Just A Memory

The House

Serenity, my house

Monday, September 3rd, 10:00 PM

I don't know how good a town Serenity is. I've never lived anywhere else in my entire life. From what I've heard, it's everything a town should be- Normal, calm, and peaceful. 

I can't even claim that's a fact, though, as I haven't been anywhere outside of the neighborhood and maybe a few other places, like the local shop, or that bowling alley. Who knows, maybe it's full of chaos and mentally insane individuals and not the happy go lucky town I think it is. What I can say for sure, though, is how beautiful the neighborhood is. A lineup of exactly 11 houses, 12 if you count the abandoned one, all almost perfectly identical, but each with their own little things about them. Currently there's three with well kept gardens, each with a wonderful collection of botany, two surrounded by pine trees, and one which consistently has its Christmas lights up at least six months before Christmas.

It's not just our setup of houses, it's the people too. Five of the houses have a single child, three of which are around my age. There's also three houses with two children, with three kids around my age. I've always wanted to hang out with them, but either my low self esteem got in the way or my mom didn't allow me because she thought they were bad influences- but what could they be? Bullies? People who are always high on some sort of drug? Demons!? I never really took her seriously when she warned me about them, but I never went against her judgement. I always just tell myself that my mom is just doing what she thinks is best for me, and I would never want to hurt her, and that always keeps me from doing something irrational. Plus sides to not hanging out with the other people is that it keeps me away from all the drama and allows me to be more efficient with my time, learning new things or memorizing the neighborhood from front to back. It's normal, and that's the way I love it.

Something's wrong though. Every day, something else seems to be different. My eyes see nothing different but my mind is paranoid. Is it the haunted house on the block? Sometimes, in my spare time, if I listen hard enough, I can hear what the kids are saying, and they like to tell stories about that old mysterious house. They did it more when they were younger, but they still occasionally do tell them to this day. They say that sometimes, late at night, if you look out your window, you see a boy. Watching, lurking. What is it? A ghost seeking vengeance, like the kids say? A mere trick of the light, like my mom says? Whatever it is, it can't be the source of my paranoia or whatever I've been experiencing lately. I've known that place my entire life. Nothings changed since then, nothing is haunting it, and nobody's been in the house since then. I'm sure of it. What if something isn't right though? It couldn't be... but I have to check, just to be sure. Lifting the blinds up slightly to try to spot the ghost, I looked out cautiously. There it was. A shadow, in the shape of a boy- around my age I think. It couldn't be though- it just didn't make sense. When I blinked again, the shadow was gone. Just an illusion... probably.

I shouldn't be staying up this late thinking about this kind of stuff. The first day of high school starts tomorrow, and I have to be prepared. The teachers won't like it if I'm late, which is what will happen if I sleep in- and I have to be thinking at full capacity to make new friends and achieve my goal of perfect grades. Trying to relax myself, I take deep breaths, calming myself down; first trying to count sheep, like my mom always does when she's tired, then listing a ton of facts I know about the neighborhood. Even as I drift to sleep, serene, I can't help but feel unsettled. Something in the back of my mind tells me something big is coming, much bigger than any grade could be. The question is, will I be prepared when it does?