Shadows in the Dark by Hunter England

started
walking a little faster, leaving me behind. I let him go ahead, I
was tired enough as it was. He stopped at the side of the road,
looking at what was ahead. I caught up with him, stopping at his
side.
    In front of us was a food market, a
few restaurants, a clothing store, and a little patch of houses.
Behind that was a middle school, and farther down the road was a
high school. Seemed like your normal town.
    Somewhere in that patch of houses,
we noticed one that looked abandoned. Nick and I met eyes and
mentally agreed on it. That house was our best option.
    “ We’re gonna have to break in,
unless you feel like sleeping outside again,” Nick mentioned. I
didn’t like the idea. But, then again, I didn’t like the idea of
sleeping outside again.
    “ Fine,” I said. “But only for
tonight. After that, we leave.” Nick nodded his head and crossed
the street. I followed him, following him towards the
houses.
    “ Alright, so I’ll knock on the
door, and if no one answers I’ll sneak in.” He continued to look
around.
    “ How are you gonna sneak in?” I
asked. A noticeable smile formed onto his face, and he looked back
at me.
    “ Just leave that to me.” He walked
up to the door without waiting up for me and politely knocked. No
one answered for a while, so he knocked again. No one answered. He
looked over at me and smirked.
    “ Okay,” I said. “Now ‘sneak in’.” I
leaned against a parked car and watched him as he backed away from
the door and looked through a window. Then he backed away from the
window, and rested the palm of his hand on it. Then, the glass was
replaced with fire.
    I expected there to be a loud crash
for when the glass broke, but it didn’t. Instead, it melted
completely. The fire disappeared, and so did the glass. Now there
was just a gaping, square hole in the wall leading into the house.
Nick leaped in and looked back at my stunned face.
“You coming?” he asked. I hesitated, then came back to perspective.
I quickly looked around and leapt in with him. Instantly, I noticed
something was up.
    The home really didn’t look like it
had been touched in forever. Cobwebs hung in the corners of the
ceiling and dust aligned the walls and floor. Old pictures hung up
and tables held old flower pots. There was no TV in the living
room, just a dust-covered couch and a dust covered coffee table.
Next to the living room was a hallway that lead down to two doors
on either side.
    “ I’ll check the room on the right,”
Nick said, already walking down there. I followed him, walking down
the hall and examining the pictures. Most of them were of a family.
A mom, dad, little boy, and a little girl.
    Nick went into the room on the
right as I went into the room on the left. In the room, there was a
small bed, a desk across from the bed, a window next to the desk, a
nightstand next to the bed, and a journal on the
nightstand.
    I heard Nick rummaging in the
other room loudly as I walked over to the nightstand. I picked up
the journal and blew off a ton of dust. It seemed old, older than
me. I flipped through the pages, seeing a bunch of drawings of DNA
strands and saw the word “human genomes’ a lot. Who would write
this stuff? I flipped it over to the back and saw the words
“Property of Joshua Shaw”.
    Joshua Shaw?
    “ I believe that doesn’t belong to
you,” came a startling voice from behind me. I quickly turned
around and saw a hooded man standing on the other side of the room.
I couldn’t see his face. It was hidden under his hood.
    “ Who the hell are you?” I asked.
Stupid question.
    “ I could ask you the same thing,”
he snapped. Before I could do anything, he raised his hand and a
force pinned me to the wall. I couldn’t move no matter how hard I
tried. I tried to call for Nick, but all of a sudden I couldn’t
breath. It was as if I was being choked.
    “ What the hell are you doing
here?” the man asked. “This isn’t a place that you can just break
into. This place