✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

ELEVEN | BLUE EYES

❝I saw your eyes,
and I call this home, but it's not where I'm from,
it's the place I belong when I feel alone.❞ 

─────── 

ELEVEN | BLUE EYES

I looked for, Thomas even looked for Lucille in the whole house. Now that I wanted their presence they had decided not to show up. The great hall, the attic, the mines, they were not there. I went to the great hall one more time before giving up.

"Thomas?" I called softly yet he didn't show up. I stood by the large couch, with my hands on my hips, thinking and staring at the dilapidated walls, "this is the moment where I realise I've been talking to thin air and that I am, in fact, going insane." I said to myself.

I was starting to believe it, I was stressed out, still in some sort of mourning because of my father, I had all those ghost stories stuck into my head. Then, thank God I heard it. At least I wasn't mad. Pans or something hit the floor in the kitchen, I closed my eyes for a second, convincing myself that if I was going to be in that house, I had to learn how to get along with the ghosts that inhabited the house.

"Don't be scared, don't be scared, don't be scared . . ." I muttered as I made my way towards the kitchen with nothing I could use as a weapon, just my bare hands, "They haven't hurt you, have they? They would have already done it, don't be scared," the floorboards creaked underneath my feet with every step I took and the wind howled adding more dramatic effects to the moment. Every little thing that could be normal in any other house, turned completely dark and creepy in this particular one, but I had to be brave.

I pushed the door —violently, if I'm honest— making it slam against the wall. A scream echoed in the large room and, although I had already seen from whom the scream had come from, it startled me and made me scream too. I was hoping to see a ghost not a person.

"What are you doing here?!" I asked both angry and scared to Camile, the journalist, "How did you get in here?!"

"There are many ways to get into an abandoned house, broken windows, you can also use the main door, you know, when the owner forgets to lock it, even if there's nothing to steal from here," she said, "or is there?" She asked.

"There's nothing you can steal from here," unless she wanted to touch Lucille's ring, "please, get out. You shouldn't be here, this place could crumble at any time." I gently pushed her out of the kitchen and walked her to the door.

"If you think so, why are you here?" My lips parted, but the words got stuck in my throat. She smirked, raising an eyebrow, "The stories are true, aren't they?" she said, smiling, "they really are!"

"Myths, that's what they are—"

"Why do you avoid to talk about it, then? Why don't you let me finish my story? We could talk, interview you!"

"There's nothing to talk about! This is my family's property, leave now, take that voice recorder with you and leave . . ." I saw Lucille pacing quietly on the second floor, she  stared at us like we were her prey, warning us. I tried to continue as calm as I could, "Please, or bad things could happen."

"What kind of bad things?" I sighed quietly, she was a journalist, the questioning was in her nature, even if I hated it. I struggled to come up with something as I walked her to the door yet I always kept an eye on Lucille. Thomas had said he'd protect me from her, but I didn't see him anywhere near. I opened the door and Camile stepped out.

"I'll call the police," I managed out, "I'm sure the newspaper or wherever place you work for won't like to have an employee who breaks into private property."