A friend told me about an abandoned house in a nearby forest. We and another friend decided to go and explore it. From the front it looked absolutely abandoned. Barricaded doors and windows, overgrown walls, surrounded by untamed nature. Friend showed us to an open basement window. Now that I am more experienced that would have given me pause. But my eight-year-old self was just happy we would not need a crow bar. Our third friend was a little scared but we convinced him. The inside of the basement matched our expectations: dark and empty. Only cold bricks and a layer of dust as well as a ladder and a conveniently open sliding door. Serj, the one who suggested it, went first, followed by myself and our scared friend. The ground floor had some bashed in furniture and was equally dark. The only light were some rays that made it through the barricaded windows and the wind-up torch we brought and it was spooky. We found stairs leading up to the roof. Serj suggested it, I agreed, our third friend was against it. He was scared of ghosts and spirits, and was convinced we needed to leave immediately. But we managed to convince him. We went up to the attic. At first, the torch caught a giant spiders net. This did not scare me, but it did scare our friend. There were hundreds(?) of baby spiders in a bunch. It looked very interesting. They were really all bunched together. Our friend screamed and wanted to bolt but we only had one torch, so he stayed. I wanted to play around and give him some baby spiders, but Serj suddenly moved the light. Then even I was scared. Why?
It did not look abandoned! There were tarps, containers of fresh paint, and clear signs of someone fixing up the roof. There was also a half-opened bottle. I smelled it, it was some strong alcohol.
We decided to leave, but then we heard some sounds from below. A chain rattled, something heavy dropped, a door was opened. We were very still and surprised. How could the door be opened? Wasn't it barred? The front door was. We never checked the back of the house... The person came in, singing, and dropped something heavy. Then it sounded like he went back outside. We did not wait and rushed down the stairs, ran to the ladder - I tripped over something and flew a good part of the way, but I managed to get there. Serj was already down and our friend was on the ladder. I heard the singing get closer, the man was coming back, and friend was climbing too slowly. I was very scared. After all, if the house was not abandoned, it belonged to someone. Best case, we get a beating.
My fear acted up, and I told him to "jump, <unprintable>". The man stopped singing. Maybe he heard me. I jumped down without climbing, twisted my right ankle in the process, but it did not matter. We got out of there. Friends helped me through the window and we ran*. The man did not come after us. Probably did not care about a bunch of stupid kids like us.
But for the next few weeks I had nightmares of that man who I did not even see coming to find me or recognizing my voice. I refused to speak when in public. In hindsight, it's hilarious.
(*I hobbled very quickly.)
When I smile at people, they usually stumble and scream in horror. Zero idea why.
[...]
You sound like my novel's protagonist, haha.
