House of Mystery

Edward looked about him in pure confusion. He swore that he had backtracked perfectly along the corridor that he was on---it was only a corridor, and he remembered entering from one end and leaving at the other, without going through any doors to any rooms in between. Yet he found himself in a completely different part of the bizarre house. He cursed under his breath, and wished that he had not taken up the silly bet with his classmates to prove once and for all that he was cool.

At first, it seemed like a rather tame idea. Spend some time in the crazy-looking house that no one seemed to be staying in, exploring it, taking photographs of cool stuff inside before returning. It sounded fool proof. His classmates did not even demand that he do something as silly as exploring after dark or anything. They were genuinely curious about the crazy-looking house, and felt that Edward was too scared to actually do it for them. Bets were called and on a quiet Saturday afternoon, Edward found himself walking through the house armed with a simple point-and-shoot camera.

The house did not have any signs about it that told people to keep away, which in itself was quite unusual when it was also readily apparent that no one was actively staying in it. Rumour had it that some of the homeless would use the house for shelter from time to time, but no one seemed to see any of the homeless after they were alleged to have entered the house. That of course added on to the allure of the mystery. He could have shrugged it off and admitted that he was scared, but Susan was there, and the last thing he wanted was to look frail in front of her.

When he entered the house though, a note on the floor piqued his curiousity. He had picked it up and read it, and what he read sent chills down his spine. It was a warning memo, scrawled using what seemed like charcoal or some other improvised writing utensil of a similar nature. It told the reader that entering the house was a terrible mistake, and they had no more than thirty seconds to get out before things would turn horribly wrong. There were no details beyond that, and Edward felt a crawl on his neck when he realised that he was just one second beyond the thirty that the note talked about. His blood cold, Edward took a quick look behind him at the door that he just entered---the bright day light that he was expecting to see was replaced by a single solid wall.

Edward panicked, but tried his best to calm himself down. The fact that the note could exist suggested that there was a way of living through, and perhaps to even escape it. And since then, he had been wandering about from room to room, until that corridor that he found himself in.