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Your friends told you it wouldn’t be a big deal. They assured you they’ve done it many times before. You can see now as you walk towards the darkness and peer back at their smirking faces that you’ve been lied to. Still, you don’t back down, something inside you is more eager than afraid. You’ve already made it beyond the rusty chain-link fence and into the yard. Of course it had to be foggy the same night you chose to take this venture alone. You know how this ends. You’ve seen the movies, but something inside is egging you on, telling you that without the accompaniment of a high-pitched score warning you not to take another step, nothing can go terribly wrong. The cold air bites at your skin and your hair begins to dampen from the density of the fog. Almost to the house. You can see it’s ominous shadow beginning to form. The roof leans slightly to the left, and looks taller than it did from a distance, the way you’d seen it many times before when passing by. As you approach, you can make out more details. The porch awning is bowed and there are holes in both the deck and the house that scream termites and neglect. Tentatively, you walk up the steps, careful to check the sturdiness of the plancks before placing your full weight on them. They groan mournfully with varying pitches, disdainful of their unwelcome guest. An ear splitting crack erupts from beneath you, as a piece of wood breaks and your foot plummets to the ground, taking the rest of you with it. Without even thinking you force your leg out of the hole and recompose yourself on solid ground. You notice the pace of both your breath and your heart, you feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins. You shouldn’t be here. But something compels you to waltz through the open door frame. The door itself was unhinged and leaning on the outer wall. It had no handle, and jagged shards of glass where a window was once fixed. You don’t let yourself think too hard about how they’re dotted with blotches of deep red. The night has consumed the interior of the house, there is no illumination, all you see are shadows. Some of them seem to dance on the walls and you start to feel uneasy. You know you should turn back. But you brought a flashlight. You reach for it, and as you do, you start to realize that the house is not as quiet as it should be. You hear the sounds you’d expect: the wind rushing through the gaping holes in the walls, the creaking and moaning of a house on the brink of collapsing, the pitter-patter of small rodents scattering as you make your way through the room. But you can’t figure out what’s making the thumping noise. Or the scraping noise. Then you hear something ceramic shatter. Your hand is shaking as you flick on your flashlight, which reveals a clear message painted in maroon letters on the wallpaper before you. RUN. You don’t have to be told twice. You flee as fast as you can, checking over your shoulder every few seconds. You could have sworn that there were footsteps right by you in the house, but outside you see and hear nothing. It takes you a fraction of the time to scale the fence on the way out than it did on the way in, and a wave of relief washes over you as you rejoin your friends in the woods. Silently, you swear to yourself that you’ll never go into some creepy old house to win a bet again.