A Lily's Shadow

Part Two

*authors note* the second half of my urban legend, in which me and a few friends explore into the haunted legend.

Soren's Game

"They say he went crazy." Seth whispered, his eyes alight.

"Killed the uncle." Jeremy added.

"What about the little girl? What about Lily-ann?" My voice added to the hushed conversation.

The two boys shared a look, "...killed her too."

A silence fell on our group, as if simultaneously we had all agreed to spend a moment mourning over the tragedy that had happened decades ago. The scraping sound of dead limbs rubbing against each other could be heard off from the multiple trees that were scattered across the yard, and the old house, that loomed like an ominous shadow over our heads, creaked and groaned as if it too were in pain over the dark events it had hosted. Besides that nothing moved, even the knee high grass was still.

"So then what happened?" Emma piped up from beside me, breaking the thick silence, "To the brother I mean."

"No one knows for sure. He just disappeared." Seth smirked at our pale faces, jumping right back into the story.

"Some say he wandered off and died in the forest, or fell into the river and drowned. But the truth is no one knows for sure." Jeremy explained matter-of-factly.

"It's said that his soul is still bound to the house. That, though all the work he did to escape and break free, he's still forever trapped by the memories of how he was treated."

"That's so sad." Emma fretted besides me. I didn't say anything, knowing my comment would probably just disturb everyone further.

"And isn't there a story about Lily-ann too?"

Jeremy nodded in his all-knowing, intelligent way, "It's told that every so often the ghost of a little girl appears in the house, always searching for her brother, assumingly to take him to heaven or something, as the story goes. But he always hides from her, too guilty to face the fact that he had killed his little sister."

"Thus creating a big ghostly game of hide and seek." Seth jumped in, grinning in the mischievous and demented way only he could, "And we're here to join in."

Emma shifted from foot to foot nervously besides me. We all knew we were here to explore a haunted house, but the way Seth put it unnerved all of us. He never took anything seriously, and he seemed to be the only one to see this as a mere game. The rest of us were feverous to get in and then get back out, merely to be able to say we had explored a haunted house.

"Come on, let's go." Jeremy's steady voice encourage us and we thronged towards the crumbling house.

It was surprisingly bright in the house. The multiple gaps in the walls and ceiling let in the bright moon light. The rays of the full moon illuminated dappled spots of the house in shimmery fairy light. Seth was handing out flashlights to us, but advising us to keep them off. He didn't want to scare away the ghosts; he said. The rest of us just nodded and shoved the flashlights into our backpacks. We followed him deeper into the rotting structure, growing uneasy as everything grew steadily darker, hiding away from the silvery light of outside. The shadows grew into huge dark masses as we stepped into a new room, climbing up the walls. All of our hearts jumped into our throats, before Seth snatched out his flashlight and shone it on the masses. The darkness dispelled around that one beam of light and it lit up the long shadows, exposing them as nothing more than heaps of furniture piled on top of each other. We all let out a breath of relief, except for me who instead let out a shriek. Everyone spun to look at me as I grimaced, holding my head. Pain thrummed through my head, throbbing strongly and making me cringe, before it gradually started to ebb. It felt as if my head had just been slammed against the wall.