Terrifying Demonic Encounter in an Abandoned Haunted House — Real Paranormal Activity Caught on Camera, Unexplained Noises & Shadowy Presence

🏚️ “Occupied” – A Paranormal Investigation in Cheshire
The rain had followed them all the way to Cheshire.

It came in thin, needling lines across the windshield as Adam steered the car along a narrow country road, the beams of the headlights catching the slick sheen of wet tarmac and the tangled branches of hedgerows. The world beyond the glass was a blur of black and grey, but there was one thing he could see clearly in his mind: the house.

A 17th‑century relic. Abandoned. Supposedly haunted.

More than haunted, some claimed. Occupied.

“Here we go,” Dylan murmured from the passenger seat, leaning forward as the road curved sharply to the left.

.

.

.

Adam’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “What is up, explorers,” he said under his breath, rehearsing the familiar rhythm of his intro. “We are back on another haunted adventure…”

He glanced at the dashboard clock. 0:03. A new year, a new investigation. 2026 had only just begun, and he’d picked this place for a reason. Something about the reports hadn’t sat right with him. Disembodied voices. Footsteps. A hiss. People saying it didn’t feel like a normal haunting.

As the road straightened, the silhouette emerged.

The house rose out of the darkness like something that had grown from the land itself rather than been built on it. Its roofline was broken and sagging. The walls, mottled with age, leaned inward as if trying to hold themselves together. A faint outline of a courtyard wall framed it, choked with ivy and nettles. The upper windows were blank and reflective, catching the headlights like a pair of watching eyes.

“Mate,” Dylan whispered. “That is… incredible.”

Adam killed the engine. The sudden silence pressed in hard. No traffic noise. No nearby houses. Just the soft ticking of the cooling car and the distant whisper of wind dragging its fingers through the trees.

He exhaled slowly. “Built in the late 1600s,” he said quietly, more to himself than to the camera. “We don’t have a lot of history, but… we’re going to find out.”

He’d said it a hundred times before in other places, in other ruins. But here, it landed differently. The house didn’t feel empty. It felt like a held breath.

They stepped out into the night. Gravel crunched underfoot. The air was sharp with the smell of wet earth and old leaves. Adam flicked on his torch and lifted the camera, the beam cutting across the façade of the house, catching crumbling stone, a weather‑warped door, and above it, almost hidden beneath the moss and shadow, a worn engraving.

“Seventeenth century,” he murmured into the lens. “This place has seen things.”

Dylan stood beside him, scanning the upper windows with wary curiosity. “They said people die on this road, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Sudden deaths. Close enough to the property that people think it’s connected. But…”

He pointed the torch not at the house, but at the ground beneath their feet.

“Before the house. Before the road. There was the land.”

He could feel it—an old weight, something that had nothing to do with brick or timber or human hands. The house was new compared to whatever was buried in the soil.

“Some places,” he continued, his voice dropping, “get claimed before people ever show up. And when you build over something like that…”

He let the thought hang.

Dylan swallowed, his breath visible in the cold air. “You’re thinking this isn’t just… some family haunting.”

Adam shook his head. “Other teams have been in there. What they picked up… it wasn’t human behavior. Whatever’s inside doesn’t linger like a ghost. It doesn’t attach to people or objects.” He looked back up at the house. “It controls the space.”

He didn’t add the part that had been gnawing at him since he’d read the reports: the way investigators described feeling when they crossed the threshold. Not fear. Not curiosity. Opposition. Like their existence inside was a violation.

In demonology, he knew, entities like that didn’t show up to communicate.

They showed up to dominate.

He adjusted the camera strap across his chest.

“If something in there is demonic,” he said softly, as though the house was already listening, “then it isn’t haunted.”

He met Dylan’s eyes in the dim light.

“It’s occupied.”

🎲 The Games Room
The main door gave way with a reluctant groan, shoulders of swollen wood scraping against the frame. A gust of stale, cool air breathed out at them, smelling of damp plaster, dust, and the faint, sour note of rot. Their torch beams lanced into the gloom ahead, cutting across faded wallpaper, discarded furniture, and doorways that opened into deeper darkness.

The moment Adam stepped over the threshold, he felt it.

The atmosphere changed.

He’d walked into cemeteries at midnight, collapsed hospitals, asylums with whole wings locked off for decades. Each place had its own flavor of silence. This was different. There was a pressure here—a quiet, unspoken pushback that wasn’t fear and wasn’t welcome.

It felt like standing in someone else’s living room uninvited, knowing they were there, watching, and already irritated.

“Feel that?” Dylan whispered behind him.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Not fear. Not even really anxiety. Just… resistance.”

They moved deeper into the house, boots stirring up the dust, torches catching scraps of old life—an empty photo frame face‑down on the floor, an overturned chair, a cracked mirror leaning against a wall, its reflective surface blooming with black spots.

The room they chose as their base had once been a living room, and later, someone had tried to turn it into a games room. A pool table occupied the center, its felt torn and sagging. Old cues lay snapped in a corner. The ceiling above was cracked like a dry riverbed.

“Okay, explorers,” Adam said, the camera rolling now, the red light blinking steadily. “We’re in what looks like the center of the house. The old living room, maybe later a games room. We’ve got equipment set up: music box in that room there—”

He motioned to a doorway that led into a shadowed side room.

“Rem pod in here, K2 and the dead bell on the pool table. Vibes in this place are… intense.”

“Creepy,” Dylan added under his breath.

“Yeah. Just a bit.”

They placed the dead bell—a small, old‑fashioned bell on a flat stand—near the edge of the table. The K2 meter, with its small green light, sat beside it. Both men stepped back.

Adam cleared his throat.

“Straight away,” he said, speaking into the darkness now rather than the camera. “Hello. Is there anyone that wants to speak with us in this house tonight?”

The house listened, its silence thick and heavy.

They waited.

“I’ll get Spirit Talker on,” Dylan murmured, pulling out his phone and starting the app. The device emitted a low hum, listening. The words it produced always unsettled Adam—not because he fully believed in their accuracy, but because every now and then, they were too accurate.

He thought he heard something. A soft scuff, like a shoe on wood.

“Did you hear that?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” Dylan said. “On the steps.”

Adam’s torch snapped toward the doorway that led to the staircase. The beam caught nothing but peeling paint and a slice of the landing above.

“Is there anybody in this building that wants to communicate with us tonight?” Adam called. “My name’s Adam.”

“And I’m Dylan,” his partner added.

From the phone in Dylan’s hand, Spirit Talker spoke in its flat, synthetic tone.

“Yes.”

They both went still.

Adam’s skin prickled. They’d had coincidences before. Random yeses, random noes. But the timing here settled into the room like a third presence.

He stepped a little closer to the pool table.

“Spot on,” he said. “Can you tell us why you’re still here? Maybe what this house was to you?”

The silence stretched out again, thin and taut.

Footsteps, again. Or something that wanted to sound like them.

“You’re hearing that?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah. Twice now.”

Adam raised his voice. “There’s a device on the table here that you can speak to, if you’d like. You can use your voice. And obviously, you know the bell. Apparently, you’re very active.”

He gestured toward the bell.

“Can you show us that you’re here tonight?”

The house breathed. The air felt colder now, heavier across his arms.

“If we give you some questions,” he continued, “could you tap the bell? Once for yes, twice for no.”

A beat of quiet.

Then—

The bell gave a clear, sharp ring. Once.

Adam’s chest tightened. “Yes,” he said. “Perfect. Thank you. Did you live in this house?”

The Spirit Talker spoke again. The word was crisp, unmistakable.

“Mabel.”

Adam and Dylan exchanged a quick look.

“A name,” Adam murmured. “Mabel. Is that who we’re speaking to? Mabel?”

He waited, straining for the bell.

Instead, the sound came from the stairs. A creak. A whisper of weight on old wood.

“I keep hearing something on the steps,” he said softly. “Is that you, Mabel?”

The bell chimed once.

“Yes.

A small shiver went straight through him.

“Okay,” he said, steadying his voice. “Mabel, do you maybe want to come down the stairs and communicate with us? Maybe make a few knocks down here. Or speak through this device.”

He pointed at the K2 meter.

“If you’d like, you can touch the device with the green light. That’ll really help us. Let us know that you’re here.”

The Spirit Talker stirred again.

“Kindness.”

Adam frowned. Dylan raised an eyebrow.

“Kindness?” Adam repeated. “We don’t mean any disrespect or harm. We’re not going to damage this property in any way. If this is your home, you don’t need to worry about us being here. We’ve just come to communicate. Is that okay?”

Silence.

Then, quietly, the artificial voice spoke again.

“No.”

The bell rang once, punctuating the denial.

Adam swallowed.

“They don’t want us to be here,” Dylan said under his breath.

Adam nodded slowly. “Is there a reason?” he asked. “Or is there any way we can gain your trust? Maybe there’s something we can show you. Maybe we can help you in some way.”

Spirit Talker: “Yes.”

“How?” Adam asked. “If you speak through that device on the table, you might be able to tell us. Help us understand.”

A pause. The air felt busy now, as if full of unseen movement.

When the voice finally came again, it felt almost like an answer.

“Around.”

“There are devices in other rooms,” Adam said, picking up the thread. “If you’re nervous about speaking with us, there’s a music box through that doorway. There’s a rem pod with a red light in that other doorway. Would you like to interact with them? Would that be easier?”

No bell answered, but Spirit Talker remained awake, waiting.

“So, Mabel,” Adam tried again, “was this your home?”

The bell chimed once.

“Yes.

“Did you pass away in this building?”

Another single ring. Yes.

“Are you maybe one of the original occupants of the house?” Dylan asked. “It is dated quite well, isn’t it? 16‑something.”

“Have you been here a long time?” Adam added. “Have you seen other families living in this house?”

They both fell silent, listening.

From somewhere close by, faint but distinct, came a sound like walking. A shift of weight. The suggestion of a footstep in the room itself.

“Walking,” Spirit Talker said plainly.

Adam’s skin crawled.

“If we stand very still and quiet for a minute,” he said, lowering his voice, “do you think you can maybe get close to one of us and whisper?”

He glanced at the far wall. Someone had spray‑painted words there long ago: NOT HAUNTED. DEMON PARANORMAL.

He exhaled slowly. “You see that,” he said to Dylan. “Not haunted. Demon paranormal. It seems to be getting relevant answers so far…”

The minutes slid by. Every small sound set them on edge. A faint shift here. A soft tick there. The house no longer felt abandoned. It felt like something was moving around them, deciding how close to get.

“Have you seen other people trying to speak to you in this house?” Adam asked. “Other people trying to communicate?”

The bell rang once.

“Yes.

“In this room,” Adam said carefully, “there’s a device on the table. Maybe you’d like to go towards that.”

The bell chimed again. Yes.

“Can you do that now for us?” Adam asked.

Across the table, the K2 flickered once, a hesitant spark of color.

“Is that one?” Dylan murmured.

Adam nodded. “Is there maybe someone in this house,” he asked the darkness, “that makes you feel uncomfortable talking to us? Something that just… feels wrong?”

The bell rang once again. Yes.

“Is it one of us?” he asked quietly. “Is it one of us that you don’t want to speak to?”

Another ring. Yes.

Adam forced a small, humorless smile. “Is it me?”

The bell chimed again, quick, decisive.

Dylan laughed nervously. “That literally relates to what you said earlier,” he muttered. “She doesn’t like you, mate.”

“What have I done?” Adam asked the air, half joking, half not.

Spirit Talker’s answer was blunt.

“Look above,” it said.

They glanced up at the ceiling. At the upper rooms that sat heavy above them, the staircases leading deeper into the house.

“Maybe that means the rooms above,” Dylan suggested quietly. “Maybe that’s where someone is.”

“Do I look like a criminal?” Adam asked with a crooked smile, trying to cut the tension. “In the 1600s, I guess I probably would.”

Spirit Talker spoke again.

“Insult.”

He grimaced. “Well, apologies, Mabel,” he said quietly. “I don’t mean to. I’m not going to do anything wrong.”

He looked toward the bell. “What if I leave this room? Will you speak to Dylan?”

Spirit Talker responded almost instantly.

“Yes.

“Getting a weird feeling from that room there,” Dylan murmured, nodding toward one side of the house. “It’s the one place that felt really off when I came in.”

“Okay,” Adam said, stepping back from the pool table. “I’ll go for a wander. I’ll take the K2.”

He lifted the meter, feeling the weight of it in his hand like a handhold to the visible world.

“See if I can get anything.”

🚶‍♂️ Footsteps & Flickers
The corridor felt narrower with every step Adam took.

He walked slowly, the K2 held out in front of him, its green light a small, defiant glow against the gloom. The house was a maze of half‑open doors and peeling paint, the walls bulging where dampness had bloomed for years unseen. Every now and then he caught a faint smell of old wood, mold, something faintly metallic.

Behind him, Dylan’s voice was a murmur as he continued speaking to Spirit Talker in the main room.

The K2 flickered.

Adam stopped.

“So, there is…” he started quietly, then paused as the light jumped again, a small spike toward yellow. “Something,” he finished, more to himself than the camera.

He panned his torch around the room he’d slipped into—what might have once been a sitting room, now full of debris and broken furniture.

“If there’s anybody in this room that would like to communicate,” he called softly, “can you come toward this green light in my hand?”

Silence.

Then, all at once, the K2 meter flared to red.

“Oh yes,” Adam breathed. “As we said, there’s no electricity in this house.”

The bell in the other room rang again—sharp, clear.

“And the bell just went,” he muttered, his heart ticking faster. A sound from the stairs, as if someone had placed their foot carefully on one step and then lifted it again.

“Was that you on the steps?” he asked.

The K2 surged once more, then dropped.

In the games room, the dead bell rang again.

Back and forth the energy seemed to go—footsteps behind him when no one was there, the K2 answering on cue.

“The responses I’m getting are unbelievable,” Adam said in a low voice. “Just straight on response.”

“Was that you I was hearing?” he asked the empty room. “The sounds that sounded like footsteps?”

The K2 spiked again.

“Yes.

When he finally returned to the main room, Dylan and the bell greeted him like they’d been in the middle of a conversation.

“Have you left this room at all?” Adam asked.

“Not at all,” Dylan said. “I was hearing footsteps. Sounded like they were coming from over there. I thought you’d followed me in, but the bell kept going off as well.”

They compared experiences, the picture slowly building—something moving between them, aware of both, choosing where to show itself.

Downstairs, upstairs, and somewhere in between.

When Adam mentioned ancient burial grounds—bodies thrown into the earth long before the house was built—the K2 meter and Spirit Talker had answered almost immediately. The word “mercy” had whispered through the app, followed by a beep on the K2 as if the thought itself had stirred something buried.

Cheshire was old ground. He’d said it offhand. The moment he did, the house had replied.

They moved toward the staircase.

“Is there anybody on these stairs?” Adam asked.

The app spoke. “Growl.”

People had heard disembodied voices here. Someone else had called it the Hissing House.

“Can you make a noise for us in our world?” he asked. “Something we can hear. A knock. A hiss. A growl?”

They listened.

The house shifted. Not quite a knock, but movement, as if something changed its position.

The more they asked, the more the pattern emerged. The entity liked the stairs. It liked thresholds. It liked being between.

When they discussed swapping positions, seeing if the rem pod responded to one of them more than the other, Adam made for the next room.

The moment he stepped through the doorway, the devices flared to life behind him.

“Can you tell me if there’s a reason you don’t like me?” he called once he’d returned.

As if on cue, a sound—distinct, heavy—came from the other room. A literal footstep.

He rushed back in. “Dylan, that sounded like it was from the same room as earlier.”

“Yeah,” Dylan said, his eyes wide. “It’s like it waits for you to move, then does something.”

They decided to change tactics.

“Let’s try something else,” Dylan said. “Transcend app in the kitchen. Different location. See if we get the same… attitude.”

The house seemed to follow them with its attention as they left the games room.

🍽️ The Kitchen – It Knows My Name
The kitchen looked like it had been abandoned mid‑life. Cupboards hung open. A rusted stove sat crooked. Mold crept like bruises over the walls. A broken microwave sat on a counter, still in place as though waiting for someone to reheat a meal that never came.

They set up carefully: rem pod on the pool table in the distant room, music box where it had been, K2 now beside the microwave, bell in front of them in the kitchen. The Transcend app listened on Dylan’s phone, its randomized audio bank ready to be shaped by whatever might be trying to talk.

Adam lifted the camera.

“Okay, explorers,” he said, voice low. “We’re in the kitchen downstairs. Got devices still set up in the other room. We’re going to ask Transcend some questions. Hopefully, we’ll get some answers. There is definitely something strange in this place.”

He nodded at Dylan.

“So,” he said into the dim space, “whoever we were communicating with in the other room… can you continue to speak with us in here?”

They waited.

The first word came through Transcend with unnerving clarity.

“Adam.”

They both froze.

“Literally mate,” Dylan said, staring at the screen. “Literally my first word. It doesn’t have a word bank, either. It’s not like it’s picking from a list. That’s just… come through.”

Adam felt a cold thread coil in his stomach.

It knows my name.

“Face,” the app said next.

Adam snorted softly. “You don’t like my face?” he asked, the attempt at humor feeling thin.

Traffic noise murmured faintly through a cracked window, distant enough not to break the spell of the house.

“Hi,” Transcend said. “Real.”

“Can you tell us your name?” Adam asked. “We think you said mine. Can you tell us yours?”

The answers came disjointed, broken across male and female voices, as if a crowd was trying to speak over itself. Phrases drifted through—“for videos,” “already in,” “your…”—too scrambled to make direct sense, but always just close enough to feel pointed.

“Can you hit the bell again for us?” Adam said, changing tactic.

“I’ve turned it on.”

He waited.

“No,” the app said.

The bell stayed silent.

When they mentioned Mabel again, the voice through Transcend sounded like a woman’s, answering with half‑formed phrases. Then came “a song,” followed by what might have been “music box.”

“Could you maybe set off the music box if that’s what you’re trying to tell us?” Adam asked.

“Touch,” the app replied. “Touch something.”

“What about this green light next to the microwave?” he pressed. “We’d really appreciate it if you could set one of the devices off. Or hit the bell again for us.”

The house responded not with a bell, but with a rumble. Both men heard it—a low vibration somewhere within the structure, like something heavy shifting.

“Did you hear that?” Adam asked.

“I heard a rumble, yeah,” Dylan said tightly.

“Can you say your name?” Adam asked again. “We think you said mine. Tell us yours.”

“Cuter than,” the voice through the phone said.

Adam blinked. “Did that just say ‘cuter than’?”

“That’s what I heard,” Dylan said, half laughing, half unnerved.

“Is there a man in this house?” Adam asked, switching angle. “We seem to have Mabel, Lucy… We keep getting a man’s voice too. Who’s the man?”

“Don’t,” the app said. Something that sounded like “Cassie,” or “kiss my ass,” or maybe just static. At one point Adam could swear he heard “KFC.”

“You want some chicken?” he asked the empty air, trying to shake off the goosebumps. “We’ll get some after.”

They asked the bell to ring again. It hesitated, then finally chimed, with a timing that was becoming too precise to ignore.

“Child,” Transcend said next. Or maybe “Giles.” But the repetition that followed—“Child. Child.”—made the meaning clear.

“Is this your parents’ house?” Adam asked the air. “Is this where you grew up?”

The bell rang.

“Yes.

“Is this your parents’ house?” he repeated, testing it.

The bell chimed again, a single, firm ring.

The story began to take shape in his mind: parents, children, servants, centuries of life overlapping. A property that had never really been empty.

“Morty,” the app had said on the Spirit Talker earlier. “Mort,” now Transcend murmured. “More.”

Again that hint of burial grounds, bodies in the earth before the house. Adam mentioned it again. The house reacted again.

“Stock,” the app said. “Livestock,” Dylan suggested. A farm, maybe. Animals. Trade.

Then, more personal words: “Me.” “Buried.” “Here.”

“Are you buried here?” Adam asked softly.

The bell gave a single ring.

“Yes.

Between responses, the building made its own noises—knocks, creaks, distant shuffles. At one point, Transcend clearly said “attic.”

“Is there an attic?” Adam asked, exchanging a look with Dylan. “We think this is three stories.”

They knew there was. They’d passed a stairwell leading higher.

“Early,” the app said. “Not been here long.”

“Is there somebody in the attic?” Adam asked. “Remember the bell’s here too. Did something happen in the attic?”

When they asked if there was something upstairs that didn’t want them there, the tone changed. The responses grew sharper, more insistent.

“End,” the male voice said through Transcend. More than once.

Then: “You bad.”

It landed like a stone dropped in dark water.

Adam’s jaw tightened. “I assure you we are okay,” he said firmly. “We’re not here to disrespect you or cause harm.”

“No,” Transcend shot back.

“I said earlier,” Dylan added quietly, “a lot of religious people don’t like investigations like this. Was your family religious? Were you religious?”

The answer came in clipped fragments—“C‑Con,” then “C‑Con,” then something that sounded like “Half Catholic,” “Marital,” “Church.”

It painted a picture: a house under a stern moral code. A master of the house not inclined to like tattoos, cameras, and strangers asking questions of the dead.

“Do you want us to leave?” Adam asked at last, wanting something clear. He lifted a finger toward the bell. “One ring for yes. Two for no.”

Transcend spoke a new word. “Shotgun.”

The bell chimed once, then again, then a third time—three rapid strikes that rang in the hollow house and left them both staring.

“Yes.

“If there’s somebody upstairs,” Adam said slowly, “do you want us upstairs?”

The bell rang.

“Yes.

The app repeated: “Home.”

The message was clear enough.

Something upstairs wanted them. Whether that was a good idea had not yet been answered.

🛏️ Upstairs – The Servant’s Floor
The staircase groaned under their combined weight as they climbed. Each step complained in a deep, splintered voice, dust blooming under their boots. The handrail was smooth with worn age and tacky with damp. A thin draft curled down from above, smelling of cold wood and something older.

They entered one of the back corridors on what Adam guessed was the east side of the house. A row of small bedrooms lined the narrow passage, ceilings low, doors slightly warped in their frames, as if the building had swollen and shrunk around them over centuries.

“Three stories,” he murmured. “These must be servants’ quarters.”

It would explain the cramped space. The low ceilings. The feeling of being tucked out of sight.

“Always good for activity,” he said to the camera. “We’re already hearing stuff. It is creeping us out.”

They set up a spirit box session just outside a cluster of bedroom doors. Adam held the device, its rapid scanning hiss filling the corridor with a metallic, restless buzz.

“The spirit we were talking to downstairs told us to come upstairs,” he said. “We’re here. Is there anything you’d like to say to us?”

For a moment, only static.

Then, through the noise, a voice.

“You have a message,” it said, distorted but unmistakable.

“Okay,” Adam said quietly. “Who are we speaking to? Is it Mabel? Lucy?”

A woman’s voice: “Yes.”

It came through like someone answering a roll call.

“Who was upstairs that you didn’t want us to communicate with?” Adam asked. “Earlier you said there was an ‘it’. Who is that?”

The spirit box responded with layered voices—male, female, sometimes overlapping, sometimes muttering too quietly to parse. The static seemed to swim with whispers.

As they moved along the corridor, Adam became painfully aware of how trapped they were. There was only one way out. If something came from the far end of the hallway, they’d have to push past it.

“We’ve kind of trapped ourselves here,” he said uneasily, keeping his tone light for the camera.

“Yeah,” Dylan muttered. “If it comes from that way, you’re fine, mate. I’m not.”

“Are one of these rooms occupied by a spirit?” Adam asked. “If you’re in one of these bedrooms, can you speak when I stand in front of your door?”

He moved toward a slightly open door. As he crossed its threshold, a flicker of sound—low, almost musical—slipped through the spirit box. A hum.

They both heard it.

“What was that?” Adam whispered. “That was like… humming.”

He’d never heard humming come through a spirit box before. It rolled through the static like a human sound, not radio bleed. It made the back of his neck prickle.

“Who was that we just heard humming?” he asked.

No clear answer, just overlapping fragments of words.

They kept moving, passing doorways like mouths that had been frozen open mid‑sentence. In some rooms, the floor sagged; in others, the wallpaper had peeled away in great sheets, revealing raw plaster beneath. The wind made soft, uncertain noises at the windows.

At one point, Dylan looked back and frowned. “Did you shut that door fully?” he asked.

“No,” Adam said.

For a second, it had looked fully closed. Now it hung half‑open, exactly as he’d left it.

“Full transparency,” he muttered to the camera. “I didn’t shut it.”

The spirit box picked that moment to speak again.

A low male voice, indistinct but clearly addressing them.

“Leave,” it might have said. Or “I don’t…” Or something worse. The words slid just out of comprehension, like a threat whispered too softly to parse yet loud enough to feel.

“I want to speak to the man of the house,” Adam said eventually. “The one that doesn’t like me. If you don’t want me here, tell me to leave. Call me a name. Do whatever you want.”

He lifted the spirit box higher, as if that might make the voice clearer.

“Come through,” he said. “Tell me what you’ve got to tell me.”

The reply came in a deep, distorted male voice, thick with contempt.

“Go,” it said.

They both heard it this time.

“Repeat that,” Adam challenged. “Say it clear. Tell me what you want to say to me. You want me to go?”

Again the voice tore through the static. This time, another word pushed itself forward.

“Help.”

A woman’s voice layered beneath it. Pleading.

“Is the child still with us?” Adam asked, shifting focus. “Is this her bedroom?”

The replies seemed to cluster around certain questions. Servants. Children. Family. Every time he mentioned people who’d once lived here as lower status, the responses sharpened, grew more responsive.

“Did you work here?” he asked, standing outside another low‑ceilinged room. “Were you a servant in this house?”

“Yes,” a voice answered.

“Were you here with your family?”

“Yes,” came again.

“Do you want to leave?” he asked gently. “Do you want to leave this house, this property, this land?”

The replies turned muddier then, full of hesitation, half answers. As though wanting out was dangerous to say out loud.

“Is there something in the attic that doesn’t want us here?” he asked finally. “Did something happen in the attic?”

The static stuttered. The spirit box coughed up the word “Trying.”

“Use my energy,” Adam urged. “Use the devices’ energy. Is there something in the attic? Is there somebody hiding there? Being kept there?”

The box hissed, fell into silence, then pushed a single word out into the corridor.

“Listen.”

They did.

Feet planted, backs slowly tightening, they stood in silence and let the house speak for itself.

Somewhere above them, wood creaked.

“That was like a growl,” Adam whispered after a moment. “Did you hear that?”

He pointed at the rem pod near one bedroom door. It had gone quiet now, though it had blared when they’d first set it up.

“It’s like… as soon as we’re paying attention, it gets shy,” he said. “We set up, it goes off. Then we start asking, it stops.”

“What do you think?” Dylan asked in a low voice. “There’s definitely something, isn’t there?”

“One hundred percent,” Adam replied. “It’s just trying to figure out who, and where it’s strongest.”

When they mentioned servants again, the responses came faster. When they asked about children, they heard a clearer “Yes.” When Adam asked if anyone had worked here, the answer was immediate.

He felt like he was circling something.

Something in the attic.

“Should we try up there?” he asked eventually, looking toward the narrow stairway leading further up into the house’s bones. “Take some equipment. See if that’s where this… ‘it’ is.”

Dylan hesitated only for a heartbeat.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s a good idea.”

The word Transcend had used earlier floated back to Adam’s mind: “Attic.” Followed by another:

“End.”

The attic had been warned against twice now.

They went anyway.

🪜 The Attic – “We Are Watching”
The attic stairs were narrower than the others, the walls crowding in close. The timbers overhead were exposed and darkened with age, the nails rusted, some bent like twisted teeth. Dust clung to everything. The air felt dry and stale, as if it hadn’t moved properly in decades.

“This is a mad attic,” Dylan whispered behind Adam as they climbed. “Look at it. Thatched roof. Proper old.”

They set their equipment carefully: rem pod at the bottom of the attic steps, another at the top, the dead bell behind Adam near an old mirror, Spirit Talker active on the top landing. Two children’s desks stood in shadowed corners—small wooden things with ink wells, their surfaces scarred with scratches and indentations. Around them, the floorboards were littered with dead flies.

It wasn’t the first time Adam had seen that in an active location. It was never a good sign.

He turned slowly, taking in the low, crooked space. The attic wasn’t a single open room; it was a series of small, oddly shaped pockets of space, as if walls had been thrown up and torn down repeatedly over centuries. Dark little rooms on either side. Narrow gaps you could just about squeeze through. Places where, even now, someone could hide.

“Okay, guys,” he said to the camera. “We’ve come up to the attic, where we were warned not to come. Something up here doesn’t want us here. Not sure what.”

He turned the rem pod on.

It triggered almost immediately. A sharp, insistent squeal of sound, lights flashing wildly.

“Purpose,” Spirit Talker said at the same time.

“Okay,” Adam said, voice tightening. “So whatever is in this attic—you said you didn’t want us up here.”

He moved away from the screaming rem pod, lifting a hand toward it. “Move away from that one on the stairs, please,” he said. “If you want to communicate, come up to the top of the stairs. Touch the red light up here.”

The rem pod at the bottom fell silent.

The one at the top remained blank, unlit.

“Remember,” Adam said, pointing behind him at the bell, “one tap of the bell for yes and two for no. Is there something up here that can harm us? That can do us any damage or cause any danger? Can you let us know somehow?”

The attic seemed to pull its breath in.

“Gentleness,” the Spirit Talker said after a moment.

“Again with that,” Dylan muttered. “Are you referring to Adam?”

“Yes,” the app replied.

Adam couldn’t help it; a short laugh escaped him. “Get over yourself,” he muttered to whatever was listening, though his fingers trembled slightly. “Is whatever is up here something that doesn’t like me?” he asked more seriously. “Remember: once for yes, twice for no on the bell. Or set a device off.”

The answer came not in a bell, but in a sound.

A soft, dragging noise down the stairs behind them, like weight moving from step to step. Both men turned sharply.

“Is there somebody on the stairs?” Adam called.

The Spirit Talker replied with a name.

“Lily.”

Then: “Lucy.”

Earlier downstairs, they’d heard “Mabel.” Now the attic gave them two children’s names.

Dylan gestured toward the school desks. “What we’ve got the camera on,” he said quietly, “is an old school desk. There’s another in there. Two kids. And then it just said ‘two kids’.”

The app confirmed it.

“Two kids,” it said.

The bell didn’t ring. Neither did the upper rem pod. But the rem pod on the stairs crackled and flashed as if something refused to come all the way up or down, hovering at the boundary.

“Courage,” Spirit Talker added.

“Do you need courage to come up here?” Adam asked softly. “Are you scared of the attic? Even if there’s nothing here, you’d still be scared, right?”

“Yes,” the app answered.

That same dragging noise came again—a sound like something heavy pulled along rough wood. The bell jangled not with a clear ring this time, but with an odd, half‑muted clatter, as if someone had tried to ring it but someone else had caught it mid‑swing.

“Nightmare,” Spirit Talker said flatly.

“What happens to that then?” Adam murmured, eyeing the bell.

He stepped closer and tapped it himself. The tone rang out cleanly. No resistance.

“Did you hear that?” he asked after a pause.

“People keep running,” the app said suddenly.

Goosebumps rose along his arms.

“Someone keeps trying to hit the bell,” he said slowly, “and something else keeps stopping it. Like it doesn’t want them talking to us.”

“Break,” Spirit Talker added.

“Are you trying to break my equipment?” Adam asked, glancing between the rem pods and the bell. “Trying to stop them from speaking to us?”

A cold draft slithered across the landing, threading through his jacket like icy fingers.

He and Dylan both flinched at the same moment.

“Did you feel that?” Dylan whispered.

“I did.”

The wind outside was a dull murmur. This felt local. Focused.

“Is there a reason you don’t like that particular device?” Adam asked. “Because the kids were using it? And you’re trying to stop them from speaking?”

No answer. But the pattern held.

The bell would start to move, then stop. The rem pod on the stairs would scream, then die as soon as they stepped toward it.

“Who is this?” Adam asked finally, turning in a slow circle. “Who is trying to silence them?”

No name came. Just another scraping sound, farther away this time. Like furniture being dragged. Or a body.

“Chair of torture,” Spirit Talker said, the words falling into the stillness like a stone.

It made both of them think of the same thing: one of the old chairs downstairs, broken and looming, sitting crooked in an empty room.

“Are you maybe trying to tell us how someone passed away in this house?” Adam asked carefully. “Were they stuck in a chair? Held against their will?”

A faint knock somewhere.

Then the bell chimed twice, uncertain, small.

“Yes.

The floor creaked unpredictably beneath them; each step had to be tested, each dark pocket glanced into twice. Adam could feel his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. The air in the attic seemed to flick between hot and cold pockets, as though invisible bodies were passing close to him.

“Would you like us to leave?” he asked finally, weariness and tension both creeping into his voice.

They listened.

Down below, something dragged again. Heavy, insistent.

“Bullet,” Spirit Talker said.

Adam exchanged a quick look with Dylan. “Maybe a child was bullied,” he suggested. “Or maybe… something else.”

“Body,” the app added a moment later.

Adam had the sudden, overwhelming sense that there were stories here he did not want to see in full.

“Are you still here with us?” he asked.

Nothing.

“Tap the bell one last time if you’re up here right now,” he said. “Just once. One last time.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It felt like holding your breath underwater too long.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dylan murmured. “It’s giving us a lot, but not really giving us anything.”

The words barely left his mouth before the rem pod at the far end of the landing wailed to life, its lights spinning in frantic colors.

“This is incredible,” Dylan breathed. “This is incredible.”

Adam stepped toward it, holding out the K2. “Can you come and touch my hand?” he asked. “The one with the green light in it.”

The pod screamed again, loud and close enough to vibrate through his bones. The air around his extended hand turned icily cold, the coldness so sudden and precise it felt like he’d dipped his hand into invisible water.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “Can you maybe move away from it now?”

The lights flickered and then fell back, leaving the device silent once more.

“We are watching,” Spirit Talker said.

From where? Adam wondered. Attic. Stairs. Land.

“Daddy,” the app added quietly.

The word hung between them in the stale air.

“Is that who’s doing it?” Adam asked, voice tight. “Is that the kids telling us it’s their dad messing with the devices?”

“If it’s you, Lucy, telling us it’s your dad,” he said, turning back toward the bell, “can you tap the bell?”

The bell stayed silent. The attic, for the first time since they’d come up, felt like it was slowly emptying.

The pattern was the same all over the house: the stairs alive with movement, the land humming beneath the foundations, the children eager to speak until something heavier intervened.

A father. A master.

Or something that had taken that role and twisted it over centuries.

Adam turned one last slow circle in the attic. Every window sill was littered with dead flies. Every small pocket of space looked like it could hold a whispering figure in the dark.

“Okay,” he said, voice low. “You happy with what we’ve got?”

Dylan nodded. “Definitely. It’s varied so much across the house. All on the stairs. It’s like they’re scared to come all the way up here.”

Adam nodded slowly. “I think what we’re getting is the children,” he said into the camera. “Maybe a few adults. But mostly the kids. I think they’re scared to come up here. All the activity is on the stairs. There’s definitely something about this attic that is creepy. You can imagine coming up here in the dark, with an oil lamp, just seeing faces where you don’t expect them.”

He glanced toward the narrow gaps between the attic rooms, shadows thick as tar.

“It’s a creepy place.”

They made their way down carefully, every step a deliberate choice, every creak a reminder that they were still inside something that, from the moment they entered, had made it very clear:

They were not welcome.

🧩 Haunted or Occupied?
Outside, the air felt different.

Cleaner. Colder in a way that was simple, uncomplicated weather and not whatever strange temperature shifts had been breathing through the house.

Adam stood a few yards back from the front door, looking up at the broken windows, the dark mouth of the attic, the sag of the roof. Dylan stood beside him, camera hanging by his side now, eyes still flicking occasionally toward the upstairs rooms as if expecting to see a face there.

“What we experienced in there,” Adam said slowly, “didn’t behave like a lost human spirit. Not really.”

He thought back over the night with the clarity that comes from being freshly frightened and freshly fascinated.

The land. Bodies buried long before the house was built. The road with its sudden deaths. The way the devices responded specifically to presence. Not just to words or commands, but to where they stood, what they thought, who was in which room.

“It reacted to our presence,” he went on. “Not comfort. Not grief. Not unfinished business. Presence. Territory.”

The way it had disliked him in particular. The way it had said his name, criticized his face, told him to go. The bell responding yes when he asked if it was him, specifically, that it didn’t want to talk to.

“So the question is,” he said, letting his gaze wander over the upper floors, “what did we uncover? Something demonic—something tied to the land itself, older than the house? An ancient force that controls space, not people?”

He thought of demonology texts. Entities that didn’t attach or linger, but dominated. That controlled territory. That encouraged others—like children—to be silent.

“Or,” he continued, voice dropping slightly, “was it a malevolent spirit? Something that was once human, turned hostile? A father, a master of the house. Maybe someone who lived by a strict moral code and now hates anyone stepping into his domain.”

He thought of the word “Daddy.” “Half Catholic.” “You bad.” “End.” “Shotgun.” The kids seemingly terrified of the attic. The bell that someone kept trying to ring while someone else tried to stop them.

“I’ll leave that for you to decide,” he said, turning the camera back on himself. The house loomed behind him, a dark, patient outline against the starless sky.

“But whatever was here tonight…” He looked back once more at the upper windows. “It didn’t want us in there.”

He held the camera steady.

“And I don’t think this house is just haunted.”

He let the word sit, heavy and final.

“I think it’s occupied.”