Panic

"Evan, there's something very wrong here, we are should get out of here for now. Let's notify the people about this house and come back tomorrow morning." I said due to the weight of the current situation.

Evan was very horrified right now, his face was pale, eyes looking at a straight point and he was shivering. Perhaps, the cause of this was the fact that he could feel the sinister way more better than myself. After tapping a few times on his shoulder, he finally got out of his thinking and said.

"Ah sorry, you're correct. Let's le-" said Evan but before he could continue, he became unconscious. He fell straight into my arms as I was standing in front of him. It happened so suddenly that I wasn't able to move. I was scared, not from the spirits but due to Evan's situation.

"Evan, what's going on? What happened?"

After trying my best to wake him up, I realised that my best move was to grab Evan and get out of this house as fast as I could. I grabbed Evan and looked towards the door which went towards the hallway. The door was connected to hallway and there was right turn. Towards left there was maybe kitchen but we hadn't inspected it 𝗬𝗲𝘁. There was another hallway opposite to the one that I was supposed to go into. I hadn't inspected it too.

Forgetting all other work for now, I went into the hallway but as I turned left, I couldn't see the exit. It was darker than it was before. Still I went towards the exit but there was a wall.

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛...

Now there was a wall there instead of the exit door. There also was a seemingly new right turn. I turned there and went along another hallway. I could see a door to my right and hallway kept going on. I looked into the door and to my surprise,

𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙... 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝐼 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚...

Of course, I didn't plan to go into that door and but looking straight, there was someone standing. It was a girl this time. One of the dead ones. My hands weren't free to try to scare away or even exorcise it. My only way was to go inside the living room and close all the doors shut. I did exactly that.

𝑁𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡? 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑢𝑝 ℎ𝑖𝑚 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝑌𝑒𝑎ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝐼 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑠. 𝑆𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛...

After thinking deep, I came back into existence but, I was surrounded. The whole family of Ashfort, well all except Mary, were surrounding me. Two old women, one around the age of 50-70, wearing white dress and glasses and one around age of 30-40 wearing same white clothes. One old man around the same age as the oldest woman. Two children, one boy around the age of 15, the same we encountered. Lastly, the girl I just encountered, around the age of 20-25. Every resident wore the same colour of clothes before dying.

Each of them had a creepy smile with mischievous eyes. It was no time to think, I had to run. The only option I could see was the small room that had scratch marks on the door. I ran into it as fast as I could. After going inside it, I closed the door shut and placed the small table from the room to shut the door as it used to open towards inside. Then I took out bible and a chain with cross. I placed the bible on the table and put the chain into Evan's neck. Then sitting there, I took out water bottle and thought my next move.

𝐿𝑒𝑡'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐴𝑠ℎ𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡, 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑦, 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑑𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙. 𝑁𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙? 𝑊ℎ𝑜 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑑𝑜 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎 ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑒? 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠...

Although rituals were usually done by a single human just to curse someone, this family had done something else. Instead of one, whole family was into this ritual except the youngest one and now, the whole family are wondering spirits. I thought maybe the reason of Mary not participating in this ritual was that ritual required a specific age? But before I could continue, Evan woke up. Looking around then trying to stand up, he looked at the room then at me.

"These probably aren't spirits." He said, looking a little scared yet determined, "I saw many things when I was unconscious. Let's go out of this house first then I'll tell."

"Well. we can't. The whole family is outside waiting for us to come out. They want to have a feast. Basically I picked you up, ran away, the house became a mage or portal like thing and I ended up being where I started with the whole family surrounding me. The only way to run for now was here." I said.

"Oh... That sounds interesting... But fortunately, we are at the place we were supposed to go, well after we had escaped this house for now."

"OK enough riddles, tell me what you saw."

"So let's start from the beginning, Mr. Shaun the father of Mary, he had died around 1 years ago in a car accident."

"Makes sense since I didn't saw any hanging corpse of a man looking like he could be father of the children and son of the old couple."

"Yeah, and the family was in grief. Then around 1 month after his death, Ms. Natalie, the wife of Mr. Shaun, found a book. I couldn't find where she found the book. I don't even know for now how I saw this all but I'll just continue. It had many rituals. The family didn't believe it at first but I don't know what happened that they all believed it. The book had many rituals, including bringing someone dead back to life in another's body. They had decided that they will sacrifice Mary for her dad and so they kept her in here since around 8 months. They also stopped feeding her around 2 months ago, the time they performed the ritual. The book in question, was kept along with Mary, below the table in a small area which is almost unnoticeable."

"Wait? You're telling this now? We should've looked into it first then your long story to be honest."