Gifford House, home of Sunil Kumar. The light in the attic, eerily constant. I can’t help but think of the collection of short stories by Shel Silverstein. I try to hold the thought in my head, hoping it will distract me from the horrors before me. I scream. I can’t help it. Tears stream down my face, dropping heavy on the floor. I close my eyes tight, but I can still see it. Oh my God. It’s getting hard to tell what’s real anymore. I thought I knew reality, but surely this cannot be a part of the same reality I once understood to be true. My mind, realizing that these are probably its last seconds, thinks back to the moments before I began this hellish escapade. The moments before my life was doomed.
I had taken up a seemingly simple task for my The Zamboni article: I was going to be the first student to ever step foot inside Gifford House. I wanted to report back to the general populace the secrets within the brick exterior. I thought it would be easy, I thought it would be interesting, I thought it might even be a little fun. How sorely mistaken I was.
I snap back to the present as I hear an awful gurgling noise. I wonder if it came from myself. All my senses have blurred together into some terrible, inescapable sensation that I keep hoping will end. Perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t make it out of this place. That way, future students might think twice before trying to repeat what I’ve done. My task will be some sort of a success after all, in a strange way. I find solace in this fact. I think I smile.
Suddenly, a voice. Muffled at first, as if my mind is realizing that it can still take in information. I must be alive. My eyes are still shut tight, I wouldn’t dare open them. The voice is clearer now. I try to ignore it. I know its origin, and I’m reminded that I’m still here.
The voice, a third time. This time, the words form meaning in my brain.
“I said, why the hell are you in here?”
I shake my head, trying to pull myself back to the dreamlike state I have just been forced out of. It’s useless. The moment replays itself over and over from behind my closed eyes. The steam filling up the room, suffocating me. The awful screech as the curtain is pulled along the metal rod, exposing what lies on the other side. And the man I once thought of in such an innocent light. The man whose image will forever be seared into the deepest part of my brain, of my soul. Haunting me forever. I finally open my eyes. Sunil Kumar steps out of the shower.
