Pine needles kept getting stuck in my fur and my ears nearly got caught in some branches a couple of times. I had to keep pulling up my sleeves to get past bushes and branches since the nails of my paws were the only part of my arm that stuck out from my sweater at full length. I’m glad I packed light, the things I kept on my person were my phone, portable battery, and camera, with any other supplies, kept in my backpack. I was hoping to find anything of interest to take pictures of, but I guess this is what I get for deciding to just wander in the woods. It would at least be a little more relaxing if the trees weren’t so dense. Not to mention that I haven’t even heard any bugs around. Actually… this whole forest is starting to creep me out. Not only were the bugs silent, but it felt as if the wind had stopped too leaving the air stagnate. Stopping for a moment I feel this revolting energy sweep over my body. Even though the air was chill I felt like I was overheating in my large blue burlap sweater. I was so focused looking forward I hadn’t even noticed I started panting. I have a blanket to lay out but I’d rather not have to lay it out here when there are so many exposed roots (It could hurt my tooshy after all). Instead I take my backpack off and open it, then take my sweatshirt off and shove it in there. I still have my tank top on which is good enough, I feel significantly more cooled off. Only after a few minutes of walking afterward the trees finally start thinning out, actually, it looks like it might clear out… here… The end of my walk led me to a huge empty field. The grass here was brown, touching it felt course and it ripped out quite easily. In the center of this field, however, stood this huge dilapidated mansion. Whatever color of paint that was there before has long since been chipped off, the wood rotting, windows smashed. After a moment of letting the atmosphere sink in, I take out my camera to take a picture of this eerie atmosphere. I have a cord in my backpack that can connect to the USB on my camera to the port of my phone so I can upload it on Bormf, but since the pic of this house is the only one I have it’s not really worth it right now. Instead, I pull out my phone and face away from the house to take a selfie with it in the background. I open up Bormf, with the classic logo of a wolf howling greeting me, then putting me on my feed. I post the pic with the caption “Where tf am I? lol” making sure not to put it in my main portfolio. I open my backpack again and pull out the blanket and my lunch and set up right at the edge of the field.

After wrapping up lunch, I take a closer look at the absolutely enormous house. I looked around the sides trying to look inside through the windows but it was completely dark. The dark aura felt as if it was leaking from the cracks of the rotting wood. Ultimately nothing of note was right outside the house, which just left the porch… As curious as I was, there was something really intimidating about actually stepping onto the porch of this abandoned house. Even though as I said it’s abandoned, it still felt as if I was trespassing. The porch in question extended the length in the house, maybe it’d be worth investigating that before actually going inside. Unfortunately though, there wasn’t much to look at, it’s completely bare. Out of excuses, I turn towards the front door. Walking to it, I reach out my shaky paw towards the door knob. All of my senses were screaming at me, this place is super creepy do I even want to look any deeper? I finally grip the door knob and… The door is locked. I guess I really caught a break with having an excuse to not investigate.

...Anyway, I grabbed a big branch from the woods and busted the door down. The door slammed onto the floor inside, I think I could hear the floorboards start to break underneath it. Since everything was so old it wasn’t that hard to take down. Discarding the branch and stepping over the fallen door and shattered glass, I finally make it inside. Like with a house as old and as big as this one, the foyer was huge, but whatever decorations that made this place once elegant have since decayed. The room has some couches and chairs in here, but more importantly, there are rooms on the left and right, as well as this huge two-way staircase that leads up to another entrance of some kind, as well as another entrance right down the center of the staircase. As I took in the atmosphere, I tensed up as my spine started shivering. Reminding myself that good adventurers go left, I head to the room in that direction.

A crumbling dining hall greeted me with a rotted table right in the middle, broken porcelain was scattered across it. Something about the energy is weird in this room that’s different than the entrance despite both being decrepit. Looking closer I noticed that most of the chairs were facing towards the entrance I was standing in. Ignoring how suspicious that is, I start examining the room more closely. The left wall from the entrance I came in from had a huge window spanning from one side of the wall to the other. You can see the outside perfectly clear, but for some reason it wasn’t like that when I was trying to look from the outside in… Looking up, there was a large chandelier that looked as if it were ready to fall at any moment, the way that it was being held made it crooked, like if the house shifted the wrong way the whole thing could fall. Forcing myself to look away from the accident waiting to happen, I notice an entrance to what I assumed was the kitchen.

I walk around the table and pushed open the cracked door to have my assumption confirmed, but as soon as I did a stench assaulted my nose. Instinctively, I covered it with my paws and left the room. The smell of that room brought images of rotting flesh to the front of my mind, did something die in there? That thought alone made me hold back my attempt at vomiting. Trying to distract myself, I took out my phone to see if my picture got any attention on Bormf. So far it’s only gotten… One comment after only like ten minutes. Whatever.

“Maybe you should take more pictures to see if you can get more people to notice.” The thought impulsively beamed through my head. Taking a moment to look at my surroundings one more time, I took out my camera and got ready to take some pictures. The first picture I wanted to take was the doorway I came into the dining hall, then after that, I took a picture of the precariously positioned chandelier.

After thinking about it for a moment, I start to hold my breath and open the kitchen door with one hand and take a picture with the other. I at least wanted to document the room without having to look too deeply into it.

“But maybe you should take a look anyway.” Another thought appeared. I was instinctively going to just walk in there but I stopped myself- why do I want to go in there?

“There might be something worth seeing, it’s not like you’re going to take pictures.” Oh, ya that’s fair. Holding my breath one more time, I speed walk in there to take a closer look at the scene. The counters were coated in dust and grime. It was painted in many shades of sickly green and rusted brown, the thought of having the residue stuck in my fur and having to clean it out so far away from running water made me want to leave the room that instant. Pushing through those feelings, I turn to the left to look deeper into the kitchen, and I see it, the source of the odor. Large cuts of cattle worm were just left on the counters to rot, mold formed on the brown and black flesh. I turned away, feeling vomit wanting to project out of my body, my legs moved on their own as I fled from the room.

Standing outside of the kitchen, I take a moment to catch my breath. I run my paw through my disheveled fur to calm myself down. After I had my moment I made my way towards the dining hall entrance. Before I could leave, however, I heard a snapping sound from behind me, and turning around I caught the precise moment the chandelier hit the dining table. The sound from this behemoth crashing down made me brace myself, the sound of snapping and shattering of glass rang in my head for a few seconds, followed by the sound of the table crunching, submitting to the weight of the chandelier. I feel dumbfounded and anxious as hell that the chandelier came crashing down now of all times, but I’m glad I didn’t get hurt. I take a picture to document it and continue into the foyer. I make sure to take plenty of pictures in this room too, trying out various angles and focusing on different details.

I continue to the other side of the room, right of the entrance. Entering this new room greeted me with the scent of musty furniture, which is what it delivered! This seems like it was some kind of living room area, the furniture was arranged so that if you were sitting down you’d be able to see everyone and have a large coffee table in the middle. There were two desks lined up against the wall that seem miscellaneous and not thought through in terms of placement. They also didn’t have a tv, which means either the people living here really wanted to preserve the house the way it was before they left, or it’s as old as it seems. I tried to spot anything interesting on the table or desks, but all the books and reading material are so degraded it’s unrecognizable. I make sure to take a picture of what it looks like when you walk into the room before I leave.

Back in the foyer so soon, I kind of just started staring at the stairs that gave an ominous aura now that I’ve brought myself to the decision of climbing up them. The stairs seem sturdy enough but I’m more so worried about what I’ll find. Steeling myself, I take my first step on the staircase. As I put my weight on it, a loud and prolonged squeaking sound came from the step. I start to just walk up normally with mildly less anxiety and significantly less squeaking. I step through the doorway atop of the stairs to see this huge hallway with rooms dotting the sides of it, as well as some kind of secondary sitting space at the end of the hall.

Strolling towards the end of the hallway to see this space that felt oddly out of place here. This was a circular room that connected directly to the hallway with leather seats around the sides, and a huge window that looked out to the forest. The glass went all the way up to the ceiling making the shape of a cone. Up here you couldn’t quite see the tops of the trees, but still the view is so nice. I hope the people who lived here were happy… How did something like this happen in the first place? It’s like they just abandoned it all of a sudden. Nothing struck me as obvious. This place wasn’t vandalized at any point, was it? That thought spun in my head for a moment. I mean I guess I vandalized it, but…

After I take a picture of the view I start entering the rooms one by one. Turning around, I started with all the doors on my right paw side. First room was a bedroom, specifically what looked like a child’s bedroom. Toys were strewn all over the floor and the covers on the bed were moldy, leaving a rank stench etched into the room (Thankfully not as bad as the kitchen). Unless I wanted to start digging through this kid’s stuff there wasn’t anything of note, well actually… I turned to leave the room but facing towards me was a framed picture that was in surprisingly good condition, in fact it looked like no dust had settled on it. The family had a variety of body types, two mothers, a golden retriever and a tabby cat, their son a boxer, and youngest daughter a mouse, are all standing on the porch of this house. All of their smiles glowed and brought a sense of calm in this abandoned place. I know my question would be answered if I just kept looking, but I couldn’t tell right off the bat if this was the son or daughter’s room. I remind myself to take a picture before leaving, focusing on the bed and making sure to also get the messy floor in frame. Next room was another kid’s bedroom. Now that I’ve seen both I can guess this is the older brother’s bedroom, as even though it was messy like the rest of the house it wasn’t as disorganized as the previous room, like someone older was living here. I take the time to scan the room more thoroughly to make sure I don’t miss anything, but alas there was nothing of interest, so I took a picture and left. Last room on this side of the hallway was the master bedroom.

The master bed was huge and had one of those overhangs over it, but the cloth had torn through leaving just the poles that were supposed to be keeping it up. Again there was the same level of disarray as the rest of the house, but on the bed was an album of some kind? I walked up to the bed to look closer, the album was very hefty looking and strangely in a similar condition to the photo I saw earlier, however I was not keen on moving stuff around too much so I just opened it where it sat. As I opened it, I was greeted with what looked like wedding photos of the two mothers from the photo before. The first photo was of them at the altar with matching wedding dresses and right at the moment they kissed. The following photos were stuff like them cutting the cake, dancing together, just generally being happy around each other. After a couple pages in I finally see pictures of them in front of the house, however without their kids. I know that they were obviously happy in their wedding photos, but just seeing them by themselves hanging out gave off a different energy. Sure they looked genuinely happy at the wedding, but being genuine without the eyes of anyone else looking at them hit differently. I mean, it was only pictures of one or the other doing a funny pose on the furniture, or their best attempt of taking a selfie without a front facing camera, or just… being together in general. This warm swirling sensation roused from the bottom of my heart just looking at them. It was just page after page of doing mundane stuff like this. It didn’t take long though until I started seeing pictures of a mega millipede enter the mix. Some of the photos were dedicated to it. There were pics of it in the front yard or it coiled around one of the two ladies. I haven’t seen a lot of people with these as pets, but it looks like something they decided on early. Soon enough though there weren’t any more pictures of it, and recalling their comparably short life span I guess it makes sense why there weren’t any more pictures. I kept flipping until finally the first picture of their son appeared, who they seem to have adopted as he’s already a couple years old here, and obviously not being similar to either of his mothers. Even though they spent most of their time at the house, now that they had a son there are more pictures of them going out and seeing new places, and even a lot of pictures just being out in the woods. Even later I see the first picture of their daughter. She also seems to have been adopted, but at a much younger age. The photos continue to be normal until… there aren’t any. The last half of this album is completely empty, I skimmed through the pages just to make sure but there was nothing. The abrupt end gave me mild goosebumps, so I just closed it and left it how I found it. I walk back to the entrance of the room and take a picture of it before leaving. It looks like I have two more rooms on this top floor before I’m finished up here. Across from the master bedroom was a surprisingly lavish bathroom. Well I assume it would’ve been lavish if the ceiling didn’t collapse into this room. The sink, toilet, and bathtub were all high quality for the time period I think, but of course now they all seem unusable. Not like I’d want to test to see how the water is here. ...If we’re in the middle of the woods where are the pipes running to? Shaking off the question I take a picture and leave. The last room up here was a sort of secondary lounge. It wasn’t nearly as big as the one downstairs but it seemed nice if you wanted some privacy outside of your bedroom. There were some broken dusty chairs surrounding a busted table with completely ruined books on top of it like downstairs. The lamp here was in the best condition but even that was snapped in half and the bulb broken. The last thing of note was that the window looking outside here was the only one that I haven’t seen broken, so good job random window. I make sure to take a picture of the room before I head back downstairs.

After walking down the squeaky stairs, I stand in the foyer once again now only with one more way to go, the doorway under the staircase.

I knew I had to save this way for last as this was the most imposing entrance out of the lot, what made it even scarier was that it was completely dark in here.

“You know maybe now is a good time to turn back.”

“But this is the last place to look, right? We might as well finish if we broke the front entrance.”

“But it’s dark in there and the electricity is unlikely to be working.”

“Is your phone battery high enough to use the flashlight?” I check my phone, still with the one notification from Bormf lingering there.

“I mean, ya.”

“Then let's investigate!” After thoroughly convincing myself I turn on my phone’s flashlight and enter. Scanning the room from left to right there was a bar with a broken shelf behind it, the parts of the shelf that weren’t broken had bottles on it with a liquid of some kind. Looking more right the room was mostly filled with standing tables, some tipped over or decayed, the carpet they were on top of was molding away. On the very right side of the room was a stage of some kind, there was also a broken projector sitting in front of it, and a huge projector screen rolled up hanging above. This seems kind of inconsistent with the lack of there being TV but it’s not like I have enough information to actually put a date on this house. I noticed what was keeping the room so dark were the curtains that despite everything were still hanging there in fairly good condition. I walk across the large room and open them letting the light in and shaking around the dust causing me to cough a little. My paw after touching it felt kind of gross too… Now that I can see the other wall where I entered there did seem to be a light switch, but after walking back over again and trying to turn it on it was dead as I expected. There was still enough light in the room though that I didn’t need my flashlight for now however, so I walked over to the bar to start. As I got closer the stench of alcohol crawled into my snout. Looking over the counter it looks like the shelf that dropped had a bunch of liquor bottles on it, shattering the bottles on it and staining the floor.

“Does old alcohol like this taste better or worse the longer it’s unopened?” I sat on that thought for a moment before deciding that I probably shouldn’t take anything from the spooky house. I turned around and investigated the tables closer, but as expected the tables were normal. Some glasses broken or otherwise were still sitting on them, and again, some of the tables tipped over on the ground making it a little tricky to navigate. Making sure to avoid broken glass I approach the stage. The curtains were still hanging, but for how long I don’t know, after the chandelier fell I don’t know if I want to get any closer. There seemed to be some space to the sides of the stage that were still dark, so I pulled out my phone again. Hesitantly I stepped onto the stage to look closer, both sides seemed to just have old equipment for the stage, but stage left had something that stood out. Making sure the curtains weren’t about to fall, I stepped closer to find a letter.Yet again I found something that was in suspiciously good condition, as if it was frozen in time, even the wax seal was unbroken. Alarm bells rang in my head but this was too weird not to see what was up. Slowly, I took the letter and carefully opened it.

“Dear Marton,

First of all, I hope things have been well with you. Ever since you left it’s been lonely, but I’ve been getting along fine. I write to you in hopes you’d like to visit on the anniversary of Annabelle and Mary’s funeral. It’s been… so long since we’ve seen them. There’s so many things I failed to tell you before you left, so many things I failed to do as your mother. I was wondering if you’d like to keep any of the pictures we took when they were alive. I realize now that I never got around to showing you Annabelle and I’s wedding photos and, maybe as our last bonding experience if you wish, to look at them in remembrance. Mary dying was already a shock to the system, but without the support of Annabelle I lost all way forward, and unfortunately you were caught in the crossfire. I don’t know how to make it up to you, so I’m reaching out in hopes you’d like to reconnect sometime soon.

From your loving mother,

Tracy”

My paw trembled holding the stationary. If this was the house of those two women, and the letter was meant for their son, then…

“She never even sent it…” I mumbled under my breath. I stood in a daze before putting the letter back in the envelope and back where I found it. As my last pictures I make sure to get both sides of this room and leave.

I finally exit the abandoned house. Before I enter the forest again, I take one more look at the house to absorb in the atmosphere. The walk through the forest was just as quiet as I had entered, only now it was slightly darker, I didn’t even pay attention when I entered so I don’t know how long I spent there. Low key I was hoping I wouldn’t get lost, my body felt heavier, my eyes felt like they wanted to rest, but the adrenaline pulled me along like a metal wire being pulled from my chest, and eventually managed to find my way out again. I found the closest bus stop and waited for it to pick me up.