The next day had finally arrived, and Rocky couldn't be more excited for the adventures they could possibly endure. Of course, there was always a possibility that absolutely nothing would occur and the most fun they would have would be on the car ride there. However, they could always use their imaginations to at least pretend something went down. At least the house had a reputation. 

  Over the past couple of months, Rocky had done some serious research on the history of that old house. She couldn't get the story out of her mind; the people who had lived within it and the way they were mysteriously murdered without someone being caught. She wondered why it took so long for them to close it down, or why it hadn't been knocked down completely. And now her goal was to discover all of the whys behind this darkly beautiful place, and to see if her basic mind could figure anything else out.

  It bothered her, how much interest she found in all of it. Death and murder are horrible things, and they shouldn't be glorified to the extent where it was the center of her demented mind. But ever since she looked it up a while ago, she couldn't help but grow hardcore obsessed with it. It was gleeful to even imagine herself investigating in the abandoned home, and that seemed to frighten her a bit in itself.

"Are you ready to go?" Luke asks, holding onto his bag and secretly hoping that Rocky would just change her mind. Luke wasn't the type that would refuse to go in the maze on Halloween or cry during scary movies, he just knew a bit too much about the topic and knew what they were getting themselves into. He would never forgive himself if one of his best friends or his sister got hurt when he decided to participate in it. He himself had done a bit of research on the place and even if it didn't have a 'creepy haunted' reputation, he didn't understand what was so fun about hanging around on murder grounds. He thought that last summer's daycare was a much better plan.

  "More than ever, I hope everybody's at the spot and nobody chickens out. Loosen up Lukey, it'll be fun," she says, noticing the nervous glance in his eyes. She pats his shoulder and prepares to exit. Luke sighs and follows up, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. It was times like these that he wished he was an optimist.

  ¤

Sedona, Niall, Rocky, Louis, Luke, Zayn, and Ashton were in Sedona's mini van while everyone else was in Blaise's. Besides Luke, everyone was excited for the investigations that they may endure. Louis was convinced that they could write some story line to go along with it and recieve fame from horror thirsty teenagers on the internet while Liam was thinking about contacting one of those ghost shows. Ashton was solemnly convinced that ghosts weren't real and that they would find absolutely nothing out of this expedition, and Rocky was determined to show him otherwise. Luke thought she was insane for doing so, and she thought that he was overreacting. Blaise and Calum repetively shared the tale of how their house was haunted and that they had experience and Sedona shared about bad spirits existing in her music room. All of the myths and stretched legends amused Ashton, and he was actually quite awed by the imaginations and gullibleness of his friends. He personally never bought the 'monster in the closet' bit as a kid, and he wasn't going to go along with all of this fiction now.

  "This is it, right?" Sedona asks, pulling up beside the large house under the shade of large trees. Blaise's car was shortly behind hers.

  Rocky smiles at the sight, looking even more interesting than in the photographs. The large, ingrown tree swooped over the top and provided an ominous shadow halfway, the paint tattered in most areas and front plants looking like a jungle. "This is it," she smiles.

  Sedona parks in the sandy lot, giving Blaise the symbol to do the same. Everyone jumps out eagerly, admiring the sight. Robin is very excited to see the numerous plants, considering everything built by mother nature felt like home to her. Luke kicks the sand over his shoe, growing more anxious by the minute.

  "Hey, everything's gonna be alright. None of this stuff is real, they just want the thrill of pretending it is. You don't need to be afraid," Ashton comforts, wrapping his arm around Luke's shoulder. Luke doesn't agree with Ashton, he thinks these things are real and he's more worried than afraid, but he doesn't want to go on further with the conversation so he silently nods.

"I hope nobody else is in here, which I would assume since it's been empty for twenty years. Let's see if the doors are unlocked," Louis says, stepping in front of the crowd. He walks up to the long, narrow doorway and taps his finger on the cold, golden knob. He clasps it in his hand and pulls, causing the door to creakily crawl open.

  "Well, that makes things easier," he mumbles, looking inside the crack.

"It looks pretty safe to me, let's just go," Zayn says, pushing the door fully open and walking inside.

  Everyone follows him, stopping to take a look at the living room. The carpets are crimson red, along with the walls. A golden chandelier hangs from above, rotting unlight candles sitting inside of it. A stone fireplace sits in the center, an empty furnace leading to a long, classic chimney. Two velvet ripped up sofas remain in the room, and scattered hard leaves blanket the floor.

"Well, isn't this lovely," Calum says, sitting on the couch and making himself comfortable.

  "Imagine putting a bull in here," Harry chuckles, never seeing a more red place in the world.

"The japanese store I went to that one time wasn't even this extreme in color, damn," Niall laughs, sitting on top of Calum's legs.

"So, are we gonna stay in here the whole time?" Aria asks, looking up at the tall stairway.

  "I was actually hoping to postpone the adventure until the morning and take a crash for right now. The drive made me tired and I had an all nighter last night and all," Liam says.

  "Liam you idiot, you were supposed to save the all nighter for tonight!" Blaise says, playfully punching her best friend.

  A sudden crash interrupts Blaise's teasing violence, causing everyone to tense and fall into silence. Luke lets out a sigh of relief when he sees that it's just Zayn and Louis at the bottom of the stairs. 

  "What happened?" Ashton asks, he and Harry helping them up.

  "Im pretty sure Zayn tripped on the way up the stairs and brought me down with him," Louis scoffs.

"What the hell mate, I was normally walking and something made us fall! I swear I felt something push me. That was weird," Zayn questions.

  "I already fell down the stairs before, it should've been you guys," Louis giggles, standing up.

"Hey, I fell down the stairs in sixth grade and had to get crutches. Are you guys alright?" Rocky asks.

"Just hurts a little in my leg, that's all. Im fine. You Zayn?" Louis says, looking to his best friend.

  "Same here, and my stomach stings a little bit. All of the rooms down here were locked though," Zayn sighs.

  "Zayn, what is that on your shirt?" Robin asks, pointing to red blotches growing on his tee shirt.

Zayn shrugs alarmingly, causing Robin to go over and lift his shirt. She gasps when she sees an open gash on his stomach, blood rushing out of it.

  "Zayn, you're bleeding!" she exclaims, nervous on not knowing what to do.

  "All of the rooms are locked except for the bathroom, well rooms down here," Aria announces, coming back from down the hall and sitting on Calum's lap.

"If any of you remembered, I'm going to medical school soon. Let's go to the bathroom, I brought a first aid kit anyways knowing how clumsy you all are," Sedona says, grabbing Zayn's wrist.

"Louis, you better make sure you're not bleeding anywhere either," Rocky says, rubbing her boyfriend's lower arm.

He nods, following Sedona and Zayn and limping a bit on the way. Luckily, the bathroom is right next to the door.

  When they enter, they take note that the bathroom is dirty and has a rotten smell. The smell is mixed of metallic and of rotten things, and it was very unfamilar yet very unpleasant. They notice shards of glass laying all over the sandy tiles, and then they look up to see the mirror.

The majority of it is intacted, but the center has several gaps, and not any ordinary gap that is made from a clumbsy accident.

  "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" it says, blackness filling in the letters.

"Did someone really take the time to engrave this in the mirror when they noticed a murderer might be in the house?" Louis wonders.

  "I don't know, but it's creeping me out. Let's hurry up and get out of here, I don't dig bad vibes," Sedona says, bandaging Zayn's stomach.

  "Show me your leg, I need to see if it's okay," she tells Louis after Zayn is properly taken care of. Louis notices darkness seeping through his jeans and sighs. He pulls his leg out of his pants leg and sees a gash on his knee, causing blood to flow down his entire leg.

  "Jesus, you didn't tell me it was that bad!" Sedona exclaims, looking at his wound.

"I wasn't exactly told either, " he winces.

"I swear I felt something sharp stab into me when I fell, but when I got up and looked it was just the floor," Zayn says while Sedona cleans Louis' leg and wraps it in bandages.

"Same here, it was pretty trippy actually. Kind of cool if it didn't fucking puncture my knee," Louis scoffs.

"You're so weird," Zayn giggles.

Once they are done, they choose to forget about the creepy mirror visual until tomorrow's investigating. They walk out to the front room to see that everyone has set their sleeping bags around the floor.

  "We're gonna just crash here because all of the doors are locked. We just discovered that the couches have bugs in them so I suggest you don't sleep on them," Blaise shudders.

  "I fucking hate bugs, you have no idea how much they gross me out," Michael says, his face looking udderly disgusted as he attempts hiding behind Blaise and sheltering himself with the sleeping bag.

  "And to save space, sleep in the same bag as your partner," Luke yawns.

  Once everyone is settled, Harry gets up to turn out the light and returns to his bag.

  "Goodnight guys," he says, snuggling into his pillow.

"Goodnight," everyone replies, not heistating to fall in an almost instant slumber.

  "You alright?" Rocky whsipers to Louis.

"Yeah, I got a gash in my knee which was honestly unexpected. I'll be fine now, don't make a big deal," he whispers back.

  "Poor baby," she giggles, caressing his arm affectionately.

  "This place is creepy as hell to be honest. But I'm not complaining," he smirks.

  "I consider myself accomplished. I would kill to get into those rooms though," she sulks.

"Thank god you're not a literal, quite ironic in this situation," he says, making her giggle.

"I love you," she says, her arms wrapped around him comfortingly.

  "I love you too," he replies, kissing her.

"Shut the fuck up, I'm trying to sleep!" they heard Michael say.

  "Sorry," Louis says, forcing himself asleep.

For some reason, Rocky has trouble falling asleep, and two hours pass that she spends laying restlessly.

She feels Louis' warm, content breathing against her neck, making her smile and relax a bit. But just as soon as she finally feels at peace, she hears a door open.

She rises her head in confusion, knowing that the doors were locked and that everyone was asleep. She sees a standing figure in the side of her eye, causing her to hide her face in Louis' chest and stiffen in terror.

  "This is your last chance to take your idiot friends out of my house, your last chance at all surviving," she thinks she hears someone say. She doesn't budge, making sure to not open her eyes.

  "Don't say I didn't warn you," she thinks she hears it say again, and then she hears the door close, and the faint light dissapears from the room.

Rocky rises her head again,  seeing nothing but her sleeping friends and silence other than slight snores. Everything gone. She sinks back into Louis in relief, hoping her movements don't wake him.

  Rocky knows better than to stay up late, that's when her mind wanders to strange places and makes her think that things occured that didn't. 

"Silly me," she thinks to herself, shrugging it off and falling asleep.