You know the more I browse reddit the less original the posts on tumblr get.

Giselle, Giselle, your feet all covered in sand, 

The beach yard large when you tried to grab my hand

You ran off yelling, 

Your voice telling,

of a game when I lost when I couldn’t hold your hand.

Giselle, Giselle, your ankles all covered in sand

As you ran right through the beach and tried to grab my hand

Your dress white and flowing

The water showing

a series of losses when I lost the grasp on your hand.

Giselle, Giselle, your frame all covered in sand

As you just lay there and couldn’t take my hand

Your dress blackened and folding

Your blood pooling

As they dragged you out they wouldn’t let me take your hand.

And don’t tell me that you’re trying.

      The first feeling you get when you step into that place is the sweeping sense of dread. The aura of absolute emptiness that comes with an abandoned building. The empty hallways, or the long winded series of rooms now covered in graffiti. Sometimes it is the most humbling feeling in the world, even those immortal are going to have their identities stripped away someday. More and more I have to think of the poem Ozymandias, except the modern day rendition starring this abandoned hospital, or the empty clinic. After I leave, there’s this sense of enduring adventure, a sweeping humbleness that forces, coerces, and ensnares any type of depression. In Fight Club the Narrator has to go to meetings to sleep at night, I have to go explore the lost buildings of the world. 

     This particular building, this particular day, this particular hour. An old racetrack in a small town on the Eastern side of the United States. This was the first time I’ve ever gone, this was the first taste of the great sweeping feeling of moving through time when all of it was gone. Even though I would never be able to see this particular place in all of its greatness, I would be able to at least get enjoy the wonders and delights of its skeleton. This was a few months ago, at around 3 PM. I’m with two people, neither of whom I’d call close friends, but both of whom I trust dearly. One of them is Adam, the other is Danny. Two photographers. After a series of photos. 

     We expected the series of photos to take no more than a few hours, this way we would be back by 5 and could collect a hard earned dinner from our school dining hall. A naive idea blocked by having the sunlight cripple the photographic ability of the two artists accompanying myself. It seemed the only shots they had actually taken was one with me in front of the entrance, with a few testers in the dark underside of the stadium seating which housed a betting center and a concession stand, both decrepit. There were several abandoned bathrooms as well, with the porcelain sinks smashed in. Probably by teenagers. There was also an underpass, a tunnel of sorts that allowed easy access to the race track. Danny started talking about electronic music, a conversation we’d have many times later, but in that moment he froze. The tunnel was completely flooded with water, inundated by the rain and the triumph of nature over the plumbing. He immediately set up his tripod, setting up for a long exposure shot to compensate for the lack of light. The whole process took about 10 minutes, and the other fellow Adam also lined up a shot of the tunnel.

     The whole endeavor took about 15 minutes, with each exposure being about 30 seconds long. Adam started the exposure. From above us we heard the sound of someone running. The first thing all of us jumped to was being in trouble with the police. We were unsure about the situation of the property, and as any Urban Explorer will tell you, the best type of police is no police. Needless to say the notion of running, meant someone running to us, or from something else, all of us down in that tunnel immediately jumped to the “to us, to arrest us” option. We perked up and stepped over the railing leaving the camera to finish its exposure. Adam stayed on the other side of the railing so he could keep his eye on the camera, Danny and I poked up to preemptively confront any police or security. Danny walked off a few steps looking, and I searched in the other direction before giving up our search. There was probably 10 seconds before the exposure was done, so we started to head back, Adam shrugging as he saw Danny walk back shaking his head. 5 seconds till exposure was done. That’s when we heard the splashing sound from the tunnel. 

     Adam being the closest was the first to inspect, he ran down the stairs to get a better look in the tunnel, but didn’t see anything. He looked down at the camera, and bellowed a loud “shit, there’s water on my camera,” the echo gracefully bouncing around as well as the final click announcing the finished exposure. Danny was much more worried though, he seemed a bit perplexed at what had just decided to go for a dip in the body of water beneath the old racetrack. I wish that worried me too, but I was just excited to be here, and in the daylight, even though we were in the dark, the place seemed okay, charming even. We discounted the noise as a freak incident, and quickly put it out of our minds. The camera turned out to be okay, so no harm. I wish that’s where it ended. I really want that to be the end. But the reason I’m starting to keep this journal, and the reason I want to keep track of what’s been happening, is because it wasn’t okay. 

     This particular building, this particular day, this particular hour. This is some abandoned hospital in LA. It’s late, the lights around the building went out long ago, but surrounding suburbs about a mile away have all turned out their lights. Even the insomniacs are silent. The day is sometime about a week ago. Sometime a few days ago. Days don’t make much sense as a way to measure time, I prefer hours. Hours are nice, they make time seem so much more lasting. I’m with my friend Andrew, and we’re searching. Not for any treasure, but for a way out. Not for some family secret, but for an end to a series of unfortunate circumstances that has left 2 people dead, and another missing. There’s graffiti on the walls, and darkness all around. There were even a few movies shot here. Old documents litter the floor, and Andrew is tediously, consciously snapping photos, using the flash on his phone to provide light while we search frantically. The sounds of rustling papers fills the wing. Elvia Melville, age 46, perished due to unforeseen complications during childbirth. Somewhere in here, are those files, somewhere close by, the sound of wind sliding through a window echoes into the room from far off. That wasn’t supposed to happen. No noises except for the sounds we made. We wanted to hear it coming, we wanted to know when they knew what we were up to. We couldn’t leave, not yet, not until we find it. Charlie was still missing, and what would we tell his parents. IT WAS JUST A DUMB ROAD TRIP. Andrew was supposed to shut all the windows. We stopped looking through the papers, Andrew stopped taking photos. We still heard rustling. You hold your breath, you count to 5, look closely, look where you never want to, look deep and hard, because the second you let that breath out you have to run. You have to run fast and you can’t stop running until you burst into the night air, a sense of relief washing over you before you realize you’ve failed. Andrew lets the air out, hits me on the shoulder with something, in small black letters on the top of a binder it says Elvia Melville. There are specks of blood on the binder. Dripping from the roof there is a corpse. We don’t look in case it turns out to be true, Andrew is already running, tugging on my arm, I wish I’d listened. I wish I could go back to that race track and break that fucking camera. It’s too late now though, and as my breath gives out I take off.

     That particular place, that particular day, that particular hour. Danny looks confused, Adam is just worried about the camera and I’m just excited to be off campus. There aren’t any police around and this beautiful structure is ours to explore. I look to me left and there are empty trailers, I look to my right and there is sunlight. The air is warm and inviting, it smells like camping and home. If I’d looked down though I would have seen the dark, and if I’d looked really hard I would have seen into the water where something was watching, warning, waiting, whistling, wanting. We all thought it was weird, an anomaly. The first mistake of many more. That photo the awful beast that I carried me not left, or right but down. Down where that face was waiting. 

     The next day Adam came to my room after classes, I was playing some game on my computer. He didn’t say anything just handed me a flash drive. I opened it and browsed  a few of the photos, the last one being the hallway. It was a lovely shot, the light making it appear as if the hallway was a giant cylinder, the water acting as a mirror, though on the right side of the photo there were ripples, however faint breaking the illusion. And there on the left most side of the photo was a slight discoloration. Except it wasn’t just a mark where the photo didn’t develop right, it was a face. 

So when there are other ways to confess

to these awful things that we’re supposed to

do to each other

I don’t even know

When times are tough and it all seems like we’ve had enough

the cold water feeling you get from sitting through

the same damn greeting too many times

I don’t even know

Are we supposed to fight about the little things

taking chances

taking lives

I don’t even know

When time seems fickle 

and I can’t name a thing that’s on your mind

I’m gonna go run and hide

I don’t even know

How am I supposed to hate the things you are

when all I can see is the brightest light

the worst inklings of a larger ghost

I don’t even know

When you hurt so bad

That you can’t even turn to your friends

And now you’re yelling

I don’t even know

I don’t even know

how I’m supposed to talk over all that noise

the drowning silence is stifling the phrase

I don’t even know

How this is gonna end

am I supposed to leave

Do I start to shout too

I don’t even know

How is this gonna help me go

The words, the phrases, the cold push

to go outside

I don’t even know

To face these scary things again

To hold on to something that feels cold

How are these things gonna help me

I don’t even know

I don’t even know