Nothing really happened to ‘Michael’ the whole time he was carrying shit up to the house, so I’ll get back to Ana, who was exploring my new home…

There were no fancy patios or balconies. The house was relatively simple. Upstairs, there weren’t nearly as many windows, but they were capable of being opened. This is something I found kind of weird. Most of the downstairs windows were the type that were permanently sealed.

“Maybe it’s to make sure no one or nothing breaks in?” I muttered to myself, as I walked around the upstairs living room. Instead of grey tiles, it had a hardwood floor that looked like a bunch of smooth brown boards. The walls were still that concrete grey though.

The living room wasn’t very large. Maybe big enough to have a couch and a large TV? It mostly just led into the hallway to the right. The second floor was the same size as the first, so there was a huge amount of room on the north and southern sides of the hallway. At the end of the hallway was the master bedroom, which had a walk-in closet, a big bed and even a door that led straight into a huge bathroom. There was also another door in the hallway, which led to the bathroom. These doors weren’t like those giant metal ones though. They were simply wooden, while the walls that enclosed the rooms were also just white drywall.

The office that I saw in those pictures was pretty large and on the southern side. There were some windows there, which would allow for fresh air to come through. The two big black desks were both facing the southern wall, but they were far enough away from each other that I probably wouldn’t have the problem of seeing the other screen in the corners of my eyes. If that makes sense? Like, it’s bad enough that I’d be seeing two screens with two separate heads, but if I could also kinda see the other screen flashing in my peripheral vision, I’d probably go crazy.

There was a guest bedroom on the northern side, with a queen sized bed. Honesty, the thing I liked the most about the bedrooms and office were the big-ass fans on the ceilings. In case you didn’t already notice, I really fucking like fans. Not computer fans, those little bastards are really annoying. But the sound of a medium to large fan is really relaxing for me.

“This place is like… Inhumanly clean. How the hell did they even manage to do this?” The whole house was devoid of dust, mold and any kind of rodents or insects. I eventually sighed and went over to the bathroom again, opening the door and casually leaving it open.

This bathroom was relatively large, but there was no jacuzzi, not even a normal sized bathtub. Instead, there was a really big square shower on the northeastern corner. There was a giant mirror, double sink and a large marble counter across from the shower. Hmmm, ah, there are also two toilets over on the side, just like downstairs. The floor was a laminate-type material that looked like marble and felt like plastic. There was actually a relatively large window in front of the toilets, I guess so that I could look outside while shitting? Either way, at least it brightened the room without having to turn the lights on.

Speaking of which, pretty much every room in the house has those big, long, tubular fluorescent lights. Sure, they’re bright and don’t produce that much head, but they’re a pain in the fucking asshole to change.

Anyway, I placed the revolver on the corner of the counter, then opened the thick glass sliding shower door. It was extremely clear, unlike some glass showers that are intentionally blurred… Hell, it was probably transparent, so that I could be spied on more easily? It was nice though, since I could at least somewhat see outside the glass and make sure nothing happened. 

What, did you think I’d leave my gun outside the shower and totally ignore it, then get murdered while completely unprepared? Yeah, even back at my house in Baltimore, I was always expecting crazy shit to happen to me. Now that I was on an unfamiliar island, in a somewhat creepy house, where I knew that people were watching me in one way or another, I wasn’t gonna let my guard down…

“Fuck, forgot to get soap!” I shouted, right when I was about to turn on the water. The shower head was metal and small, connected to the wall with a short neck. In other words, it was fixed in that position, but could be turned at various angles.

“You know what? Fuck it, at this point, I’ll just take another damn shower later anyway.” I grumbled and turned the metal knobs on the middle of the wall. The left had ‘Hot’ engraved on the center of the circular knob, while the right one said ‘Cold’. Since I had no idea what to expect, I got out of the way first, so that I wouldn’t be potentially scalded. I put the hot water up all the way, with only a little bit of cold, since that’s how I did it at my previous home for a decade…

Steam appeared immediately, and a few droplets splashed on my legs, burning me a bit. After turning the cold a bit higher though, I was able to get that ‘just hot enough to not cause serious damage’ feel. It was like I could finally relax, and feel the stress of moving completely leave my body… Of course, at the same time, I was panting and struggling to carry a forty pound dumbbell up twenty stairs, while also holding a similarly heavy bag of canned food in the other hand. Obviously it was more like two or three bags, since the cans would easily rip through a single layer of plastic.

“Shit…” I murmured, feeling like my heart was going to explode. I really started regretting my decision to only use Michael to do the heavy lifting. Hell, it wasn’t even about the weight, but the fact that I needed to travel up and down a flight of stairs for every trip. At least I stopped feeling like my dick was gonna fall off, since I was lightheaded, overheated and could barely stand anymore.

The temperature was a major problem, but more importantly, I was dehydrated. Most of the time, I didn’t move that much at all, and I spent all day, every day, drinking gallons of iced tea. It was at that point when I reached a new low… A disturbing thought popped into my head: “I should just drink some water.”

In case you didn’t know this, iced tea is basically just sugar-water with antioxidants. The tea itself barely tastes like anything most of the time. Yet there was something special about tea, something that would soothe my throat and make me feel better… Probably the sugar and antioxidants.

I was so exhausted and sick that I made a horrible fucking mistake: I left the door open as I headed over to the kitchen. Just kidding, I’m not an idiot. There were literally tigers, venomous snakes and annoying birds outside. I wasn’t about to give them any chance of contaminating my home with their filth.

As I reached the sink, the first thing I did was wash my hands off with cold water and antibacterial soap. Well, I guess the first thing would be putting that soap over there, but I didn’t need to make two trips. Anyway, once my hands were sufficiently clean, I rinsed my mouth out a few times. Then drank some of the cold water slowly, and choked on it.

It was clean, clear and tasteless. Although I would normally say that water doesn’t have a taste, that’s more of a relative thing. For example, city water has a lot of chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals in it. While country water can range anywhere from pristine underwater spring, to nasty gutter runoff. It all depends on how old the pipes are, how deep the well goes and how good your water purifier is…

“Oh shit!” It was at that moment that I remembered ‘Ana’ was still in the shower. It usually doesn’t matter much for city houses, but out in the boonies, if you run water anywhere in the house, it’ll affect the rest of the house.

“Huh… Well that’s interesting.” I was way too tired to try and carry anything else at that moment, so I decided to do some investigations. Specifically, I went down into the basement. Now, I probably have a strong affinity to underground dwellings, but it doesn’t change the fact that basements in unfamiliar houses are the stuff of nightmares. Especially if you’re moving into an old house, that may or may not be haunted as fuck. 

Now that I think of it though, both my previous residences were like that? My mother’s father died in the house I grew up in, but that was before we moved there. There were loads of creepy, alien, demon and/or ghost related stories surrounding that house. On the other hand, the house I spent most of my adulthood in, was probably a hundred years old before I even moved in. Plus, it was in a city well-known for violence and death. Grade-A haunting material, if ghosts are even real?

I could hear water running through pipes, a sound that I have become intimately familiar with. The walls of the staircase were thick, and made of concrete. But ultimately, I went back upstairs. The reason? My feet were fucking dirty.

“God damn it!” I grumbled to myself, as I realized that I would need to clean most of the house later. It seemed like my OCD was about to reach another level…