father's secret

the secret

Harold inherits a big 3 story house from his father who recently passed in a car accident. He moves into his new home shortly after receiving it...

The first few days are nothing contrary to normal, but after 6 days of living in the house he finally goes into the attic which he was not allowed to enter as a child and even now as an adult and the owner of the house he chooses to avoid it because it just creeps him out. Even with this he chooses to look through and rearrange the attic, the attic was surprisingly very tidy, his father must have cleaned it a lot, however even though the attic is tidy and clean he still looks through it.

While looking through he comes across a box that has tape that is "open at your own risk... I AM WARNING YOU ⚠️" this intrigued Harold, however he hesitated opening it due to the warnings, but he eventually gave in and opened the package, disregarding what the tape said, but this will turn out to be his biggest mistake...

When he opened the box, from the box came the most foul stench he had ever smelled, the smell was equivalent to wet rotting flesh. In the box there were four separate items a note that was written on an A4 piece of paper that was neatly folded in quarters, the note read "Harold, if you're reading this either I failed at protecting you and preventing you from coming up here or I have passed and you didn't mind my warning, I just wrote this letter to tell you I am deeply sorry but you have the right to know what happened to your mother, to learn what happened to her you will have to watch the videos".

Along with the note, there were 3 tapes, none of them had titles, however Harold could still remember the dates and he could vividly recall what happened on the day of the tapes and he does not remember them doing anything interesting on either dates... But wait he remembers that his mother had gone missing on the same day as the first tape.

So he decided to watch the tapes out of curiosity and against his better judgement. He starts with tape number one; it starts off with his father sitting  Infront of the camera, he looked completely insane, he starts off by saying . "Hi, my name is Joshua Gordon, if you're watching this tape I am most likely dead, probably by my own hand, and this tape is a record of my wife's disappearance, she disappeared earlier today while she was on her way to the grocery store, I do not know where she is and I am looking for her intently and I will find her, mark my words I, WILL, FIND HER!!!" Then the video cuts to a clip of a woman tied up and gagged in a white room for a split second before ending. This video gave Harold the creeps, the ending was so quick and abrupt he could not even recognize the woman in the room, but it also on the other hand made him even more curious as to what was on the second tape.

(Harold removes the first tape from the VHS player and inserts tape number 2)

Now tape 2 is where everything starts to become visibly dark, the second tape starts off the same as the first one just something is off, Harold does not know what but something is wrong with his father. His father says "Hi, Joshua Gordon here, it's been a week since my wife went missing and her disappearance has one hundred percent affected me, I am very lonely without her, please whoever took her I beg of you, PLEASE bring her back, I don't know what I would do without her, she is the love of my life, my rock, the only reason I live, please, I beg you, please bring her back " (Joshua thinks he has turned off the camera and he answers a phone call) the person on the other line asks "Hi, Joshua did you make the tapes?" Joshua responds "Hello, I just finished the second one, there is no way the police will be onto us, nobody knows and nobody will know about this, it's just between the 2 of us" the person on the other line responds "That's incredible!" Harold does not know what to think after watching this second tape, what does his father mean by "There is no way the police will be onto us" "What is he talking abt?" "What did he do?" Are the only thoughts running through Harold's mind at the moment.

(Harold becomes anxious to watch the third tape but he grows the courage and watches the third tape)

Harold turns on the final tape and it starts off differently from the other 2, in the third one his father is walking throughout the house in what looks to be the dead of night and he whispers "Hi, Joshua Gordon here, I have to be quiet because my son is asleep upstairs and I do not want to wake him" (his father makes his way to the basement door and pulls out a special key to unlock it) "Now this is the basement, in here I have a special secret to show you" (Joshua opens the door and makes his way down the stairs into the actual basement itself) "Katherine? Oh, Katherine? Where are you Katherine? Oh there you are you little slut. Now tell the camera, why did you cheat on me? Since you refuse to tell me." (Joshua shoves the camera in Katherine face and gestures her to answer) "Joshua I am telling you and I have been telling you for the last month, I did not cheat and I would never have cheated on you, I do not know why you think I cheated, just please Joshua let me out! PLEASE!" She cried and pleaded. "I've had enough of this shit, if you do not admit to cheating and you do not tell me why you will lose a fingernail and for everytime you deny it, you will lose another fingernail until you do not have anymore." (This scares Katherine down to the bone and she finally confesses) "Okay, I cheated, but I only did it once, and because you don't give me everything I need, I need love, compassion, money and more things you can not give me." Joshua replies "You bitch!" Joshua pulls out a hacksaw and starts disassembling Katherine piece by piece starting at her fingers and toes going up to her legs then torso then up to her neck, next he takes her dismembered body and tosses it into a black bag and takes it out of view of the camera. He comes back and picks up the camera and takes it upstairs with him, he silently locks the basement door and walks to the backdoor and exists through it, he burns the severely dismembered corpse of his wife. (The camera pans to Joshua) Joshua says "And this is why you do not cheat on your husband you little whore."

This last tape sends Harold's brain into a spiral, he does not know what to think, the man he looked up to for his whole life is a psychopath and he murdered his mother. Harold takes the box of tapes the next day and goes to the police to get them investigated, the police sent the tapes to a psychiatrist to get it inspected and the psychiatrist came to the conclusion that Joshua suffered from a severe case of psychotic schizophrenia and this aswell as the findings of his wife's infidelity ended up driving him  to killing his wife.