> Investigate door.

Your eyes are drawn again to the marks on the small door, and you squint, taking a tentative step forward. A small cloud of powder rises around your foot, and a floorboard creaks. The creak is low, and to you, sounds welcoming. Like the house is inviting you in.

Encouraged by this, you continue. You have to watch out for the things cluttering the floor, and step carefully around an upturned plastic chair. That obviously wasn't part of the original décor, and despite the heavy coating of dust, you assume it must have been left by the documentary crew. Your foot clacks against something heavy.

> Look at floor.

The dust makes everything the same dark grey, but there are distinct shapes that you can see. Several small plastic chairs are visible, laying on their sides or with their legs pointing into the air. A standing lamp with a wide shade has fallen over at the foot of the stairs, to your left. There's a knee-hight rectangular box against a wall to your right, with what looks like a padlock hanging from the front, and beside it lie pieces of a large and once-ornate vase. At your feet is something long and narrow, and a glimmer of metal peeks through the dust. When your foot made contact, it felt pretty solid. You kick it again to roll it over, and dust peels away to reveal a brassy candlestick holder.

> Take candlestick holder.

You pick up the object, about half the length of your forearm. The metal is cool, but surprisingly not cold. Feeling like you need a souvenir, you tuck it into your coat pocket, and continue to pick your way across the hall.

> Inventory.

In your coat pockets you have the candlestick holder, half a bar of Dairy Milk, and the keys to your flat. In your trouser pocket is your mobile phone, which is turned off so your friends won't disturb you, and some change.

> Investigate door.

The small door is in front of you, and to your left is the sturdy looking bannister that runs up the side of the staircase. You could touch the bannister and the wall to your right at the same time, if you stretched out your arms. It's harder to see because you're no longer in direct line of the light from the entrance (which you left open), but you lean to inspect the front of the door. Cobweb trails curl around your finger tips as you run your hand down the dark wood. You can feel carvings on the surface, and blow and swipe at the dusty layer until the patterns are no longer so obscured.

You suppress a splutter at the thick and itchy air you're breathing. Some of the shapes carved into the door feel like cogs, but there's something else as well. Something winding, with a shape more organic. You only wish you could see all of the details.

Your wandering hand finds a wooden protrusion at waist height, and you try to turn the handle. It moves stiffly, but the door itself doesn't budge. Carefully, you lean your shoulder against it and push harder, but to no avail.

> _


[What do you do next? Comment!]

You find yourself in the house, because you have been drawn to it. Not like others, who went because they'd heard tales of haunting and wanted to prove their worth, or those who blazed in with tape measures and calculators and felt a right to value and analyse. Your friends are not of the type to make or take dares, and they stay away from the looming building. They didn't know of your fascination. And they would have done their best to distract you, had they. You don't want distraction. You want to follow your instinct. It has taken several years, and so much staring from afar, so much day-dreaming.

> Cross the threshold

Floorboards creak as you take that first tentative step onto the porch. Dry leaves and partially disintegrated police tape crackle underfoot. A wrinkled, yellowed sign had been stuck to the door, and now hangs from one corner only. It warns of falling masonry and unsafe walls, but you know the house is as sturdy as the day it had been built. You feel it in your gut.

The place hasn't been properly sealed off for years. A rusted chain is thrust around one of the oversize brassy door knobs, but there's no padlock in sight. You have distant memories of the doors being nailed shut with enormous planks of wood, but they are long gone.

> Enter

Your fingers touch the rough wood of the door, and immediately become one with it. That is, a small splinter embeds itself within you, and you grimace. Then, one deep breath later, you push.

You're expecting a creak, but none comes. The door swings smoothly, as if recently oiled (but you know that's not the case. You just know). There light within comes only from the doorway, your silhouette looks blankly up at you from the floor. You can make out the shapes of broken furniture, clutter, in this hallway with no windows. As your eyes adjust, both they and your nose pick up the layers of dust that coat everything. There were people in here just last week - you'd seen the van outside, ghost hunters, filming a 'documentary' - and yet nothing was disturbed. Yours were the only footprints in the grime on the floor.

Gradually, your eyes adjust to the gloom, and a broad staircase has materialised in front of you. It looks grand, far grander than you expected from everything else you knew - felt - about the house. It, too, is coated with dust, and the steps are broad in width, but look narrow in breadth. Like you might have to climb them on tiptoe. In the wall to your left, a door hangs off its hinges, and beyond the frame you can see only darkness. To the right of the staircase, in the dim distance, you can make out another door. It's smaller, and firmly closed. It's hard to tell from where you stand, but you think you can make out intricate patterns carved into the wood. Or maybe it's just cobwebs.

You snuffle involuntarily as the dust tickles your nose. You've come this far; not much point in standing around in the doorway all day.

> _



[So now you decide what I write next. Comment or tweet at me, and I'll go with a majority. If no-one is reading this, I'll go with what I feel like when the time comes. For the unfamiliar, reasonable commands would be things like 'go forwards', 'go left', 'go right'. Nothing too taxing there.]