Survived By Secrets

2 • The Dead Girl's Diary

Lya hesitated to go inside the old house in front of her. She didn't actually think it was haunted but it looked dangerous. She also didn't want to get in trouble for trespassing. 

He should be out by now, she thought. She chewed on her lip as she thought of the chances of them getting caught. It seemed unlikely since they were not a lot of houses nearby for anyone to see her and the area was mostly abandoned. Probably hard to sell a house that is right across a huge pile of rotting brick and wood. A complete eye-sore. 

Lya took a deep breath and walked across the overgrown grass towards the front door. She stepped onto the cracked stone steps that were once beautiful but now caked in mud and dirt. She brought her hand up to the thick oak door but stopped herself before she could knock on it.

She let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. No one lives here, she thought to herself. She placed her hand on the brass handle and then opened the door. It groaned loudly like she had woken it up from a long nap. She stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.

"Ryan!" She walked across the empty room. There was an old fireplace in the corner. It stood like a single flower in an open field, wilting away with time. Dust coating the mantle, as a marker of the amount of years that had gone by. She passed some stairs and entered what looked like a kitchen, but she couldn't be sure because it was bare. There was an opening to another room that looked like a grand dining room. Tile floors connected the two rooms. There was hole in the ceiling of the dining room where she imagined a chandelier would hang. She looked up as distant footsteps paced around above her.

"Ryan is that you?" she shouted. There was an eerie silence as she listened for a response. A silence that didn't want to be disturbed so she stood still, not making a sound.

"I'm up here." She went back to the room she came from, then up the stairs. She slowed down as she went up because the stairs felt like they would collapse under her feet. When she reached the hallway lined with doors at the top, she stopped. She couldn't be sure which door he was behind. Then something opened up in the ceiling and she looked up to see stairs to an attic.

"What are you doing here?" Ryan asked. He was kneeling on the floor of the attic, motioning her to go up.

"Well, its nice to see you too." She padded up the stairs. "What are you doing in here so long?"

Ryan rubbed his arm, then turned to look behind him. "I found a box, it was hidden in the wall over there."

"But is that evidence that this place is haunted?" she joked. She walked towards the wooden box laying on the floor. "What's in it?"

Ryan followed after her, he opened it again. "There's some random stuff in here, doesn't really make sense." He picked up the newspaper cutout, turning it so Lya could see the bolded words printed at the top. Her eyes widened as she read it.

"Ryan, someone was murdered here. We should leave." She crossed her arms as he shifted his weight. He opened his mouth to say something but quickly drew it in a thin line as he stared at something behind her. The wind whistled through the open windows, sending a chill up her spine. Lya glanced behind her and then looked at Ryan again. She inhaled a sharp breath as she turned to face whatever he was looking at. "What is it?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"I'm leaving." She started walking towards the stairs.

"Lya, remember when I woke up after the accident?" She stopped walking, turning towards him.

"Yeah, you almost died. Its kinda hard to forget."

"Well this might sound crazy." He paused, looking down at the box in his hands. "I started hearing this voice in my head and—" He looked to a corner of the attic as if there was someone there. He turned his gaze back to Lya and said, "I can see people that aren't actually alive."

Lya stood there as he stared at her, waiting for a response. But she didn't say anything. What could she say? She didn't believe in the supernatural. But she didn't want him to think she didn't believe him. Maybe it was just a side-effect to his near-death experience.

"The voice told me to come here. That's why I wanted to come, not because of Jaylen. There's something it wants me to find out." He shifted his weight again when Lya stayed silent. "That girl that died. She's here."

"Where?" she finally said lifting her eyebrow. His gaze went back to the corner of the room.

"Over there. She's just sitting and playing with nothing in her hands," he said, lines forming across his forehead. "I need to find out who killed her. That's what it wants me to do." 

She walked over to him and picked up the diary from the box in his hands. She opened it to the first page and at the top the date was written.

May 22, 1965

Lya squinted, struggling to read the handwritting. "Whose diary is this?"

"She said its hers."

"What do you mean?"

"The girl said its her diary when I was looking at it before you came," he said. "Maybe I can talk to her." He went over to the corner again and bent down as if talking to a small child. "What's your name."

He stayed there as if waiting for a response. Lya tightened her lips. "That box, why did you hide it?" He tilted his head like he was listening to something. "Was it your mother's?"

After awhile, he stood up and faced Lya. "The box is her brother's, Lawrence." Lya didn't say anything. She couldn't explain what was happening nor could she made sense of it. He turned back to the empty corner, bending down again. "Why did he hide it? Why did he put those things in there?"

He paused again, running a hand through his hair. "She said that he didn't want their parents to find it." He looked back at her again and then didn't say anything for awhile. "Apparently, they have a lot of secrets."