the house 2

watching TV

JUL 7 2017

Chapter 6

alica POV:

I was watching tv Every now and then, I would hear what sounded like footsteps or banging coming from below my floorboards. I guessed it was just normal house sounds, maybe pipes, and I got used to it. After a few months of pretty non-stop banging - which no one else could hear - things started to escalate. Heavy furniture started falling down on its own. A solid oak dresser simply toppled over as I was sitting on my bed, across the room, watching tv

A few days later, I was playing with my brothers Xbox when it suddenly the batteries drained I asked my father to put new ones in, only to find that they ran down again almost immediately. We assumed the toy was broken and forgot about it.

From the day we had arrived in the house, I had known I wasn't alone in that room. I had grown up in isolation and know what that felt like - this was different. I started responding to the knocking sounds, "Stop it! I'm trying to watch tv I Twins were playing

My mother was moderately concerned, but assumed I was just playing with the twin boys. A few months later, I had started to experience odd cold air down her back so she turn around and there was nothing there, then then in which commonplace memories in the house. For example, I remembered in vivid detail walking between the laundry room and my mother's art studio, sliding my little body between the framing. I knew for certain that the framing had been up for some time before they got around to sheet rocking. I asked my mother over breakfast one morning when it was that we'd finished the basement. She looked at me, puzzled, and responded that the basement had in fact always been finished.

The banging sounds got louder, nothing battery powered would last more than a few minutes in my room and things were constantly moving around. Small items - diaries, stuffed animals, keep sakes, would rearrange themselves on a near daily basis. I felt that whatever I was sharing my room with was angry, scared - like the puppy me friend adopted years ago. I started speaking to 'it' more, and at this point started to feel strongly that whatever it was I living with, was female. The more I spoke out loud, the less things moved about. I felt a kind of longing, like I had knocked on a door and was waiting to be let in.