Selfish Machines (A Pierce the Veil Fan Fiction!)

Chapter 4

"You've got to be kidding me . . ." Harper says standing her ground a few feet away from us guys including Jesse. She shakes her head forcefully, long brown hair spinning in the direction of her head. "No! There is no way in hell that I will ever go into there!" she says, pointing her head to the abandoned house behind us. "Mike?" she quietly pleads for her boyfriend to stay behind and linger there with her.

Mike purses his lips and smugly smiles. "Sorry babe," he replies quietly as if intimidated by the small Harper that stood no more than five feet tall. She was honestly the most girly out of all of us. She acted more like it even than Jaime did. And that was saying a lot. "but majority rules. C'mon! I don't want you to be out here all by yourself. It's getting kind of dark out."

Harper casts him an uneasy glance and bores her puppy dog eyes into the rest of us hoping that somebody would give in and stay back while the others ventured in. "But . . . " she dips her chin all the way down to her chest and pushes out her lower lip.

Mike heaves a heavy sigh and just rolls his eyes at her. "Okay Harper, if you go with us to check out whatever the hell is in here, I will . . . " He lowers his head wearily as if squeezing out the last of his sentence was as bad as things could get. "- go Black Friday shopping with you at the mall."

I watch in utter amazement as her eyes light up with enjoyment and suddenly links her arm to his, ready to tag along. "By the way Mike," Harper starts, "honest to God, I didn't mind going in at all, I just really wanted to get something out of you. So this Black Friday, we can go to Victoria's Secret and Sephora and you can help me fight off some desperate bitches!" She says with her usual happy and melodic voice, clapping her hands.

Because of high school being over and everything, we decided not to let it slowly break our friendships apart. So at least every few weeks, we all plan as a group to do something together. For about as long as any of us could remember, there was a house that stood in the middle of nowhere. We had all stumbled upon it as kids when our school bus that had been on a field trip. The bus was driving down a highway and Tony pointed out to Mike, Jaime and I (because the additional two weren't our friends till middle school and then high school). Obviously back then, the house wasn't vacant but you could tell that it was still fairly old as signs of decay had already started to set in. That was almost nine years ago.

Now standing before it, it was obvious that it had been vacant for a long time. Windows were busted, and the door's padlock broken by other's who had come to seek adventure before us. It stood two stories high, made of a dark brown wood that carried cracks amongst many boards. "It's like a high-class cabin." Jaime mumbles, pulling open the door and revealing a dark hallway cluttered by dust and a broken rocking chair.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea . . . " I hear Tony say behind me. We were completely unprepared for anything that could possible happen. None of us even had flashlights with us. Go figure, I think to myself.

I trail down the hallway, not caring so much about my safety. My index finger drags along the wood that had begun to deteriorate with time. In the very distance, I catch light that seeped in from a window at the end of the hall leading to a wide open room. 'A living room,' I take a good glance around and wondered what kind of stories were heard here, what kind of memories a kid might have made while living here before having to leave all of it behind. As I spin around to face the wall all the way to the left and catch sight of somebody's graffiti. Usually, I would have been upset that someone was destroying a piece of history, but it seemed like it almost fit and made the whole thing really come together:

"She could make hell feel just like home." I read aloud and my voice carries out, empty and I suddenly felt almost guilty; sad that no one would ever hear the kinds of things that the past had to say. Just like no one had heard me. It's secrets would forever be locked away in the walls and collapse to the ground with them as well-