As I lied there Aerie kept saying, "Come on, get up! Get up! Get up!" while she shook my arm.

I groaned and so did she.

Eventually she grabbed my arm and yanked my bruised body up and off the dusty old floor.

Blood rushed to my head and I nearly fell down again.

I let the dizziness wear off and I said, "You couldn't have done that slower?!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, I can feel the headache that was coming.

I sighed, "Let's get this over with before my head starts pounding."

"Okay!"

She had this look of excited innocence, but she was the exact opposite.

Sure, she was excited. But she was not innocent.

She always goes looking for trouble... and tends to drag me along with her.

I sighed again and followed her as she wandered out of the room and down the hallway.

We went through each room one by one, opening each door to see what lies behind.

Nothing remarkable. Just some old broken furniture, torn sheets, tattered books.

We just kept finding more and more things of that nature.

We examined each and every thing.

We spent quite a lot of time in what looked to be a personal library.

While Aerie looked through a disheveled desk I spent my time looking through all the old books that were here. There were so many of them! If it wasn't for the creepy atmosphere I could spend forever looking through these books.

There were several bookshelves filled with poetry and nothing more.

Others were filled with plays, both short and long stories, dictionaries for every language and so much more!

I didn't get a chance to explore the rest of them before Aerie was ready to move on.

I was sad to leave all of these wonderful books behind...

Mostly because I know I probably will never ever come back here.

We left the room and I started walking back the way we came.

Aerie grabbed my wrist, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to the window."

"Why?" She whined.

Weary from wandering around for hours, I said, "So we can leave... and I have a headache."

She exclaimed, "But we didn't explore the downstairs yet!"

I massaged my temples and whispered, "Not so loud!"

She gave me a look, "Please? It won't take very long and we can leave right after, I promise!"

I figured there was no use fighting her. Pick your battles.

I let out a breath, "Fine."

"Yay! Come on!"

I had to sprint just to keep up with her. I nearly tripped several times.

As we reached the rather large staircase I saw a shadow move out of the corner of my eye.

It was just a blur moving down the staircase, it was fast.

In the blink of an eye it was gone.

I was really on edge now. I was hanging onto Aerie's side.

"What was that?!" I whispered fiercely with a shaking voice.

"What was what?" She asked, completely oblivious to what just happened.

"That!" I pointed towards the stairs. "There was a shadow! It ran down the staircase!"

She shook me off and said, "You're being paranoid. I didn't see anything."

"That's because you weren't looking at it!" I threw my arms up in frustration.

"Your being ridiculous. There's no one in here besides us."

I didn't speak. There was no use in fighting with her.

But I could swear I felt eyes on us, somewhere something was watching us...

I just knew it. I felt it in my gut, but I didn't speak my fears.

She would only deny them, so I kept them to myself.

I shook horribly as we made our way down the rather large staircase.

When we reached the bottom I let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding.

As I cowered behind Aerie I heard something, like a sigh, from behind.

I whirled around and saw a pair of white glowing eyes staring at me just a few inches away from my face.

I screamed, startling Aerie who then started screaming too.

"Go! Go! Go!" I yelled, yanking Aerie quickly towards the front door.

To my surprise, it was unlocked... unlike a few hours ago when we tried to get in this way...

We stumbled through the front door, fresh air hitting my face, along with some rain.

We slipped on the wet grass, rain pouring hard and fast with thunder ringing in my ears.

I hit the ground hard while Aerie regained her balance and kept running.

I pulled myself off the wet ground, I started running again but not before I glanced back at the old house. The front door was, once again, sealed tight.

I stumbled against the front door of my house, completely out of breath and gasping for air.

I ran all the way here from that creepy old place after seeing that... that thing! I just couldn't stop running.

I dug the keys out of my pocket and quickly unlocked the door and fell inside, onto the carpeted floor. I kicked the door shut with my foot then rolled over, onto my back, and just lied there for several minutes while I caught my breath. The plush carpet was cool against my hot skin, but eventually I decided it was time to get up.

I dragged my battered, bruised, sore body up the stairs and into bed, not even bothering to change out of my dirty clothes.