“Joseph,” Holly whispered quietly.

“Yeah?” He croaked in a groggy tone.

“What time is it?” she asked, looking down at the floor where he sat.

“12:05,” he responded, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.

“Okay. We get to switch off with Joan and Marko in about three hours. We can make it till then,” she reassured herself as the two took the first ‘shift’ in staying awake and investigating the house.

“Now is probably a good time to snoop around. I think I’ve heard some sounds coming from outside.”

Holly nodded her head and got up quietly from the bed. The mood was quite ominous, being 12am in a creepy and unfamiliar house.

“We probably don’t want to turn on the lights in the house and disturb the lady, so let’s just walk around with our phone flashlights.” Holly continued to keep her voice low to not wake up Marko and Joan.

Joseph agreed and grabbed his phone, leading them outside the room. He closed the door gently and softly, making sure that there wasn’t so little as a creek.

In the pitch-black darkness of this foreign home, Holly and Joseph had to traverse cautiously, being entirely unfamiliar with the layout.

With just a couple flashlights to guide them through the large home, they walked slowly and quietly, peeking around corners of the home and listening to any audible noises that may tip them off.

“Don’t hear anything just yet,” Joseph whispered quietly as he led the two of them through a narrow passageway on the first floor of the house.

From what they could tell, the house had two floors, an attic, and possibly a basement. They sought to explore all these locations except for the attic. To do so, they began on the first floor and creeped around the desolate hallways and rooms.

“There’s the kitchen. Let’s go there,” Holly suggested as her stomach rumbled in the midst of nervous silence.

“Of course, you’re hungry. Maybe she’ll have some quick snacks for us.”

They crept slowly into the kitchen and flashed their lights around it, surveying the assortment of wooden cabinets, marble counters, and a glass table in the center of it. Above the table was a gold chandelier, which seemed awkwardly placed in a kitchen.

Joseph’s flashlight fixed on a small spider hugging on to a cabinet. Just as quickly as he noticed it, the spider scurried away into a dark crevasse.

Almost tiptoeing to the refrigerator, Holly opened it as quietly as she could and examined the snacks inside.

There wasn’t much to eat in a pinch, but she did find a jar of pickles and a Snickers. She shrugged her shoulders at the less than ideal find and grabbed them both.

Joseph shook his head in disapproval, but Holly went ahead and ate her snacks anyway.

As he waited for her to finish, he leaned up against a counter and pointed his flashlight at a light switch.

“I think I’m just going to turn on the lights. It’ll make things easier and I doubt it’ll wake anyone up.”

Holly nodded her head and said “go for it” with the Snickers bar stuffed in her mouth.

Without hesitation, Joseph quickly walked over to the kitchen light switch and flicked it on, illuminating the whole room and a portion of the hallways outside in a very dim light.

“Yeah this ain’t even bright enough to wake anyone up,” he said, returning to Holly’s side.

She put the jar of pickles back into the refrigerator and closed it. The two then thought to themselves as to where to go next, and Holly began to lead.

She walked out of the kitchen and down the most lit hallway with her flashlight still in hand. She surveyed the walls, looking for additional light switches to illuminate the house as much as possible.

Every switch she could find, she flipped on, and each light seemed to be dimmer than the previous one.

After exploring the house for twenty minutes, they realized it was much bigger than it appeared from the outside, but they traversed the entire first floor a couple times, listening carefully for any strange noises.

“Joseph.”

“Yeah, Holly?” He responded curiously.

“What?” She asked, sounding a bit confused.

“You just said my name. Thought you wanted something.” He shrugged his shoulders and continued to follow her.

“I didn’t say your name?” The two stopped walking and looked at each other with anxiety and confusion plastered over their faces.

“What do you mean? I just heard you say ‘Joseph.’” His voice started to quiver, as panic began to settle in. He slowly began to build up a nervous sweat, and his heart rate quickened steadily.

“You’re just in your head, Joseph. Stop worrying so much.” Holly shook her head and turned back around, continuing to explore the dimly lit house.

Okay okay. Fine, Joseph thought to himself as he continued to follow Holly’s lead. Though he was certain he heard his name, he could not determine exactly where it came from.

“AHH!” Holly shrieked suddenly. “Jesus Christ you almost scared me half to death Jason!” She exclaimed as she looked down at the seemingly lifeless child below her.

He caught her off guard, nearly bumping into her as she turned a corner, but he stood there without noticing her or hearing anything she said.

“The lady said not to talk to him. He’s just sleepwalking or whatever. She said he’d find his way back eventually,” Joseph explained as they made space for him to continue walking.

The little boy’s eyes were wide open, and his mouth gaped slightly with drool dripping down the sides of his lips. He waddled slowly past Joseph and Holly, and as he passed, they felt a soft chill brush over their skin, making small hairs stand up on their bodies.

That moment was petrifying, and they stared at him closely as he walked and the sudden breeze of cold air passed.

“What was that? Did you feel that too?” Joseph asked in a panic as he continued to watch the boy waddle away towards a set of stairs.

“Yeah I did,” Holly said with her eyes fixed on the boy who began to slowly climb the stairs in front of him.

“Let’s not freak out over this. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

Everything was not fine for Joseph. Ever fiber of his being shook with nervous anxiety, and he felt as though he was slowly being strangled by a cold hand, asphyxiating him.

“Joseph? Are you okay?” Holly noticed her friend struggling to breathe and massaged his chest with her warm and soft hands.

She managed to free his airways and he gasped quickly for his breath. Panting softly, Joseph bent over and forced himself to relax.

“I’m okay now. Thank you,” he said quietly. His eyes turned red, and veins began to pop out on his neck and face.

“You don’t look okay. Do you want to go back to the others? We don’t have to do this if it’s too much for you.” Holly was sincere and gentle. She spoke in ways that could calm anyone’s offset emotions and Joseph was no exception.

“No. I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I’ve just been letting things get to me, but it’s fine.” He nodded his head quickly and gestured for her to continue.

“That kid scared me too. I almost punched him as a reflex!” Holly laughed obnoxiously and then covered her mouth as she realized she didn’t want to wake anyone up.

“Yeah! I saw that.” Joseph said as he chuckled nervously.

“Yeah. Let’s go to the second floor now.”

Joseph nodded in agreement and then followed the stairs that Jason took and began to explore the second floor.

They used the same strategy and flicked on the lights as they got to them. Most of the room doors were closed, but there were several of them.

Not wanting to disturb the mother, they refrained from opening any bedroom doors and only walked inside of rooms that were already open.

They stepped inside a particular room, feeling around the walls and the dressers for anything that might be interesting or feel cold.

“Is it just me or are these lights even dimmer than they were before? I can barely see anything with them on,” Joseph observed as he looked around the room with his flashlight guiding him.

“Yeah. It does seem like they’re getting dimmer. That’s really strange.”

They shrugged this off and accepted that there were definitely strange things happening in this house. There was no longer any doubt about it, and they began to suspect anything.

“She’s not my mother.” An eerie voice whispered in the darkness. The two could barely hear this or make out the exact words, but it alarmed them.

“Did you hear that?” Joseph asked, trying to forcefully hold his composure together and not crack under the terrifying circumstances.

“I did. I couldn’t make out what I heard, but I heard a voice.”

“It was probably just Jason. Let’s just keep looking around.” Joseph refocused his attention on the room and continued to feel around for anything that drew him to it.

“She’s not my mother… she’s not my mother… she’s not my mother…” the distant voice began to chant, and the two swiftly turned their heads, looking out into the black hallway as the voice seemed to get louder.

“She’s not my mother… she’s not my mother…she’s not my mother…” the chanting voice got increasingly louder, and they started to hear the soft and infrequent footsteps.

*tap..tap….tap..tap..tap….tap…tap..tap….tap..tap.taptap…tap.* They listened closely, it sounded as though a small drunk man was walking towards them. The footsteps were clearly tiny, but the rhythm of the steps was incredibly disjointed and impossible to predict.

Joseph could barely fight back his nervousness and that cold choking feeling he felt returned as he could not hold himself together. And the feeling intensified with every cold, lifeless, word he heard from the approaching visitor.

“She’s not my mother…” *tap..tap…tap* “She’s not my mother.” *tap…tap………tap* “She’s not my mother.”

The steps seemed to stop just before the door, and the two waited anxiously for something to happen.

“She’s….not….my…..mother.” The voice said with the words broken up between long breaths and gasps. The heavy breathing between words felt unnatural and induced by an intense cardio workout.

“She’s…NOT…MY..MOTHER!” The voice shouted and ran past the door leaving a burst of cold air blasting through the room in its wake. The sudden blast instilled shivers and goosebumps all over their bodies and they shook in a swift, violent, burst.

They could not make out the details of who ran by, but they were able to make out its shape, and it had to be the little boy, Jason.

They continued to sit there quietly as the footsteps seemed to trudge heavily up a set of stairs outside.

“The… attic?” Joseph asked in the midst of incredibly tense silence. “He’s going to the attic?”