Gone Home✔️

Chapter 08: Return to the Second Floor

Leaving the music room and the unhappy thoughts behind, (or trying to at least!), I finished walking down the hall. It made a left-hand turn and, oh boy, it was finally at an end! These freaking halls were so long! There was a dresser with a lamp on it that I flicked on almost automatically and a door at the end of the hallway.

First, I tried the door.

Locked?! You've got to be kidding me!

I didn't know where it led, but its placement made me think of a basement. Where else would this lead? Well, a closet, I guess. The fact of the matter was, I wasn't finding out without a key. And, of course, the house key didn't work. Trying not to get into the bad habit of sighing in frustration all the time, I began to turn back to the dresser, but then paused as I saw a wastebasket tucked away in the corner. It had a balled up piece of paper in it.

Well, why not?

My heart skipped a beat when I read it.

Katie,

Please, whatever you've found,
don't tell mom and dad.
The attic

It was all scribbled out. Sam had written this...maybe even a few hours ago. Okay, something had to be behind this door. I needed to find a key...but I was at a dead end! At least, as far as I could tell, there was nowhere left for me to go...on the first floor. Ugh, I didn't want to go back upstairs. It was even creepier up there for some reason.

I turned back and then decided to check out the dresser and move on. I found another note from Sam on top of it, also written tonight, asking me to please tell our parents sorry for the missing stuff. Missing stuff? I suddenly thought of the SNES attachments. Well, it was certainly missing. Why the heck would she take an SNES without the attachments?

I shuffled through the drawers and found a big bonus in the bottom one. First, there was some writing between Sam and this other girl, who was apparently named Lonnie. Huh, Lonnie Desoto. Interesting name. Basically, Sam was asking this girl if she wanted to come check out the mansion and apparently Lonnie was totally down for it. She'd even done a little Street Fighter drawing of two hands throwing a Hadoken...

Okay, yeah, so maybe I was into Street Fighter, too. So sue me.

More importantly, I found another journal. Jackpot!

Oct. 3, 1994

"Best-Laid Plans"

So you know what they say about the best-laid plans of
mice and men. Yeah, turns out it applies to Street
Fighter, too. At least, I worked up the courage to walk
into the 7-11 and ask for a turn, but all that practice at
home did not exactly translate in the wild.

So after I was finished getting my butt kicked, I
followed them outside while they smoked, and that
was when SHE asked me if I was "that Psycho House
girl." But then, she said she's always wanted to see the
Psycho House.

Her name's Lonnie. She's coming over tomorrow.

That made me happy, at least. Sam had definitely made a friend. Based on what I'd read, this Lonnie girl definitely sounded up Sam's alley. Dressing punk, smoking, playing Street Fighter...yep, Sam Friend Material to be sure.

Tucking the journal away in my pocket, I began making my way back through the house. This time, when I got up to the second story landing, I flipped on a little lamp perched on a dresser there. Searching it over, I only found one thing...but it was cool!

It was a newspaper clipping about a controlled burn happening at Flintlock National Park and apparently mom was the one running the show! I thought that was really neat and grinned as I read over it.