The Madness Within ✓

V.

As the sun was setting, I was sitting on a chair on the balcony while typing on my laptop that I placed on the small coffee table near me. I needed some fresh air after all that has been happening around here. And while I always get enough fresh air - since I'm in the forest, - I still felt extremely uncomfortable no matter where I was. I explored most of the house, but no matter where I went, I felt terrible after everything that had happened on this day. When I walked on the balcony, I finally felt somewhat at peace. The balcony this time was the only place where I could properly relax.
Something about it just felt.. safe. The whole house was covered in mysteries and so was the forest itself, while the balcony was stuck between the two, right in the middle. It was a small escape from reality. All I needed was my laptop for work and a cup of warm coffee to give me energy. And of course some warm clothing to keep me away from freezing in the cold weather.
I also brought in a blanket that I found to cover myself with, just to add on to the comfy feeling of the balcony. If I could, I'd just live here, on the balcony, and I'd ignore everything that's been happening around me.
But I can't do that, of course. So for now, this will become my comfort zone.

I typed some translations on the computer, then took a sip of my coffee and admired the wonderful sunset. It was getting kind of dark, but the sun still peeked over the horizon, closely watching the Earth.
Ah, right. I forgot to mention; I'm a translator. People contact me whenever they need translating on their sites or on their work, and I do it all for them. It's a nice job to have and I enjoy it a lot, but sometimes it can be a struggle. Especially the beginning.
The beginning was very hard. I had to do all the advertising for myself and it was difficult to catch people's attention. I used to work as a cashier for a while so I had some money to live off of.
And after months and months of constant trial and error, I eventually got a few customers. And it began growing from there. Thanks to the reviews from my previous customers, I can now get more customers faster.
Eventually, I was able to leave my job as a cashier. I was now able to make a living off of translating and I also inherited my grandma's house that I can either sell, rent or keep. Everything is going well for now, but I'm afraid there might come a time one day where I'll have to go look for a job again. Being a translator really isn't easy.

I finished up my work and proofread it a few times, while also taking sips from my coffee in-between, and when it was all ready to go, I sent the finished work to my customer and closed my laptop. I glanced at the sunset one more time before taking my laptop and my cup of coffee inside. I left the blanket there, since I'll definitely be back soon.
I closed the balcony door using my elbows behind myself and put the laptop on the table in the library, then went downstairs to the kitchen to wash the cup. Once I was done with that, I took off my fluffy beige coat and returned to the library for my laptop.
The library was huge compared to the rest of the rooms in the house. The library was connected to the hall where the stairs led. The walls were all covered with shelves full of books and more books. There was a ladder in the corner of the room and in the middle were three octagon-shaped tables with 8 chairs near each table.
When I first saw the library while exploring, I was a bit confused about the amount of tables and chairs in the library. Why were there so many chairs and tables when grandma lived alone? Did she organise some sort of meetings here? Was she perhaps an owner of some kind of club? Maybe that's why that lady said that my grandma has betrayed them all. Maybe she used to be grandma's close friend and that was her way to cope with my grandma's passing.

But something about all this still made no sense to me. I shrugged the thoughts off my mind and continued walking.

As I entered the room, I felt goosebumps form all over my body from the cold. I must've gotten too used to the warmth that the coat gave me for the past few hours..
I scanned the room to look for the source of the cold. My eyes landed on one of the windows in the room: the window right by the staircase was wide open, letting all the cold wind from outside to the interior of the house.
I shook my head and walked to the window, then quickly closed it to stop more cold from getting in.
„That's better."
I then grabbed my laptop and walked downstairs to the living room. I put the laptop on the table and grabbed a pillow, then placed it on the ground by the fireplace.
Now.. How exactly do you light up a fireplace?

After many attempts to get the fireplace to work, I realized that my knowledge about living in a house was very low, therefore my attempts were unsuccessful. I sighed and sat down on the couch, utterly defeated.
I turned on the television and began watching the news. The news report that was currently on was about a young girl that disappeared without a trace in the woods three days ago. The name of the forest was different from the one that I'm in, but the news report itself scared me.
It's truly terrifying just how easily people tend to get lost in forests. I, myself, would probably get lost here without a GPS when driving here.
„I hope she gets found soon," I mumbled to myself and sighed.

What followed after the news report were numerous reports about politics, car accidents, and other typical tragic occurrences. Then what followed was one of the Harry Potter movies, which surprised me a little. At this hour?
I found myself watching it for a little while, but after a few minutes, I felt my eyes slowly closing as I dozed off to sleep.
I ended up falling asleep on the couch.

•

I got woken up by a loud thud. I flinched and shot up from my tangled position that I was in while I was asleep, then quickly looked around. It was dark everywhere, even the TV turned itself off after some time. I grabbed my phone and turned it on, then blinked a few times to adjust to the bright light. I used the phone's light to navigate myself to the light switch and turned the lights on.
I looked around the room and tried to listen for more sounds, but heard nothing. The sound that woke me up sounded like it came from upstairs, so I went upstairs to check.
My anxiety and fear rose each second. Each step up the stairs made my heart beat faster than before. I could feel goosebumps forming on my body, and this time I wasn't sure if it was because of the cold or because of how terrified I actually was. I cursed at myself in my head, regretting ever waking up and going to explore the source of the sound. But I have to put an end to this. This can't go on. If there really is someone here, I have to make sure that there's someone and call the police.

Once I was upstairs, I turned on the lights in the hall and scanned my surroundings. There was nothing out of place in the hall, either. I slowly walked towards the large library and looked around again. Still nothing. I turned around to look back at the hall to double-check that everything's really okay.
But that's when I noticed something was off. Something was out of place. Something was different when I was last here. I walked closer towards the staircase and focused on only one thing, nothing else.

The window by the staircase was wide open again, letting the cold wind flow through inside.