Leland Silva didn't like unanswered questions, and memories that didn't make sense left him uneasy. This is why he had sat awake one night on the bench in town square waiting for the door to appear again.
This is why he always recorded In The Abyss Of Love to find the plotholes. This is why he went up to Fletcher's Home For The Abandoned to visit Jenny Green, even though she never said a word.
This is why he was stood on the verge of the infamous Butler Street dead end.
His footfalls as he made his first steps onto the street echoed off the silent empty buildings that lined this dead end. The walls of the building were covered in chalk drawings of pink cats, girls playing, rainbows and colour.
Seeing them anywhere else would bring a smile to his face, but here they felt wrong. Here they felt less like the happy scribbling of children and more like the dreaded sign of something hard, dark and unwanted.
He pulled his collar up to shield his neck from the sudden cold and continued down the street. All his life he was told tales of the Butler Street dead end. Some said that people who go in don't come out, others claim that their bodies are found sitting in the middle of the road, staring out onto Butler Street until they are moved away.
Most say that no one has ever made it to the end. They say that the people who go in come running out yelling and crying not five minutes after going in.
Leland didn't like unanswered questions. This is why he often volunteered at the library and stayed late so he was the last one out. This is why he ate lunch among the moaning stones even though they made his skin crawl.
This is why when every fibre of him wanted to turn around, he kept putting one foot in front of the other.
He stepped into the darkened trees and instantly his arms were covered in goosebumps. The air grew heavy and hot. A coppery smell of daffodils and cinnamon filled his nose to the point of choking. The creaking of the trees in the wind he couldn't feel grew louder until he had to cover his ears in order to continue.
Ahead, the trees grew denser, the darkness deepening and the sky growing a deep shade of purple.
Leland had fought the urge to run away and took another step when he saw it. It was a simple movement, a shadow rushing by in the darkness of the trees, it was simple and quick, just a rustling of leaves but it made Leland's throat clench.
Sweat began to bead on his forehead and his hands grew into fists that he pressed on the sides of his head to keep the sounds of the trees out. His shirt felt heavy and his shoes wouldn't move.
For minutes he sat there, in the darkness of the trees waiting for whatever was out there to move again. When it did, he ran.
In moments he had fallen to the street at the entrance of the Butler Street dead end, tears streaming down his face and gasping for air. He sat there for a while, slowly pulling himself together. It wasn't until he stood and looked around that he noticed that every person who lived near the entrance to the dead end had come out of their house.
They all stood there in the safety of their lawns just watching as Leland began to walk away from that horrible dead end.
