Deep Shadows and Creaking Floors

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Everest shrugged. "The front. I couldn't get it open after you freaked out and ran up the stairs." He scratched his head. "Did you see a spider or something outside the front door, you had to slam it?" Everest laughed and shook his head.

"I heard you all the way from the basement."

The man walked closer. "Come on, help me drink, and we can get the door unstuck together!" The young man grinned, like there was no reason to feel fear at all in this dark and spooky place. "Just ditch the doll. It looks like my mom, all judgmental, ya know? Like it's glaring at me." He laughed and turned away, ready to head out the door.
 
"Ran?" Adam mumbled. He didn't run... He didn't get a chance to run... What was all this. Was he going insane? Did he hallucinate? Maybe there was some weird mold in the walls. "I think this place is messing with my brain. We should just get out now." He said while dropping the doll on the floor. Something was weird with this place, and it wasn't ghosts. There must be some hallucination inducing mold in the walls. Everest probably had a stronger immunity against it or something.

"Let's just check the basement fast so we can leave." Adam added, walking up to the other man.
 
Everest laughed. "Man, you've got a hell of a stick up your ass." He thumped Adam on the shoulder, then turned to lead the way toward the basement as the doll rested on the floor behind them.

The misty figure reappeared, but didn't follow. The last thing Adam heard within that room was a whispered "An emergency is an unexpected and dangerous situation" from the strange, feminine figure made of pale fog.

Everest led the way down the hall, past the eerie gallery, and down the stairs, then towards the back of the back and left. He tilted his head side to side and bobbed his head, as though he had a song stuck in his head, and with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jacket, his gait was completely fearless, as though he had no idea anything frightening could possibly happen. "I tried some already," he began, "It's pretty strong!"
 
"Maybe, but you're way too relaxed." Adam replied, trying to ignore the mystical creature that he suddenly could hear behind himself. Could Everest truly not hear it? Was he hallucinating?

"I think this place is making me sick. There's probably some weird mold in the walls." Adam told the other man, just to give a good reason for them to leave. Please please accept the excuse, he thought. Let's just leave already. It was amazing how calm the guy was. How could he not freak out in there, even if he didn't see anything it was still a weird place.
 
"I'm drunk!" Everest laughed as he threw open the kitchen door to reveal a half-cooked meal. The pans on the stove were filled with dust-covered char, and smoke stained the ceiling and walls. Utensils, half-burnt, rested inside the pots.

On the floor, the same dust as everywhere else coated the floor, save where a trapdoor stood open. Everest looked back at Adam and grinned. "It's a little dark, but I found a candle." He pulled a long taper from his pocket with a grin. The other hand produced a lighter from the other pocket. "You're gonna like this, man."
 
"I guess nothing in here will be eatable at this point." Adam mumbled. Even the uncooked food would be too old for them to use if they got hungry. "Why would everything be left in the middle of cooking?" He continued, more interested in the history of the abandonment of the house rather than Everest little drunk trip, but he still followed the man down into the cellar.

"Are you sure one candle will be enough? It seems rather dark down there." He said, once again worried. "Wouldn't want to be bitten by some poisonous spider now, would we?"
 
"It's small down here, doesn't take a whole lot," Everest remarked from the bottom. The lighter clicked, and the candle's wick glowed with a small, shaky flame. The man shoved the base into a bottle, then set it to one side, grabbed another bottle from the racks on the wall, and looked up toward Adam. "You coming?" He grinned, then stepped back and took a seat against the stone brick wall.

The basement had a stone floor with wooden racks on either side.. Only three feet wide, there seemed to be enough space at the bottom, even with Everest, for Adam to sit or stand comfortably, especially if he wanted to sit on the steps.
 
Adam walked down and sat on the steps. "I can't understand how you're so entertained by all of this. Isn't it a bit too creepy that we both were thrown in here while unconscious? The more I think about it, the more I doubt it was done by anyone I know. We should probably contact the police about this. Even if the people who brought us here isn't with us and isn't actively keeping us here, just the act of taking us here is an act of kidnapping."

It seemed way too hard to make this guy start taking things seriously, but even he had to know that no one would be so sick as to do such a prank. It wasn't like they would have been taken there just while they were sleeping, because being taken out of bed would have woken them up. They would have needed to be drugged for that move to work. The alternative was that they had been out of their minds drunk, but if they were that drunk it would have been a horrible dick move of their friends to move them there, and if someone made them that drunk that would have been a crime.
 
Everest shrugged, grin wide. "Well, if it is, it's a shit kidnapping. This place is like, full of shit we can pawn. I'd just take what I can carry, sell it off, then come back for the rest with a big truck!"

The young man grabbed a bottle and read off the label with a nasal voice, laughed, and pulled a swiss knife from his jeans. The corkscrew came out, and he began to drive it into the top, tongue out the side of his mouth with a broad smile before he began to tug hard on the swiss knife to try and unstopper the bottle.

A few moments' struggle, and he pulled out the stopper and slammed his hand into the side of the rack. He laughed, then took the first sip before he offered the bottle to Adam. It smelled strong and stung at Adam's nostrils. "It's good."
 
This guy couldn't be for real. Did he really not see what a bad situation it was? Or was he just being too paranoid about it? No way, something weird was going on in there. Maybe this guy was just a part of his hallucination? Damn it, now he couldn't trust anything.

"Are you sure this is safe?" He asked while taking the bottle. It could be poisoned. Though even if it wasn't, it could have gone bad over the years for multiple reasons. If there truly was something in the air that gave them hallucinations, then maybe it was in this drink as well? Even though he was suspicious of it, Adam still took a sip. Just a small one, not wanting to seem like too much of a worrywart. He regretted it immediately as he felt the alcohol burn in his throat. He wasn't used to such strong drinks. It took almost a minute of coughing before he felt that he could breathe again.
 
"I just drank it," Everest reminded, then watched in the flickering candle light as Adam coughed. "Man, don't drink much, huh?" His laugh sounded open and free as he reached out to help steady the other man. "Lemmie see if there's anything weaker for ya, and I'll take that one. I mean, they're mostly the same, but maybe the newer ones have less, or maybe the older ones have more. Shit, I dunno how it works."

The young man babbled, excited that Adam finally seemed willing to join in on making the best of a bad situation. He pulled a few bottles out and checked labels, then put them back, or set them on the floor by his knee. "Ok, I got three! Let's make the best of being stuck here for the night." He lifted a bottle, then began to work at the cork.
 
"I drink more than enough thanks." Adam retorted. Though the things he drank weren't that strong and he mostly drank the same thing over and over again without ever testing out anything new.

"Are you planning on getting out of here in an ambulance?" He asked, looking at the bottles on the floor. "Good plan, but I don't think a week in the hospital is worth it. Breaking a window would be easier." Huh, Adam surprised himself. He didn't think he would be able to make a joke in this situation.
 
Everest grinned. "Hey, there's jokes in you! Feelin less scared?" He laughed, the sound warm and honest. "Man, I'm not gonna lie. I thought you were gonna freak out and hurt yourself earlier, like trying to slam through a wall. We gotta stay til morning." He nodded and grunted loudly as he yanked the cork from the bottle he'd been working. "There we go!" He beamed. "Try this one. Smells kinda sweet."

He reached for Adam's bottle as he offered the newly-opened one. "Really though, I ain't going until it's light outside. I dunno what's in the woods, if there are big gaping holes in the ground or fallen trees or like, bears or something, but I don't wanna be one of those kids who runs through the woods, falls, and just dies where nobody'll ever find me." His expression sobered for the first time since Adam had met him. "Can you imagine, man? Dying and nobody even knowing you're dead? I have a little sister, man. What kinda life would that be, man, have a brother your whole life and suddenly he's gone and you don't know what made him go."

The young man's hands lowered, one trembling slightly before he looked suddenly at Adam. "If we stay in this creepy-ass house and laugh at it though, we're out of any weather, and we just gotta keep ourselves occupied til morning, and then we walk out with mad loot, pawn it, bring a truck and auction the rest, and hey, we're not only safe and home, but we get a little good outta the whole thing."

Another pause. "Ha, I'm... I'm babbling, huh? Never mind my shit. Here!" He offered the bottle again, grin pasted to his face.
 
"Stay till morning? Are you insane?" How could he even think about staying all the way until morning? That sounded like madman talk. Who would ever want to stay in that place all night? Though once the explanation came it did sound rather... Logical. Unfortunately. At that point there was no way Adam could disagree. Walking around in the dark was far too dangerous. Even if the house was poisoning him and making him see things, it shouldn't be able to kill him before morning, and once he reached a hospital they could probably fix whatever the toxins in this house had done to him.

Could it be that Everest was just as frightened as Adam? "Fine, I see your point." He said as he took the bottle. "Just... Let's keep to some more light places... Rooms with windows preferably. It feels less freaky than pitch black small spaces like this."

He took a clunk from the bottle and made a grimace. It wasn't as strong as the other one, far from it, but it wasn't very... Good. At least not in his opinion. Others might enjoy it. "Just take what you want to have and lets get back up."
 
Everest nodded. "Fair deal. Figured in a closed off space you might feel safer cuz there's only one way in down here." He pointed to the trap door they'd entered through, then chuckled. "But yeah, we can come back down if we run out of what we've got. You like that one?" He shifted his weight, so he was crouched with one foot forward, ready to move, though he couldn't with Adam between him and the trap door. "After you, man." He grinned in the flickering light of the candle as it was disturbed by even the slight wind of his movement.

His teeth almost looked pointed, but when the candle calmed, he looked normal as ever, if a little stiff. Behind Adam, outside their little wine cellar, the wind blew against the walls of the old home, like whispers and whistles.
 
"One way in, one way out. Person comes through, no way out." Adam pointed out, quite baffled over how anyone would think a closed space was safe. No emergency exits, no windows, no extra doors, it was the worst space to be in if you were afraid.

He wrinkled his nose. "I don't think I'll like anything from here. I'll just let you have it. Drink yourself to unconsciousness." Even so, he still took the bottle with him, mainly just in case Everest wanted it later. He'd probably take anything once he was drunk enough.

"You want to see if we can find any board games? I doubt we'll find a TV to entertain us all night." If that place hadn't been so scary, Adam would just have settled down with a book, but in this situation, he'd rather do something more social.
 
"Hey, all we'd have to do is put me at the stairs where you are, and I could protect you, but if you don't feel safe, yeah, we can go somewhere else." He rolled his shoulders, waiting for Adam to take the lead as he took a drink of his wine.

At mention of board games, Everest blinked. "Man, you think they'd have 'em? I mean, they had a kid, but aren't board games... Eh, whatever, yeah, let's see if we can find some!" The young man beamed as he emerged from the little hidey hole not long after Adam, candle in one hand, bottle of his drink in the other.

The man stretched, though kept his arms as stable as possible to keep from upturning either candle or wine. "I guess it's nice not to be so cramped up, man."
 
Oh yeah, first he'd get killed from behind and then Adam would have to be killed from the front. Great plan Everest, keeping your back to the enemy. Adam rolled his eyes. This drunk would probably not be to much help if they actually were attacked.

"Sure, books and board games were really popular before TV and computers came into the picture. What other fun would they have?" Adam said. "Let's see. Board games are usually kept in closets or storage rooms. We could check the bedrooms first."

A nicely lit bedroom with lots of windows would be really nice right about now. Adam put his wine bottle on the kitchen counter. No reason to take that with him upstairs, or anywhere for that matter considering he didn't really want to drink it.
 
"Yeah." Everest nodded, then blinked as the guy left the open bottle of wine on the table. He snagged it and capped it with a cork he'd pulled out, probably from a different bottle. No use letting it go to waste. "On the way, I can grab more candles. They've got tons of them. We can light some space up real bright, scare off... whatever's got you so jumpy." He laughed and shook his head as he began to head towards the doorway, then paused and lifted one leg to tap at a bin to one side. "Candles in here. Grab as many as you wanna carry."

A quiet voice behind Adam whispered like rustling leaves as a chill brushed against him. Having been absent entirely during their time in the little wine cellar, it felt slightly stronger than before: perhaps it was the effect of not having felt it in so long, or maybe whatever creature his mind created had grown stronger?

Still, the words clung to Adam's ears like tar. "So... weak... Ripe fruit to pluck."

Everest seemed to hear nothing as he shifted the wine bottles in his grip, trying to reach for a couple candles for himself as the tiny flickering flame they'd kept in the cellar blew about from his jostling as he finally reached into the candle bin and drew out four or five tapers, each longer than his forearm, each with a bump on the bottom where dripping wax had built up during the dipping.
 
"Even if I wanted to carry more than two, it would be kind of hard if you don't want to become a fire hazard." Adam pointed out, only taking one candle. Sure, they could use more, but they only really needed one at a time to use where they were. "This is enough for now, we can always get more once we have decided where we want to stay put until morning." Sitting down in one place, playing games and waiting for the morning seemed like the best choice now.

A voice... Adam turned his head. Nothing. Great, now he was becoming frightened again. It was only the wind, nothing more than the wind. Everest didn't even seem to have noticed it, it must be his imagination.

"Say Everest. If I were to tell you that I was hearing... Voices. How would you react?" He asked, almost jokingly, testing the waters a bit. Maybe he could talk about it all with this guy, if he only could get him to understand how seriously he believed in the things he was hearing and seeing. Not that he believed them really, quite frankly he started to think he truly were hallucinating. But how did you tell someone that without making them think you were joking or playing a prank?
 
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