Abandoned

Eleven//

Over a month has passed since my family and I moved to Teignmouth and I'm starting to realise that this town is trying to hide something from the people outside looking in, even the ones that live here too. Although I've never asked anyone about the murder/suicide I have been getting glares or silence from the people I have mentioned it to. The librarian, the mystery man at the coin wash, even Dominic and Matthew. They all know something that I don't, and I'm hoping to find out what it is soon.

I now have two keys set out in front of me along with the pictures and the newspaper articles. For all I know, these are the only clues left but I still haven't found out where the keys lead too. The one with the etched on numbers is the hardest one to figure out, but it's the only one out of the two that gives me some direction. The gold one is just gold. There's nothing on it that tells me to go anywhere nor any connection to every thing else I have.

"Didn't the previous owner say that there was an attic? We could just store all our stuff in there until we have time to unpack it," I heard my father across the hall in their room say as I hung the picture and newspapers back on my wall. "We just have to find the key first."

I opened my door and stuck my head into the hallway, seeing my parents door closed and the corridor dimly lit. My room is the first on left that I get to when I climb the stairs, then it's my parents on the right, and the bathroom next to theirs. But there's this door at the far left end of the hallway that's been locked since we got here. I never bothered to mess with it since I thought it was just a closet or a pantry, but it's now of some interest to me.

Grabbing the two keys from my wardrobe, I creeped down the hallway silently as to not disturb my parents. I reached the heavy padlock on the door to find that it was coloured gold, like the key. Finding it a little peculiar that a key I found at the market led to a door in my house I examined the both of them before putting it into the lock. Twisting it slowly, I listened to the pop of the mechanism coming out of place as I unlocked the padlock.

Taking it off of the door, I turned the doorknob and opened the heavy wooden door, hearing it creak and moan in resistance. I took my time opening it so my mother and father couldn't hear it and after a couple of seconds I had it open wide enough to let me slip through. There were about ten stairs leading to another door that looked down at me ominously, making me feel like I shouldn't go up there.

With the light from the hallway seeping from the crack in the door behind me, I started my ascend to the attic. The stairs were solid and didn't make any noise as I kept my hand against the wall to support and guide me. As I climbed to the top I felt like whatever was behind the door is meant to be seen, is meant to be found by someone. That someone will be me.

Placing my hand to the knob I feel the cold air from the room in front of me chill my skin and bones, enhancing the dark sense that surrounds me. I turn the handle and pushed the door in as I step into the room. It's dark and cold. My bare feet sting as they touch the cold wood flooring and goosebumps travel along my body in waves. I feel the wall beside me for a light box and found it, flicking the switch to illuminate the room in a bright yellow glow.

I walk forward and examine everything that is around me. Boxes sit along both sides of the wall, some molded and falling apart and others that appear untouched in years. In front of me is a square window that looks out to the boardwalk, once a mirror that reflected the joy of the town. There are some pieces of furniture on the back wall and some against the wall ahead of me. It seems to me that someone had put away what they owned and left, forgetting that they had their belongings up here.

I walked over to a pile of boxes and took them off of each other, lining them up by the dates labeled on the sides of them. It started from '92 to '95, each one getting gradually lighter. Taking the tape off of the first box, I looked through the contents to find more polaroid pictures like the stack that I found in the wardrobe. Just like the others they all had the same person in them. A short, skinny, brunette boy. There was really nothing else in the box besides letters and college reports.

In the next box was the polaroid camera itself and what I suppose was the last pictures taken. All the pictures had a new recurring person. A blonde haired, grey eyed boy who looked similar to Dominic. I flipped through them all and in every single one of them he was smiling his usual bright smile, making the other boy in the picture smile just as wide. They seemed to be really close friends, but what disturbed me was that Dominic hadn't told me about this boy.

"I would stop what you're doing." I jumped up at the sound of another voice in the room, making me drop the pictures to the floor. I looked around for the person but I didn't find anyone until an elongated shadow appeared from the corner of the room. "Tsk, look what you've done. Those have personal value, April."

"Dominic?" I asked the shadow as it stepped out of the dark and into the center of the room. It was indeed him but he didn't look like his chipper self. His smile that he always wore on his face had turned into a deep frown and his grey hues were botched black around the socket, and his neck was burned red. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm trying to stop you from getting yourself killed," he said, coming closer to where I stood. The boy looked unhappy and sad as he reached down to pick up the pictures that are now scattered across the floor. I watched him sigh at the picture he had in his hand as he rubbed his finger along it. "I don't want you to end up like Matthew did. And I don't want your family to go through what I had too."

He motioned to his neck as he handed me the stack of pictures and sat down on a box. I shook my head as everything started to cloud up. There was so much going on that I couldn't understand at this point. Opening then closing my mouth I tried to formulate a proper sentence but there is a lot that is getting mixed together that I can't tell the difference between them.

"What do you mean? What the hell is going on?"

"I thought you had everything figured out?" Dominic questioned, surprised. I took a seat on one of the boxes lined up in front of me and rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hands. "I'm going to tell you but you have to promise me that when I'm done you need to stop looking into all of this."