17 December 2027
Friday, 11.40 pm. I went in.
Not into The Possession. Into the first room, The Haunting, chapter one, because Noreen insisted the story be done properly, and because she booked it and stood behind me on the stairs so that I could not go back down them. Five of us: Noreen, her three friends and the President of the Northbridge Paranormal Society.
I left the meter in the locker. It was the hardest thing I have done in six years of investigation. The locker shut with a small click, and I swear the meter beeped once, sadly, from inside.
I will not write what happened in there. That is the rule of these files: nothing that would spoil it. I will say only that the girl is real, in the way that matters, that she is not what I wrote down in 2021, and that I owe the seagull an apology.
Next: chapter two, The Possession, ten years on in the story and a few doors down the hall. Noreen says the new year. Staff say there are more horror rooms after that, if a person still has the nerve. I am not sure I do. I am sure I will go anyway. Case remains open.
— D. Crouch, Northbridge Paranormal Society (President, Treasurer and Members)
