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About fifty minutes from town hall, ten minutes from the school yard, and two minutes away from a neighborhood is a small mansion. Which is, of course, an oxymoron. It towers above all other houses in the area and leaves the small children standing outside of it’s daunting iron gates agape at the large structure. The faded gray paint pealed back, and clapboards of the house rotting showed signs of just how old the mansion was. The columns were aging and chipping at the sides, and large cracks made their way down to the ground. The dark windows were pitch black on the edges from pollution that had gathered there over the years. Some say on certain nights, small shadows could be seen lurking to and fro between windows, as if they were searching for something. Although most just assumed this was a myth and dismissed it as some sort of way to keep kids from entering. After all, it was dangerous. Though…no one truly knew how dangerous it would be. It took the courage and stupidity of a few high school kids to change that. Little did they know, that once the entered, they would be thrown into the most terrifying and world changing of events. That these would shake their minds, and alter their hearts. And once they would emerge, if they do, they will have stories to tell. Oh…how the stories will be.

Growing up, he had always been a mild child. He was kind and had such a gentle disposition, growing up it looked like he would have many friends. Many years later, this kindness and gentleness was mostly seen apologizing to the school jocks who took delete in causing him mischief. Those arrogant athletes never let him have an undisturbed break. Every second in between class, he would be detained by this group trying out some elaborate prank or another. This had been going on for many years and even though he had risen to be a sophomore in high school, this constant attention had taken a toll on him.

He was not a strong kid. He was able to carry around his stuff as well as lug around all the books for the jocks of that given day who decided to take their special interests in him. He was not stylish. His most noticeable feature were his glasses. The jocks had let him know this since he was younger when out of earshot of the adults. "Glasses." That was his name now. In days before, the kids tried to hide their contempt for him, but now with later teenage years setting in, they held nothing back.

How he made it through such constant torments is only a testament to how flexible and hopeful he was in people and about life. How he made it this far may be a mystery, but he saw this chain of events ending soon. In their ultimate prank, the jocks had decided that it would be the greatest thing ever to make their "Glasses" go into the haunted house on a night with no moon and ask him to retrieve some imaginary item which they very well knew wouldn't be in the house. They told him the item he was to search for. He was doubtful that he would be able to find such an item, but with the assurances of his tormentors and the hope that all hardship would be over, he agreed to go into the house.

That night was a dark moonless night. "Glasses" had brought with him his back pack with some meager amounts of snacks, a flashlight, and a couple other items in case of an emergency. When he got to the house, there were the jocks huddled into a corner. Although he wasn't looking forward to this, he went straight to them and received their last bits of "guidance." With little else, he left the group and headed for the large gray door whose paint has long begun to chip. Once inside, the door seemed to close all on its own, sealing him off from the rest of the world and enclosing him in complete darkness.

Not everyone has the natural grace or beauty of dancer. Not everyone has the high spirit and energy of a cheerleader. Definitely very few had the intelligence of an honor student. Erin Daniels was one of these people. She was small for her age of seventeen and tended to keep to herself. She was neither hated or greatly liked by others of her gender but this never bothered her. She enjoyed photography and had several albums and Cd's full of pictures. Mostly taken at sunset and at night. She had a few of her little brother Shawn, who was five and her little sister Juliana, who was 3, whom she often took care of often by herself. She did not mind this and neither did they. To them, she was 'mommy'.

For several weeks now Erin had heard more and more stories of the so called haunted mansion and thought it would be interesting to take a few pictures of it, inside and out. If anything, it would make a good story for her little brother. He had a big imagination and liked his big sister's stories. So on this cool autumn night she tucked her Shawn and Juliana into their beds and whispered to them to fall asleep and not wake mom and dad. They promised to do as she said and closed their eyes to fall asleep.

Erin returned to her room and changed from her sweats into a pair of jeans, a turtle-neck, black blouse, her favorite wind-breaker and her hiking boots. She tied her hair back in a loose ponytail and grabbed her backpack. She had put what she needed in it and checked its contents once more, All was there, flashlight, extra batteries, a lighter, her digicam, a few munchies and a small voice recorder. She zipped up her pack and stood up, shouldering it and taking one last look around her room. Her eyes fell on her cell and her stuffed teddy bear. She grabbed both, put the cell in her pocket and the bear in her pack. That done she quietly left her room and house and then made her way up the path that led from her home to the place of her destination. The Haunted Mansion

It did not take as long as she had first thought to reach the 'haunted house'. Taking her digi cam out of her pocket she set it to video mode and whispered, "Haunted House. Entrance shot." She snapped her first picture of the structure. Perfect! The sun was just setting and had given the photo an extra feel of foreboding. She turned up her color. took a deep breath and made her way up the old stones steps and opened the door. It creaked on its hinges and she shivered. Why am I doing this?...For the pictures. As soon as she entered the place the door slammed shut behind her and made her jump. Just the wind. She thought.

As he moved into the room through the right doorway, he noticed several pieces of heavy furniture. They included a solid dining room table, several large dressers and chests, and other smaller pieces. He began searching quietly and quickly through the shelves and and drawers. He was seeking that mythical item which in this dark seemed almost real with every newly opened drawer.

He searched all those furnishing closest to the door. There remained a single cabinet along the far wall. Remaining clear of the other furniture to avoid injury, "Glasses" walked briskly to the far piece. To the piece was his intention, however, he never reached it. Before he had time to comprehend what was happening, the little amount of ambient light began to shrink to nothing and he had a sense of weightlessness. For this kid who now had visions of flight, he was completely baffled from attacks of bangs and bruises along his seemingly eternal descent. Every blow rippled through his body and sent it in a different direction. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have realized that he was being bounced between the walls of some vertical passage. These thoughts were beyond him as each pain and shock drove him to utter blackness and into a forced slumber. He was no longer aware by the time his body hit the ground.

Erin squatted down on the floor and removed her backpack. She unzipped it and rummaged through it for her flash light. Once it was in her hand, she clicked it on and used it to cast light on her camera as she programmed it for low light photos. She hung the digi cam around her neck and placed her backpack on her shoulders. Taking caution on where she stepped, Erin began her exploration of the so called haunted house. Until now she was still skeptical, that is until she heard a loud thump from somewhere farther inside. What was that? She bit her lower lip nervously and had the thought to turn back and forget the pictures. But no, she had decided to do this, no matter how foolish the idea of a haunted house was. Resolutely she took a few more steps into the dark living room. She froze in place when a scream, a human scream, reached her ears. She turned around to leave this God-Forsaken house but she never reached the door. The old, rotten floor boards gave out from under her and she fell through. With a scream and jolt of pain, she hit bottom. Hard. For what seemed like an eternity she lay very still, not being sure she had survived. What had she landed on? A pile of old canvas sacks? How strange that there was anything left in this place.

Carefully she sat up and checked herself. Good. Nothing is broken or sprained. She glanced up to the hole she had fallen through. There was no way she would ever go back that way. Getting up, she dusted of her jeans and began to walk around the basement in search of a flight of steps or stairs that would lead her upstairs once more.

Excuse me?
Well...Ma'am, I'm afraid th--
No! you will not give me this horsesh--
Now now, don't do this, you can't just go and jump to--
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! MY LEG! Oh...OH MY GOD! MY LEG I CAN--
Well, I suppose I can understand that after he cheated on you, you natur--
PLEASE! NO! NO NO NO! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! NO! I BEG, JUST ONE M--
Yes...that would be rather...frightening.

Michal looked up from the dusty page, with a rather clueless look on his face.
"What the hell what that all about?" Closing it with a torrent of dust, he let out a large sneeze, that shot more dust all around the room, and alerted his senses. Enough of course to hear the large crashing sounds that echoed gravely through the house. Chuckling to himself and assuming that it was some mirage of sound that the "ghosts" of this house had created to scare the crap out of him. Sniffling still, and ignoring the clatter, he made his way across the room, forgetting, maybe not even caring to place the book back in the shelf, and instead, just dropped it on the ground with a dull thud that rattled more of the gray wonder. In his impatience for death, he moved across the room to a old Victorian red velvet chair, and made himself comfortable. After all, death shouldn't be too far away.
"Wait...what?"
Looking up from the ground, he chuckled slightly in his admiration. The book, was back in it's place in the shelf, almost as if it had never been disturbed.
"Well...isn't that just the bees knees, well, do something why doncha? You're not my maid, your my executioner!" He said loudly, thinking that more dust might have been rattled, just from his voice. And, at that point, things went strange.
His body began to feel numb, and violent shivers covered his body, and though he felt warm, he was acting as if he were caught in a snow storm. But...this was different, but then, the numbness...it...it left, almost as if it were never to return. The shivers soon followed, and it left him dumbstruck, and for the first time, since entering that house, he began to be...afraid.

As he moved along, the light from his flashlight cast eerie shadows on the surroundings. Even moving the torch in the desired direction did nothing to clear up the gloom. With things as they stood, the room he was in could have easily been a den in Hell or a just an disused and newly disturbed laundry room. He was reasonably sure it was the later but could not entirely discount the first. Although his ears had never been sharp, as he moved he seemed to sense more than hear a sound that was hidden in his dragging of feet. This noise was high-pitched and used more of an intuitive instinct than actual hearing to know it was there.

He glanced around the room to try to discover the source of the noise. He could find nothing. Keeping it in mind and trying to think of a likely cause, he moved on and left this room. He would hope that the following rooms would make more sense and lead to reason and order.