This is wild, and safe; a trip to nowhere, perhaps. I should never have agreed to come here in the first place. This whole place feels so wrong, and yet so comfortable at the same time; two sides that never look at each other, yet somehow understand exactly what the other is saying.
Driving through this forest highway to reach the small trail that led me to the house, Sophie told me I needed to get the whole place cleaned up.
The interior, the rest of it; everything should be sorted out before we pass it on to the buyers. I'll get my commission, and finally this dread sitting in my chest will crawl back into whatever pit of hell it came from.
Every instinct in my body screams. My skin feels like it's pulling itself off my arms as I drive relentlessly forward, and then there it is. I can see it.
I am not alone.
I am alone.
The house looks old; forgotten. I hope this trip is worth it, because from the looks of it, this might end up being a complete waste of time.
Whatever.
I step out of the car. The umbrella does nothing to stop the rain; the drops hit everything like stones, banging down in dull thuds, demanding answers you usually keep buried deep inside your chest on nights like this.
I feel fresh and dull at the same time; a feeling I can't fully grasp, and one that refuses to grasp me back.
I don't belong here. I'm too new, too loud, too disruptive for a place like this. It hasn't seen me before. It hasn't seen life for decades.
Or has it?
Could it be alive; breathing, watching, waiting?
"Yes, I'm here. I'm getting my stuff inside the house. It's raining really hard right now, Sophie, I can't talk about that at the moment."
" I know. I'm trying to take my mind off it. I can do that once I sit down somewhere. Right now, everything has more dust than the eyes of a skull in its grave. I know I have to get this done. My job is keeping me distracted. I can't lose this deal. This house will be fresh and new in no time."
Fresh and new.
Like me… huh.
I walk, and I keep walking. The atmosphere is heavy, the forest almost ready to swallow the house whole. Any freshness the rain might have brought is crushed under the suffocating weight of the air. The ground is muddy, damp. I wonder if I'm about to run into insects.
I really hope not.
I move through the living room and down the hall until I reach the room at the very end. This one catches my attention immediately. There's a window at the back of the house.
The glass is stained.
Red spots, scattered and uneven; strange, unsettling.
That's when I find the diary.
It has the same stains on it. The cover looks slightly burned, wet, damp; suffocating, yet somehow fresh. All of it at once.
The diary was all of those things.
So was I.
So was this house.
I pick it up. So far, I've only managed to clean one room; the main bedroom near the front gate, connected to the stairs.
I sit down on the bed. I don't usually read things like this; things that belonged to other people, other pasts I'd rather not touch. God knows what you uncover when you start digging through people and their stories.
Still… the diary calls to me. It sounds cliché, but I don't have another way to explain the pull; the quiet, persistent urge to open it.
The diary has a dark cover. Initials are written on it, along with a full name.
Dade Colden.
Interesting name.
D.C.
The first page is damp, stained, suffocating; and somehow still fresh.
I guess I should start this the right way. With an introduction.
My name is Dade. That's probably the most interesting thing about me, which should already tell you enough.
I'm here alone. My parents didn't want me around anymore; not in the dramatic way people expect, just quiet disappointment.
The kind that seeps into everything. Sending me away was easy. They got me admission into Dream Valley Academy; "a place where bright minds come to shine together," or whatever the envelope said.
I would've ended up in some dorm, but my friend's uncle offered me this house nearby. He owns it, never uses it. Empty places don't ask questions, so I said yes. Hell yeah, actually.
I like it here. It's quiet. It listens.
If the thread won't reach my hand, I'll cut it. I'll cut it, cut it, cut it—
The wording makes my stomach tighten. This is the first entry. Most of the ink is black, but that last line is written in a lighter red, like the pen was dying halfway through the thought.
Why does it stop like that?
I'm at the academy now. Signing off.
I'll tell you more when I'm back.
I close the diary slowly.
If the thread won't reach my hand, I'll cut it.
Something about that line lingers longer than it should.