One Shot
Ever since I can remember, around Halloween time, someone would always tell stories about the abandoned house on Hanging Sword Alley. I’d always wanted to
go visit it and check out if it was really “haunted” like the stories claimed but my parents always said I was too young to go by myself and none of my friends were ever brave enough to accompany me on the trip. That was going to change this year. I was able to recruit four other kids to come with me and we were going to see that house if it was the last thing we did.
We planned to meet up in front of the house at exactly 7:15 pm. I decided I should get there a little early so the group didn’t think I bailed on them, and arrived at 7:10 ish. Next to arrive was my super adventurous best friend, Demi. She was always on time so I wasn’t surprised when I saw her approach me, flashlight in hand, ready to go. Following Demi was the cute in a dorky way and EXTREMELY shy Emily. And then, last, but not least, was the “hottest couple”… The lovely and very gorgeous head cheerleader, Miley Cyrus and the star athlete of the school and my extremely easily jealous younger brother, her boyfriend, Nick. It was clear from the way beads of sweat were streaming down their faces and how heavy they were breathing that they either A. ran here in a hurry or B. just had sex… My guess was it was the first one. Even though it was fairly dark outside, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Miley looked. Normally, her
face was covered in makeup and she wore very revealing clothes but not tonight. Tonight, she went for a casual, no makeup, and sweatpants look. I thought it suited her very well. Whoa, why was I having these thoughts? She was my
brother’s girlfriend, not mine. So whatever I was thinking about her, needed to come to an end, right now!
Now that the whole group was here, it was official that we could enter the house. Up until this very moment, I was feeling super confident and not scared at all. That all changed once Demi, who was apparently the bravest of us all, confidently started walking towards the house. When she noticed no one was following her, she turned around and looked at all of us. “Are you cowards coming or not?” The four of us stood there, with our feet planted firmly on the ground. The next brave one of the group really surprised me. It was Emily. She took a puff from her inhaler and then made her way towards Demi. This wasn’t looking good, two of the three girls were ready to go in the house and see what was up and two of the two guys, one of them being the one who planned the whole thing, were still standing in the driveway freaking out about whether or not they should go in. Demi whispered something to Emily, who nodded in response, and then Demi turned back to the three of us that remained. “Alright, fine, stay out here like a bunch of pussies. Emily and I are going inside to explore the house.” And with that, Demi took Emily’s hand and they headed off towards the front door. Nick, Miley, and I all looked at each other and then, as if on cue, we made a run for the door as well. It was one thing to question a man’s knowledge but when you call him a pussy, that is just NOT okay.
Upon arrival at the door, we came to see Demi playing around with some tools, where they came from is beyond me, but that’s besides the point. It was clear she was trying to get the door opened and was having no luck. Then, of course, Miley stepped up and took care of it. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised that she knew how to pick a lock on a door, it was a “Miley skill.” Once she successfully granted us access into the home, we all picked up our flashlights and one by one, made our way inside the house. The first room we saw was, what appeared to be, a ballroom. There was nothing that special about it, it was just a room. Well, at least, that’s what we all thought… Until, the front door slammed shut. Demi, Nick, Miley, and I all turned around and looked behind us, to where we believed Emily would be standing because she was the last one to enter the house. But when we turned around, she was no where to be found. Instead, there was a note in place of where we assumed she would have been. Since I was the closest to the note, I bent down and picked it up, before reading it aloud.
“Hello invaders of my home, I see that you don’t respect the “Do not enter” signs outside of my house. As a consequence for your disobedience, I have decided to take your weak friend. What I will do with her can not be said but I can promise you this, you will not see her again. This note is my final warning to you, LEAVE NOW… OR ELSE! Your punishments will only get more severe so if I were you, I would suggest taking me up on my original offer and leaving. If you leave now, I promise I will let you go unharmed. The choice is yours though, I can’t make you do anything. But just think ‘do I really want to end up like Emily or do I want to respect the wishes of this homeowner and leave before it gets to serious?’ Think about it and think carefully.” As I read the last words, the note just vanished into thin air. One second, it was in my hand, and in another, it was gone. I looked at the others and took in their reactions. Miley was clinging to Nick, clearly scared of what we were just informed of. Nick was doing his best to comfort her and Demi was looking around at the room we were standing in. To be honest, I didn’t know how I was feeling. I guess guilty would be the best word right now. I mean, it was MY idea… If anyone should have to suffer the consequences, it should be me. But it was too late for turning back now, despite what the note said. We were already in here because we had a mission and I refused to leave until that mission was taken care of.
I cleared my throat in an attempt to get the attention of the others. Once they all looked up at me, I began speaking. “I understand that we’ve lost Emily and that is such a shame but as of right now, there’s not much we can do about it… So I think it’s in our best interest to stay as a group and keep exploring the house. And if we come across Emily, I will be the first one to do everything in my power to make sure that she leaves this house with us. Now, who’s with me?” After my little motivational speech, I put my hand in the middle of our little circle that we had formed and waited for the others to join me. It took them a moment but they all did. One by one, they put their hands on top of mine and each others. Once all 8 of our hands were in, we brought them down low and then soaring up high while screaming “HAUNTED HOUSE EXPLORERS!!”
We did a quick glance around the rest of the main floor, nothing really interesting was there so we decided to work our way down to the basement. This was where it started to get really creepy. It looked to be a red room and it was beyond hot down there. It reminded me of something, I just couldn’t remember what… As usual, Demi took the lead in exploring the basement. I followed her and Miley and Nick followed me. We walked deeper and deeper into the basement and noticed this smell. It was very unusual and like nothing we had ever smelled before. Miley was the only one brave enough to speak up about it though. “It smells like a bunch of rotting bodies down here, gross!” Nick, Demi, and I gave her the weirdest look ever. “Baby, why do you know what that smells like!?” Nick asked, clearly weirded out by her unique observation. “My dad used to work at a morgue… And plus, it’s kinda obvious. I mean, we’re in a dark, red, and hot basement…” Whatever her point was, it was not registering among us. She rolled her eyes. “God, you guys are so stupid! The redness, the hotness, the smell of rotting bodies… This room is a representation of HELL!”
At once, the three of us screamed and made a run for the stairs. It was a race to see who could get to the door first. Demi succeeded, followed by Nick, followed by me. I slammed the door shut behind me, totally forgetting about Miley. I didn’t do it on purpose, she just slipped my mind. Plus, she’s Nick’s girlfriend, not mine… So if anyone should be keeping up with her, it’s him, not me. But when I confronted Nick about the situation and let him know his girlfriend, the woman he supposedly loves, was missing, he refused to go after her. “No way man. That basement was scary enough with four people down there, imagine how freaky it’ll be with two people!! Nuh uh, if you want her to be rescued so badly, you go after her.” I shot him a look. “She’syour girlfriend… If anyone should go make sure she’s okay shouldn’t it be her boyfriend?” Nick looked over at Demi, who was occupying herself by staring at some of the pictures on the wall, and then pulled me by my shirt so we were out of hearing distance from her. “Look, bro, I know me and Miley are “dating” right now but it’s pretty obvious that our “relationship” is going down the drain. We started off together just so we could fool around and that’s been great but now I’m realizing how much I want a committed relationship and I just can’t have that with someone like Miley. I was gonna wait until after we got the hell out of here to do it but maybe it’s better for me to just get it over with now. So while you’re down there, making sure she’s okay, can you let her know I just wanna be friends?” Nick had this stupid grin on his face that I wanted to smack right off of him. I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to do something like that. Make me break up with his girlfriend for him… If I could think of something to say in response, believe me, I would. But then I figured if I spent all my time thinking of some way to yell at him, I wouldn’t be able to get to Miley faster and make sure she’s okay. So my hope was after I brought her back from the basement and told her the news, she would yell at him!
I couldn’t stand looking at my “brother” after he told me his little plan so I immediately turned on my heels and went back towards the door I had just came out of moments ago. “Miles? Miles?” I called out her name a few times, hoping she’d respond. I don’t know what I’d do if something bad happened to her. When there was no response of any kind, I began to get more worried. But I wasn’t prepared to leave without her. I flicked on my flashlight and slowly walked down the stairs. Still, there was no sign of her. I remembered seeing a mysterious door when we were down here earlier. Knowing Miley, she was probably exploring whatever was on the other side of that door. That meant I would have to as well, in hopes of finding her and making sure she was okay. I carefully retraced my steps, trying to remember where we had been before and where the door was. After a good 10 minutes, I found it. I was assuming I would have to enter a secret code or something in order to open the door and get inside. Nope, it was left wide open. Part of me thought this might be a trap but I had to trust myself and go through it anyway. I walked inside and heard a muffled crying. Very cautiously, I walked towards the crying and prepared for the worst.
I couldn’t believe the sight in front of me - Miley, sitting with her back against the wall, hugging her knees, which were placed against her chest, crying. Slowly, I walked towards her and when I was close enough, I bent down so I was level with her. “What’s wrong, Miles?” I gently whispered in her ear. She looked up at me and I saw the hurt in her eyes. “I heard what Nick said to you about me…” My eyes got wide. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just gently stroked her back. She rested her head against my chest and continued crying. Then, I knew what I wanted to say to her. “Forget about him, Miles. He’s a fool for letting someone amazing like you go.” She looked up at me and smiled. Then she leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You really know how to cheer a girl up, thank you.” Then she got up, as well as helped me up, took my hand and intertwined it with hers, as we continued on to find out what exciting things were in store.
In all honesty, the downstairs was very disgusting. It was filled with all sorts of random things that were just piled on top of each other. If you didn’t know any better, you would assume that whoever lived/s here was/is a hoarder. I’m not even kidding when I say it was a bunch of weird and creepy things. We continued exploring though. We weren’t looking for anything in particular, just seeing if something jumped out at us. And believe me, something did.. Right on top of the office desk, that was in the center of the room, was pictures of Miley, Nick, Demi, and I, together and on our own. As if that wasn’t freaky enough, on the wall, behind the desk, there was a bulletin board hanging up. On this bulletin board was more pictures of Miley, Nick, Demi, and I. But this time, Emily was included in the pictures. Except, the one of her, had a giant
red “X” through it.
That picture alone was enough to make Miley and I start screaming and run back up the stairs to the main floor. When we did, we were greeted by Nick and Demi, who were sitting on the floor and looked bored out of their minds. From the second the basement door opened, Nick looked up at us and when he saw that our hands were joined together, he did not look happy. Oh well, he’s the one who decided he didn’t want to be with Miley. Demi, on the other hand, was clearly impressed by us. “Aww, you guys are so cute together! Aren’t they, Nick?” She asked, very oblivious to the fact that Nick was pissed. He sprung to his feet and started walking towards the stairs that led to the third floor of the house. “Let’s keep going.” He muttered under his breath. Miley and I looked at each other and shrugged, signaling that we had no idea why he was so pissed, before following along. Demi walked along side us and asked us to share with her some information about what happened downstairs. We filled her in on the pictures of us and the one of Emily that had been crossed out. Her face went from smiling at the interest of our story to sheer horror. She stopped walking dead in her tracks and fell to her knees. I let go of Miley’s hand and walked back to Demi. Miley stood in place, confused about what to do. Should she stay with us or go
follow the guy who broke her heart? She chose option A. If Nick wanted to get rid of Miley, then he had his wish. She wasn’t going to chase after him and try to win him back.. She had Nick now, and that was good enough for her.
“Dems, are you okay?” Miley asked, trying to comfort her new friend. Demi shook her head. “What’s wrong?” Both Miley and I asked simultaneously. “She’s gone.. She’s gone and she’s not coming back..” Those words rang through my head. I had thought that many times since Emily went missing but it didn’t feel like a reality. I refused to believe it. Something deep inside me was giving me hope. “She’s not gone, Demi. She’s still in this house and we’re gonna find her. I promise.” I reassured her. Although, it was more myself I was reassuring. Demi wiped her eyes and slowly got up off the ground. “You’re right.” That ended my little pep talk and we all continued upstairs like we originally planned. My feet just hit the carpeted floor, meaning I was officially upstairs, when I heard a horrible deep scream come from down the hallway. I bolted towards where I thought the noise had come from, followed by Demi and Miley. I ended up at a doorway and I knew the sight I was about to see was not going to be pretty. To try and prevent the girls from getting scared, I told them to wait in the hallway until I gave them the OK to enter. They agreed, thankfully.
Slowly, I walked inside. It was a very small room. But just as I predicted, the sight in front of me was not pretty. There, lied the bodies of Nick and Emily, both bloody, cut and bruised, stacked on top of each other. I tried to ignore that sight and look around at anything else that might be important in the room. Bingo! There was a small table that had a note on it. Above the table, there was a shelf. I looked at the shelf first. On it was three ceramic figures, each resembling, Miley, Demi, and myself. Next to “us” was the remains of two other ceramic figures, I assumed represented Nick and Emily. It was clear those
two were smashed up to represent that they were gone and not coming back. As freaky as that was, I couldn’t leave the room just yet. Not until I read the note….
“I told you to leave my house or else things would only get worse… I guess you don’t listening. Oh well, it’s your loss, not mine. Two down, three to go.” Miley finished reading and then looked up at me and Demi. It was clear all of us were freaked out. Who could blame us though? Two of our friends were horrifically murdered and it was partially because we all couldn’t get along and just stick together. I made the two girls promise me that from this moment on, no matter what, we were all going to stick together.
Miley and I stood over Demi’s cold, lifeless body. “So much for staying together.” I said, under my breath. Miley elbowed me in the side. “It’s not her fault she couldn’t keep up.” Miley said, coming to her defense. "Whatever the case is, this house is clearly too fucking dangerous for us to stay in.. I say we get the fuck out of here. Miley nodded her head in agreement.
Before leaving, I took her hand and lead her down the stairs. “But wait.. Before we go, I just wanna check one little thing really quickly.” She said. I nodded my head and allowed her to lead the way. We were back in the basement at the
room where it all started. We looked up at the bulletin board where the pictures were hanging. Demi’s, Nick’s and Emily’s all has been X-ed out. Only Miley’s and mine remained untouched. She removed both of ours, as souvenirs and exited the
room.
Although it was a crazy and semi spooky time, I didn’t regret anything about that night. We explored the entire house, from bottom to top. And little did we now, in 10 years, this was going to be the house we ended up buying so we could
start our family.
go visit it and check out if it was really “haunted” like the stories claimed but my parents always said I was too young to go by myself and none of my friends were ever brave enough to accompany me on the trip. That was going to change this year. I was able to recruit four other kids to come with me and we were going to see that house if it was the last thing we did.
We planned to meet up in front of the house at exactly 7:15 pm. I decided I should get there a little early so the group didn’t think I bailed on them, and arrived at 7:10 ish. Next to arrive was my super adventurous best friend, Demi. She was always on time so I wasn’t surprised when I saw her approach me, flashlight in hand, ready to go. Following Demi was the cute in a dorky way and EXTREMELY shy Emily. And then, last, but not least, was the “hottest couple”… The lovely and very gorgeous head cheerleader, Miley Cyrus and the star athlete of the school and my extremely easily jealous younger brother, her boyfriend, Nick. It was clear from the way beads of sweat were streaming down their faces and how heavy they were breathing that they either A. ran here in a hurry or B. just had sex… My guess was it was the first one. Even though it was fairly dark outside, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful Miley looked. Normally, her
face was covered in makeup and she wore very revealing clothes but not tonight. Tonight, she went for a casual, no makeup, and sweatpants look. I thought it suited her very well. Whoa, why was I having these thoughts? She was my
brother’s girlfriend, not mine. So whatever I was thinking about her, needed to come to an end, right now!
Now that the whole group was here, it was official that we could enter the house. Up until this very moment, I was feeling super confident and not scared at all. That all changed once Demi, who was apparently the bravest of us all, confidently started walking towards the house. When she noticed no one was following her, she turned around and looked at all of us. “Are you cowards coming or not?” The four of us stood there, with our feet planted firmly on the ground. The next brave one of the group really surprised me. It was Emily. She took a puff from her inhaler and then made her way towards Demi. This wasn’t looking good, two of the three girls were ready to go in the house and see what was up and two of the two guys, one of them being the one who planned the whole thing, were still standing in the driveway freaking out about whether or not they should go in. Demi whispered something to Emily, who nodded in response, and then Demi turned back to the three of us that remained. “Alright, fine, stay out here like a bunch of pussies. Emily and I are going inside to explore the house.” And with that, Demi took Emily’s hand and they headed off towards the front door. Nick, Miley, and I all looked at each other and then, as if on cue, we made a run for the door as well. It was one thing to question a man’s knowledge but when you call him a pussy, that is just NOT okay.
Upon arrival at the door, we came to see Demi playing around with some tools, where they came from is beyond me, but that’s besides the point. It was clear she was trying to get the door opened and was having no luck. Then, of course, Miley stepped up and took care of it. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised that she knew how to pick a lock on a door, it was a “Miley skill.” Once she successfully granted us access into the home, we all picked up our flashlights and one by one, made our way inside the house. The first room we saw was, what appeared to be, a ballroom. There was nothing that special about it, it was just a room. Well, at least, that’s what we all thought… Until, the front door slammed shut. Demi, Nick, Miley, and I all turned around and looked behind us, to where we believed Emily would be standing because she was the last one to enter the house. But when we turned around, she was no where to be found. Instead, there was a note in place of where we assumed she would have been. Since I was the closest to the note, I bent down and picked it up, before reading it aloud.
“Hello invaders of my home, I see that you don’t respect the “Do not enter” signs outside of my house. As a consequence for your disobedience, I have decided to take your weak friend. What I will do with her can not be said but I can promise you this, you will not see her again. This note is my final warning to you, LEAVE NOW… OR ELSE! Your punishments will only get more severe so if I were you, I would suggest taking me up on my original offer and leaving. If you leave now, I promise I will let you go unharmed. The choice is yours though, I can’t make you do anything. But just think ‘do I really want to end up like Emily or do I want to respect the wishes of this homeowner and leave before it gets to serious?’ Think about it and think carefully.” As I read the last words, the note just vanished into thin air. One second, it was in my hand, and in another, it was gone. I looked at the others and took in their reactions. Miley was clinging to Nick, clearly scared of what we were just informed of. Nick was doing his best to comfort her and Demi was looking around at the room we were standing in. To be honest, I didn’t know how I was feeling. I guess guilty would be the best word right now. I mean, it was MY idea… If anyone should have to suffer the consequences, it should be me. But it was too late for turning back now, despite what the note said. We were already in here because we had a mission and I refused to leave until that mission was taken care of.
I cleared my throat in an attempt to get the attention of the others. Once they all looked up at me, I began speaking. “I understand that we’ve lost Emily and that is such a shame but as of right now, there’s not much we can do about it… So I think it’s in our best interest to stay as a group and keep exploring the house. And if we come across Emily, I will be the first one to do everything in my power to make sure that she leaves this house with us. Now, who’s with me?” After my little motivational speech, I put my hand in the middle of our little circle that we had formed and waited for the others to join me. It took them a moment but they all did. One by one, they put their hands on top of mine and each others. Once all 8 of our hands were in, we brought them down low and then soaring up high while screaming “HAUNTED HOUSE EXPLORERS!!”
We did a quick glance around the rest of the main floor, nothing really interesting was there so we decided to work our way down to the basement. This was where it started to get really creepy. It looked to be a red room and it was beyond hot down there. It reminded me of something, I just couldn’t remember what… As usual, Demi took the lead in exploring the basement. I followed her and Miley and Nick followed me. We walked deeper and deeper into the basement and noticed this smell. It was very unusual and like nothing we had ever smelled before. Miley was the only one brave enough to speak up about it though. “It smells like a bunch of rotting bodies down here, gross!” Nick, Demi, and I gave her the weirdest look ever. “Baby, why do you know what that smells like!?” Nick asked, clearly weirded out by her unique observation. “My dad used to work at a morgue… And plus, it’s kinda obvious. I mean, we’re in a dark, red, and hot basement…” Whatever her point was, it was not registering among us. She rolled her eyes. “God, you guys are so stupid! The redness, the hotness, the smell of rotting bodies… This room is a representation of HELL!”
At once, the three of us screamed and made a run for the stairs. It was a race to see who could get to the door first. Demi succeeded, followed by Nick, followed by me. I slammed the door shut behind me, totally forgetting about Miley. I didn’t do it on purpose, she just slipped my mind. Plus, she’s Nick’s girlfriend, not mine… So if anyone should be keeping up with her, it’s him, not me. But when I confronted Nick about the situation and let him know his girlfriend, the woman he supposedly loves, was missing, he refused to go after her. “No way man. That basement was scary enough with four people down there, imagine how freaky it’ll be with two people!! Nuh uh, if you want her to be rescued so badly, you go after her.” I shot him a look. “She’syour girlfriend… If anyone should go make sure she’s okay shouldn’t it be her boyfriend?” Nick looked over at Demi, who was occupying herself by staring at some of the pictures on the wall, and then pulled me by my shirt so we were out of hearing distance from her. “Look, bro, I know me and Miley are “dating” right now but it’s pretty obvious that our “relationship” is going down the drain. We started off together just so we could fool around and that’s been great but now I’m realizing how much I want a committed relationship and I just can’t have that with someone like Miley. I was gonna wait until after we got the hell out of here to do it but maybe it’s better for me to just get it over with now. So while you’re down there, making sure she’s okay, can you let her know I just wanna be friends?” Nick had this stupid grin on his face that I wanted to smack right off of him. I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to do something like that. Make me break up with his girlfriend for him… If I could think of something to say in response, believe me, I would. But then I figured if I spent all my time thinking of some way to yell at him, I wouldn’t be able to get to Miley faster and make sure she’s okay. So my hope was after I brought her back from the basement and told her the news, she would yell at him!
I couldn’t stand looking at my “brother” after he told me his little plan so I immediately turned on my heels and went back towards the door I had just came out of moments ago. “Miles? Miles?” I called out her name a few times, hoping she’d respond. I don’t know what I’d do if something bad happened to her. When there was no response of any kind, I began to get more worried. But I wasn’t prepared to leave without her. I flicked on my flashlight and slowly walked down the stairs. Still, there was no sign of her. I remembered seeing a mysterious door when we were down here earlier. Knowing Miley, she was probably exploring whatever was on the other side of that door. That meant I would have to as well, in hopes of finding her and making sure she was okay. I carefully retraced my steps, trying to remember where we had been before and where the door was. After a good 10 minutes, I found it. I was assuming I would have to enter a secret code or something in order to open the door and get inside. Nope, it was left wide open. Part of me thought this might be a trap but I had to trust myself and go through it anyway. I walked inside and heard a muffled crying. Very cautiously, I walked towards the crying and prepared for the worst.
I couldn’t believe the sight in front of me - Miley, sitting with her back against the wall, hugging her knees, which were placed against her chest, crying. Slowly, I walked towards her and when I was close enough, I bent down so I was level with her. “What’s wrong, Miles?” I gently whispered in her ear. She looked up at me and I saw the hurt in her eyes. “I heard what Nick said to you about me…” My eyes got wide. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just gently stroked her back. She rested her head against my chest and continued crying. Then, I knew what I wanted to say to her. “Forget about him, Miles. He’s a fool for letting someone amazing like you go.” She looked up at me and smiled. Then she leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You really know how to cheer a girl up, thank you.” Then she got up, as well as helped me up, took my hand and intertwined it with hers, as we continued on to find out what exciting things were in store.
In all honesty, the downstairs was very disgusting. It was filled with all sorts of random things that were just piled on top of each other. If you didn’t know any better, you would assume that whoever lived/s here was/is a hoarder. I’m not even kidding when I say it was a bunch of weird and creepy things. We continued exploring though. We weren’t looking for anything in particular, just seeing if something jumped out at us. And believe me, something did.. Right on top of the office desk, that was in the center of the room, was pictures of Miley, Nick, Demi, and I, together and on our own. As if that wasn’t freaky enough, on the wall, behind the desk, there was a bulletin board hanging up. On this bulletin board was more pictures of Miley, Nick, Demi, and I. But this time, Emily was included in the pictures. Except, the one of her, had a giant
red “X” through it.
That picture alone was enough to make Miley and I start screaming and run back up the stairs to the main floor. When we did, we were greeted by Nick and Demi, who were sitting on the floor and looked bored out of their minds. From the second the basement door opened, Nick looked up at us and when he saw that our hands were joined together, he did not look happy. Oh well, he’s the one who decided he didn’t want to be with Miley. Demi, on the other hand, was clearly impressed by us. “Aww, you guys are so cute together! Aren’t they, Nick?” She asked, very oblivious to the fact that Nick was pissed. He sprung to his feet and started walking towards the stairs that led to the third floor of the house. “Let’s keep going.” He muttered under his breath. Miley and I looked at each other and shrugged, signaling that we had no idea why he was so pissed, before following along. Demi walked along side us and asked us to share with her some information about what happened downstairs. We filled her in on the pictures of us and the one of Emily that had been crossed out. Her face went from smiling at the interest of our story to sheer horror. She stopped walking dead in her tracks and fell to her knees. I let go of Miley’s hand and walked back to Demi. Miley stood in place, confused about what to do. Should she stay with us or go
follow the guy who broke her heart? She chose option A. If Nick wanted to get rid of Miley, then he had his wish. She wasn’t going to chase after him and try to win him back.. She had Nick now, and that was good enough for her.
“Dems, are you okay?” Miley asked, trying to comfort her new friend. Demi shook her head. “What’s wrong?” Both Miley and I asked simultaneously. “She’s gone.. She’s gone and she’s not coming back..” Those words rang through my head. I had thought that many times since Emily went missing but it didn’t feel like a reality. I refused to believe it. Something deep inside me was giving me hope. “She’s not gone, Demi. She’s still in this house and we’re gonna find her. I promise.” I reassured her. Although, it was more myself I was reassuring. Demi wiped her eyes and slowly got up off the ground. “You’re right.” That ended my little pep talk and we all continued upstairs like we originally planned. My feet just hit the carpeted floor, meaning I was officially upstairs, when I heard a horrible deep scream come from down the hallway. I bolted towards where I thought the noise had come from, followed by Demi and Miley. I ended up at a doorway and I knew the sight I was about to see was not going to be pretty. To try and prevent the girls from getting scared, I told them to wait in the hallway until I gave them the OK to enter. They agreed, thankfully.
Slowly, I walked inside. It was a very small room. But just as I predicted, the sight in front of me was not pretty. There, lied the bodies of Nick and Emily, both bloody, cut and bruised, stacked on top of each other. I tried to ignore that sight and look around at anything else that might be important in the room. Bingo! There was a small table that had a note on it. Above the table, there was a shelf. I looked at the shelf first. On it was three ceramic figures, each resembling, Miley, Demi, and myself. Next to “us” was the remains of two other ceramic figures, I assumed represented Nick and Emily. It was clear those
two were smashed up to represent that they were gone and not coming back. As freaky as that was, I couldn’t leave the room just yet. Not until I read the note….
“I told you to leave my house or else things would only get worse… I guess you don’t listening. Oh well, it’s your loss, not mine. Two down, three to go.” Miley finished reading and then looked up at me and Demi. It was clear all of us were freaked out. Who could blame us though? Two of our friends were horrifically murdered and it was partially because we all couldn’t get along and just stick together. I made the two girls promise me that from this moment on, no matter what, we were all going to stick together.
Miley and I stood over Demi’s cold, lifeless body. “So much for staying together.” I said, under my breath. Miley elbowed me in the side. “It’s not her fault she couldn’t keep up.” Miley said, coming to her defense. "Whatever the case is, this house is clearly too fucking dangerous for us to stay in.. I say we get the fuck out of here. Miley nodded her head in agreement.
Before leaving, I took her hand and lead her down the stairs. “But wait.. Before we go, I just wanna check one little thing really quickly.” She said. I nodded my head and allowed her to lead the way. We were back in the basement at the
room where it all started. We looked up at the bulletin board where the pictures were hanging. Demi’s, Nick’s and Emily’s all has been X-ed out. Only Miley’s and mine remained untouched. She removed both of ours, as souvenirs and exited the
room.
Although it was a crazy and semi spooky time, I didn’t regret anything about that night. We explored the entire house, from bottom to top. And little did we now, in 10 years, this was going to be the house we ended up buying so we could
start our family.