Mystery Of Why The Universe We Created Explodes

Prologue

HAVE YOU ever been afraid of something that all you did is to run and look for a safe place to hide? That’s what I felt when me and Drew—my best friend — entered an abandon house. We’re both fourteen when this happened.

There was a rumor circling in our town about a haunted place where no one ever tried to go into. When I said no one, it means not even a single soul tried to step on that place, their words, not mine. I don’t know where they got that exemplum when it’s plainly clear coming from their mouth that no one ever been there. Who knows? Maybe the ghost sent them a letter and told them about it. We don’t know.

They said, there’s a ghost of a young lady carrying a lamp appeared every three in the morning and at four in the afternoon, abducting whoever children she sees. That sounds not scary at all, or so my fourteen years old self was telling me. Other kids my age avoid passing there like it’s a slaughterhouse.

But not us. It even piqued our curiosity and planned on going to that place. Acting like a complete fool and thought were some ghost hunters who wanted to catch the said lady. We fearlessly go at exactly four, at the same time she appears. Drew’s excited about it, ‘cause of course it’s his idea. I just followed him—not just in this, but also in an uncommon situation. Wherever he goes, I’m on his tail and that makes me looked like his loyal underling. He even brought a bag pack—food inside, especially chips, our favorite — full of other stuff. He thought of spending several hours before we leave.

Afraid someone might see us, we used the backdoor that brought us to the kitchen. With a flashlight in the left hand and a crooked stick on the right, Drew leads the way inside the house while I’m behind him holding the same thing he’s carrying. I had a bad feeling when we haven’t entered the house yet but I ignored it, I trusted Drew. Even when it would lead us into perilous situation, I will still follow him — not that he’ll put us both in danger, he won’t do that.

Once inside, Drew put his flashlight on the old ceramic table, aiming towards him and pulls the tenuous chair near the kitchen sink to use so that he can reach the cupboard. I looked at him dubiously, wondering what he’s trying to do. He then started rummaging inside of the cabinet.

Crickets were singing their favorite piece. It’s piercing loud inside this empty house that didn’t help with the chills I felt. The cold air dampened my nerves that made me hold tighter to the flashlight I’m holding. I closed the zipper of my jacket, trying to constraints the algid air touch my skin.

“What are you doing?”

My voice echoed throughout the kitchen, albeit, it was already a whisper. Feels like I’m talking inside the closed bottle of bourbon.

“Just want to check if the former owner leaves something that we can use,” he murmurs, too invested in what he’s doing that can’t even look my way.

“Nothing found yet.” He jumped down from the chair, the thumped of his feet landing on the concrete floor reverberates from every corner of the room. Clapping his hands, trying to get rid of the tenacious dust clinging on his hands, he faces me and wickedly smiles.

“Thought we’re just doing some ghost hunting?”

“Yeah,” he looks at me, still grinning. “With a twist.”

Through the messy kitchen, we can hear a soft voice humming coming from the empty hallway to our left, the reason we halted our movement. The grin Andrew’s wearing was now hinted with aghast. My heart’s pounding loudly, too loud that I even heard it. The ceaseless blend of the sound gives me goosebumps. Every hair on my body rigidly stands.

“It’s a cat for sure,” Drew said dubiously.

We both know it’s far from felis catus mammal he’s talking about. How can a cat hum? Nope, totally not. Cats can’t do that.

No idea who was he trying to convince, me or his self since the fear in his voice was palpable. I was about to suggest we leave when the humming brusquely stops, transmuted into spooky atmosphere.

“Let’s go catch that harlot,” he whispered the last part and hastily lead the way again. Waving his hand, beckoning me to follow him, and so I did.

Drew believed the lady died because she brought men every night and got killed by one of them. I don’t know where he got that story, but as a young dumb kid, I believed him. I always do, just like the way I believed him when we’re at kindergarten. He said rains are Jesus’ pee and so I started sharing it with our classmates. The worst part was when I shared it in class. Our teacher obviously doesn’t like it and exploded, giving me a piece of her mind for being sacrilegious and says it’s not good blaspheming the Lord. What a kid knew about the Lord at that age? That’s something you would know.

Despite the eerie atmosphere and haphazard things in the surroundings, we still continue to wander. We made it to the empty living room. Not totally empty since the patchy couch in the middle erratically stood out.

I examined the surroundings. The smell of dust was lingering in the air. That made me hard to breathe. I can find a lot of broken vase, some have words written on it. Looks like we’re not the first people who’s been here. Our loud steps, the only sound I can hear. I looked around, taking in the environment—Drew’s doing the same thing, but I know his head’s in a different space — barring got to stop, when I noticed something.

There was a dark shadow in the far corner to our right. I aimed the flashlight in that direction but only saw a thick black curtain. I drew the breath I held, relieved to see a distinct thing that I was expecting. We continued to check the room, Drew’s rummaging a cabinet near the table, again.

The place was very quaint, from the rag that looks ancient to the broken chandelier hanging on the ceiling, the designs and painting on the wall. It looked like more like a madhouse than an old abandoned mansion.

Some paintings plastered on the wall are in frame, all lined up to the wall, in details. I am surprised to see a perfect good shape paintings. Why did the latter owner of this house leaves this impeccable masterpiece when they can sell it to the museum? Surely all of this were expensive.

I study the paintings. A ship in the middle of the ocean, swinging through the raging waves with a lightning struck its deck. Seems like the artist’s mind drowned in the ocean when they made it. I drag my sight to the left side and saw three small bugs orbing a single flower of rosemary. To the upper side was a skinny-boned stray dog gnawing at a bone, a dark shadow circling its eye. When you look through it, you’d be absorbed with the sadness that you saw in its eye. The artist did a superb job of catching the onlookers’ attention through their art. Drew was now next to me, also examining the painting wearing this mysterious smile.

I looked elsewhere to my right and saw an enormous frame that caught my attention. It was an enormous portrait of a beautiful lady; They placed it in the middle in all of other paintings. Her eyes were round and looked alive. It felt like she’s staring right through my soul. Her penetrating gaze bore into me, inveigling all my attention. I grabbed Andrews’ shirt that made him squeak loudly.

“What the hell dude! Are you trying to kill me?”

I hush him down and pointed my finger to the painting and found out he’s already staring right through it.

“s**t. Why does it look like she’s real?”

That was the last thing I heard from him and now we’re surrounded with an ear-splitting roar of silence. We’re now both staring at the face of an angel-like beauty in front of us, too enceintes to move a muscle.

At first, the painting was still and looked normal, but after a moment, it suddenly started moving. We stood frozen from where we’re standing. I can feel Andrew’s hand clutching my shoulder. His touch was icy cold.

“Kyle," he said, voice stuttering. "What’s going on?”

My voice wasn’t also far from him. “I don’t know."

The realization kicked in. We are inside of an abandon house where no people lived nearby and even passers are nowhere to be seen. We can easily got killed without someone to help us and our families won’t find where our body would be. This pretty much like in a scene of horror movies but you can’t blame me. You’ll probably thinking this way when you’re in this kind of situation, though, I can see no murderer, but still.

The painting on the wall abruptly fell that frightened the hell out of us. Glass shattered on the floor and even fragments reached my shoes.

“AHHHHHH!”

We both shouted and bolted outside. Drew stumbled on the small vase along the way causes to make a disintegrate sound.

“s**t,” he says, but that didn’t make him stop.

Even when we’re already far enough from the house, we are still shouting. Some people we passed looked on us weirdly. Some are even pissed and glared. We don’t care as long as we are safely away from the imperilment of the house. We’re both out of breath when we finally reached the domain of our home, can’t speak, to fixate on filling in our lungs with oxygen. I believe now, that house really haunted.

That night we sleep while our hearts still beating loudly and promised to never talk and mention it to anyone. Of course, I didn’t sleep alone. Drew spends the night at our house and in my room particularly. We shared the comfort of my bed and duvet, as usual. Since he’s just living next door, he can easily go home by morning.

We also didn’t just promised to never talk about it but swear to never go back to that place ever again, afraid of having a chance of re-encountering the lady with a lamp. No, it suited “The lady in the portrait” well.