Outside, a single car flew by, and its engine faded with the distance. Around it was nothing.

Gold and purple clouds colored the sky and the heavy mist hugged me like a warm blanket.

I sat on a black wooden bench by the side of the church—the side that faced the forest. Across the street was a small graveyard sitting in front of a long river, with a wooden bridge connecting it to the rustic town square. Even though it wasn’t night yet, the sunset bathed tombstones cast a harsh, creepy shadow on the grass.

I didn’t realize how long I was sitting outside for.

I ate my food in silence, admiring the outdoors for the first time in a while. No rain. No muddy bikes. No cars. But even without those things, I never noticed how loud it really was outside. There were birds, bats, rustling trees, distant tractors, the chatter from inside the church, and so on.

The trees were like a net into the deep abyss of the forest. The only thing separating me and it was a worn metal fence tangled in vines and overgrown bushes and flowers. It lured me for minutes on end.

In my trance, I walked over and realized the fence was unlocked. I nudged it open.

Fog hung in the branches and leaves, with damp flowers and grass spreading its floral perfume. I took a few pictures of the nature as I traveled. Sticks and damp soil crunched under my shoes as the light quickly faded.

Something shimmered in the dark ahead. All I could see was gleaming metal, surrounded by black. Just a floating, silver doorknob.

I turned on my phone's flashlight.

It wiggled in a gritty, aged door.

A house? How could there be a house just sitting in the middle of the woods? In my ignorance, I didn't even feel the terracotta path I walked on.

The house grew taller the more I looked up at it. First it was two stories, then three, then four.

A giant, shadowy house, old and weathered, with two stories of moss-framed windows, and ripped curtains and veils strewn all over it. Like it could’ve been made of smoke…

Can we drive to the old house?

It was real!

The shadow house. The one I scared myself with for hours.

It rotted and became one with dirt and trees.

The doorknob hung by a loose screw, silver paint peeling and chipping off. Surely it wasn't locked. I knocked. No one answered. After a few more minutes, I tried again, and nothing. And on the third knock, the door flew open and busted the wall behind it.

Jittering in fear, I peeked inside and called out, “Sorry!”

The narrow hall in front of me was dark and bleek, with only a slither of gray light from the far window. I stepped inside. Pure silence.

“Hello?” I called. “Your door's unlocked!”

I felt something touch my arm.

“YEEEK!” I squealed.

I stumbled back into a mass of fabric and metal and hit the floor. In my heart rushing panic, I shooed and swung at the air, but nothing was hitting me back.

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Because it was a coat rack.

I breathed, then jumped at realizing I was sitting in a bunch of dirty jackets.

“Ugh, gross…”

But the hallway—it gave me the creeps. A giant staircase made up the left wall beside me, freezing me in place. Shadow lingered at the top of the flight, leftover Christmas decorations hung on the rail, and the steps creaked on their own.

“Hello?” I called again, setting the coat rack back up. “I’ll leave now!”

No one answered, and I didn’t leave.

I peered around the corner to gaze at the top of the stairs.

It was like an old photograph. Heavenly light dripped on the few bottom stairs. Like it was dead. Like people died here. The bitter dirt I smelled could've been ashes. The light was a reminder of a grim reality. Peeling walls. Hollow stairs. Old, forgotten slippers. A grim reality that I imagined, but scared me nonetheless.

Upstairs and down the hall, something fell in one of the rooms. I flicked the lightswitch, but there was no light. I kept switching until the panel came right out of the wall. The switch hung by my fingers as the rest dangled by colored wires in the wall. I tried screwing it back in with my fingernails, but even the screws were worn, its thread eroded.

The shelf at the end of the hall, stuffed with books, held a ghost that breathed in my presence.

As I got closer, I distinguished the books from the wide array of candy wrappers, loose leaf notebook paper, and school folders. A cloud of dust puffed from each step on the old carpet.

I slightly pulled on one of the folders when a small circle of pink construction paper drifted to the floor. At the top were bubbly printed instructions that read: In the space below, write nouns related to school.

Words like “markers”, “bus”, and “globe” were written in sloppy handwriting. It clearly belonged to a child. I felt sticky residue on the back.

Maybe it was glued in a notebook before.

I slipped it back in between two folders and continued looking around. A warm breeze, along with the strong smell of leaves floating in the air. Beside me was the room where I heard something fall in. I turned on the fading, orange light. Yep, it was definitely old. A dusty, box TV sat on the floor in the corner with a bunch of DVDs stacked on top. The bed had a single blanket hanging from the otherwise naked mattress, and toy skateboards and crayons peaked from under the bed,

The sunlight died behind the broken blinds and sheer white curtains. They shifted slightly, and along with the stronger warm draft, I figured the window was left open. The screen panel that should've been there was sitting on the floor, torn.

But that wasn't what caught my eye the most.

Across from the window, buried in foliage, was a giant, wooden treehouse. A real treehouse!

There wasn't a ladder I could see, or even a rope to climb.

A huge window facing me allowed me to see inside. Beautiful. And since the house was abandoned, who's to say the treehouse wasn't, too?

Creak!!

I looked behind me. The door was wide open. I hurried to close it. Chills rose in my face and my arms, but I swallowed any tension I had. I kept my ear to the door for what felt like ages, my breathing more erratic and hot every second.

I had to leave. But as I slowly reopened the door, I heard another noise—creaking from the staircase.

Oh no!

My heart leaped. I rushed inside the nearby closet. Although I soon realized it wasn’t a closet—it was a huge, dark attic.

I pulled my shirt over my nose from the suffocating smell of sawdust and dirt marinating for decades around me. Slivers of gray light peaked through the broken floor panels and under the door. I held my breath, staying still to not make any noise.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Is someone in here?” they asked. “The floor is really weak. You should leave.”

It was a teenager, but I didn’t know whether they were a boy or a girl. The door was so hollow and thin that it might as well not have been there. I watched the bottom of the door, waiting for the slight shadow of their shoes to leave. It didn’t.

They knocked again. “Hello? I'm not mad.”

I took in a deep breath.

At some point in the midst of waiting for them to leave, my eyelids grew heavy. My daydreaming rippled and scrambled. I occasionally woke up from my daze, but I was too tired.

I fell asleep.