The Choice (a Painful Past)

189 Colby's POV

AUTHOR'S NOTE: 

This chapter starts the end of my Instagram posting. I just can't do it anymore. Not doing chapters is hurting my views and I honestly hate it. So, if you came from Instagram, then please stick around here. I'm still waiting for my wrist to get better, but I managed to somehow get this chapter out. Thanks and love you.

"Shut up," I laughed. 

We took our time going up the stairs, bypassing the sagging steps, and taking care to use the wall for balance, instead of the railing. The upstairs consisted of three bedrooms. Two for the kids and one for the parents, I was guessing. 

There was nothing much in them, just a neatly made bed, a dresser, a wash bin, and small closets. The final room was pink all the way around, with a pink canopy bed against the side wall. Old style dresses, with collars, hung on some sort of rack against the back wall.

 "Definitely a little girl's room," Sam murmured, as we stood just inside the door, looking around. I nodded in agreement. "Seems like maybe she was the favorite child," I murmured, thinking about the plain gray, baren room that we had just left. "Or the other room was just a guest room," Sam replied. "Yeah," I nodded in agreement. "I like that explanation better." 

We searched the entire house thoroughly, and were about to leave, when I noticed something.

 "Yo, is that a door to the attic?" I asked, pointing up at the ceiling. It was just off the stairs and to the right, before entering, what I assumed to be, the parents' room. "Looks like it," he murmured, as he reached up to pull the thick silver chain that was hanging down.  

"Wait," I insisted, as a feeling of dread spread over my body, chilling me to the bone. He stopped, with his hand hovering in the air, and looked at me. "Why? This is what we do." "I don't know," I whispered, staring up at the small trap door. "Something doesn't feel right about it." 

He rolled his eyes and pulled the chain, releasing a thin ladder that led up into the attic. "It's just an attic in an abandoned building. We've been through weirder and more unsettling things than this." 

I sighed and submitted, with a nod. "You're right. I'm just freaked out more than usual for some reason." He stepped up onto the ladder and smiled at me. "That's a good thing though. Whenever you feel that, we always get activity." I scoffed and started to follow him up the stairs. "When we need to film something, sure, but not when we're just doing it for us," I muttered. 

He disappeared into the darkness, with his laugh echoing down at me. "Holy shit," he whispered, as I reached the top of the rickety ladder and stuck my head through the opening. "Wow," I murmured, looking around. There were boxes, on top of boxes, piled next to each other, with various objects littered around them. 

I pulled myself up onto the landing and started filming the spacious area. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. There was a small, circular window letting in a small amount of moonlight. The silvery shade seemed to be trying to permeate the thick darkness, but was instead being swallowed up, leaving behind a grayish hue. Like the skin of a corpse. I shivered at my own morbid thoughts and continued looking around. 

"Should we bust open some of these boxes? This place has been abandoned for longer than our parents, and possibly our grandparents, have been alive. How is everything in such good condition?" Sam asked, as he slid his hand over one of the boxes, flipping the top open. "I don't know," I murmured. "It's eerie...BUT, we're here to explore, so let's get to it." He grinned and nodded his head, before he started to rummage his hands through his current box. 

I walked around for another minute, admiring the old grandfather clock that was in the corner, and the old wooden toys that were inside a battered crib, with peeling grayish paint. I was beginning to wonder if everything was the color gray, just because of how old it was. It had probably once had a vibrant color that had faded out, leaving behind the corpse of its former beauty. I shook my head, trying to clear those thoughts again. I mean, I loved the occasional morbid thought as much as the next person, but my brain was really on overdrive with them at this place. What gives?