Hailey & The NoEnd House

Confusion

Marcus

It was almost ten minutes after I sent the message did I get a response. Nothing had really changed in that short amount of time. I was still pacing and Tommy was still playing video games, when suddenly my phone vibrated. It startled me even though I had been anticipating it. I quickly yanked my phone out of my pocket, worried about the response I would get. All the possible scenarios ran through my head on what she would say, yet I was still caught off guard by her response.

Im outside. I did it. Where r u guys?

I quickly looked up at the entrance of the house, hoping to see her. Eager to, in fact. But she wasn't there and at that I became extremely confused. Not to mention really frustrated. I expected her to come out of the house any second now, but she didn't. I looked around intently but there was no sign of her.

"Hey Tommy." I said, and he looked up. I continued to look around. Was she joking? "She said she's outside."

Tommy immediately hopped up and looked around eagerly. "Hailey!" He called. There was no answer. He turned to me, "Where?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. She just said that she's outside." I was bewildered. There was nowhere she could possibly be hiding, unless she ran for the trees, but I'm sure we would've noticed that. And why would she be hiding anyway?

"I'll go check behind the house." Tommy said, "Maybe she came out the backdoor or something."

I nodded. It made sense since she had to go through. And if that wasn't the case then she was probably trying to scare us. Maybe the house really wasn't haunted and she just wanted to freak us out a bit. Well, it wasn't funny to me and I responded, asking her what she was talking about and where she was. I also asked if she was ok. I was still pretty worried about her. I wanted to see her, so I could know for sure that she was unharmed. She was the suffer in silence type. She'd never say if anything was wrong with her. I knew this from experience. It takes a lot of prying for her to admit that she needs help. I guess she doesn't like to seem "weak." I never understood the logic.

After a moment, Tommy came back to me with a sad shrug. She wasn't there. I sighed.

"Did you text her?" He asked. I nodded, staring at the house, waiting for her to appear.

She responded, saying that she'll meet us later and she was going home. She also added that, whatever happened in there, was "crazy" and I wondered what she meant by that. Was it a confirmation that the rumors were true? Or was it fake and she just got scared a few times? She didn't even mention the money. That was pretty out of character for Hailey. She seemed pretty excited about it at first. Did she just not care about it anymore? I really wanted to see if she was ok so I figured we might as well go and meet her at her house.

"Come on." I said to Tommy, already leaving the NoEnd House.

"Wait! What about Hailey?" He asked, bewildered as he caught up.

"She said she was going home. We're gonna try and meet her there."

"Oh ok."

I was pretty worried the entire walk there. Was she really gonna be there? I just had this aching feeling that she was still in that house, losing her mind.

And she just didn't know it.

The walk was silent as I panicked internally and Tommy continued playing video games as a distraction. We were both in our own little worlds. And mine was chaotic. If it were a city, the buildings would be on fire and people would be running mad all because of one girl. That's the type of thing she does to me. It's scary sometimes being so deeply affected by one person. Almost like an insanity.