Play With Me Rewrite

## Play With Me Rewrite by Doros70

(Sally Williams was created by Shilo Rose)

**9:20 PM**

Well... here I am! After months of research and countless interviews, I found it! The haunted house the whole town was talking about. It doesn't look extraordinary, but many people said that something unnatural is dwelling in there.

This residence was built around the beginning of the 20th century, but everything started to go wrong in 1966. It is said that four members of the Williams family lived there.

Frank and Marie Williams were married and had a daughter, Sally; and Frank's brother, Johnny, also lived with them.

Johnny Williams was secretly a serial rapist that killed his 8-year-old niece, apparently to spite his brother over an unknown matter, and was given two life sentences. A month after he was locked up, the guards found his dead body lying in the middle of his cell. The cause of death is still unknown, since there were no signs of bodily damage or harm, and Johnny's medical record stated that he was clinically healthy prior to his death.

After Johnny's death, the Williams family left the town out of grief and shame, and the house was since then on sale. A few people tried to move there, but they reported hearing giggles in the middle of the night, toys being left haphazardly on the floor, and the TV would change channels to cartoons against the householders' will. Fortunately, no one died, but it is said that the adults would increasingly become more paranoid and unstable, but the children remained both physically and mentally unscathed.

I guess it's a good thing that I brought my notebook with me to record all of my findings because I'm sure that this will be my most interesting and important case so far. If absolutely nothing will happen and all those rumors were just a bunch of lies, well... that's my job as a paranormal investigator: to uncover the truth.

Right now, I have a nutrient bar, a bottle of water, a flashlight, a UV torch, an electromagnetic radiation detector, a crowbar, and a handheld camcorder.

I don't have a partner to assist me, so it's obvious that I should be more careful. Fortunately, that's what I'm good at. I have traveled all the way from New York to this town in Oklahoma, so this better be good.

Let's see how my persistence finally pays off.

**9:55 PM**

I checked the first floor of the house. From what I gathered, no one has entered this house in decades, but I don't see a speck of dust anywhere. I checked the wooden furniture, but it shows no signs of rot, and the wall heaters are still warm. Someone must've been here recently.

Still... the power is not working. I confirmed that when I tried to turn on the lights. Most of the electronics are not plugged in, but I'm not going to connect them to any outlet, since I don't want to take any risks. I checked the other rooms with my camcorder, and I haven't seen anything interesting. But this is just the first floor; I still need to check the second floor and the attic.

While I was writing, the television in the living room turned on by itself! I checked it five minutes ago, and it wasn't even plugged in! The television itself is very old, and I'm sure it was made around the 1950s, but it works very smoothly. The television showed me a looped black and white animation of Mickey Mouse, walking down a street. I began to feel slightly unsettled, but I shook off that fear and did a little test. I changed the channel, and once I did, I was shown another cartoon: Tom & Jerry. Then, the channels started to change themselves. I saw a part of an episode of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and many other old cartoons. A few seconds later, the TV turned off, and I couldn't manage to turn it back on.

All the cartoons I saw were made in the 1950s and '60s. They fit the period in which the tragedy took place.

Maybe the rumors are true after all... unless some douchey squatter lives in this very old house and is trying to mess with me.

While the channels were changing, my electromagnetic radiation detector (which I will call 'ERD' from now on) showed me a low level of radiation. I need to check the second floor! I'm sure I'll find something in there!

**10:28 PM**

Do you happen every once in a while to shiver, even though you're not cold? That's happening to me right now. No, it doesn't happen at random intervals, it's constant and I don't know what causes this; I just can't stop.

I checked the bedrooms. The parents' room is clean and apparently untouched, whereas the guest room is completely trashed. The bed is disassembled, the clothes have been burned and piled up in a corner, and there are multiple bloodstains and dead rodents on the furniture. What I found interesting, besides the lack of a rotting smell, was an old, framed photograph. The frame was shattered and dusty, and the photograph was that of a bearded man smiling at the camera. Next to the man's face was written in crayon, "Cheater!" and "You weren't playing the game right".

I'm sure that Johnny Williams used to sleep here. I took the photograph out of its frame and put it into my pocket just in case.

Sally's room was entirely different. When I opened the door, I got hit by a wave of heat. If I was still a little girl, I would've considered the room a paradise. The light in this room was on, the bed was neatly made, there was no dust at all and there were a lot of stuffed animals lying on the floor and bed. Bunnies, lambs, puppies, tigers, and mostly... teddy bears.

Still... there is something off about these animals. When I entered the room, I felt almost as if the toys were looking at... me. There's a particular stuffed bear that gives me the creeps. And I swear to you... every time that thing is out of my visual field, it moves!

**12:06 AM**

The last room I had to check on the second floor was the bathroom. It was locked, of course. Luckily, I still had the crowbar. I placed it between the door and its frame, and I pulled with all my might. The door resisted, but I managed to open it.

I regret it tremendously.

The bathroom was darker than the other rooms I checked. There were bloodstains and spider webs everywhere and everything smelled horrible. On the walls it was written "How do you like it?" in a black substance that I couldn't identify.

In the tub was a decayed corpse of a bearded man. Judging by how he looked, I'm sure if anyone else saw him, they would've either puked or couldn't tell who he was. I looked at the message, and then at the body. I glanced over to his beard... it was oddly familiar. I pulled out the photo I took from the guest room and compared the man in it to the body. They matched.

I was looking at Johnny Williams' dead body.

Tons of questions flooded my mind when I saw him... and I tried to come up with an explanation for this. When Johnny died in prison, no one in his family wanted to take the body and bury him, and his organs weren't donated, so he was buried in a cemetery near the prison.

But the real question was, why was he in the bathroom? Who unburied the body and how did they manage to take it to the bathroom of this house without being seen?

I think I came up with a believable theory: The old newspapers that I read said that Sally was murdered in the bathroom on the second floor, and maybe the one who took his body decided to leave it there to mock him.

At that moment, my ERD went completely crazy. I quickly took the camcorder and checked the bathroom. When I pointed the lens at Johnny's body, it just wasn't there. When I put the camcorder aside, I saw to my horror that the body was completely gone.

I wanted to leave immediately, and when I made that decision, the door suddenly closed behind me. The light had disappeared completely, and I was left in pitch black darkness. I was never afraid of the dark, but I was absolutely terrified. I couldn't see anything, and I didn't know what was going on. It was as if the entire world ceased to exist. I tried to open the door, but it was locked again. I desperately tried to turn the knob, but the door was extremely resistant.

I knew that something like that wasn't possible; when I first opened the door, I compromised the lock. It's like it was magically repaired and someone locked me inside. And to make matters worse, the crowbar was outside the room.

About a minute later, I heard a giggle coming from behind me. I immediately stopped and turned around. There was no sound other than the constant beep of my ERD. I slowly took my flashlight out of my bag. Hesitantly, I pressed the button, and the whole room was lit. Right then I saw...

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was extremely confused, but then I had an idea. Shaking, I took my camcorder and turned it on.

Through the small screen of my camera, I saw a little girl holding a brown stuffed bear, the one that scared me earlier. She looked soaked with water and her body was full of bruises and scars. She wore a simple yet dirty pink nightgown that went down her knees. Her brown hair was unkempt and had green eyes that seemed to stare right into my soul. Lastly, if it wasn't for the blood streaming down her face from her forehead, I would've said that I was looking at a completely normal little girl.

In all my years of solving mysteries, it was the first time that I felt genuinely terrified. I wanted to scream for help, but I couldn't. All that escaped my mouth was a pathetic whimper. The girl just smiled at me and looked into my eyes. Someone else would've regarded the gestures as 'cute', but I was scared out of my mind.

"Hi there! I'm Sally," she said in a friendly manner. The bones of my legs became weak, and my stomach became increasingly heavy.

"Would you like to play with me?" she asked.

I immediately shook my head and started to slam my body against the wooden door, trying to break it. After five tries, I managed to bust through the door and ran like hell down the stairs. I left a few things behind, but I didn't care. All I wanted was to get out of the house and never return.

I rushed downstairs and ran straight for the door. A wave of relief washed over me as my hand touched the metal doorknob. I opened the door, ran right through it and... I stopped.

I found myself on the second floor of the house, and the door behind me belonged to the guestroom. I could've sworn I exited the house; that the first floor was right behind me... I was wrong. I didn't get out. When I realized what just happened, I heard a lighthearted chuckle coming from the kitchen.

It's Sally. She invites me to play, but she becomes angrier by the minute. Now she's furious.

I snuck into the laundry room as quietly as I could, and I hid in a huge pile of unwashed clothes. I've been here for almost half an hour now, but I feel like it's been ages.

I don't know what she'll do to me if she catches me, but I think it's best if I stay hidden.

I can hear her clearly now. There is no escape for me.

But I have to keep going. Come on, Monica! You can do this!

???

I think it's been a few days. I lost track of time long ago.

I ran out of food and water.

I lost all of my equipment trying to escape. Except for this notebook.

I feel just like a cartoon character going through doors in a hallway and then pop out of another door in the same hallway. I have seen the same rooms for days.

I hid in as many hiding places as I could find here. I am in the attic now. It's the dustiest room in the house (if I can even call this awful place as such), but it's the safest place I have found so far.

I tried multiple times to get out of here; either through a door or by trying to jump out of a window, but I just end up in other rooms, trying my best to escape the walking corpse of Johnny and to avoid those stuffed toys. It's only a matter of time before I get caught or starve to death.

I know she's near. She invites me to play. She's absolutely furious now and is screaming like a banshee. She told me that I'm an 'intruder' and that I have no choice but to play with her, but I don't know what her plan is. I don't know what she will do if I accept her little offer. If she just wanted to kill me, she would've ended it a long time ago by phasing through the walls and find me, or something like that...

Maybe she doesn't want to kill me... What if she has plans to do something worse...?

I don't know if I'll die here, but if someone finds this outside of this cursed place, then don't end up like me. I can assure you that the rumors are true. Something unnatural dwells in here indeed.

But if you find this notebook around this house... well... it's already too late for you. This is a labyrinth with no exit. Hope is useless here. And all you can do is beg for the sweet release of death.