Beyond (Niall Horan) (COMPLETED)

Chapter Sixteen

Eric’s POV

Mom and Dad leave to take Mariana to the hospital and I stay at the open front door, waving goodbye to them until their car turns down the street and I can’t see them anymore. Once they’re gone, I sigh and go back into the now empty house, closing the door behind me.

It was time to do some research of my own.

Normally I don’t believe the crap that my sister tries to get me to believe, but her thing with this ghost boy was…different. She has been very adamant about his existence. Usually if she’s just bullshitting me she drops the act after a day or two, but she’s been going on about this Niall guy since before we even moved here!

I was going to find out the truth.

I go upstairs to my sister’s room and see that the attic door is still opened and I can see practically all the way up the staircase. That staircase is where Mariana had fallen so I guess Mom and Dad had forgotten to close the door before they whisked my sister away to the hospital. These stairs, after all, are where she had fallen.

I take one step up before stopping, deciding that I’ll probably need a flashlight or something. Getting off the staircase, I run out of my sister’s room and go down the stairs, to the kitchen. I saw Dad pack away all the flashlights and emergency electronics (in case the power were to ever go out) in one of the drawers. I just had to figure out which one.

It takes me a few minutes, but I finally find the right drawer and pull out a long, slender, black flashlight. I turn it on once to make sure that it works and I am relieved to see that yes, it works fine. So I close the drawer once I have what I need and go back upstairs, going to my sister’s bedroom once again.

This is weird. Mariana and I used to share a bedroom before we moved here, but after the move I thought I would never have to go into my sister’s bedroom again. But here I was, indeed going into my sister’s bedroom, invading her privacy just to see if this old dump of a house is really haunted by a freak show ghost.

I need help.

Taking a deep breath, I turn on the flashlight once again once I get to the attic’s staircase and shine the light up the stairs. Suddenly, I feel a chill go down my spine, almost like using the flashlight was even scarier than before I had the light.

Okay Eric you can’t chicken out now. You have to figure out the ghost mystery once and for all…for the sake of your sister’s sanity.

Once the thought actually crosses my mind, I gasp, realizing that it’s true. Truer than I thought. If I didn’t figure my sister’s shit out right away, my parents my actually send her to some sort of mental hospital, or get her a shrink or therapist or something. They were really starting to worry about her and I know they wouldn’t wait around much longer.

I grit my teeth as I force myself to go up the stairs again, angling the flashlight’s beam so that I can see what’s upstairs. There’s a light which I turn on, but the light comes from a single bulb hanging loosely from the ceiling and doesn’t really help much. I was really glad that I remembered to bring the flashlight with me.

Once I’m up on the landing, I look around a little and don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then, with a jolt, I realize that I’ve never actually been up here before.

This was my chance to explore a little…explore and find evidence that my sister isn’t crazy.

I start with a box in the corner of the room. Opening it up, I sneeze a little as I breathe in some dust, but shake it off before digging into the box. What I find is actually cool-a bunch of old music records from the twenties and thirties. But there’s nothing that can help convince my parents that Mariana is actually telling the truth.

Setting that box aside, I open up a trunk. There’s nothing much in this one either-just a bunch of old clothes and bed sheets, some of which are yellowing with age.

I groan and stand up, dusting off my jeans. At the rate this is going, I’ll never find evidence that Mariana’s telling the truth!

Maybe she really is crazy…but I don’t give up just yet.

Aiming the flashlight to the ground, I cross the attic room and open up another box, though this one is a bit smaller than the box with the music records that I’d opened before. This box is filled with a bunch of old photos.

Finally!

Digging through the photos a little, I notice that they’re all of one family. There’s a husband and a wife and two boys. A lot of the photos are of the same family throughout the years, but I can’t find any sort of identification.

Until I find one photo that looks like the family is at the oldest son’s high school graduation or something similar. On the back of the photo reads Bobby, Maura, Niall and Greg Horan at Greg’s High School Graduation.

It gives a date too, but I don’t care about the date. All I can do is stare at one of the names on the back of the photograph.

Niall Horan.

That’s the boy that Mariana was talking about!

I grin and stuff the photo in my pocket, making sure that it doesn’t get too wrinkled. I finally have my proof that Niall Horan was a real person!

But wait…

All too soon, I realize that…I may have proof that Niall was a real person, but I don’t have proof that Niall Horan is the one that’s supposedly “haunting” this house. Knowing my parents, they would still question that. Especially my dad-my dad wanted answers to absolutely everything.

I decide to look around a little more, sorting through boxes and boxes of stuff. Most of them are filled with more photographs, but nothing proves that Niall died in this house-there wasn’t even a news article or anything!

I’m about to give up, when I notice a decently sized trunk in the corner of the room. Wondering how the hell I didn’t notice it before, I go over to it. There’s a lock on it, but to my surprise-and luck-the lock is broken and the trunk is easy to open.

But once I open the trunk, I immediately wish I hadn’t.

I look down into the trunk…and scream.

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