The Best Night of Our Lives (Solby)

Chapter 26

Corey's POV

Colby rings the doorbell of the witch's house, and we hear movement on the other side of the door. A few seconds later, the door creaks open. The same woman with long dark hair and pale white skin looks at us as though she's seen a ghost.

"Hey. What's going on?" Colby says.

"Hi," the witch says.

"We brought a couple more people with us if that's okay," Sam says, motioning to Elton and Aaron.

They introduce themselves to her, and she extends the same courtesy to them as well.

"Come in. I've been waiting for you guys," the witch says, turning her back to us and leading us inside the house. She goes through the routine of saging us, one by one. She does it to Sam first, then Jake, then me.

When she gets to Aaron, he gives her a cautious look. I know it's because he believes certain things when it comes to religion and paranormal stuff.

"Have you been saged before?" she asks.

"A few times," he says.

She begins to sage Elton. "How about you?"

"This is my first time," Elton responds.

The witch begins to sage Colby. As she does it, it seems like she's doing it a little bit longer than she just did with us.

Seconds later, we're all sitting down around the same table we'd been at the last time we came to this house. Jake and the witch are sitting next to each other on the same side of the table while Colby, Sam, and I are all sitting on the opposite side with each of us sitting in the same spots as before. Elton and Aaron are sitting next to me with their backs facing the kitchen.

Sam adjusts the camera to face the witch and Jake. "So this is our second time back here. We kind of wanted to see if we could get any answers from what happened last time."

"Well, I've heard that you two have been having some bad luck since you guys have been here." The witch points at Sam, then at Colby.

"Well, I got into a car accident a few months after we came back from the forest. Then Colby's depression got really bad and he..."

"It's okay, Sam," Colby says reassuringly. "Everyone knows what happened. I don't mind talking about it on camera."

"How bad did the depression get?" the witch asks.

"It got really bad," Colby says. "I started dealing with depression a year before we came here the first time. But I was never open about it with anyone. Then, after we came back from the forest last year, Sam got into the accident, and I became even more depressed than I was before. It was gradually getting worse as time went on. Then it got to the point where I stayed in my room all the time. Some days, I didn't want to get out of bed."

It goes silent for a moment. Then the back door opens on its own. Everyone looks at the door in awe, though I'm not as surprised as I was the first time it happened. The witch closes the door and turns to face us again.

"Does this stuff happen often?" Elton asks.

The witch gives Elton an anxious look. "It happens all the time."

"Really?" Elton says.

"Yeah. I remember the last time these guys came here, I told them that I get scared when I'm alone here."

Aaron and Elton look at each other, unsure of what to say. Then Aaron breaks the silence. "Sam and Colby said that there was a death in this house."

The witch nods. "Yeah, there was a death in this house." She briefly explains the story of how the death had occurred.

Then everyone turns back to Colby.

Sam takes Colby's hand, reassuring him that it's okay for him to talk about our experience at the witch's forest affected us. Mainly, how it affected him and Sam the most.

"When Sam got into the accident, I felt this overwhelming fear and anxiety that I'd never felt before," Colby says, placing his hand over Sam's and holding it tight. "I thought I was going to lose him for good. But I didn't.

"After that, my depression started getting worse. I felt like I was a waste of space. Not long after that, I tried to take my own life."

Hearing Colby speak right now brings me back to that horrible moment in time.

I was downstairs in the trap house when I heard Sam call out to everyone, clearly in distress. "Someone call 911!"

"What happened?" I called back.

"It's Colby," Sam said loud enough for everyone to hear.

Jake, Aaron, Elton, and I all ran upstairs and down the hall to Colby's room. That's when we saw Sam standing near the bathtub in the bathroom. Colby was laying in the tub, bleeding from both of his wrists.

I pulled out my phone and called 911. I stayed on the phone with the operator until the paramedics got there. Once they left with Colby, we all got in our cars and drove the hospital.

Once Colby was medically cleared, he was put on a psychiatric hold and went through a psychiatric evaluation. When it was determined that he was a danger to himself, he spent time in a mental hospital for a few days. Then, once he was discharged and brought back home, Elton had told us that Colby wasn't well and needed to be some place where he could have help. It was a difficult decision to make, and Colby was very upset with us for a while.

But he got better. At least that's what we all thought.

The sound of Colby's voice explaining what he went through during that dark time breaks me from the memory. As I look at him now, I'm wondering if maybe there was a reason the witch had saged him a little bit more than the rest of us. Did she sense something off about him? Could she tell that he was different than he used to be?

I don't know what's going on with Colby, but he definitely isn't the same person he used to be.

Hey, guys. Just a fair warning, some triggering topics related to mental health will be coming up. Read at your own risk.