text: I no longer can handle this house that I once called home. The plain white walls with the judgmental eyes. They have long since made me feel quite uncomfortable. My ears ache with such pain from the loud squeaky floor boards. I have yet to decide if they are begging me for help or screaming at me to leave. The shredded green carpet, upstairs in the last bedroom at the end of the hall, to the left, must truly despise me. I say this because when I walk into that room the carpets dark, green hands always wrap around my feet causing me to fall. I am afraid to take simple baths in the once peaceful tub, in the upstairs bathroom. Every time I get into the water and scooch down in it to get comfortable and relax, the water comes back on once I rest my eyes. I always feel the hands of someone trying to drown me. My only friend was the wall size mirror in my living room. It has the most welcoming presence and the most beautiful blue frame. I use to be able to look into it and see myself, the positive and happy self I use to be before...before all of this. Now it too has since betrayed me. It portrays me as this crazy, delusional person my family says I am. They say I am losing my mind but I am not. They say I am just the most, clumsy person they have ever met and that is why I trip over the carpet all the time. They even have an explanation for the bathtub. They say I fall asleep once I get too comfortable and that is why I feel like I am drowning. If only they could see the warning on the back of the front wooden door, just below the diamond shaped window. How they miss it I will never know. The blood is everywhere. My name is Stephanie Grey. The year is 1997 and I am twenty-five years old. I have been living in this house for almost two years now. Before I moved to the peaceful town of New Seal, I lived in a very busy city. I was a very successful psychologist. I had a husband for about three years. We started dating when I was seventeen years old. Basically we were together for about six years. We lived together for four of those years. By now I am sure you are wondering why I continue to speaking in pass tense when referring to my husband. Well that is because in 1995 Gerald passed away. He was in a head on collision with another car. They both crashed into a guard rail. Everyone died involved including the little girl that was with her mother in the other car. I was completely devastated about this for a long time. Had my husband and I not been arguing then none of it would have happened. I stopped showing up to work and eventually lost my job. I didn’t even care. After living with such depression for almost five months, I decided in order to be happy again I needed to move on. I knew the only way that I would be able to do this is, that I would have to move out of the house that I shared with my late husband. I didn’t want to let go of the house I lived in for over four years but I knew I must be strong. That is how I ended up in this house that I have now. I found this house in a catalog. The description they gave was “a beautiful, three bedroom, one and half bathrooms, a large front and backyard and two car garage. A great house for a large family looking for a peaceful and safe place to live.” Now I know it doesn’t make much sense for one person to move into a house so big. What caught my attention most about this house was that it was the only one that had the words “peaceful and safe” in its description. The thought of that sounded so wonderful to me and I figured if nothing else I could have a lot of sleep overs. Maybe even rent out the rooms to people and make some extra money, since I lost my job. I called the number listed for the home and moved in about two and a half weeks later. The house was exactly as they said it was for the first year. The fresh air and the children playing in the street, brought more smiles to my face than I could count. I through parties often for my family and friends. I would invite the new people I had met since moving to this town. It was great and before I knew it I was back to how I once was. Although I missed my husband more than anything because he was my best friend, I was no longer sad. I have finally moved on and felt like I could be happy again. At least that is what I thought, till things started changing and the house became unfriendly. It started out small, little things that had to happen several times before I even noticed them happening. My family always told me I was oblivious to the obvious. I figured out that, that is the only thing they have ever accused me of and they were right. Never have I ever met someone who doesn’t notice when their chairs were rearranged or that their kitchen garbage was moved about three feet to the left and angled differently than they put it. I figured I simply forgot that I moved them and that was it. It didn’t occur to me that something strange was happening until I started seeing the figures walking in the halls. I could never get a good enough look at them though, so I eventually started to dismiss them too.