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The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden, was silent, secretive, like a man huddled in a tightly-wrapped coat, as if it knew something beyond what it was willing to say in its outward appearance.

"God, it really does look like some creepy old haunted house," I said, shifting my backpack from my back to rustle inside for my flashlight. The others had no real intentions of being careful and, y'know,prepared. The sky overhead hung heavily, the smell of rain and ozone betraying an oncoming thunderstorm.

"You're not afraid, are you?" said Erin, a tall pale human with close-cropped brown hair and a hawklike demeanor - always watching and ready to swoop down into action. He turned to face me, crossing his arms over his chest and watching me with those eyes like armor-piercing bullets. "You'd think someone like you would be all ready and raring to slip into an old alchemist's house."

"He wasn't an alchemist, Erin." Chided Frey, a disapproving look on her face. She wasn't quite human, an odd tone to her face and ears a bit too long and pointed to be exactly your garden-variety homo sapiens. She was the one that had planned this whole thing, insisting that there might be something inside the old Greydon manor that could help me with my project. "He was a chemist."

"Most of the things I've heard tell about were much more alchemical than chemical." Erin countered, taking the doorknob and shaking it, setting some leaves drifting down from the ivy overhead. "Of course it's locked."

"Did you expect it to be hanging open, waiting for us three to break in and potentially steal a bunch of old chemistry equipment?" I said, turning the flashlight on and off to make sure it still worked. I had just kind of snagged it off the garage workbench as I passed. Confidentially, I hadn't planned on going, but as usual Erin had press-ganged me into it. Flashlight confirmed working, I tucked it into my jacket, padding along the side of the house and worming my way through overgrown vegetation. It was easier for me to slip through, on account of my slimmer build, so I took the initiative in looking for ingress. The manor, if you could call it a manor and not just a fancy house, had been here since 1915 and had been somewhat of the center of quite a few stories passed around the high school rumor mill. Everything from being haunted to being the location of a secret government base, every story you could conceive of had been told about this place.

But nobody could ever push themselves to go in. Until us, apparently. Well, until Erin insisted. He had a point in that I needed materials a seventeen year old couldn't exactly buy off of scientific surplus websites without raising quite a few eyebrows, even if one lived outside a government-controlled secret city, where everything from letters to online orders gets delivered to a government box before being shipped to us. God, the hell I would bring down on my head if I tried to order a photon counter online. Dad could get them, of course, but he worked for the human government and there'd be no way I could convince him to let me borrow one for the science fair.

And there was no way I was going to give up. Not this year, and not again. At no point was I going to let that asshole take an award with the biggest 'yeah I completely fucked your shit up' look on his face again.

"Aris!"came Erin's voice, calling from the front of the house. "Did you find anything or have you run off?"

"I haven't run away, asshole," I called back, gritting my sharp teeth. Erin could be really...well, flatly insulting sometimes. "I think I found a window down here. Like a basement window."

"Is it flooded?" the crashing and clattering through the underbrush preempted their arrival. I knelt down, almost pushing my head against the dirt to peer beyond the window. I could see better in the darkness (thanks to my huge Reticulan eyes) but being outside and looking in gave me nothing but a look at my own narrow face. Light grey skin, smooth save for a thin mouth and wide violet eyes, seemingly featureless save for a slight darkening for the pupil. I nudged the window open with a bit of effort, peering inside.

"A little bit, but nothing too much."

"That's weird, you'd think it'd flood if it had no drainage since 1915." Frey said, crossing her arms and biting her lip.

"Maybe someone comes in and takes care of it?"

"It didn't look like the front door had been touched in years."

"Well, here," I tugged on the latch of the small window, and after a few tugs the rust came free witha squeal as the window opened fully. I shrugged off my backpack, pulling back my violet-black hair andsticking my head in. "It's very dark." Flicking on my flashlight and sweeping it across the room, the faint glimmer of muddy water on the floor and half-rotten shelves came into view. "I don't think it'll be a good idea to go through here."

"We could always split up and find an entrance, and shout when we find one - " Erin started, before cutting himselfoff and kneeling in the bushes at the sound of a car stopping at the side of the road. I tensed, pulling my head out of the window and trying to listen. My hearing wasn't great, but Frey's was.

"Sounds like one person," She whispered, eyes closed and head cocked. "Doesn't sound like a police vehicle. Dad wouldn't stop the engine if it was." For a few moments we sat crouched in the bushes, trying to decide what to do. Finally I began hearing footsteps approaching, and over a bush I catch a glimpse of him.

Tall, somewhat heavyset, and carrying a camera his eyes darted back and forth, an honest-to-god fedora perched atop his head. He carried something in his other hand, walking towards the door of the manor.

"I'm approaching the front door now," he said, pausing to look the building over. "It's very overgrown, and definitely has an air of suspicion." The three of us looked at each other, confused as hell. None of us recognized him, and someone like him would definitely stand out. Rainvale was supposed to be a secret, closed town - showing up on no maps and having no official address. How the hell would someone like this find it, let alone get in past the guard posts? He walked to the front door, still murmuring into the device he was carrying as Erin tapped my shoulder. He gestured for me to follow as the man finally forced the door, stepping in with a grunt.

We followed him to the doorway, watching him as he stepped through the empty halls, taking photos with his phone camera.

"Amazing, this place doesn't appear to have been touched in decades, save for myself. I'm impressed the residents of this town haven't found it." He reached for a book on one of the dusty bookshelves, tugging it as the entire house seemed to shudder.