John's POV

You arrive at your deceased Nanna's house at around five o'clock, having endured a three hour drive that felt much longer than it should have. Your butt had gone kinda numb after the second hour sitting in the hard seats of your newly acquired truck, causing you take a half hour break from driving. Bluh, you were sure you were gonna have bruises on your ass from the bumpy ride. Stupid bumpy gravel roads.

You've been looking forward to this though, excitedly stuffing a few suitcases worth of belongings and clothes into the back of your truck a full week before ever actually leaving. You'll miss Dad of course, even his constant baking and pranks. But in all honesty, you just couldn't wait to have a place all your own. It felt like some rite of passage into manhood, as cheesy as that sounded. You are certain that the next time Dad visits he'll say how proud he is of you for managing all on your own.

It's been exactly two years since Dad told you about Nanna's will stating her wish that all her possessions, house included, would go to you once you turned nineteen. The news of course, had made you ecstatic. Dad hadn't told you sooner because he didn't want you to think you were set for life (which you totally were) and stop making any effort to get a job and the like.

While you hadn't yet seen it, you knew from stories of Dad's childhood that Nanna's house was as large as it was old and nearly untouched since the day she died. You briefly ponder why exactly Nanna had left everything to you instead of Dad, but push that thought to the back of your mind for later; you'll make sure to ask Dad his opinion on the matter, though you doubt he'll actually tell you, seeing as he's successfully evaded the subject every time you brought it up for the past two years.

You stop your reminiscing and hop out of your truck, sneakers kicking up a small cloud of dust on the dirt driveway. You stand back and take in the view of your new home: a Victorian style wood-sided house with peeling pea-green paint, a few dirty cracked windows barely showing the dusty curtains behind them. A stereotypical haunted house. Hell, it even had that round little attic window like in all the movies. In other words, it was perfect.

Smiling to yourself, you climb the few wooden steps to the front door, your hands buried in your coat pockets trying to stave off the fall chill.

You jiggle the cold metal doorknob and surprisingly, it's unlocked, causing you to drop your merry look. Shit, what if robbers had already made off with everything inside? Your heart nearly stops. You had no idea what exactly was supposed to be in there, but it was probably valuable. Old stuff always was after all. You hold your breath as you gently push open the door (your door, you remind yourself) and hesitantly step inside the house as if the possible robbers were still hanging around.

You are greeted by the sight of nothing more than sheet covered furniture and dust bunnies, much to your relief. There are some paintings hanging on the wall, thoroughly coated with dust. You still aren't sure why the front door was unlocked all this time but the lock itself was pretty old, maybe as old as the house. You shouldn't really be surprised that it finally broke. The thought of other people in the house is a little ridiculous; it's smack in the middle of nowhere, nobody's going to waste their time coming out here for stuff that may or may not exist.

You don't waste any more time dawdling around and turn on your heel back towards the truck and get to work hauling the heavier suitcases out of the back. After the last of your baggage is moved inside, you stand in what appears to be the living room and let out a sigh, running your hand through your messy could hardly believe you were finally here, in your very own house with little more than some clothes, food, and a small space heater since you weren't entirely sure how well the house's heating would work, if at all. You should probably get to work setting up that heater, as it'll only get colder tonight and it was already chilly out. But you haven't even had a chance to explore the rest of the house yet, and even though adventure is more your cousin's, Jake's, thing, you can't resist the urge to just have a look around before you start settling in. You'll make it quick, you decide.

You make your way through the first and second floor with relative ease, ducking under cobwebs and squishing multitudes of various spiders you come across. Bleh. You'll probably call an exterminator later because if there's one thing that totally grosses you out, it's spiders. As you walk down the hall leading back down towards the stairs, you look up for reasons unknown and see a panel in the ceiling, just a slightly different shade of off white. You pause beneath it, staring upward as you ponder its purpose.

Then it clicks: it's the hatch thingy to the attic. You're gonna explore the hell out of that. After searching around a bit, you find the ladder you'd passed by just a little while ago and set it up right under the hatch. Climbing up the rickety thing, you reach up and feel along the edge until you find a groove that you can grab onto. You slowly push it upward and slide it to the side as you take another step up the ladder, sticking your head up into the dark.