Here’s the first part for anybody interested. It’s far longer, but it contextualizes the following words.
I heard another thump. For what seemed like a paralyzingly painful eternity, I stood still. I didn’t want to move; I didn’t want to look at what Sherri was pointing at. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to shrivel up into a ball and die. But that wasn’t an option. My eyes lingered on the source of Sherri’s fright at a dauntingly slow pace. They just crept up to the sight, almost tempted to look away lightning fast.
That didn’t happen.
At first, I didn’t even notice it, but once I did, it was impossible to look away. It was impossible to forget, to burn the image out of my memory, to unsee.
In the dim, dingy depths of the living room stood a group of five men in a circular formation. They all looked dirty, shaggy, disheveled, and sickeningly thin. It seemed as though they attempted to conceal this with thick red robes that submerged their faces in repulsive shadow. Had they been standing there all along? Was I simply too foolish not to notice earlier?
I didn’t get an answer. All I got was the faint sound of chants filling my ears. It was raspy, performed with deflated lungs and craggy throats. The voices were deep, nearly inhuman, considering the absolute monotone twinge they all shared. This chanting—this sickening song, displayed in the isolated, rundown ruins of my old home, reduced Sherri and me to two dears in headlights. The former of us whimpered.
I nearly passed out due to the sheer terror coursing through my body. The dreary song continued, and I prayed that our presence wouldn’t be acknowledged amongst the men.
It was.
Just a singular figure who swiftly craned his neck after the slightest noise escaped Sherri’s petrified lips. The rest of them kept chanting, unbothered by their peer’s jerky movement. His cloak flew off his face with haunting speed, revealing a much more unsettling spectacle.
His face…it just didn’t look real. Did he have irises? Milky eyes bulged from their sockets, creating a repulsive green shadow under his eyes. They were startled, sinister, and unpleasantly disturbed by our presence. His long face clearly showed that we weren’t welcomed.
His skin was pale, and his cheekbones were uncannily high. It was easy to assume he didn’t have eyebrows, but I could see faint hairs resting above his malevolent eyes. But the worst thing of all was his lips.
They…were stained. I don’t think it was blood, but the substance was similar enough to make the hairs on my neck stick straight up. Bright red smeared the corners of his scowling mouth. I couldn’t stop shaking. This intruder who invaded the remnants of my house looked like he was sculpted by an alien who’d never seen an actual human. His haunting face stabbed my brain, pumping my heart with ample terror.
This intensified when his eyes looked directly at me. They burned into my soul. They took a fraction of my humanity with them.
With that, I got some sense smacked into me. My body finally agreed with my mind, and I hysterically grabbed Sherri’s sweaty arm before booking out of there faster than I could even process. I screamed a bunch of phrases all the while. “Dude!” “Come on, come on!” “Fuck this, let’s go!”
We simply ran and ran. We ran past the garage. Past the barking dog. Across the street. We heaved and screamed, and raved all the while, only stopping once I tripped before we could run over the train tracks. Sherri took a considerable amount of time to catch her breath.
“Holy shit.” I gasped, hardly even processing what we had just witnessed, “are you okay?”
“That was fucking terrifying!”
She was right there. I paused for a second. “Hey,” I smiled, “we’re alive, though.”
Despite her terror, she choked out a breathless laugh. “Yeah…yeah! Damn right we are! We survived!”
We somberly celebrated our outcome. We had danced with risks far too foolish for ordinary life, and we ended up on the better side. It was something to be proud of. With time and appreciation for the simple positives, we could overcome the terror and turn a new page. But that was for the future. At the moment, Sherri apologized profusely for suggesting urban exploration in the first place. When I told her it wasn’t her fault, she chuckled.
“Seriously though, fuck that creepy house!”
…
“Oh, wait. That was your creepy house.”
We both sat near the train tracks, and I lowered my head with half-lidded eyes. Sherri put a bronze hand on my shoulder.
“Are you sad about your old home being ruined?”
“I mean, yeah.” I gave myself a pity laugh, “a lot happened in that house, Sherri. You know…I watched my mom die there. I got violated around these parts, too, and I spent countless nights crying myself to sleep. But at the same time, I lived. I savored the good moments way more than the bad ones, and I don’t even know why. I always thought this…this veil of innocence got torn off my eyes the day my mom died, but I don’t think that’s exactly true. There’s an innocence to adolescence that was tainted, but not completely gone. And I miss being able to bask in that innocence. I miss residing there and being able to live my best life.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. “It’s funny, because honestly, for a split second, I had this stupid fantasy of going back there and living in a way reminiscent of how I once was. Throughout the festival, that’s all I was thinking about in the back of my mind. I really wanted to make my foolish fantasies a reality.”
I scoffed, “but then I saw the burnt shambles my house turned into. You saw it. Everything else was fine. Untouched. Everything but my old house—my subconscious fixation. It was like the universe just looked me in the eye and said, ‘hey, dumbass, get that stupid idea out of your head. Things will never go back to how they were; it’s impossible. Just move on.’”
“Hm.” Sherri’s eyes met mine, “I think the universe is right.”
…What?
I quietly listened to my friend explain herself. “The things you’ve just described to me…they can hurt real bad. They can leave scars. The way you talk about it, you think that this house can heal your scars, but nothing can heal them. Nothing can fix what’s been done. Scars don’t heal, they fade, but nothing’s ever gonna fade if you keep picking and picking at them, trying to heal the unhealable.”
She sheepishly smiled at me. “I think you’ve been really close to letting them fade, and that’s fine. People are slow healers, and time is the best medicine, but you can’t harp on the past like you’ve been doing and expect things to change.” She put her hands in mine, “I’m aware that it’ll take time, and you have every right to grieve your old house, but please learn to move on. It’s not healthy to hold onto something the way you do with this house.”
“…Have you always been this wise?”
A switch in her head flipped, and she went back to regular ol’ Sherri. “I wouldn’t assume much about my character. Drunk me and sober me are totally different women.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She softly squeezed my hands. “I’d rather you keep the other stuff in mind instead.”
…Okay. I’m aware it’ll be a process, just as self-betterment has been so far, but I’ll work on it. I’ve been working on it. Life will play out naturally, and I’m never going to see that burnt-up house again. After all these years, I’ll finally try to truly move on.
All I can do is hope it goes well. I’ll post more journal entries soon.