The house next to me had been vacant for as long as I could remember. Vaguely I remember one woman, about twenty three years of age, living there when I was about five years old. But she didn't last there long because for the next twelve years it was completely vacant. There would be the occasional police officer coming in and checking around the premisis to make sure there wasn't a crack house being established within its walls, but that's it. My brother and his buddies would climb the tall trees that stood next to the front door, trying to get to the balcony on top. But after each attempt they made would result in one of them being rushed to the hospital due to spraining a wrist... Idiots.
But I had always wondered what the inside was like. I've always been too much of a pansy to go in it. I imagine it having a grand stair case with old furniture covered in plastic. The vacant house was big. Bigger than big. It was a mansion. The only mansion in our neighborhood of ranches and cottages. It stood out. As people jogged by or walked their dogs, stares would dart towards the mansion. It was completely mysterious.
Well one night, around one in the morning, I climbed out of bed and looked out of my window that faced the vacant house.
Nothing.
For the past seventeen years, I've always expected to see a figure appear in the windows, but nothing was there. I'd sigh and walk back to my bed and climb back into its comfortable warmth, drifting off to sleep to only think about the house more than ever. I needed to know what mysteries may lay in those eery halls. I had many predictions, many theories, but there was nothing to conclude one of my many predictions. Nothing.
Nothing at all.