Empty

He came up to the house, and looked at it. It looked the same as it did earlier in the day, old and ugly. He walked around to the back of the house, and switched on the main power. He could only have it on for a little while, but it did come on. He went back to the front door, and pulled out his keys. First he unlocked the door padlock, and then the deadbolt for the door, and then finally the door itself. He entered the house.

He locked the deadbolt behind him, and set the padlock on the floor next to the door. It looked simple enough, plain white walls, with entrance to a large room - probably intended to be a family room - on the right side of him, and entrance to the dining room on the other side. In front of him was a hallway that split off both to this floor and also a stairway to the upper floor. He decided he'd look in the kitchen first, actually that he'd work from the bottom to the top. He figured that the stairwell to the basement would be in the kitchen most likely. Sure enough, it was.

He walked down to the basement, and pulled the chain for a lightbulb. It came on, a little dim, and lit up the room. It looked like the previous owners had begun to finish the basement but never did; there were partial walls in various places around the basement. He turned the light back off and turned around to go back up to the main floor.

The kitchen looked pretty good, the stove was still there, a flat heating panel on a floating island across from the sink. A lot of counter space, and from the looks of it the cabinets were all in good condition, probably replaced just before the family moved out. He looked at the counters, and they didn't look as good, they looked years old, chipped and worn out. "What the?" he said as he lifted an object off the counter. It was a single, solitary metal spoon. He shrugged his shoulders and put it back down.

Going back into the dining room, it had a wood floor, but no furniture. Nothing of interest was there, so he went over to the family room. There was no furniture here either, but a shag carpet and a closed-off fireplace. He came out of this room, and went around to the other rooms on this floor. A couple bedroom sized room, a bathroom, and a slightly larger room. He was finished on this floor and so went up to the next.

There were several rooms on that floor, more bedrooms. This floor actually seemed to be smaller than the one below it, he'd have to look at the outside to see if it was. There were 3 bedrooms, and a master bedroom with it's own bath, as well as another bathroom. He was almost done exploring, there was one room left, right next to the stairwell going back downstairs.  

He came to the last room, and opened the door to go in it. This room had a wood floor, or rather wood looking latex tiles. The room was darker than the rest, but the window was facing out the front of the house and so the sun wasn't shining in the window at the time. This room was also different, its walls weren't white they were sort of a yellow, except for in spots where it looked a little red, like maybe some paint had splattered. By the look of the room, and the slight copper smell that hung in the air, he imagined it may have been an art sort of room, probably oil painting, so it made sense.

There was furniture in this room, a single, solitary wooden chair. One of the rungs on it were broken off, but otherwise it looked fine. It was sitting over by the window, and he walked over to the chair to look at it. The floor felt a little funny under his feet, and he looked down. There were dents all over the floor, places that were lower than others. This seemed a little odd to him, but it could have again been because of this art room idea. He looked out the window, and saw the front yard.

"Nothing here," he said to himself, shrugging his shoulders and turning towards the door. He left the room, but just as he stepped out the door he had that same, sudden chill that he had felt earlier when he passed the house. He shuddered and went out the door, and headed down to the ground floor to leave the house. He went out the front door, then locked it up again, and walked back to the back yard to turn off the main power. When he got back there he saw that the second floor was a little smaller than the first, so he nodded in understanding.

He walked away from the house, and looked back at it. He thought he saw something in the window of the yellow room, but he blinked he didn't see it anymore. "Must have been a reflection," he said to himself, and walked back towards his home and schoolwork.

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James awoke in a cold sweat, and sat up. He panted heavily, and blinked. He looked around, nothing was there. He didn’t know why he awoke, he wasn’t dreaming that he could recall. He looked at the clock, it read 2:23 AM. “Still early,” he said. He slumped his head, then saw his hands.

His hands were stained red. Blood red. He saw streaks of blood slowly drip downhill up his forearm. He stared in horror as the blood dripped, he had no idea why there was blood. He closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them again.

The blood was gone. His hands were dry, there was no blood, fresh or otherwise, on them. He sighed and laid his head back down, and closed his eyes to go back to sleep.

It wasn’t immediately, but took a few minutes. But all the same, his eyes brought him to the room with the yellow walls. I must be dreaming, he thought to himself, and looked at his hands. His hands were once again covered in blood, and he saw that the wall the window was on had several blood-red hand prints on them. But they weren’t his hand size. He walked over to the wall and held up his hand. Several of them were much smaller hands than he had, but some others were larger than his own.

What is all this, he thought. I didn’t watch any sort of scary movies lately, don’t know why I’d dream like this. He tried wiping off his hands on his shirt, but the blood wouldn’t come off. It was wet on there, but it wouldn’t come off on his shirt.

He turned around and there was a shadow, a small shadow on the floor. Slowly though, it came up off of the floor into the air. It was about four feet tall. James stepped back against the wall, putting some distance between him and the shadow.

The shadow came closer to him, taking the shape of a human. James became backed up against the wall, and the shadow came up to him, reaching up to grab his throat. James felt something cold wrap around his throat, and he struggled for breath.

The next thing he knew he awoke to his alarm ringing, he hadn’t remembered any more of the dream. He looked at his hands, they were clean. He yawned and got out of bed, preparing for work.

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