Whispers

Part Four - Ryan

Ryan stopped running and put his hands on his knees when he felt like his lungs would honest to god implode on him. Panting heavily, he lifted his head and came face to face with a house. He narrowed his eyes at the house and lifted one eyebrow; it was in damn near perfect condition. Nothing looked rotten or out of place. None of the wood boards that made up the house curled at the edges. Nothing looked rusty or doused in years upon years of mould. But the windows were boarded up and the steps looked permanently wet.

"Is this where this girl lives?" he asked the air, hoping for an answer -even though he wasn't sure he wanted on yet-.

"Yes. I'm warning you Ryan. Do not go in there." The same voice from before whispered. Ryan only smirked, though.

"It's a girl. How diabolical could she really be?" he snickered. Then, he felt hands on his back, angrily pushing him, and hands around his arms, pushing him hard.

"Then go and find out." The voice hissed viciously behind him.

"Wait..." Ryan stuttered and began shaking his arms violently, but couldn't loosen the grip of the invisible hands. He felt fear rise up in his chest again and hit at the top of his throat, feeling it burn almost the way bile did. How bad could she be... he said to himself over and over in an attempt to ease his nerves, but never seemed to reach success. His breathing slowly began to increase, and eventually, he started to wheeze and slightly hyperventilate. He eventually found himself inside of the house.

It was warm, he noticed. His skin prickled at the drastic temperature difference compared to outside, and he slid out of his rain-soaked sweater, dropping it to the floor just as he heard the lock of the door click and echo through the house. "Shit." He said, whipping his head around and reached his hand out and latched on to the doorknob, wiggling it vigorously and trying to turn it as hard as he possibly could, but the thing wouldn't budge, not even the tiniest bit. "Shit."  He repeated. He dropped his hand hard to his side and turned back around, walking away from the door to explore.

He walked into what looked like a dining area, but there was only a knocked over chair and a broken china cabinet with a couple still intact fancy painted plates. A dead chandelier hung above where a table could've once been. Ryan heard glass and broken ceramic crunch loud under his footstep, and he cringed. "Crap..." he mumbled and froze, listening carefully for any sign of something responding to the noise. But heard nothing. He moved his foot again and walked into a kitchen. The refrigerator light wasn't working, and the only food in there was an extremely rotten apple and horridly smelling curdled milk. He gagged and closed the door, then began messing with a light switch, coming to the conclusion that all of the electricity was out in the house, and probably the entire town.

Ryan left the kitchen and into what was possibly a family room once, as there was a slightly comfortable looking, ripped up rocking chair a little bit off from the centre of the room, and a fireplace. "Sweet." He said, walking past the chair and up to the fireplace. He patted his shorts down and found his matchbox that he bought at the hotel from his vacation. He pulled out a match and flicked it against the side of the box, listening to the crackle and scratching then smelt burning wood. He watched the head of the match spark and explode a small flame before throwing it into the charcoaled wood in the fireplace and watched that flare up as well. He felt hot smoke embrace him in seconds.

He plopped down heavily into the rocking chair, staring at the growing fire. He listened to the crackles and watched little pieces of black and white ash jump around in the little heatwaves above the fire before burning up in red and orange. The room he was in warmed up more than it already was fairly quick as the fire crackled on. He eventually looked away from the fire and took in his immediate surroundings; all the boarded up, slightly cracked or broken windows, a couple door frames with closed and obviously heavily locked doors, just like the door blocking his way out of here. Every time he walked past it, he still tried to open it, hopelessly wishing a miracle would just happen suddenly, before he gave up completely. He was stuck here, with this "girl" that was absolutely nowhere to be found.