The real California days.

I'm going to be honest here. I'm not new to this forum. I've been a lurker here a long time. I know, by default none of you will probably believe my story. I don't even think it was ever published. I was told it was "too harsh" and an "isolated incident, the community doesn't need to know." That's what the police said. What happened to me, my friends, my family; no one "needed to know." I want people to know. I need people to hear it. So we'll start from the beginning.

When I was young, it was pretty common for children to basically run around, doing what we wanted. We lived on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in a town that although wasn't small, it was obviously a lower population in comparison. We all quickly got used to the California life, and we did what we wanted to, whenever we wanted to. My friends and I were.... rambunctious to say the least. We thrived off of doing what shouldn't be. We were those kids your neighbors would complain about. Egged houses on Halloween, ding-dong ditching houses- we even got into graffiti for a short while. But most of all, we liked things that scared us. We were always finding "haunted houses," or rather, they were usually just buildings that were abandoned over the course of time, age, and lack of care. But to us- they were playgrounds. One day stopped all of that.

I remember that day perfectly. My mother had been squabbling that I spent too much time with my friends. We had just gotten busted the week before for teepeeing our principal's car(in retrospect, probably not the best of ideas to do it on campus with cameras but hey, we were young and he wasn't the nicest of adults). We were supposed to go out that night but I was grounded, and she was suspicious. Luckily- my brother, Amado, and his best friend, Dalia(might as well say girlfriend- they were childhood friends but they always seemed like they liked each other to me) came to my rescue. They said they would watch me for the night, while my parents went out to some work dinner my Dad was required to go to. I was about nine at the time and he was fifteen, and he had no problem letting me go out when the time came. He'd always said that we were just being kids, and knew how much I loved hanging out with my friends. I called Tyler and Dretti first- The twins. They were the oldest of the group. We were all born the same year, but they were born early January, and despite being twins- were born a full day apart of each other. They kinda thought they were a big deal. Honestly, when we were younger, they kind of were. They lived only a few doors down from me, so we decided to meet up first, heading to the house later on. We met up with everyone probably an hour later. At this point it was dark, probably around 8:30 at night or so, and I knew at least a few of our friends were probably chickening out. But by the time we got there, over half of them were there already. Raf- or Rafael, was arguing with Omar, who seemed to be a little antsy about going inside this house. It wasn't in Omar's character to ditch on something like this, so it struck me a little odd but I shrugged it off. Michael was just arriving with Lily, my best friend and his next door neighbor. Being a girl, and an at least slightly dramatic one, I immediately piped up and threw my arms around really in a huge hug, dragging her away while the guys talked amongst themselves. John, Madison, Chloe, and Justin showed up last, John looking the most scared out of the bunch. Madison and Chloe not too settled with the idea, either. But once we were all there, there was no backing out. It was almost a rule for us. You show up- you go through with it. Lily and I continued chatting- something about our new favorite lip gloss or something, we were always the girliest out of all of us. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Raf finally spoke up.

"Alright guys look. We've done this a million times- I know the history of this place scares you but you know what? Since when do we get scared by any of this? It's just an empty house-"

"A cursed house, Raf. You heard what happened to Jillian and Rachel when they came here. They didn't show up for weeks and now they can barely touch another person without falling to their knees and mumbling like mad men!" Omar piped up, still clearly trying to get out of it.

"There's no such thing as a curse, Omar. Don't be a baby. You know Jillian and Rachel, that's just one of their pranks. Nothing happened. Now let's go get that talisman, okay? Come on, it's gotta be worth a fortune. Everyone would be talking about us for years."

Reluctantly, everyone caved. Quite a few of us were off put by the thought of the curse. It was a well known story in our community- an urban legend. According to the story, there had been a family who once lived in that house. It was something straight off of Paranormal Activity- some sort of possession and cult sacrifices or something. There were rumors that over twenty people had been sacrificed there and that you could find a "Talisman of Evil" in the attic. Of course, everyone had heard about it, and my parents had told me long ago that it was just a rumor, and that the previous owners just got foreclosed on by the bank and had to move out, while no one moved back in. I wasn't scared. At least that's what I told myself.

It started out fun, everyone was anxious but nothing was happening. It was a stereotypical old house- creaky, dusty, and dark. That was, until we reached the attic. The attic was like nothing I'd ever seen before, a completely different atmosphere than the rest of the house. The attic was like a chamber. In every corner of the room, there was at least three sets of chains, some of them even looked like they had blood on them. Half used candles were thrown all over the place, and right in the center of the floor there was a podium of sorts, with a large pentagram drawn right underneath it. The place gave me chills- it looked exactly like the stories implied- like there was some cult that had practiced here. It made me start to doubt my own parent's explanations. Everyone was anxious now, even Raf, who had just moments before been so sure that this place was just like any other. Everyone, except oddly enough, Omar. I was grasping onto Lily, now getting scared, and honestly stayed quiet as Omar walked closer to the podium, seemingly transfixed on it. It was dead silent now, and it was Tyler who finally spoke up.

"O-Omar I don't think you should touch it. We should just... go. We shouldn't be here."

But Omar ignored it. He continued forward, almost hypnotized, when John ran forward to stop him. But John never quite made it. There was a sickening crack, and a startled yell before any of us could really process what happened, John went down. The wood had given way in a section of the floor, and although he hadn't fallen completely through, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't get him out- he was stuck. John was crying now, freaking out and swearing that something was pulling him down. I'm not going to lie- we were kids, and we didn't know what to do. The girls, myself included, were panicking, and finally I snapped out of it when someone suggested we get help. I was stupid. I didn't want my parents to know I was out here- I was already grounded after all. So I suggested I'd run to a neighbor and call my brother.

I was quick about it, I don't even remember how many doors I knocked on before someone finally opened up and let me in to use their phone. My explanation to the adult was a frenzied panic along the lines of "Ohmygodmyfriendishurtandweneedhelpandididntmeanforittohappenimsosorrycaniuseyourphone." I was clearly still freaking out when I dialed my home number. But instead of my brother picking up, it was Dalia, who was usually the more clearheaded of the two. I'd told her what happened and she said my brother had fallen asleep and she'd just been about to leave, so she'd come help us. I was so relieved to hear that. To hear she wasn't calling my parents. I was selfishly more concerned about getting in trouble than helping my own friend.

It didn't take long to get back to the house, and Dalia showed up just a few moments later. I immediately dragged her to the attic, everyone now stunned and silent- a few even crying. Everyone just watched as Dalia took charge, and slowly but carefully dragged John out of the hole. Everyone could finally breathe again, we thought it was all over. But we were wrong. Just as soon as John was safely out of the hole, he ran to the door, out of the room. We were silent a moment, and Dalia finally stood up. That's when everything went wrong. There was another loud crack, one that echoed throughout the whole house, as the wood gave way again, this time Dalia fell fully through the hole, into the floor beneath it. We gasped, stunned into complete fear for a few moments, before we all ran out of the room, climbing down the staircase to the second floor. Dalia lay still on the floor, a pool of blood around her head. She'd hit a large hallway table on her way down. We were certain she was dead. In retrospect, we did the stupid thing. We were scared. We ran away. Left, went home, decided never to speak of it again.

The next few weeks were a blur. My family was investigated when Dalia was reported missing because our house was the last place anyone had known she had been. But it turned up nothing and the case went cold. I should've said something- could've. But it was so far beyond me now. So far past what I knew how to handle. Fifteen years went by. Most of us kept in some form of contact, but that night was just overall off limits. We all wanted to pretend it didn't happen. That was the year everything fell apart. The week of the anniversary of Dalia's death, we all got a video message from John. Most of us hadn't talked to him in years- he separated himself from us about a year after the incident. How he got our information, none of us knew. But it didn't matter. The video was enough. John's face appeared on the screen- it was obvious he had been struggling for a while. He was unshaven, his eyes had dark circles under them, like he hadn't slept at all since that night. He was silent for a moment, and his voice was shaken when he finally spoke.

"We haven't seen each other in years. I don't even know if all of you will see this, but it needed to be said. I can't take it. What we did that night- Dalia's death- it was my fault. All of our fault's. We deserved to be the one's that died. We deserve to be dead. So I'm going to do what should've been done years ago. This video will be sent to the police- along with the details of what happened. I can't handle living this anymore."

And just like that, John's hand rose, revealing a gun in his palm. In what seemed like forever, he positioned the gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

I sat there forever, just staring at my computer screen while all of the texts and calls from my old friends came in. I didn't even bother to look at my phone. I was too stunned into silence, frozen on the screen. I sat there for hours until I finally looked at my phone. There was a sea of messages, people freaking out. But there was one that caught my eye. It was from a blocked number, and it had just two sentences in it.

"You murdered Dalia while she saved your friend. Now who's going to save you?"