The Spirits Within

I could feel the sense of dead coming from the girl. I was surprised as I couldn't feel anything without touching her. Maybe my senses were bad?

"Hey," I said to Evan while making sure no one else listens to us. "Can you feel anything from this little girl?"

"Hmm? I can feel dead but it is very faint. I think it is coming from her as she was with the apparitions for long."

"Oh that makes sense, let's leave the girl safely with villagers now and find out what's wrong here."

"Sure!"

After making sure that no one from the village mistakes the girl for an apparition, we started getting ready for going inside the house. The girl was safely left with villagers. Although one guy said he could come with us, I and Evan agreed on not dragging anyone with us. After half an hour or so, we were ready with our bag. And with just one look towards the outside world, we went inside the house.

"Evan, take care of closing the door." I said.

"Hey! Why are you acting like my senior all of a sudden?" Said Evan, while looking like I just ate his favourite sweet that he had hidden from me. How I knew? Because I had done it before.

"Because I AM your senior. Bet or not, now's not the time to talk about that."

"Yeah yeah whatever. I'll close it."

After just going inside the main door of the old building, we closed the door as any light from the outside can make some apparitions hostile towards us. While the house was smelly enough, we could smell something rotting like a mouse.

As we stepped further into the dimly lit interior, the putrid smell of rotten flesh grew more pungent, assaulting our senses with an unyielding intensity. Waves of nausea washed over me, and I had to fight back the urge to vomit. The foul odour seemed to cling to the very walls of the house, as if trying to warn us of the horrors that lay ahead.

"Marcus, this smell is unbearable," Evan exclaimed, his hand covering his mouth and nose. "I can't believe people lived in this wretched place."

"I know, Evan," I replied, my own voice strained. "But we have to push forward. There's something sinister here, and we need to uncover the truth."

As we pressed on, we came across a young boy, approximately fifteen years old, standing before us. He looked at us curiously and asked, "Hi, who are you?"

Before I could respond, I reached into my bag and took out a small, silver Jesus Cross, a talisman that had protected me in many encounters with malevolent entities. However, before I could show it to the boy, the Cross vanished from my grasp. A mischievous giggle filled the air, seemingly emanating from the boy, as the Cross reappeared some distance away from us. We heard his footsteps and giggles moving away until they faded into nothingness.

"What just happened?" Evan asked, bewildered by the strange occurrence.

"I'm not entirely sure," I replied, a hint of uncertainty in my voice. "But it seems this house is not just haunted by ordinary spirits."

As we continued deeper into the house, we reached a door that seemed to beckon us inside. With trepidation, we pushed the doors open, revealing a room that sent shivers down our spines. It was a living room, yet unlike any we had ever seen. Five lifeless bodies hung from hooks on the ceiling, each with a black cloth covering their eyes. The ghastly scene indicated that these were the corpses of the Ashfort family, their lives brutally cut short. There was a star like shape, which is often used for black magic, drawn below the hangings of Ashfort.

"The stench is coming from here," Evan whispered, his voice barely above a breath. "It's the source of the rotten smell."

I nodded grimly, my eyes scanning the room in search of any clues that could shed light on the tragedy that had unfolded within these walls. Among the deceased, the body of the young boy we had encountered earlier was also suspended in the macabre tableau.

"The boy's body... here too," I murmured, my heart sinking with sorrow.

"And yet, the girl's body is not among them," Evan pointed out, confirming my earlier suspicions. "I was right; she is somehow escaped all this. That little soul must be terrified."

We couldn't linger in that haunting room any longer. The grim sight of the lifeless bodies and the overpowering stench were almost too much to bear. Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery, we pressed on, venturing further into the enigmatic depths of the haunted Ashfort house. Little did we know that the horrors we had witnessed were only the beginning of the chilling truths that awaited us in the darkness.

While investigating further, there was a small room. When we went inside it, we could see the door having many scratch marks in it, like something or rather, someone was kept inside the room for god knows how long. The room had no windows and was as small as just a little bigger than a wardrobe. There were also strange markings and pictures. However, before I could continue, I heard a scream.

"Marcus!"

Hearing him scream, I rushed towards Evan. He was still inspecting the corpses of Ashfort family.

"What happened!?" I said.

"The bodies!" said Evan, with a horrifying look in his eyes.

"Bodies?" I said, while looking towards the family. However, the bodies weren't there. "Evan, What's going on here?"

"I don't know. I looked towards the other side for merely a second and the bodies were gone."

There was something wrong. From the looks of it, I figured all there was to this house was that the family were trying to do some ritual which failed horribly. The only ghost in this house was the spirit of the young boy who just needed peace. But why would a spirit of a young boy, take his family away from the eyes of outsider? Maybe it made sense as a human but it didn't as a spirit. There was something else going on in here...