The Incident: Excerpt IV

It's midnight at Steele Manor
And now insomnia is eating every lingering minute slowly…and I mean slowly…It's not normal, I usually can drift away into a slumber within minutes of shutting my eyes…Everyone else has fallen asleep already. I'm pretty sure I'm the last one awake. What the hell? There's a knock at the door, a little past midnight, and there's a knock at the damn door…who else on earth has to be here. Ok I really have to answer that…

12:17 am

Well, we have a new house guest. I just let him in now. Since no one else could peel themselves off their sides to welcome him in, I had to be the one to do it. We had a brief chat for a few minutes until he set up in the living room. He said his name was Bruce Brandes, and his addition was by request of Professor Ted Slade. He didn't really delve into anymore details, in fact he was avoiding them, but I didn't pay any mind to it. I just wanted to sleep this night away. If only I could actually GET TO SLEEP.

1:29 pm

My footsteps woke Megan up. As a welcomed surprise she wanted to talk, she asked if I'd stay up with her. She tried to sleep but she's just gets nervous of letting her guard down. We talked for a good forty-five minutes about why we're both here. She told me exactly what I had guessed about her, she doesn't really want to be here…at all, but like I figured, she was here because she was far behind in her schoolwork.We also talked about what we do to pacify ourselves during our stay here. I told her about this journal, and my music. I showed her the play list and she seemed to be familiar with most of the songs on it. Especially a certain song on it from a musician named April March. The song was called Cet Air La and it is sung entirely in French. She told me that a song like that can take her to a completely different place. Most of the songs on that play list are just to be played loud to drown out other sounds…but Cet Air La, was there for the exact same reason Megan explained. The song allows me to take myself out of the moment, whatever it may be. When we talked, we leaned in closer every few minutes out of how interesting the conversation really was I guess.

I couldn't help but notice that this girl was beautiful. The kind of beautiful you might just blurt out in the open because it's driving you crazy keeping it in. The kind of beautiful that makes you stumble.I told her that if she wanted, I'd sit by her and type so that she can get to sleep feeling safe. I regret that, because I would've loved to stay up all night and talk to this girl.

So I went back downstairs to ring myself out (ha-ha)(that means I took a large piss, in case you didn't know)I also checked up on our latest contestant, Mr. Brandes to see if he was comfortable (since him and I weren't enemies just yet). He was walking around the halls scoping the place out as it were. He was a well-dressed man in the light. When I let him in it was dark so I couldn't get a good look at him. He looked like he was in his early 70's. tall, thin, bearded. He had one of those bowler hats on. REAL old fashioned. He had a camera around his neck. This man was INDEED old fashioned. His camera caught my eye. This thing was practically a fossil among cameras. If I'm right, this is a 1932 Contax I, with a focal-plane shutter. This camera was declared obsolete in the late 1930's because of the scarcity of spare parts due to the camera's fragility. Even with fresh film, a camera like this could barely produce a passable image. It couldn't. This camera was over seventy years old. As I kept studying this man, he just kept getting more and more unorthodox. As fascinating as he is…something about him, who he is, and why he's here…just gave me the eeriest feeling.