This is the story of how one little dare can change your life forever. Quite literally in my case. If you don’t care for hearing a story that might make you think about what words mean and what they’re telling you, showing you, just stop now.







Behind the eerie face of the Victorian house, I nearly walk into a cat that has made a home of this forsaken place. I stand in a vestibule and place smells of musky old cigar smoke, dust, and depression. I keep walking through the house and notice old pictures and one black and white one at the end of the hallway. Its a historic picture of a happy, but odd-looking family. They all look pleased with the house they are standing in front of, and it takes me a minute to figure out it’s this one.


I notice that there a little girl in the picture that looks extremely pale, almost sickly. I decide not to linger and turn towards the stairs.


The stairs are ornate, and look old and rickety. I go up anyway. At the top I notice it’s a hall of bedrooms. I go straight for the room that’s giving me this odd feeling. Not bothering to look at the old 17th century antiques. At the end of the hallway there is a forgotten little door with squeaky hinges. I open the door and the first thing I notice is a white figure in the back of a child’s room. I look around and the figure moves. I freeze, because when I look at her; it is indeed a girl; she looks exactly like the little girl in the picture downstairs.


Then she’s talking, telling me her story. She had gotten sick and her family was being tormented by the townspeople to leave. She had died when they came to take her family away and has since been stuck here. She starts grieving and moaning so horribly that I long to comfort her but don’t know how. I decide to take her out of the house. And when she stepped out, the little, pale, dark haired, saddened girl, shot up.
She came back down and her eyes were a deep red and her hair was a bloody crimson. She pulled back her lips in such a way that she was snarling. Her teeth glistened in the moonlight. The girl pounced. Then all I could think about was this burning. Flames licking up my arm. They lashed throughout my body. I freeze. I scream. I just can’t shake the feeling.






Burning.






Scorching.

It’s all I can think about. Slowly. Oh so slowly, it loosens it’s grip on my limbs but never completely letting up. I open my eyes and let out a scream that would chill the blood of anyone within miles. The entire time this is going on I wish to die. Just kill me.