The man in the window narrowed his eyes as a red car pulled into the long driveway, towing some kind of storage trailer thing. After a moment, a man stepped out of it, staring at the looming, mansion-like building in front of him. For some absurd reason, he smiled.

A thrill-seeker, perhaps?

He didn't have any time to further analyze the situation, disappearing just a moment before the strange man's eyes hit the dusty window where he was.

He had to tell the others. Now.

-----

Thomas Sanders could've sworn he'd seen a figure in the window on the second floor. When it didn't reappear after a few minutes, he shrugged and grabbed his new keys and went up to the door. It took a few tries and a well-placed kick to get the door open, and his effort was rewarded by a rush of ancient, dusty air so fast it almost knocked him down the stairs.

The lights flickered when he flipped the switch, so he made a note to ask Terrence to check out the electrical stuff. He took a long look around the fancy parlour he'd entered, full of ancient furniture and with a cobwebbed chandelier hanging from the ceiling. After a moment, he wrestled one of the windows open, letting in a draft of fresh air before moving on. The first floor yielded the parlour, a kitchen -with no food in it, thank God- and a large warden's office with an ancient typewriter, but otherwise nothing.

The moment he got to the second floor, he was hit with an intense sense that he was being watched. It was enough to make him hesitate at the top of the creaky, steep stairs, and didn't dissipate.

"Hello?"

A floorboard creaked, and there was a whisper of clothes sweeping against the dusty wooden floor, so faint it was barely there. Then, nothing.

Heart racing, he called out again, "Hello? Who's there?"

The feeling left slowly in the following moments of absolute silence, and he shoved his uneasiness to the back of his mind and went through the rooms. They were all alike, each containing a bed with blankets faded from endless summers, a writing desk and chair, and a bookshelf that was fixed to the wall. A few of the shelves had small trinkets or Knik-knacks, and one room had an ancient pair of glasses collecting dust on the desk.

It was almost like whoever had occupied the rooms had just wandered out on a small stroll, intending to return.

For some reason, Thomas' eyes kept returning to the pair of glasses. Something about them felt like a clue, something that needed to be solved. ALmost on autopilot, he reached out, scrubbed the dust off of them, and slipped them into his jacket pocket.

Then he continued up the stairs.

The third floor yielded the same results as the second, and on the fourth floor a heavy stone of dread settled into his stomach. He walked through the dark hall as slowly as he could, glancing into each empty room. They were much smaller than the rooms on the other two floors, each with just a bolted-down cot and a barred window, nothing else. There was a bathroom at the end of the hall (there was one on every floor, mercifully clean,) but this one was different from the others. The showers weren't stalls, there was just a line of showerheads, and there were a few toilets against the other.

No privacy on this floor.

He wandered over to the dusty mirror above a large metal sink, absently trancing the metal frame.

Then, he froze.

In the mirror, horror-movie style, there was someone in the corner, shoulders hunched so that he was facing the floor. Thomas' heart pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to break out of his chest. He wanted to turn around so that, just like in horror movies, the apparition would disappear. But he couldn't make himself do it, watching in horror as the man slowly raised his head, revealing bright green eyes surrounded by almost pitch-black circles.

Slowly, the man inched forward, his eyes locked on Thomas. Thomas shivered as the apparition stood right behind him, and he managed to stutter out, "Hello."