Reminiscence Fiction

I’m going to tell you a story. I’m not going to tell you what it is about. I mean if I do, where’s the thrill?
However, the story is somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, caught up between Science and reality. But then again, it might be an entirely different thing. Perhaps, you would discover...
Just as everything on earth, a story too has a beginning as well as an ending. Without further ado, I will start explaining how my story came into existence.
The beginning
We moved to a new house, a smaller one, when I was sixteen. Reason? Financial problems, of course.
On a very clear Sunday, my mother, father and I moved in to this house. The house, situated in a lonely private lane where there were a handful of houses, was one storey. Except for the fact that it was not like our old house, it looked friendly and welcoming.
There was an extremely unfriendly and an unwelcoming house in our lane. An abandoned, two storied old house with blackened walls and an un-kept garden.
Fortunately or unfortunately, it was opposite to ours, across the road. When I go to the living room and look through the window, I get a very clear view of it. You must be probably wondering why I am bothering so much to draw a picture in your head of an old house; the truth is that my story has everything to do with this house.
A week or two might have passed since we moved in. My mother’s sister called my mother on a Friday to tell her that her son would come on Saturday to spend the weekend. I was devastated.
My cousin, Dan, is not a very favourite cousin of mine. ‘Detest’, though rather harsh, is an appropriate word to describe my feelings for him. Please do not get me wrong, it’s just his ill sense of humour is hardly digestive.
As if by a miracle, my mother afterwards suggested that I invite my three best friends to spend the weekend. On one condition though; we must study for our O/L examination.

Real or unreal?

Saturday arrived. My friends, namely, Tamara, Amanda and Thea, arrived in the morning. Since my cousin too was sitting for the exam that year, we all studied together. We solved Maths and science problems, studied History and again Maths, Science.... On and on, this went.
Soon, night fell. It might have been about 9 o’clock. My parents, having a principal of sleeping at nine, had gone to bed. By that time, we too were quite exhausted. Most of all, we were in the living room.
We started to chat. You know, about ordinary things such as school, friends and teachers. Dan, who was bored by this, walked to the window and started looking through the window.
Seconds or maybe minutes must have passed. “Shany, come here for a minute, will you?” Dan called me huskily. Unwillingly, I joined him.
“Do you see that?” he asked me pointing towards the house I mentioned earlier. I zeroed my eyes towards the house and gasped. A light between yellow and green was emitting from inside the house, shadows of some people or creatures were going here and there in the house.
“I thought it was abandoned” I told him.
“Hmmm” he was thoughtful for a moment. “Do you believe in ghosts?” then he asked me.
“No, just Science” I answered.
At this point, my friends came to us and started inspecting and exclaiming words such as ‘weird’, ‘spooky’ and ‘eerie’.
As Dan turned to go then, I asked where he was going. “To hunt some ghosts” he replied, “want to come?”
Everybody looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “What? I could use some help you know, even you are a bunch of girls” he said casually.
“Thanks for the compliment” I told him sarcastically, “but we are not in a mood right now to hunt some ghosts.”

Curiosity and Stupidity

Curiosity; once it combines with stupidity, it becomes the greatest enemy. At the end, we all agreed to explore the house. We were sure that it wasn’t inhabited and the house was glowing as if a calling. Curiosity killed the cat.
We walked towards the glowing house in the middle of the night as if hypnotized. When we reached the house, Dan tried to open the front door; the door opened easily. Once we were all inside, the door suddenly closed. We were all scared; even Dan looked disturbed. Desperately, we all tried to open the door, rotating the doorknob 180 degrees. A fruitless effort; the door didn’t budge.
“Ghosts?” Thea asked from nobody in particular.
“No,” I told her, “this door is pretty old”
“Come on, let’s try another door” Dan finally said.
That is when I finally saw the house. The house was no longer glowing. It looked perfectly normal. Outside, the house looked ancient, but inside, it looked modern. The house was lighted with electricity and furnished with new furniture. Dan whistled.
“Definitely not ghosts” I commented.
“For once, I’m agreeing with you Shany,” Dan said. “Maybe someone alive is living here. If he sees us, we are so dead.” He shuddered as if to create dramatic effect.
“Shall we try to leave this place?” Amanda asked shakily. That cleared our minds. We all tried to find an exit in the house. But all the doors were locked. Then I searched for a telephone; no sign.
“This is not right!” Dan at last said shaking his head to and fro. “Somebody definitely knows that we are inside and he’s not letting us out” he said to himself. “HELLO? DOES ANYONE LIVE HERE?” His voice echoed through the house, but nobody answered.
Suddenly, Tamara spoke in alarm. “Look, over here”. She pointed towards a closed room. At first, I did not notice anything; just a closed wooden door. Then I saw it. “It got my name on the door” Tamara whispered behind me.
“Mine too” Amanda called.
“And mine”. Thea.
I looked around. There were several closed doors around the living room; each door had a name engraved in black letters.
“There are doors for you and me too, cuz” Dan sounded unimpressed.
Sure enough; there was my name too. I wondered what was behind that door.
“Want to check them out?” Dan was grinning.
I rolled my eyes; Curiosity and stupidity.