Coven of the Crimson Owl

Chapter 1

Hey! Yo!

Thank you all so much for all the support on Into the Depths Below. I started writing it for the 8 Chapter Contest from January to February. It means a lot to me that y'all liked reading it as much as I liked writing it. So here's an original work I started many years ago but am finishing/reworking just because! 

Also Into the Depths Below is now a properly published book on Lulu.com! A huge accomplishment for me as I have always been kinda shy about sharing my work with a lot of people but here I am. 

Thank you all once again, you have made me come out of my writers shell and be more confident in my works! 

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House 502 on Cross Avenue was always abandoned as long as anyone can remember. There was never a for sale sign, yet never any signs of life entering or leaving. Owls could be seen perched from the roof of the house during the stillness of the night. Occasionally you'd hear the sound of crows cawing from the rotting trees. The odd person would always avoid that side of the street while walking, always crossing to the other side. If someone was walking their dog, they'd bark loudly until their owner dragged them away.

The house itself was in no pristine condition. If it was, it would probably lose its haunting appeal. Old, decaying boards climb higher than anyone dare look, making the house look infinitely tall. Windows line the walls, broken or boarded up so no one can look in even though it was rare for a person to ever try. In some places the wood had rotted away so quickly holes in the wall could be seen yet were hastily boarded up from the inside. Those boards didn't cover every inch of the openings so sometimes you could get a slight glimpse of what is inside. Not that anyone would ever want to. However few curious individuals have.

They can never seem to say what they saw if they even saw anything.

Every grandma and abuela had stories about that house. House 502, the house of disappearances. All the stories were the same:

A brave or curious group of young adults enters the house, hoping to solve the mystery of the house, maybe just to have a night away from their families, thinking all the stories about the house are bogus wives tales passed down to keep kids scared. It's all the same. Maybe they're hoping to find their friends who entered the house years or months earlier, maybe hoping to get a look at the interior architecture of a house hundreds of years old, maybe hoping to uncover some secret about black magic and the old witches of the past.

They go in and never come back out, full of hope. Hope, hope, hope.

It all gets crushed eventually.

Little Johnny, Steven, Jacob, Danny, and Kenny go to the house laughing and joking, thinking all the stories are over exaggerations, brave as can be. Three days later, their parents still haven't seen or heard from them. Three more days pass and the wanted posters start showing up in every coffee shop window and every street lamp. Let three more pass and those posters disappear one by one, the hopes of their kids coming back dwindling into nothingness.

Everyone always wants to have an excuse: Oh, it's just a bunch of drunks playing pranks on the town, the kids caught the next train out of town and just ran away, they'll come back when they're ready. Excuse after excuse can pour out of a person's mouth, they'll never have a real answer.

Anyone just passing through or hearing about the house in passing conversation have labeled it a tourist trap. Most have shrugged off the true nature of the house, refusing to believe the rumors unless they were able to witness the horrors for themselves. Not many people are brave or willing enough to understand.