The House of Nonsense

Prologue

"If someone would have said to me peace smells like smoke, i wouldn't have trust that someone. Peace is purity so at best, we expect it to smell like flowers. Something poetic. Not smoke.

However, seeing the flames licking the house, foundation to roof was the best thing I've seen in a while."

*

The house of nonsense.

In Louisiana, there is a town called Pine. Home of 1.610 souls. Rumor has it that a strange house absorbs the soul of anyone owning it on august 29 of each year. Sacha knows it because she is a huge fan of science fiction stories since she was a little girl, and seeks for that kind of horrific rumors. But she is also very incredulous about supernatural theories. She loves verify them but until today, none of them has been true, to her deception. When a friend of friend introduced her to the house of nonsense story, she had goose bumps running through her arms, and the familiar envy to seek the truth hidden behind the myth. In her fantasy, she dragged her sister, Lili. Lili doesn't like science fiction things at all. She lives in the reality for better and also for worse and earlier it's been mostly for worse. For 35 years that she is on earth, bad things always seemed to be an exclusivity of her family. The sisters lost their parents when they were children. Forced to live with their aunt and uncle, not very good people, until Lili was 18 so she was able to take care of herself and Sacha. And that's what she did. She took the first job she found, a tiny apartment in Chicago where they grew up, and they took care of each other along the years. Now she is 35, Sacha is 28 and she knows herself sick. In a few months, perhaps a year, she will die and let her sister on her own and it's probably what scares her so damn much. Not death but the perspective of letting her sister alone. Don't get her wrong, Sacha is an adult, except her science fiction love, she is stable, has a bright career of painter ahead of her : she will be fine. But who will prevent her from her risky choices? She is passionate when it comes to seek the supernatural, not hesitating too much before buying a magic wand that revealed itself to be a simple but fair wood stick, right after she gave the money to the guy. Until today they kept their inheritance wisely, working hard to assume themselves by their own means but Lili wants to give her sister something relatable in the worse day. Something like a house on their own that no one would ever take away from Sacha when Lili will die.

So, when Sacha talked to Lili about the house of nonsense, making crystal clear that it was one more mystery she wanted to resolve, Lili saw the opportunity. The fact that rumor said the house absorbs the souls of their owners didn't really bother her : like I said, no supernatural things the sisters seek have been true whatsoever. It was just a beautiful house in a little town of Louisiana, far from their home in Chicago, giving them the chance to start over. And for Lili, to enjoy her last months, making everything ready for the day her sickness would end her.

In the middle of May, with a big big truck, they let their apartment of Chicago, their struggling past, and crappy memories to move in Pine, in the big big house that sucks souls.