The door creaked open, moving open a centimeter at a time under the delicate pressure of Brian's hand. It could have probably moved faster, but the wood of the door has grown moldy and soft with water and neglect, and if he would have pushed it harder, he would have probably pushed his hand right through the door- thing that he would have gladly avoided.
Once the door was open, it took Brian few minutes and several deep breaths but he eventually managed to take the first step inside the house. At first the darkness of the room didn't let him see pretty much anything and if weren't for the feeble yellowish rays o flight casted by the lamppost at the other side of the street, he wouldn't have even seen the dust covered furniture, or what remained of it.
It was only after some minutes that eventually Brian took another tentative step further inside the house but the wooden floor, already weak from the mold, cracked under his pressure. The boy immediately retreated his foot, finding himself again in the middle of the doorway.
He fought the urge to look behind his back, he knew that he would do that he would run away from that place and he wouldn't give them the satisfaction to call him a coward. And it was mainly that thought that gave him the courage to take that step forward once more. The floor cracked once more when he placed down his foot but this time he didn't take it back; instead, he took another step forward, and then another one. The floor kept making odd noises, as if it was cringing for the weight it was obliged to carry, but it never collapsed.
In few more steps, Brian found himself in what was once supposed to be the living room. Surely that place must have looked comfortable and warm in the past but now, also thanks to the light of the lamppost, it gave him the creeps.
The fabric of the sofas was faded and torn and there were springs sprouting here and there as if they were skeletal flowers and the little wooden table became house for the woodworms. Placed against the walls there were two imposing bookshelves but the books were covered with layers of dusts and it was impossible to see the titles without brushing all that dust away, thing that Brian didn't seem interested in doing.
The boy was moving around slowly, being careful not to touch anything, and soon he was again in the corridor. The further he walked, the darker the abandoned house became since the feeble light couldn't cast its rays so far away.
He had almost reached another room when something touched his face and he instinctively let out a scream, his heart hammering in his chest while his arms moved around desperately like a those of a drowning man.
'Coward, you're nothing but a coward!' – 'Poor little boy, run to your mother!' – 'Not ever a girl screams like that!'
He could hear them clearly, their accusing voices. And he could also see their laughing faces as they pointed their fingers at him.
No, he wouldn't have been humiliated like that. Not again.
Brian took few deep breath and once he managed to calm down he brought his still shaking hand to his face and with a quick gesture he wiped it off of whatever stuck on his face. Only when it was on his hands he realized that it was just cobwebs. Huge cobwebs in his defense. Those spider surely had a lot of years to work on them...
Once he was sure there weren't other dangers, the boy entered the next room; the kitchen. Or better what remained of the kitchen.
The first thing that caught his senses was the smell; there was indeed a scent of rotten food and hearing the flies buzzing around the fridge he immediately guessed to what that smell was due to.
Brian brought up his arm, using it as a shield against the smell.
Anyway, there wasn't exactly many things to see in the room and it wasn't just because he couldn't see almost anything in there. Once his eyes got used to the dark he indeed managed to catch a glimpse of a series of wooden furniture ruined by the mold and old wallpaper peeling down from the walls, so he decided to leave that room as soon as possible.
