Black Marble

0:00Most people would rather remove a nest of irate hornets than search for auto and home insurance. That's why the zebra searches for you, comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can. Compare today at the zebra.com. I think I'll wait inside. Most people would rather tend a corporate team building workshop than search for auto and home insurance. Go team, feel that synergy. That's why the zebra searches for you, comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can. Compare today at the zebra.com. Who's ready for the truss fall? Hello, I'm Wilkins' stories all the time. Vlad, you are here. Let's get into it. It all coming back to me. Returning to the houses and masking memories I thought have been destroyed. But they were here all along. They were hiding in these shadows. It's all coming back to me now, standing in the doorway of that old house at the tail end of Berrybrick Road. I was 11, my brother 7. At those ages, we were locked in that brotherly conflict

1:00that makes you confused about whether you want company or not. You need each other. You haven't realized it yet, but it's true. However, you would rather be apart whenever he's around. My seven year old brother's name was Sam. Sam's secrets is what we call him. He was always sneaking around pretending to spy on the rest of us. I learned I could not play hide and seek with him because I couldn't compete with his comprehensive knowledge of every new concranny in our first house. I once watched him disappear into the couch cushions and I still might not have believed he was tucked in there before he dug himself back out before my eyes. When we moved to Roddy's house, Sam had to start all over again. He had to map the whole place and try to determine his new vantage points, bunkers and hideaways. But although we were finally on an even playing field, I still wouldn't play hide and seek with Sam. I didn't feel like playing anything at all. I'd wanted to stay in our nice house on a cul-de-sac. My best friend or I lived across the street from us and we'd hit a trampoline in a backyard. But dad lost his job and mom couldn't support us and pay the mortgage on her salary alone. Fortunately, well, that's not the right word

2:02but I'm not really certain of the proper way to express my feelings about this. Dad's cousin, Roddy, died just a few months before dad got laid off. His uncle said Roddy's house had just been sitting empty ever since. Roddy had paid it all thanks to an enormous sum he won in a medical malpractice suit. The house had gone to Roddy's dad, my dad's uncle and he offered it to my family until we got back on our feet. It was a generous offer but unfortunately the house was so far away mom had to quit her job first to move there. Dad's severance could get us by for a few months without our mortgage though so we made the move anyway. Despite the circumstances surrounding the move my parents were quite pleased with the house itself. Mom especially loved the two acres of healthy dirt the house sat on. She had always wanted chickens and maybe a goat and most of all a lush fidgetable garden where she could grow food for our table nine months out of the year. Dad seemed fixated on the basement. He repeated again and again how he had apparently always wanted to build a workbench but never had the time of space. He vowed to finally build one in the basement of Roddy's house. I didn't know why he liked that basement.

3:03He did like it. It wasn't just a convenient space but that coal stony place made me feel sequitier. The basement had been neglected since the incident which put Roddy in a wheelchair. It was also where Roddy died. Roddy had had a harniated disk in his spine that required surgery and he had not been for war and of the risks. The surgeon caused some nerve damage and Roddy was left paralyzed from the waist down. For a man who had been able to walk for 32 years waking up and suddenly being unable to use his legs was obviously quite traumatic especially having not been for one of the possibility. His new reality hit him like a life sentence which it seemed to him to be. After meeting a happy and capable wheelchair-bound child in the physical therapist's office, Roddy had decided not to take his own life. This is something I guess he was very open with when talking to my great uncle but he still filed a lawsuit against the surgeon and one handily. This, as I mentioned, is how he paid off his house at the first age of 32. Roddy couldn't juice stairs anymore so my great uncle helped him move his bedroom to the ground floor. He said Roddy never went upstairs or into the basement again.

4:03At least not until the night he apparently rolled himself to the top of the stairs and pushed himself down. It happened five years after the botched surgery. My great uncle found Roddy with a broken neck pin beneath his wheelchair against the stone basement wall. He claimed his son hadn't been suicidal in years and he was unaware of anything that might have changed that. Investigators ruled out murder since the house had been completely locked up on the night of Roddy's death. Half a decade of neglect and Roddy's mysterious tragedy made the basement my least favorite place in the world. I couldn't look down the stairs without peturing a toppled wheelchair with two with a leg sticking out from beneath it. That made me help him clean the basement after we moved in anyway. He made me clean cobwebs out of every corner and there were many corners. The basement was a maze. Rather than digging open space to fill with rooms, it seemed the builder's carved trenches beneath the house instead. There was a right angle every 10 feet or so, which made it so you could see only a small section at a time. By the end of an hour, my father duster looked like cotton candy from hell. Twice, I watched last spiders crawl out of the further duster and scurry toward my hand until I dropped it.

5:04My dad carried box after box out of the basement's dead end. This smelled like meldew, but he smiled while he carried them upstairs one by one. I eventually reached the end of the basement with my black and duster and saw the area where dad wanted to build his workbench for the first time. It was easily the most open space in the basement, a rectangle approximately 20 feet long and 10 feet deep. The stones in the furthest wall had been painted with various shapes and symbols I didn't recognize all in black. I remember standing just outside of the open space, staring at others markings, some looking like faces, others like letters from a strange alphabet when my dad returned from a trip upstairs and clamped a hand down on my shoulder. He said, boy, my cousin was into some strange stuff. I thought he couldn't come down here, I'd replied. Sure, not for the last five years or so, but he lived here before the accident too, dead had said. I remember scanning all the symbols and markings and thinking they looked more than five years old. More like 50 years maybe. But I was a kid, what did I know? More unsettling than all the strange symbols was the wheelchair that had been rolled into one corner facing the wall.

6:04I almost asked Dad if it was Roddy's chair, the one he had rolled down the stairs in, but as I had opened my mouth, I realized I did not want to know. I made sound promise not to go in the basement, especially not to play hide and seek. Some promise me he wouldn't, but us why not? I didn't have a good answer, which rightfully made my brother both curious and skeptical, but he hid in me anyway. One afternoon, I found Sam kneeling in a corner of stairs picking at the carpet. I asked what he was doing and he told me he had found something, but it was stuck. I knelt next to him. He was picking at something that had fallen into gap and the carpet where it didn't quite meet the corner of the wall. The object looked like the rear end of a beetle that had tried to burrow under the trim. It was smooth and black. Oh, I can't get it out, Sam had complained. I stuck in there. When I asked what it was, he shrugged. Now my own curiosity was peaked and I went for a pencil. When I returned, Sam was still hopelessly picking at the smooth black object in the corner. Makes some room, I said, forcing him out with my shoulder. I shoved the tip of the pencil under the object and popped it out of its hole with ease.

7:05Sam swooped in and snatched it before, I even got a chance to see what it was. Hey, I'm the one who got it out, I had complained. Sam said, yeah, but I found it first. I would have gotten it out on my own. I said, well, show me what it is at least. He opened his palm to reveal a black marble. Its perfect glass surface had not one blemish. The color inside looked darker than anything I had ever seen before. I know black is the absence of color, but the inside of that marble looked like the absence of everything. Except when Sam pinched that marble between two fingers and rotated it in the light, sparkles of gold winked inside it. Somehow, Sam and I both knew this was no ordinary marble. I wanted to keep it somewhere safe. I had a lockbox in my room, but Sam insisted on keeping it in his room since he had found it. I wanted to argue, but whenever I fought with Sam, Mom and Dad got mad at me. In our old house, I probably would have argued anyway, but in Roddy's house, Mom and Dad scared me when they were angry. Sam finally convinced me to play hide and seek on a rainy day two months after we moved in.

8:06I hadn't really wanted to, but I couldn't come up with anything better to do. I counted to 50 and started searching from a little brother. I looked in each room behind every door and in some places I was quite proud of myself for thinking of. But in the end, I found Sam in one of the most obvious places in an entire house under his own bed. What are you doing under here? I asked. You made it too easy. Still took you a while to find me, Sam retorted, and I couldn't argue with him. But then he said I wasn't actually going to hide here, but when I was looking for a hiding spot, I found this. He put his finger near something on the wall. I couldn't see it in the shadows under the bed. I grabbed a flashlight sound cap on his bedside table for reading and shown it at the wall. The light formed Chris Pshada of my brother against the green wall, and next to his silhouette was a small hole about the size of a nickel. What's that say? Sam asked. He was referring to something that had been carved into the wall of the hole. Don't do it, I read aloud. Don't do what? Sam asked. I don't know, I reply truthfully. Think Rady wrote that.

9:07Sam asked. Again, I said I don't know. Most people would rather assemble a 300-piece cabinet than search for insurance. That's why the Zebra searches for you comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can compared to day at thezebra.com. Most people would rather remove a nest of IRA toilets than search for auto and home insurance. That's why the Zebra searches for you comparing over 100 insurance companies to find savings no one else can compared to day at thezebra.com. I think I'll wait inside." That night Sam had a dream. In the dream, although he didn't know he was dreaming yet, he opened his eyes and saw a tall shadow standing next to his curtain window. Somehow in that way dreams provide partial information, he knew the shadow didn't belong to any of his family members. He tried to scream, but only a waspry breath escaped his throat and left him fighting for air. The figure of Sam mysteriously knew, reveled in his terror. It floated forward until it leaned over the foot of his bed. Someone told me this figure had no face except for two blank, golden eyes.

10:10He told me he couldn't do anything but cling to his covers and shiver. The figure grabbed his bed, rattling the entire frame, and started sliding it away from the wall. It pulled the whole bed away from the wall with one big tug. I don't know how it was so strong, Sam explained. He said to figure then step between the bed and the wall, seemingly ignoring Sam altogether. He said the figure stopped when it found the nickel-sized hole in the wall, and it reached down or shrunk to put its fingers inside. It was like that thing was trained to stretch the hole to make it big enough to fit inside, Sam said. Quickly giving up the figure turned to Sam again. It faked golden eyes bore into his, making him its captive. He said the thing pointed at him, then morphed into a black mist and rushed at him. It changed shape as if it were being strained for a funnel before being absorbed into Sam's clenched fist. I opened my hand, Sam said, and I was holding that black marble I found. That afternoon, I had gone into the kitchen for a snack. As I dipped an apple slicing peanut butter, I heard a noise above me, a deep groan with a shell grinding over it on. I took my apple and peanut butter upstairs to see what the sound was and found some pulling

11:12at his bed. What are you doing? I asked him for a sticky bite of my snack. I just want to try something he replied. I shrugged, set my snack down on his dresser, and went to soundseed. The two of us barely managed to pull his heavy wooden bed two feet away from the wall. I saw pulling one sound let go. He said that's enough. When he walked around a bed and fished something out of his pocket, I knew what it was before I saw it. Is this because of your dream? I asked. Sam didn't reply, but he didn't really need to. I could think of no other reason he was of suddenly wanted to move his bed. Sam held the marble up between his thund and forefinger and rolled it around in the light from the window. His gold accents gussened within the deep blackness under the glass. It looks sort of strange, doesn't it? Sam asked. Before I could answer, he'd been over and put the marble into the hole. He didn't let go yet though. Instead he turned to me as he held it there. This isn't going to make something bad happen, is it? He asked. I wrinkle my face, unsure of what terrible thing dropping a marble in a hole could possibly

12:14cause, but I didn't answer. The truth is, I didn't feel confident enough to say, despite my initial doubts. The words, don't do it, scratched above the hole should have been enough in hindsight. I can't see how I didn't understand the warning back then Sam appeared to hesitate, but after considering something quitely on his own he opened his fingers and let the marble fall we heard it plink and plunk it where he dampass wooden wires and nails and whatever else was inside the wall it fell for a lot longer than I think either of us expected it went all the way to the basement. Sam said, and I just nodded. He stayed out at the hole for a while, seemingly expecting something to happen. Suddenly he cocked his head to one side, then dropped onto his knees and put his ear against the hole. I squirmed, thinking of all the creepy insects that might be living in the wall and imagining one of them skittering into my brother's ear canal. Something like that happened though. Sam just stood up and looked at me blankly. When I was bored of waiting for words that would never come, I asked, want me to help you put the bed back now. No Sam replied. I want to leave it like this for a while. I picked up my apples and peanut butter and said, sit yourself, then left Sam in his room.

13:14Dad came up from the basement in a half that evening. He had been down there constantly as he built his workbench. He stoned outside, then came back with an old rusty pickaxe I guess he found behind the backside of the house. What are you doing with that? I asked him. I followed him all the way to the top of the basement stairs, but refused to go any further. There's some kind of animal scratching at the wall down here and it's driving me nuts. Dad replied as he descended. Are you going to let it go free? I asked him. Sure kid. I didn't believe him. He seemed irrationally anchored by the trapped animal scratching behind the stone. I sat at the top of the stairs to listen, but never heard a single pickaxe strike. That mom appeared behind me after some time had passed and chatted over my head, Dale. It's time for dinner. A metallic laughter echoed through the maze, and a minute later, Dad appeared at the base of the stairs. Did you find it? I asked. No, it stopped making sounds after I came back. I wasn't sure where to look, Dad said. He didn't have the pickaxe anymore. I guess he left it down there in case the scratching sounds started again.

14:15Dinner that night was strange, but then again it wasn't that different from any of the other meals we had shared together since moving into Rode's house. It seemed tense and short with Sam and I, but when discussing his plans for the basement, he would light up a joyful animation. Mom seemed nearly for a quen discussing her progress in the yard. They spoke to each other, but it was like they were having completely different conversations. Dad might say something like, I was thinking six feet long would be enough, but now I'm considering making the table ten feet long. And mom would say, I'm struggling to decide on Rae's beds or plant him directly into the ground. Dad, it would go all the way from one wall to the other. I think that's the best way to maximize the space. Mom, I haven't seen any rabbits around here. They're the main reason I would want Rae's beds. Dad, the more I think about it, I might actually make it ten feet, but put it on the lawn wall so I could stand on either side of it. Mom, I put up a fence either way. Nothing fancy probably just chicken wire. Dad, I think I'd like to stand on the side sometimes so I can work at different angles.

15:16Here Sam tried to cut into the disjointed conversation. He asked, what are you planning on working on down there, Dad? Dad dropped his fork and knife and cocked his head towards Sam. His eyebrows made a V at the base of his forehead. What have I told you about interrupting the adults when we're talking? Dad demanded. Some stemmed and fiddled with his napkin while looking down at his lap. Your room, mom said sternly. Go to your room, Sam. No dessert. Sam pushed his chip back and walked away with his head down. This is footsteps faded up the stairs. I asked, wait, there's dessert. You go to your room too, Dad said. I don't like the way you've been looking at me. Mom added, I wish you kids would just behave. It doesn't have to be this way. I knew neither some nor I had much to behave, but I gladly left my parents to continue this simultaneous one-sided discussions in wind upstairs. Rather than go to my own room, I went to Sam's. I reached his half open door, but didn't go in. I could hear Sam talking. I peaked in and saw him sitting cross-legged in front of the hole in the wall.

16:16I heard him say they're not the same anymore. I don't know what's wrong with them. After a long pause, he said, no, they're my parents. I still love them. I have to. Another pause, and then, because kids are supposed to love their parents, aren't they? Family should love each other. Sam, I said as I entered the room. Seemingly on instinct, Sam covered the hole with a palm of one hand as he spun on his butt to face me. What are you doing? He asked me. What are you doing? I replied. Sam shrieked. Sometimes I just like to talk, he said vaguely. To yourself? I asked. Sam glanced nervously over his shoulder at the hole behind his hand. When he turned back to me, he looked scared. Yet, just to myself. How? All right, whatever. I turned away to leave him be. I heard something slide against the wall and looked over my shoulder automatically. Sam hadn't moved. I stopped. I turned all the way back around, and while I watched my brother sit perfectly still at the sliding sound hissed again, moving down under the floor.

17:18Did you hear that? I asked quietly. An impatient look had come over Sam's face. He held that face and it had accompanied glare until I turned around again and left. I went downstairs to see if a picture had slid out of place or something, but I didn't see anything. That was actually the moment I realized my parents hadn't put any pictures of us up on the walls in Roder's house. Our old house had been full of them, framed and matted everyone. I walked past those old pictures in my head, stepping in and out of rooms in a mental construct of our old home. I wanted it back. At the very least, I wanted the version of my family who had lived there back. That night, I had a hard time staying asleep. Little noises I hadn't yet adjusted to kept me in a shallow end of the dream pool. A part of me didn't mind. I recently started getting bullied by the night miss-swimming in a deep end. As the old wooden floor board settled in the declining temperature, I lay awake, staring at my crux ceiling. I missed having some in the room with me. It wasn't something I could admit back then, but having my own room hadn't been as exciting as I had expected when we moved.

18:18San and I had had to share a room at the old house, which led to plenty of conflict, but also insured I never felt alone. And I had never felt more alone than I did at night in Roddy's house. Interestingly, my lonely feeling stemmed mostly from a very primal feeling that I was not alone at all. A certain sensation, one which I realized had been steadily growing since we moved in, reached a new and sudden peak that night. The feeling was not only of being watched, but having someone closely shadowing me day and night. I had the feeling as I lay under the crack ceiling at night. With the mattress directly against my back, I knew nothing could be behind me, so my imagination decided it was under the bed. And how was it watching me? It had eyes everywhere. Ease tube probably. As you can imagine, these thoughts running through my head only drove me further into the shallows of the dream pool until I was basically sitting on the edge with only my toes in the sleepy water. The metallic groan sounded in the hallway. And boards popped inside, but not the way they usually did at night. The riggedy groan came again, and floorboards closer to my bedroom door sanded off. Another groan came from out behind my door.

19:18Thankfully, my door stayed shut and the noises moved past my room. Still, fear-driven curiosity dried me out of bed to investigate. I snuck to my door, although my footsteps probably would have been covered up by the noises in the hole. Only after opening the door did I realize I had expected sound to be the source of the sounds. I brought it till I looked out and saw no one at all. But there was something different in the hallway. Something that didn't belong. Roddy's wheelchair was parked empty at the end between Sam's room and my parents. A deluge of questions assaulted my mind. How did the chair come up two flights of stairs? Who had brought it up, and why? There was almost no light in the hallway only enough to reflect faintly from the wheelchair's metal frame. I realized someone could have been hiding in the shadows, staring at me from plain view, and I ducked back into my room. Like Sam, I also kept a flashlight near my bed for reading. I found it, turned it on, and returned to the doorway. Before I could peek back into the hole, the wheelchair made a deep groaning noise as if someone had just sat down in it. I hesitated long enough to hear the rubber wheels rumbling down the hole toward my room

20:20again. I plastered myself against the wall next to the door of sight. The wheelchair rolled, apparently on its own, up to my door, where it stopped dead, facing my room. My trembling hand made the flashlight beam dance. I suddenly realized I should turn it off, but the lights applied my only comfort. To turn it off would have been like sheeding my sword or holstering my gun before the danger had passed. I'm not sure how long the wheelchair sat out there, facing my open door, but long enough for the sweat that had formed at my hairline to drip off my chin. A few cheers joined the drops of sweat there too. I finally couldn't stand the pressure anymore. I chanced a brief glance through my doorway to see what, if anything, was out there. I saw nothing but the empty hallway. The wheelchair was gone. I saw my light all the way down to the other rooms and still saw nothing. It didn't make any sense. I hadn't heard the chair roll away, hadn't heard any other doors open, and certainly hadn't heard anyone on the stairs. So where had the chair disappeared to? I was entirely unwilling to bother my already disinterested parents with this strange midnight encounter, but I wanted to some new anything.

21:22Maybe he had had another dream that could shed some light in the disorienting occurrence. I crept across the floorboards to Sam's bedroom door. When I put my hand in the door now, the deep dog-like girl resonated just on the other side. Shocked, I immediately retracted my hand and the growling stopped. I touched the door and I began this time with just a fingertip. The growling instantly resumed and threatened to become a bark. Afraid from my brother, I was about to enter the room regardless of the threatening sound, but then I heard a clattering crash from downstairs. It repeated a dozen times, fading ever so slightly with each repetition until it finally stopped. Sam? I whispered at his door. The air at the atmosphere felt heavy around me. It had a palpable weight. Sam, I whispered again, slightly louder and with a little more urgency. To my surprise, his door and up turned in front of me and his door cracked open. I hadn't heard him move inside at all. I wondered if he had been at the door the whole time. Had it been him growling somehow? Go back to sleep, Kyle. It's not ready for you, Sam said flatly. My thought in stomach constricted.

22:22What's not ready? I asked. Sam's eyes flicked toward the stairs. He didn't say another word. I asked, are you okay? Without taking his eyes off the stairs, Sam slowly closed his door again. My brother had never been one to sleep or talk in his sleep, but I had to wonder if he was asleep then. He hadn't seemed himself. He hadn't seemed conscious. His still posture and robotic speech gave me the impression that he was under the control of something outside of his own mind. Now I was afraid enough for Sam that I felt justified in waking my parents. Without this of whether they would actually care or do anything, it seemed necessary. I didn't about face and stepped up to their door, but the knob wouldn't turn. It was stiff, with no give at all in either direction. I didn't think any of the bedrooms could lock, but it seemed they had locked theirs from the inside. Apparently, they truly didn't want the children bothering them. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I was to one sleep working, or at least dreaming. My parents didn't lock their door, my brother didn't grow like a dog, and wheelchairs don't roll around on their own and vanish. It seemed the only possible explanation.

23:23I couldn't believe it had taken me so long to realize it. This calmed me a little, but my fear was still very real, even if nothing else was. I needed to wake up before the dream became a nightmare. I tried to remember how my dreams usually ended. The good ones all just seemed to blend together until eventually one of them fades into waking reality. But my nightmares always ended violently. Sometimes I would fall from unbelievable heights and wake only when my body hit the ground. Sometimes I would be chased, usually by some faceless man, and wake when he caught me. I feared the end of this current nightmare, if that's what it was, because it seemed far more vivid than any I had had in the past. I worried its violent end might too. However, I also felt I had more control than usual, which offered some comfort. I decided I needed to take advantage of my autonomy while I still had it. You never know when the rules of a dream might change. So I went downstairs. Why, you might wonder. It was somewhere to go, somewhere besides that dark and strange hallway. I wondered, as I descended, if the rest of the house would be the same, or if the dream had altered it in any way.

24:23I found the ground floor to be exactly as it had been when I went to bed, with only one exception. One major exception that sent me running back up the stairs. The door to the basement was wide open. Dad never even left the door open when he was down in the basement. The door was always closed. The dream, or nightmare, wanted me to go to the one place I was unwilling to go. I was not too afraid of the basement to shine my flashlight down the stairs. I hoped maybe that would be all I needed to do. I approached slowly in case something was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I worried it might see my light in attack. I reached the doorway without incident, but there was something waiting for me. All at once, it offered an explanation and about a dozen more questions. What was explained was the clattering sound I had heard earlier. It had been caused by Rody's wheelchair tumbling down the stone stepped into the basement. The new questions, which I ensure you can imagine, included how the chair had gotten to those stairs in the first place, what had pushed it down, I'm lie. The only thing I felt I knew for certain was that dream or no, I would not be going in the basement under any circumstances.

25:25Not to find answers, not to escape, not if you had told me my entire family's lives depended on it. Seeing that chair, I turned tail and bolted for the stairs. I ran all the way up, not worrying about making noise anymore. I went straight to my room where I shut the door, leapt into bed, and pulled the covers up over my head. Under the dome, I created out of sheets around my head, I decided to turn my flashlight off. It had started to feel less like a weapon and more like a beacon for whatever was after me. I didn't actually know something was coming after me at all, but it felt like I was being hunted. It felt like I was being lured, but now that I had stopped following and falling into the trap, I feared the hunter would come after me instead. As L.A. had all beneath the covers, my breathing eventually slowed, my muscles relaxed, and I felt my eyes growing heavy. Does your family's schedule look like an endless list of appointments, games, and practices?

26:27Does keeping everyone on schedule feel impossible? The Skylight Calendar is here to put an end to your scheduling stress, with its all-in-one shared display, visual structure, and color-coded scheduling. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash get30. Go to myskylight.com slash get30 for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That's M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash get30. I was awoken by the sharp sensation of frigidare on my basket. I didn't open my eyes because somehow they were already open. The space around me was pitch black. I realized I wasn't there in my comfortable bed protected by sheets anymore. I was standing in a part with nothing covering me but my boxers and the t-shirt I had gone to bed in. I moved my hands around by my sides trying to feel out the space I had awoken in, but there was nothing there at all. With shred, I realized I didn't have my flashlight. A mouse-like squeak came from behind me accompanied by a groaning sound that had become all too familiar. I couldn't see the wheelchair, but I could hear it approaching.

27:27Leave me alone, I shouted. My voice reflected back in brief echoes. I knew of only one place in the house that echoed that way. Dad's workspace in the basement. I had somehow been spirited to the one place I had refused to go. Worse, I wasn't dreaming. I knew it then, and I think I knew it before too. I had just been craving a logical explanation and a possibility of escape. The wheelchair slammed into the back of my knees causing me to flail helplessly as I fell backward into it. No sooner I'd landed in the chair than the light bulb in the center of the ceiling turned on by itself. I had been right. I was in the large space at the end of the basement maze, but the horror only started there. I'm almost standing in the corner to my left, Dad in the corner to my right. They both bore blank expressions and stood puffily still with their arms at their sides. Feeling breath to call my neck, I turned to see Sam behind me. It had been him who pushed the wheelchair into my legs. The workbench Dad had built sad directly in front of me, pushed against the wall with all of the strange symbols painted on it. It was really just a long, flat table. On the table were a few large nails, a hammer and a big kitchen knife.

28:30Mom, Dad, what are you doing? I stammered. Their faces remained blank, their lips still. Sam pushed me forward. The smooth, fresh wood of the table appeared to glow under the light. So did the knife. I counted the nails as I rolled forward. Four. Two from my hands, two from my feet. I didn't know why they were doing this, but I had to stop it. I dug my heels into the dirt floor, which caused the wheelchair to flip and dump me forward. My parents and brother also simultaneously dropped their drawers and unleashed a unified demonicale that filled the room-like poison gas. My head ached. I put my hands over my ears. The wheelchair trapped my left foot when it overturned. I might have been able to free it if Sam hadn't been pushing down on the wheelchair, seemingly where he still had me trapped. My parents closed their mouths and stepped out of their corners. I didn't want to hurt anyone. It's important you understand that before I relay what I did next. My parents stepped toward me from both sides. Panic took over. I grabbed the first thing with a reach and lashed out just enough to break free.

29:31Sam cried out and stumbled back. The wheelchair shifted off my ankle. I pulled myself loose, shoved past them, and ran. I ran into the dark maze of the basement. I didn't know the layout and ran into walls enough times to drain most of my hope, but I persevered and was rewarded. I located the stairs hitting my shin on one, but I didn't feel the pain until later. I ran up until I collided with the door. I searched frantically with both hands with the door on up. In my friend's estate, I couldn't even remember if it was in the left or the right. Finally, my thumb brushed against cold brass. Footsteps were running through the basement behind me. Some sounded far away, but at least one pair was getting very close. I turned the knob, knowing if the door was locked I was done for. But the knob turned all the way over and the door cracked open with an ancient pop. I escaped the basement, then the house, the yard, and our road. Having no neighbors, there was nowhere to go. No one to ask for help. There had been a phone number from my great uncle on the fridge in case there were any problems at the house, probably excluding the types of problems that had me on the run.

30:31But without that number, I didn't know how to contact him. He was the only living family member I knew of. That night, I walked until I found the closest town. It had a bus depot and I snuck on a bus headed to the city. From there, well, there was too much to tell. I was too afraid to go back to the house and face my family, so I stayed in the city. I lived in the street as a child doing odd jobs for businesses willing to pay under the table for cheap labor. Eventually, and I mean almost ten years later, I was offered legitimate employment by the owner of a corner grocery store who had become familiar with me. In order to take the job, I needed to provide ID, nearly a social security number, and I hadn't had any of my official documents since I had run away from home. The grocery store owner, a generous man, paid for a cap to take me back to Roddy's house and hopes of reclaiming my documents and beginning a career. So here I am, back in the house for the first time since I was eleven years old. I was equally saddened and unsurprised to find it empty. My parents had never reported me missing. I had never heard from them or Sam since running away. I had hoped that maybe I would find some answers as to what happened to them, but to be honest,

31:33the house looks exactly like the way it did the night I left. I called the number on the fridge and learned it had been disconnected. I made an assumption and confirmed it with a quick online search. My great uncle had since passed away. I'm not sure who's house I'm standing in now, but they certainly haven't done anything with the police. I found my both certificate and social security card in a look-books under my parents' bed. That could have been the end of it, but I came all the way out here. I still hoped to find answers. I'm going to check the one remaining place I might find some. It's a place I didn't want to go as a kid, and I most certainly do not want to go now. But if I don't, I know I'll always regret it and wonder what I would have found. I'm going to the basement. The basement door is open, just like I left it the night I escaped. I remove a rosary from my pocket. I stole it from a card on the street. God forgive me, I'm preparing myself now for something terrible. The house isn't touch. My family has vanished, and the last place I need them to be was down here in the dark. I turn on the light at the base of the stairs, and I'm delighted to find it still works.

32:34Dem yellow light floods the stowed frame path ahead into the next patch of darkness I follow the light until I reach the first corner that I turn on the next light which illuminates the next corridor of data and stone a cobwebs up of my head or drooping with decades of dust just like they had been when my family moved and occasionally movement catches my attention just in time for me to watch a spider the size of my hand creep into the shadowy space between the ceiling and the wall. I reach the last corner before I'll be face to face with the open space in which I saw my family for the last time. I pause to collect myself to prepare for whatever I might find there. I come to grips with the very real possibility that my parents and brother are still there. Not alive, of course. Or at least I hope not. I acknowledge the headache that has started creeping into my brain from the base of my skull. I try to control the nausea rising in my throat. This place feels heavy. This place makes me sick. I round the corner holding the rosary out in my clenched fist. The little wooden cross attached to it dangles against my knuckles. It feels cold and grows colder as I step into the open space. I turn on the light. My family is not here, but almost everything else is.

33:36The overturned wheelchair, the workbench, the knife and hammer laying on it. Three nails still lay on the table too. One nail is in the floor, it's hip rusty with blood. This eye is my family, only one thing is missing. The wall behind the workbench. Much of it has been broken in. Rocks with partial symbols lastering across the floor around me. The rusty pickaxe my dad took dances to find a scratching animal is leaning against the remains of the wall. Behind the wall is an empty and close space. My nausea threatens to overcome me as my headache pounds until I worry my ears and eyes will bleed. I'm having trouble breathing, but I approach the space anyway. I hold the rosary higher, but my arm begins to feel heavy. I don't have much time. I move closer to the new space opened in the wall. Its floor is raised as a further dugout gave up, or perhaps it wasn't originally a part of the basement. The base of this miniature cabin is as high as my chest. The floor is almost at my eye level. It's small and empty enough for me to observe with a quick scan. I see only one object inside. Two actually, but two parts of one hole.

34:37There are two transparent shattered halves of a small glass sphere. A marble. But marble, I'm sure, had once been filled with something black that shimmied gold. I run out of the basement like I did when I was eleven. I leave the house with the documents I came for in the new set of unanswered questions. It don't stop feelings until the house is no longer in sight. It's time to start the next chapter in my life. That's all I know for sure. I don't think I'll ever go back to Roddy's house again. And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see you in the next one. Drew McIntyre here from WWE. Wheeled in the Claymore can be a life of chaos. When I'm not dominating in the ring, Chumbacacino is how this warrior takes a wee break. With hundreds of online social games and new weekly releases, there's always something fresh to try. And those daily busts, next level, even my free time feels like foul-hollum.

35:40So when life feels like a battle, kick up your feet, have some fun, and let's Chumbac. No purchase necessary, VGW Group Boyd were prohibited by law CTs and Cs, 21 plus sponsored by Chumbacacino.