Breathless | Colby Brock ✔️

16

We read about the history of the historical society a bit while eating crackers, trying to sober up before we headed out. Colby offered to drive, since he hadn't had anything to drink, a suggestion that Gwen and I graciously accepted. We practically forced water down Katie's throat, an attempt to flush the wine from her system. To our surprise, it actually worked pretty well.

"Maybe I should just go back to my dorm," Katie said slowly, starting to regret her agreement to come along with us.

"Too late," Gwen said. "We're doing this, so grow a pair and get ready to conjure up some ghosts."

I was grateful for my natural skepticism. The building used to be an old school, and as far as my logic was concerned, not many people died in schools. From what I could tell, the place was just ancient, and noises were common in buildings like that. It would be cool to wander around in, but I highly doubted that any paranormal activity was going on there.

Colby was growing excited as he looked up the place on his phone, showing me different reviews people had left on their website.

Found scratches on my back after we left. Cool, but creepy.

It felt like I was being watched. My group kept seeing shadows out of the corner of our eyes. Great exhibits, but overall scary vibe.

I rolled my eyes, trying not to get freaked out. I was a bit nervous after our trip to the asylum, but I reminded myself that I couldn't let one bad experience ruin my perspective. In such an old building, it was only normal that people would imagine things. It's human nature. Plus, they had a few creepy exhibitions about mysterious and strange deaths, so it was logical to assume that your hair would stand on edge after looking at such disturbing artifacts.

"Why would they want us to debunk it? Don't you think they would get even more people to come if it was haunted?" Gwen asked.

"I know they do big galas and stuff, so maybe they want to keep a good image. If I was a big-shot politician, I wouldn't wanna go to an art opening and leave with scratches all over me from demons or something. It's negative attention." I reasoned.

"Any publicity is good publicity," Gwen argued back. "People are drawn to the paranormal. The more people that come, the more money they make."

"Even if it isn't haunted, it'll still be creepy to stay there at night. Isn't the video gonna make it look even scarier, ghosts or no ghosts?" Katie said. She fumbled with her crackers, taking a long drink of water. "I mean, it's a really old building, so it'll be scary in the dark, regardless of if we 'debunk' it or not."

I nodded in agreement. "It doesn't make sense to me. I mean, I'm really glad they contacted us, it'll make for good content. Especially since we'll be the first ones doing a video there overnight. But it feels kinda sketchy."

Colby reached over the table, placing his hand over mine and rubbing reassuring circles. "You're over-thinking it, Nora. It's just a business deal - you get views, and they get publicity."

Katie just stared at me, hard. Her eyes were still pretty glassy. "I'm so confused."

"About what? Why they asked us to film there? We already told you," I laughed.

"When I asked you if you guys were a thing you said kind of, but you look like it's more than kind of, and I just don't get it, and you're both so pretty, and your babies would be cute, so why aren't you dating? It's so confusing. I don't understand. You're so complicated, Nora."

"She is, isn't she?" Colby grinned at me. "It's not for lack of trying on my part, trust me."

"Can we please just focus on the video? We have to leave soon." I begged, uncomfortable with the change in topic. Why did this always have to come up?