In The Walls

Questions

    A girl sits on an old armchair. Her head hangs over one arm rest while her legs dangle over the other, slightly swinging. An old painting sits upside down in her vision on the wall. A middle aged man in an old setting... she knows him. She had seen him wandering around the house. Curious about seeing his painting in the house, she asked him who he was.
    'What was his name?' She thought as she stared harder at the painting. She remembers it was a common old name, something that should be easy to remember. With a push the girl sits up to go towards the painting, now fixated on remembering who this man was. The harder she stared, the more she remembered and yet it still felt like she was getting nowhere. A gold plaque rests under the painting. 'William John Wills. Born 1834. Died 1861.'
    'William... Yes. That was it... I wonder where he went...' With the mystery of his name solved, the girl went and sat back on the armchair, swinging her legs onto the opposite side so that she was now staring out of the wide window.
    She saw birds. 'How many?' She wondered. 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.' Before they flew out of sight, she counted. She saw clouds. 'Which one's the darkest?' After a while she settled on a small one out to the left. 'Or is it right...? If I'm sitting down then it's left, but everything is upside down also. If I stand up it will be right, and the world will also be the right way up. So does that make it left... or right?'
    Her mind clouded with pointless questions as a way to pass the endless time. All the while a car pulled up down the enormous driveway and five people climbed out. A mother, a father, two little girls and a boy. The same annoyed expression rest on four of the five members. The last one, the boy, was in awe. His eyes widened as he gazed at the large structure he would soon get to call home. "August, before you go running off, take your bags to your room." The mother of the distracted boy used a firm tone in telling her son what to do before anything, to which he did without complaints.
    "Okay." Was his quick reply before running off with his bags straight through the front doors. "Which room. Which room. Which... room?" August mumbled to himself as he went on a hunt for his new bedroom, searching both first and second floors, only stopping when he came to one that looked different. Walking in further, he examined the walls, the furniture, even the back of the door. It was different to the rest of the house. There was a 'normal' bed in the corner of the room next to the excessively large window but there was an antique desk and wardrobe also in the room. The room had been painted such a light shade of blue it almost looked white. Posters of bands and other images hung on the walls, not many. There was a black rug and a small black bookshelf. It was weird. There were old things and new things in the one room, unlike any other room in the mansion. Sure there was the kitchen, laundry and lounge rooms but they were only updated to more modern times because it was just easier to replace things then to constantly repair them. This room however looked modified... by a teenager.
    "...This is my room..." August whispered to no one and yet expected everyone to hear. This was his room. It felt like it was made specifically for him. Decorated exactly how he would've decorated it. This was his. His new room. His new life. Time to explore.
    Dumping his bags in the middle of the room, August goes to leave, making sure to close the door on his way out. Unbeknownst to him, someone did hear him. She heard him declare her room as his. The bored girl from the chair had gone back to her room to get a book to entertain herself with. She did not hear the car pull up, nor did she hear the sound of foot steps, she was focusing on which book to pick when the door opened. She was so scared that she didn't move. All the boy did was look around the room. For a brief second his eyes went to the bookshelf, to her... but nothing. He continued looking as he said those bothersome words.
    'This is my room!' She wanted to say. 'You can't have it. Find a different one.' His words infuriated her. But she couldn't say anything. She was much too shocked at the fact that there was a person in the house. 'What is happening? Did the others know about this? Is he going to be here long?' Questions raced through her mind, similar to earlier before but these questions were a lot more serious to the girl. Definitely more serious then how many birds were in the sky.
    She stared at the door that the boy had left from and then down to his bags that he had dumped into the centre of the room. 'Who does he think he is?! Barging into my room and dumping his stuff as if he owned it. Own this, bitch!' Her thoughts were in a frustrated rage as she angrily scooped up the boys bags and proceeded to throw them out of the window. SMASH! The girl flinched as she stared at what she had done. Forgetting to open the window first, she had literally thrown the bags through the pane of glass, shattering it on impact. The girl popped her head out of the window to see the boys bags on the ground with broken glass littered all around it. 'My window... stupid solid stuff.'
    With the bags gone, the girl felt a little bit more in control again, although frustrated about her window. She decided that she needed answers so without a second thought she left the room in search for the boy.
    August hadn't made it very far. He was too busy admiring every little detail he could about his new home. The wallpapers that had detailed patterns of flowers and the large ceilings that arched overhead that had hanging lights that threatened to fall. He was so fascinated with everything he saw. The colour of the creaky floor boards, the shape and designs of the doors. Everything he saw he couldn't help but think about how much he would love to draw it. He played out a million stories in his head and yet all he had seen so far was the hallway. August knew he was getting distracted so he continued on. Opening doors and cupboards and rifling through things. He found books and clothes and strange, old things he didn't know the names of. Some things looked so old that he feared he'd break them with a single touch.
    August didn't stay too long in a single room. They were all fairly similar. He continued searching for nothing, until he came upon an archway that lead into a rather large room, probably the biggest on the second floor. The room was a study, filled with nearly an entire wall of old books. There was a wide window that took up most of another wall and a fireplace with a large painting of a middle aged man in an old setting that hung directly over it.
    The carpet was soft and there was a few armchairs placed seemingly random but the thing that caught his eyes the most were the large abundance of art materials. Sat by the window, there was an easel and a desk 'I've never used an easel before...' thought August. There were canvases yellow from age with half finished oil paintings on them and stiff paper that looked like it had been dipped in tea. Among the old thing there was once again newer items mixed in with them, not much though. There was slightly warped pencils next to perfectly manufactured ones and new plastic paint tubes with old metal jars. Old sketchbooks and one knew sketchbook with a transparent, plastic cover. This caught August's eye the most. The transparency of the cover showed a drawing of a bird on a branch. 'What kind of bird is that? Who drew it? Why is it here and not with the drawer?'
    Questions were the only thing that ran through the boys mind as he reached for the book. His hand hovered over the book but before he could grab it, BANG! A loud sound made August jump and flinch away from the book. He spun around to see a thick book had fallen off the bookshelf wall and onto the floor. A single book on the floor. He stared at it as new questions ran through his mind. 'Did you really just jump-scare from a book, August? How did it even fall? Maybe a breeze? No, idiot. The room is as still as the dead. What if I'm not alone? No...... But what if...'
    August got distracted once again from his thoughts as sudden goosebumps ran over his entire body and a shiver ran down his spine. A cold sweat washed over him as his eyes began to dart around the room, hyper vigilance kicking in...... August begun to feel like he was being watched. Eyes bore into his head and no matter how many times he spun around he could still feel them.....The walls. It was as if the walls were watching him. As if something was in them. He didn't just walk, he ran, out of the room and only then did he feel the presence of the eyes leave, only then did she walk out of hiding... out of the walls.