It was an average late Tuesday night, I just got off of work and I'm already dreading the thought of going back to that hell hole, but I know I need the money. I drove home like normal, I hit all the long red stop lights, even though I was the only one going down that road late at night. Once I finally stepped one foot through my front door, I was blasted with a wave of cold cold air. It was freezing cold, I immediately had chills, goosebumps flooded throughout my whole body. I shook it off. My roommate Tom, probably just got a little excited when pushing the buttons on the thermostat. I went upstairs to get ready for bed, did the usual, brushed my teeth, changed into my night clothes, and snuggled tightly into my soft bed. I’ve been looking forward to this all day, yet somehow it still let me down. I struggled to go to bed, basically fighting my own self trying to just sleep. So I just said, forget it, and I got on my phone to scroll around on social media. There was nothing very amusing, everyone just living their basic old lives. Sometimes I wish to live like them, but then again I realize I'm just an observer, and a lot of things on social media are staged and propped to make themselves look better than other people. I'm just a bystander, i could live like that but i just don't have that time. Suddenly I scrolled upon this post, it intrigued me. It was just a black screen with coordinates in big white letters. I got curious and plugged them into google maps. It  came up to this nice pretty blue house, on a cul de sac. I did not think anything of it, so I just gave up and tried going to sleep again. Eventually I woke up in the morning, and I still had thoughts about that house I found, so I did some more digging around, and I eventually found a news article about a murder that happened inside the house.  

The backstory to this house is that I found it to be known for the murders of a young family inside of my hometown in Texas. The killer was Arnald, who was the husband to Amy, and father to his 2 daughters Lisa, and Becky. They were seen to be such a happy family from a neighbor's point of view, but we really need to learn that, that's not usually what's happening behind closed doors. No one has solved the reason why he did what he did. Was it out of anger? Did he have someone else he was seeing behind Amy’s back? Nothing can justify his reasoning to all of this, but the spirits of the victims can. 

I saw this and I immediately shot up from my bed, I sprinted to find my roomate. This was finally our chance to explore some paranormal activity in a real true crime house.  I saw Tom sitting in the kitchen. I bolted.

“Yo dude, you gotta see this!!” I said, holding my phone to Tom's face. “It's a ghost filled house, we gotta check this out together.”

“Alright bet, when and where is this??” Tom said as he sprung up from his seat.

“It's on Grimes Street, I was thinking we could go tomorrow night..? It’s not far from here, if we find we don't like it we can come back home.”

“I'm free till Sunday at 4, but before that I’m down to go whenever” He excitedly said back.

“Game on, i’ll bring all my fancy gear i bought up town” 

We packed our stuff up, making sure we were prepared for what was hopefully to come. I grabbed my new “ghost gear” that I picked up at the store the other day. I bought an EMF reader, a flashing light box which alerts you when a spirit passes by, and more. I would say it's nice stuff, and I paid alot for it. It would suck if it did not work. I'm hoping for the best outcomes, even if it lies to us, how will I truly know?. I guess I'm just hoping I didn't get scammed again. But it's whatever i guess, we’ll figure it out tomorrow night. 

Tom did not have any equipment, in fact he broke mine last time we went out to do something like this. Of course, he did. He got startled by a freaking bug and threw my brand new, nice camera that i used to record in the dark. A literal bug, like dude come on! Out of all doors slamming, things falling, and seeing figures, it had to be the bug that scared him the most. It was whatever really, it just became a new excuse for me to buy new stuff for this all, and believe me i'm not going to complain about that. I was excited about tomorrow night, but I had so much to do around the house before I could even think about it some more. 

Time was moving fairly quickly. It was already night, and of course I found myself being up basically all night digging around on the internet. Trying to find more research on this house, safe to say I was very invested in this house we were going to. It just seemed weird, it was an eerie feeling. I don't know why I had this feeling latching onto the back of my neck, but it wouldn't go away, and it's not like we’ve never been to haunted places before. I don’t know, I shook my head and tried to head on to bed. Thinking this feeling would unlatch itself from my mind by the time I wake up. Shockingly, when I woke up the feeling was not gone, it basically grew more on me. I was overwhelmed by this feeling, but I still don't know what is causing it all. It was getting really annoying, but there was nothing I could do. The most I could do is talk to myself in the mirror and tell it “go away!”. 

Pretty sure I'm going just flat out crazy at this point. I never really finished my packing, and we left in a couple hours. Tom was ready to go, shockingly before I was this time. It's the feeling on the back of my neck that's really weighing me down right now. I got up from laying in uncomfy bed, and I got to work. Shoving all the equipment I had into a tiny backpack for the best hopes of nothing breaking. Truthfully if something were to break this time, I'm blaming it on Tom and making him buy me new stuff. It's only fair since he did not have to pay for the damage he actually made, by breaking my stuff last time. 

I don't know what he had to bring, it's not like we were staying a week. He probably is bringing his deep wrinkle cream, because lord forbid he gets old. Might as well open a stand for the ghosts too while he's at it, maybe this can be his new job. 

We got our stuff shoved into my car, and we headed our way to this house. I had to scrummage through my photos to try and find the location to plug in to google maps. We hit Mcdonalds on the way, because Tom couldn't resist his urge. Per usual, this is why I can't rely on him to drive directly from point to point. He's always gotta be on some extra side quest of his own.

Eventually we made it to the house, it looked exactly like the pictures i found of it online. A slim tall blue house, with white shutters on the windows, and a really pretty white blossom tree. I don't understand why a house so pretty had to have the worst history on it. It's sad to think about, but it gives me a form of entertainment, which is also sad. We parked pretty far away from the house, because we did not want to be towed for being parked in a non-parkable place. It was just a short walk to the house.

Once we headed inside I was swept away by the dead cold house. It felt like I just walked into a freezer, it was so cold I had to step back outside to warm up. It felt so dead in there, but I'm not saying that just because people have died here. The atmosphere was so flat and empty, there was nothing more to say about it. It just felt so eerie but I didn't understand why.

We set our cameras up in multiple places around the house, one upstairs in the master bedroom, one in the kitchen which overlooked the living room as well, and one in the downstairs bedroom that seemed to be for one of the kids. We didn't really know where most of the activity would be, but we figured to just put them in the bigger spots to look over the most space. I mean we can always move them if we find a better location or a spot that's more active.

For a little while we walked around the house, just exploring what's inside. It was basically untouched. There was no sign of life inside this house, obviously. But there was no vandalism, no destroyed windows, no destruction at all. It was such a good thing to see from someone who likes to explore abandoned places.

After exploring around the house for a bit, we stumbled upon something.

We found a door, inside of the walkway area, but we couldn't open it. We did not know where this went. There was no correlating wall behind the door, so we figured it must just be a small closet. We still wanted to figure out why it was locked though, I personally found it a bit weird.

Who locks a closet door? Was there something we weren't supposed to see inside? Unlucky for whoever locked this door because Tom is a very real and definitely certified locksmith. 

Tom took it at the door, with little equipment he had or found on hand. He fiddled with it for a bit, then I heard a click, and boom it was open! This might have just opened our investigation even farther, we have no idea what's inside of this door Tom just unlocked. Tom got up, and I launched in between him and the door. I wanted to be the one to open it, and I sure did just that. My hand grabbed the doorknob, slowly twisting it to the right. The door creaked loudly as I pulled it open slowly. It sounded like a screeching scream, almost ear piercing. I will be honest, I was a bit scared to know what's behind the door. It could be anything for all I know.

“Dude open it up already, or I will.” Tom yelled

“Ok jeez, but if there's a dead body I'm telling the cops you did it.”

“You really think they will believe that?” he snapped back

“You never know man, I'm a good gaslighter.” 

I finally opened the door, while my eyes were closed. For someone who likes the paranormal and ghost stuff I sure can't handle much.

“No way, it's not even a closet. You’re literally so stupid Mark!” “Now that I really look at it, I don't really know what it is, but it is NOT a closet. I would not want to step foot near it if it was.” he said,  nervously laughing.

“What are you talking about?? And even if it's not a closet, how am I supposed to know???” i yelled

“Open your eyes you fool and you’ll see what im talking about.” he squawked.

So I did just that, I slowly opened my eyes. My eyes were met with a steep staircase, that seemed like it led straight to hell, if not farther. Pure blackness was filled about halfway down the stairs. There's no way I'm going down there first, I'd rather be burned alive. 

“Holy crap”

“That's what I'm saying, so.. You wanna go down first or..? He said

“There's no way i'm going first, you’ve got me messed up if you think i am.”

“So what are we gonna do about this then” he snapped back at me

“Throw something down! I wanna see how far it goes first.”

“What am I gonna throw down?? Does it look like I have throwable items with me?” Tom said while squinting at me.

“Dude you literally always have the most random crap inside your pockets, are you telling me you have NOTHING?” 

He dug through his pockets, and no shock he pulled out a bouncy ball. Of course he had something even after he told me he did not, I'm always right. I basically know him more than he knows himself. He held the ball in hand and got down closer to the floor. He did not throw the ball, but he slowly let it ramp off his hand and fall onto the first step in front of him, this was enough force for the ball to go down all the rest of the stairs in front of them. Me and Tom watched as the ball slowly disappeared from our vision, after 4 stairs the ball was no longer visible. The ball wasn't see-able but we could still hear the light bounces it made off the stairs as it went from one to the next. I counted about 13 bounces then one last louder thud, which must have meant it hit something in the basement. I turned around to look at Tom, hoping he would be willing to go down the stairs now.

“Do you wanna go down?” I said as I slowly looked back at Tom.

“Uhh.. Sure. Don't we have flashlights?” he said unsurely

“That’s a good idea, I don't know why we are just thinking about this now.” 

I got up from the floor and I walked to the kitchen to grab the flashlights that were at the bottom of my bag. I hustled back to Tom with 2 in my hand, one for him and one for me to use. I slowly handed one over to him, and walked near the door. Tom turned his on, and slowly aimed it towards the opening to the door. The darkness lit up, I could see more stairs now. It did not make it any less creepy. I decided to go down first since it did not seem all so bad with bright flashlights in our hands. So, I slowly walked one foot in front of another. One step at a time, the wood creaking on each step. Tom waited at the top, and once I made it to the bottom I was relieved to see nothing was down there. I turned around to see Tom’s face at the top of the stairway. He smiled, and I told him to come down. But his bright smile faded into a pure frightened expression. I was confused. 

“Mark. don't turn around” he said slowly, with the same expression still stuck on his face.

“Why are you trying to scare me dude, you can't fool me.'' I said, laughing it off.

I turned around, and I wish I did not.

Suddenly my vision went dark. It readjusted, and the overwhelming sound of cop sirens filled my ears, bouncing off my ear drums. The bright lights of flashlights flew over my head, I was right in front of them? Why couldn't they see me? I must've been being pranked, I looked around to realize I couldn't find tom. I yelled and yelled, ran all through the house. No one flinched or turned a head my way.

 “These actors are getting paid by the bank for this performance.” I said proudly to the people around me.

 It's like I was literally invisible. I finally found Tom, he was surrounded by all the cops with flashlights. But something was off. I just don't know what, I couldn't see him over the crowd. Once I finally got a glimpse through the sides of people, I saw a ton on his knees. He looked like he just saw death, he had widened, pure red bloodshot eyes. Like he's been up for days, crying. I laughed, he looked stupid. I walked around the crowd of officers, and I saw what looked like a body covered over by a white sheet. I was curious to see what was under this sheet, I tried getting a look while the medics took it away on a stretcher. The sheet flew up a little and the head was revealed to me, I froze.  All the organs in my body stopped working for a couple of seconds. The body wasn't some random person, it was me. It was my face, it had all my features. It had the same mole I had under my lip, the same blue eyes my mom has, and the gold hoop nose ring I bought a couple days ago. 

“Alright what kind of sick joke is this tom?” I said angrily. Once again, no reply was made. I turned around to face an officer in my face, she was walking my way with Tom under her shoulder. She walked right through me. 

“How can this be real? Am I real? Am I dreaming?” I pinched myself, I couldn't feel myself, I tried grabbing a door, a person, my phone, my hand went through all of it. I bolted outside, and Tom was on the front step. Still with the same bloodshot eyes, he was still widely awake. He was being asked questions by an officer. 

“What happened inside that house of yours? I’m only trying to help you.” she asked.