Greyson sat his suitcase down by the entrance. He had been wrong. The inside of the house was not beautiful or totally decrepit. Instead he found that it was somewhere in between. The paint seemed to be fresh, but the decorations and furniture seemed to be from a different era entirely. The walls were covered in old photographs. The old images didn't depict anything special. They all seemed to be of the house before it was clearly abandoned.
As he moved further and further into the room, he found that the small hairs on the back of his neck seemed to stand more on end. Since the moment he stepped foot on this property, he had felt like he was being watched.
Everything inside of him screamed for him to run. It told him that this was not a good place to be. Not needing to be told once again, Greyson slowly backed up towards the door. He had almost reached his suitcase, when the large wood door slammed shut.
Whipping around, he ran to what was once his exit and tried to wrench it open, but it wouldn't budge. Not giving up, he placed one foot on the wall and pulled with everything he had. Even with all that effort he was unable to pry the door open. When his strength ran out, he fell to the ground in defeat. Once again, he found himself in a terrible situation. Why did this always seem to happen to him?
Immersed in his self-pity, he was oblivious to the girl standing in the entrance watching him.
"Are you alright?" The sudden sound of the soft voice caused him to practically jump out of his own skin.
Scrambling to his feet, Greyson found himself straightening his clothes and fixing his hair. "What?"
"Are you alright?" The girl asked between giggles.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Greyson rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment.
"You sure, cause, I just found you sprawled on the floor a few seconds ago." Greyson watched the girl as she folded her arms across her chest. Who is this girl, he wondered?
"Yeah, I'm fine." It was only when he answered that he realized that they were both speaking German. "How do you know German?" He couldn't hold back his question.
"Oh, yeah. I learned how to speak German when I was six. It's no big deal." She wandered into the room and stared at the old photographs on the wall. Placing her hands behind her back she rocked on the heels of her bare feet.
"Yeah, I guess. So how long have you been here?" Greyson moved towards her, curious. Who was this girl? He didn't dare to get too close to her. He found that he felt awkward under her gaze, even though she was a good two feet shorter than he was. She shifted her gaze from the photo to his reflection in the dusty glass.
"I don't remember, but it feels like a long time." The girl turned away from the mirror like glass and looked down at her feet.
"So, can I ask you a really strange question?"
"I suppose." Now looking at the boy again, the strange girl tilted her head to the side.
"Is this place haunted by any chance?" It was a strange question, but since the moment he first stepped foot into the house, he had an eerie sense that there was more than met the eye within these walls.
Instead of answering him, she broke out into a fit of chilling laughter. "We should get going." Not bothering to wait for him, the girl turned on the heels of her feet and began to skip down the long corridor.
"Hey! Wait!" He didn't want to chase after her, but the thought of being alone again in this creepy house seemed even more terrifying than following the shady girl down the hall. So, pushing past all his reservations, he proceeded to chase after her down the dimly lit hallway.
Karen checked what seemed to be the billionth bedroom in a row in their endless search for their missing comrade.
"How far do you think she could have gone?" Wyatt asked the question as he shut yet another one of the doors behind him.
"It's a pretty large house. She could quite literally be anywhere." Karen sighed. How could they have been so stupid in coming to this wretched place. Sophie had been right; they should have just left when they had the chance.
"I hate to say it, but she could be gone." Paul, who had been quiet since they had first started the search, shuffled his feet on the floor. He didn't want to say it, let alone think it, but he knew that there was another possibility as to why they hadn't found her yet.
"She's not dead." Wyatt had to stop himself from screaming the words. There was no way that she was dead. He hadn't known her for long, but he knew that there was no way that could have been her fate. She was too good for that ending, and yet, deep down he also knew that death didn't discriminate. He had learned that lesson when his second guardian had died.
"Enough chit chat. We won't know if she is okay or not until we find her, and we aren't going to find her if we keep standing around here talking ifs." Karen didn't like this conversation. She hated the thought of death. She had had enough of it in her short life, so she definitely wasn't going to stand around in a hallway and contemplate whether her friend was alive or dead instead of looking for her.
"You're right. We need to keep looking." Having had enough, Wyatt walked over to the next door and opened it. He scanned the dark room before closing moving on to the next one.
With a new and stronger resolve, Karen and Paul went back to checking the rooms along with Wyatt. They weren't going to give up until they had found her.
"Hey, wait up!" Greyson bent over out of breath. Every time he seemed to almost catch up with her, she would disappear again.
He had been following her for at least twenty minutes now. He would have given up and gone back to the main room, but the house was like a giant maze and he couldn't remember how to get back. With a fresh gulp of air, he started to chase after her again.
When he had first decided to come here to this place it was because he didn't have anywhere else to go. Not to mention the fact that he had burned his school to the ground while in the hospital over one hundred kilometers away. There may not have been any physical evidence of this, but he knew what he had done. Coming to this house was his way of escaping, never had he imagined that he would be running to a place like this.
After rounding the next corner, Greyson found that in stopping to take a breath, he had lost sight of the girl completely. With a loud sigh, he fell against the wall. What was he going to do now?
"Boo!" Greyson jumped at the sudden loud noise. Whipping his head back and forth in search of its source, he found that the person who said it was the girl who he had thought he'd lost. Her head was peeking out from around the corner.
She stared at him with her big almond brown eyes and a huge smile plastered on her face. For the first time since he saw her, he finally got a good look. Her hair was wavy and the color of autumn leaves, vibrant and red. Her skin seemed to glow, but it still looked olive in color. She wasn't very tall, maybe five feet five at most, but there was something about her that made her seem, bigger than life itself.
"W-Where?" Greyson found that he was at a loss for words. How did someone like her exist, especially in a place like this?
"Are you alright? I didn't scare you too much, did I?" The girl slowly walked out from behind the corner, her hands tightly intertwined in front of her.
"Scare me? No. You didn't scare me. I was just- I was just surprised." He didn't know why he was trying to play it cool. Perhaps it was because she was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. That would probably also explain why his hands were sweating profusely.
"No, you're right. I definitely did not scare you. You probably jump whenever somebody starts to talk to you." The girl placed one of her hands in front of her mouth to conceal her smile.
"What's your name?" He hadn't meant to blurt out the question, but he couldn't stand not knowing what to call her. Someone as beautiful as her probably had an amazing name.
"Why should I tell you?" Greyson studied the girl for a moment to see if she was joking or being serious. He had never really had much luck in knowing the difference between the two.
"Because, you like me?" Feeling self-conscious, Greyson shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his feet.
"How do you know I like you? I could just be bored and messing with you." Judging from the wry smile still on her face, Greyson figured that she was probably joking, or at least he hoped that she was.
"No, you definitely like me." Feeling more confident, Greyson took a step toward her.
"Okay then. I will tell you my name if you tell me yours. Deal?" The girl extended her hand towards him, palm open.
"Deal." Greyson reached out at grabbed her hand to complete the strange pact. When his hand touched hers', it sent a chill down his arm and throughout his entire body. The sensation reminded him of the time when his former bullies had shoved him in the kitchen freezer for an entire weekend.
Greyson found himself unable to look away from the hand that was held by his. It was small and was like ice to the touch. He had met people with cold hands before, but this was different. It didn't feel like normal cold, it felt almost unnatural.
"Are you going to tell me your name, or are you planning on holding my hand for the rest of your life?" Once again, Greyson found himself startled by the sudden sound of her voice.
"Sorry. I'm Greyson." Feeling embarrassed, he dropped her hand and shoved his back into his pocket.
"Well Greyson, since you honored our deal, I am obligated to tell you that my name is Delphine." When the girl was done speaking, she gave what looked like an off-center curtsy.
"Delphine." Greyson whispered her name to himself. He knew that someone that beautiful had to have a name just as amazing, but Delphine was better than he ever could have imagined.