My sister knew now that I wasn’t crazy anymore.
Everyone had seen the footage. It’s become some sort of news around my family, friends, they were all dying to watch it, some morbid curiosity making them want to see what traumatized me for the past months. I was grateful they saw it too, but at the same time I had to move out and sell the house, and that was a bummer.
I was struggling financially, and I knew I couldn’t just buy another house. I had to sell this one first, and that obviously meant I had to go back there and get my things. I was not planning to go alone, though.
It took a while to try to convince my friend to come with me. He was really scared, but I had to get my stuff out, and that meant spending a few more nights there.
So, last month, me and my friend went back to the house. As soon as we entered, he let out a sigh. I asked what was wrong, and he just replied with ‘It’s been making some changes around here.’
‘What changes?’
‘Well, it took food out of your fridge, your clothes are torn, I think it even slept in your bed… It’s not gonna like you being back.’
‘I’m gonna assure that thing that I’m not staying. I’ll leave soon enough, and it’ll be free to torment whoever comes here next.’
‘Right.’
So, we started packing and cleaning. It was a bit harder for me, and we called for backup - my other friend Jessica.
She refused to come without her boyfriend. Now, the four of us versus that thing meant it would be too scared to do anything. I didn’t know much about it, but from its behavior I learned it mainly focused on me, and when its ‘transformation’ would be complete, it would try to take over my life and send me to the other place, down the stairs.
We’d worked on it for a few days, and what we’d left was just some furniture to be moved. I was extremely grateful for my friends’ support who, unlike my sister, believed me from the beginning.
We’d had so little do to left. Just some furniture, as I said.
So little. And I hadn’t expected it to end like this.
It was me, my friend (the one who saw the footage first, we’ll call him Adam), and my sister Lisa. They were downstairs, wrapping up the TV, and I was upstairs, lifting up the mattress. I could hear their voices downstairs:
‘…Yeah, like that. Wait, no, hold it hold it hold it you’re LITERALLY not holding it it’s so heavy…’
‘…Okay, now help me up with the wrapper. Yeah…’
‘…You dropped it on my foot! Please just be careful…’
‘…Bring me the scissors. I’m thinking I’ll just cut this tape up… like this…’
I’d mostly asked them to speak more, just so I wouldn’t listen to the silence. Silence, for me, meant danger.
After a while, they stopped talking. I could only hear the sound of footsteps and things being dragged around.
‘Lisa? Adam?’
No answer.
‘Guys?’
My heart dropped. I made my way downstairs. I’d subconsciously counted the steps. 16. Whatever.
‘Lisa? …Adam?’
No answer. Feeling around, the house was empty. No one was in the living room, no one was in the kitchen… just boxes, and clothes. I sat on the couch, listening. Hoping to hear some footsteps.
But I was only greeted by silence, so heavy, almost a being of its own.
I had the urge to leave. Made my way to the front door but, just as I was about to turn the doorknob, something, this feeling stopped me. I turned around and pressed my back on the door, feeling the phone in my pocket.
‘Hey Siri, call Lisa.’
She picked up.
‘…Yeah? Will, is that you?’
‘Yes, where are you? Where are you, Lisa? Where’s Adam? Why would you leave like this? You know you shouldn’t leave me here alone!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Where are you?’
‘In… the living room?’ Her voice was shaking. ‘Will, where are you?’
‘In the goddamn living room. There’s no one here.’
‘I don’t understand. You came down the stairs and you’re now sitting on the couch looking at me. Who is this? Who is calling me from your phone?’
‘IT’S ME! LISA, IT’S ME. I’m telling you, I’m in the living room!’
‘Then who is sitting on the couch, if it’s not you?’
The moment of realization hit both of us gradually… I knew who was on the couch, or what was on the couch. And I knew that wherever I was, that wasn’t my house anymore. I had finally managed to go down to the other place, and the thing had come back up, but this time… with a more efficient disguise.
‘Listen to me, Lisa. That is not me. I need you to leave the house, take Adam with you, please, just get out…’
Suddenly, she said something that shocked me. ‘How do I know?’
‘How do you know what?’
‘That it’s not you. On the couch.’
‘Is the thing just sort of staring at you?’
‘Yeah…’
‘Well… move around a bit. It knows I’m blind so it will pretend it is blind too… if you do something unexpected and it follows you with its eyes, you’ll know.’
‘Okay…’
I didn’t hear much next, just movement, then I heard her say ‘Oh my God, it’s true… what do I do now, Will? I’m scared.’
‘I don’t think It’ll hurt you… just don’t let it know you know it’s not me.’
‘Okay…’
‘I’ll just go back upstairs and hope I can somehow make it out.’
‘Do you think it understands what we’re saying?’
‘I don’t know…’
‘Because if it does, then it also knows it know…’
I felt helpless, and for the first time in my life, I wished I could see so badly… I just wanted to get out of whatever this place was, back to my real house, but I could not find the staircase. I was stuck…
What if I wasn’t going to make it out of this place?
‘Please stay on the phone with me.’
‘Okay. Adam, come here, no…’
‘What?’
‘He talked to the thing. He thought it was you…’
‘And what is going on?’
‘Adam, here, take the phone’
I heard Adam’s voice.
‘Yeah?’
‘Adam, listen, this is me, this is Will, and I’m stuck in this place, that up there is not me, please don’t talk to it, don’t let it know you know it’s a copy…’
‘What? Will, is that you? Are you serious?’
‘Shut up, shut up.’
‘Whoa, buddy, don’t touch me. Staay there. Freak… I need to call the police…’
‘Don’t call the police! If it knows you don’t believe its illusion, I don’t know what it will do…’
‘Lisa, take this. I’m calling the police. I’m tired of this shit.’
I heard some muffled voices and then Lisa, again.
‘Maybe it’s good that he’s calling the police, right? Maybe the thing doesn’t understand we know it’s not real…’
She stopped.
‘Don’t act scared of it, Lisa! ACT NORMAL.’
‘I’m trying, but it just stood up now…’
‘PLEASE, I don’t know what it can do!’
‘It’s walking towards me. I’m just scared, ew… what the fuck?’
‘What?’
I listened as her voice changed from confusion, to disgust, to fear, to terror.
‘What? Lisa! Adam…?!’
I couldn’t make out what she was saying. At some point, I thought I heard Adam… I was still desperate to feel around for that fucking staircase.
I heard a thud… meaning she’d dropped the phone, and some screams, then muffled crying, and some sounds I could not make out…
At this point, my whole body was tensed up, and my heart was beating so hard I was about to faint. The more noises I heard, the more I was convinced something sinister had happened, and as much as I’d tried to deny it, I knew.
I had no choice but to listen to this scene through the phone, unable to help, and even if I’d been able to get out of this place, I couldn’t see anything either.
At some point, after I’d screamed my lungs out, my face drenched in sweat and tears, the noise stopped and this silence remained, this fucking silence. I hate silence.
I kept wailing, hoping someone would respond… it could have been hours until I got a response, but not the one I hoped I would get.
I heard some harsh movement, and then this hoarse, rotten voice, that wasn’t even a voice, but something like an animal trying to mimic a human.
‘I th-ink I’ll just sle-ep… in.’
… For some, it would have been comical, but I knew that was just one of the phrases I used to say. It had just mimicking me again.
‘Bring m-e the sci… ssors, I think I will cu-ut this ta-ape u…p…’
I listened, petrified. Meanwhile, I my foot hit something. Stairs. Was it letting me go?
I climbed up the stairs and found myself in my hallway. I could feel the familiar carpet under my feet. I went downstairs and sensed this smell that I couldn’t identify.
The floor was slippery. ‘Lisa? Adam?’
I heard something run up the stairs, and just like that I knew the thing had left, for now. But my mind wasn’t on the creature, but on Adam and Lisa.
‘Guys?’
Walking around, in the slippery floor, my foot hit something. It felt like… hair.
Nothing in the world could describe how I felt in that moment. There is nothing I can type down here which will help you visualize, because not everything feels like something else. There is no analogy I can make.
When you discover a crime scene, you usually see it first. I hadn’t. I’d just been walking around their bodies clueless for a good few minutes. You know how it feels to not know something is blood until you slip on it?
To have to see if someone is alive by desperately feeling around her to find their hand, neck, pulse?
To just crawl around, in their blood, running your hands through the mess, trying desperately to see any signs of life? Calling out their name?
I heard the door open, and I realized the police had come. Adam had probably called them, and they had finally managed to make an appearance.
They found me, obviously, covered in their blood, next to them… I didn’t even know what the creature had actually done to them. No matter how hard I tried, they would not listen to me. They thought I was crazy.
The next following days were a blur. Luckily, I had the footage of the thing from the past months, and the testimony of my remaining friends and family, plus Adam’s call that clearly said ‘Something is pretending to be my friend, and it may hurt us.’ They had downloaded the footage of the actual murder, but they refused to describe it to me.
They just asked me to rest.
But I can’t. Because, no matter what, I want revenge. I am determined to find out the story of this thing. The story of this house, and its weird fucking portal staircase. And I want to kill this fucking creature.
Even if it is the last thing I do.
For now, this is my final update. I might post more on my account, depending on what I come across. For now, I need rest. I have begun seeing a therapist, and I’m recovering.
I still get nightmares. I wonder what I could’ve done better, but the truth is, I think I was doomed from the beginning.
From the moment I’d counted one extra step on my staircase, the nightmare had begun.