The old home

The most surprising thing I found in the old house was located inside the ornately carved box with other papers and bills. The house was built in the eighteen sixties and abandoned after the civil war, when the owners couldn't afford to keep the rolling fields of the plantation maintained.

I had decided to explore it to try and find something, anything, for my collection of Victorian artifacts. The home had been mostly scavenged already but I had managed to find something tucked behind the pastel pink wall paper covered with dirt and grime from about one hundred and fifty years of no cleaning.

The box was small enough to not be easily spotted but I have eagle eyes. I use my lock picking kit to try and open the box but the rust is too bountiful. I eventually manage to smash the lock off with a rock.

Inside was a photo of me. Parts of it had color and parts didn't, but it was definitely me. I could see my gray green eyes and dark brown hair, the only parts of the photo that were colored. I was wearing a patched up dress, my hair tied under a cloth, out of my face.

I rushed through the home, hoping to find a small box with other photos. I knew that photos were expensive but I reasoned that this family was super rich so they would have had more photos.

I didn't find anything in the attic or main floors. I gripped my flashlight and ventured into the basement. I hated confined spaces, the dark, and spiders, so the hodgepodge that was the basement frightened me more than the picture of me.

I heard the warped wood squeak under my foot. I used the splinter filled railing to help me but I stepped in a patch of moisture and slipped, banging my head on the previous step.

I tried to cover the back of my head as I went tumbling into the darkness. After I had stopped moving for quite some time I outstretched my arms to attempt to find my way. I had promptly placed my hand in a pile of glass, presumably from my broken flashlight.

And that's what happened up until right now. I'm laying on the floor, in a long, tattered dress with a constant stream of blood gushing from my hand and a giant knot forming on the back of my head.

I look around, attempting to assess the situation. I squint and eventually make out a table. I drag my way over, my ankles collapsed under my weight at first. I manage to get on top of the table.

I stay there as I attempt to as painlessly as possible extract the glass. With each attempt I see black dots infringing on my vision. Eventually I huddle up to the cold table and fall asleep. When I awaken the sunlight is streaming in from the broken walls upstairs.

I gingerly avoid the glass and moss and brown water and remove myself from the house. The sun is warm against my skin, acting as a nice counter to the chilly wind. I walk along the dirt path, my bare feet getting scrapped up.

I arrive back at the town and walk into the drug store to buy some bandages for my hands. The store clerk looks over at the doors but seems to look right past me. "Hell of a wind." He mutters, returning back to his crossword puzzle.

I walk down the isles and find some rubbing alcohol and cotton pads, as well as some large bandages. I walk to the counter but the man doesn't see me. I grab some coins from my pocket and place it in front of him.

When I leave he looks back up at the door and looks around for the owner of the change. I walk back to the house and sit on the bluff behind it. My palm burns as I clean it, but once I get the bandages the stabbing needles turn into a dull throb.

I decide to walk to the old church to hopefully find the birth records and figure out who that person in the picture was, it couldn't have been me. Once I arrive I find I am on the back side, by the cemetery.

I decide to just walk through it, touching the headstones as I go along. I first start in the black part, normally there would be an entirely different cemetery but this town was pretty small. I stop dead in my tracks when I find my name Rose Thomas carved onto a tiny stone.

Then the memories hit me. Scrubbing floors, cooking, working from dawn to dusk. Getting whipped and beaten. Deciding to leave. Getting caught. Getting my ankles slashed to hobble me.

But I can't be dead, I can feel pain, I feel the cold, I feel alive. Then I remember they claimed I was practicing Voodoo. I wasn't but the lady of the house always hated me. The lord of the house had forced himself on my mother and as a result I was born. They always said I had his eyes. She was gonna send me out to the fields, but my father said no.

I remembered being thrown into the cellar. A plump woman ripping off my dress and forcing a white smock tied with a rope onto me. Being dragged through the town by a horse. People spitting on me. A rough rope being tied tightly around my throat.

I fall over, gasping for air. I feel my throat and find a rope burn. I throw up all over my stupidly clean white smock. I dry heave as the vomit fades. I run, I don't know where just away. I find myself in the forest, branches scrapping my face.

I fall into a heap and begin to cry, when I hear horse hooves. A man, the man who was my mother's attacker, tall on a beautiful black horse. He pulls my hair and forces me to follow them.

My hand is branded and my feet slashed. I lose control off my body and go through the motions of my last few days, right up till I'm being hanged. Previously I had become numb to hunger and pain, but now I can feel every second of the life being choked out of me.

I close my eyes and find myself in the big house. My body moves without my consent, finding the pictures. I begin to cry, realizing that I have been condemned to relive my most painful moments. I keep going through everything, unable to stop, hanging my head, knowing this will be my eternity.