softly put my hand on the doorknob and felt the engravings, making a shape of them in my mind: a star inside a circle. Suddenly, my insides started twisting, and I had this inclination to turn around, run away, and not look back again; however, I had not come to go back. I turned the knob as quickly as humanly possible and pushed open the door, pulling my hand away from the doorknob.

As I walked into the house, the unpleasant smell of blood that permeated the room filled my lungs. The giant one-story house had only this one room that I had walked into, with an extension. This room had drawings of stars inside circles all over the walls, and as I moved my torch around, with the floor creaking with every move I made, I saw quite an unusual picture that left my mouth dry, my tongue feeling like cardboard, and my legs feeling like spaghetti. A wave of nausea washed over me, but I fought back and plucked up the courage to move closer to the picture.

The picture that lay on a blood-red wall had two guys in it. One dashing man in a black three-piece suit wore a silver tie that grabbed his neck tightly. The other guy had a hot red tuxedo on—the type that I'd rock on a part. There was a baby supposedly naked in the hands of the guy in the black suit, but it was the other man's pinky that the baby had curled his hands around. I moved under the dark slate roof towards the extension of this room. There was something strange—no furniture in this room, like all the other houses. The extension was about the size of a quarter of a football field, yet it was semi-circular. The walls were filled with crosses—the ones that you see on Sundays when you go to church—except for the fact that these crosses were upside down. I shined my torch straight in front of me. There was a bull's skull from which hung a candle that still had melted wax falling down its side.

A sudden realization dawned upon me, unraveling the mysteries hidden within the symbols that adorned the walls—the crosses, the signs, and the eerie picture—they all pointed to one haunting truth: a Satanist had resided within these very walls. The weight of this revelation bore down upon me, filling my veins with a mix of fear and urgency. Driven by a surge of adrenaline, I hastened my pace towards the main door, each step accompanied by the unsettling creak of the floor beneath me. The once-sturdy foundation seemed to quiver beneath my feet, amplifying the ominous atmosphere that engulfed the house. It was as if the very structure itself was trembling, echoing the malevolent energy that had once inhabited its rooms. With a pounding heart, I reached the sanctuary of the main entrance, my hand trembling as I fumbled for the doorknob. The sound of my racing heartbeat mingled with the cacophony of creaking floorboards, creating a disconcerting symphony that mirrored the chaos within. Hastily, I swung open the door, hoping to escape the clutches of this sinister place. Yet, as I took my first step beyond the threshold, a deafening noise reverberated through the air, jolting me to a stop in my tracks. I whirled around, compelled by an instinctual curiosity, only to witness a terrifying sight. The roof of the house had succumbed to the weight of its own decay, collapsing with an earth-shattering bang. A dense mushroom cloud of smoke billowed upward, intermingling with a whirlwind of dirt and debris. Refusing to succumb to paralysis, I resumed my sprint, my gaze fixed over my shoulder, never daring to pause for a moment. Every fiber of my being urged me to distance myself from the crumbling remains, propelling me forward with an unrelenting determination.