Its Not Me Its My Basement Novels & Stories

the question reverberated through the room as it did my head. With a gulp, I give him a nod. He smiled, and pulls me down goddess-knows-what in what looks like a basement the owners abandoned decades ago. Walking down the creaky, old wooden steps, careful not to trip or stumble on my feet in case there was a cliff on the bottom of it. I know it’s ridiculous to have a cliff below your room but I suffer from paranoia, at times, especially when I held secrets I did not want anyone finding out.

If only he had an idea about who he was dealing with, then he wouldn’t have decided to go ahead on this cold war with me. Because in the end, he was doomed to fail. Averting my gaze from him, I placed a call through Aiden. “Are you ready, cousin? Have you found out about anything?” Aiden’s voice came from the other line. “With the secret cameras set over the place, I haven’t discovered anything yet. However, there is something off, I can see some women trooping into the basement. They look more like stylists” “There is a basement?!!” I sounded alarmed.

Edward I showed no vestige of emotions the moment I descended down the staircase of my basement. The smell in the basement always had worsened by the stench of dirt, blood and sweat. The blend of the odor that seeped into the concrete, clinging to the walls like a second skin.

His dad has the cheeky grin too, the one that speaks of a bit of a troublemaker. “They’re all downstairs in the basement. We have a games room down there, and it’s soundproof,” he explains, and my mind flashes back to the holiday home we had rented in the human realm last year. We had all liked the basement. My parents had been debating building something similar in our home, but I was no longer interested. My rooms need to have windows, a way to escape. I’ve had more than enough time underground. I never intend to do it again. I glance towards the window. The curtains are closed, so I can’t see out of it, but knowing it is there is enough.

Perhaps I could look for the bills in the morning? No. If I was correct, those bills were buried in the basement file room, and there was no way I was going to dig through that muck without looking like something the Swamp Thing vomited up on New Year's Eve. I groaned and dragged myself off the couch. I needed to change my clothing before poking about in the basement at work, which I dubbed the Basement of Horror. I returned to my room and changed into an old, tattered pair of pants that had seen better days. The t-shirt I was wearing had a stain on my left breast from spilling red sangria a few months before, so it'd suffice. I stuffed my feet into my old shoes, grabbed my keys, and walked

I said, and the house approved of my priorities by not dropping anything heavy on our heads. I moved to the hallway so I could see Jamie and the door at the same time. The folio lay like a relic on the table while he worked its logic with a cautious fingertip. In the far corner, the basement door breathed its slow cold. Something down there shifted—nothing dramatic, just the kind of sound wood makes when humidity changes its mind. It still sent a little line of ice along my spine. “Leave the basement for another day,” I said. Mostly to myself. A little to the house. “We don’t need to discover any new architecture.”

“You don’t have to be strong all the time, Azzurra.” “I’m not strong,” I said. “I’m just tired.” He leaned back again, folding his arms. “Good. Then you’ll stop trying to run off into mansions filled with psychopaths.” “No promises,” I muttered. We fell into silence again. The kind of silence that holds a thousand things left unsaid. After a while, I whispered, “There really were women and kids in the basement.” “I know,” he said. I glanced at him. “You do?”

Noah once joked that places like this rely on people believing rules are enforced more than actually enforcing them. I slip inside. The hallway smells like disinfectant and stale air. My footsteps echo softly as I move deeper, past offices I recognize from memory and nightmares. My chest tightens with every step. This is where he stood. This is where everything changed. My phone vibrates. Unknown Number: Records room. Basement level. I hesitate only a second before heading for the stairs. The basement is colder. Dimmer. The lights flicker faintly, like they’re tired. The records room door is slightly ajar.

Either that, or I am growing used to it. My mother cleans our apartment from floor to ceiling every day, but because it is in the basement, it always smells musty. It always has bugs and rats. Sometimes, when it rains or the snow melts too fast, the drains back up, and the floor forms puddles. I hate it--but I say nothing. Instead, I go into my room where I have a few clothes hanging from a wire across the blind-less window that is barely wide enough for me to squeeze through if I had to get out due to a fire, and sit on the mattress where a stained sheet and a moth eaten blanket are my only comforts.

I let it go, but I couldn't help scanning the property as I got out. The ground floor looked the same. Warm lights. Christmas tree still twinkling. Were they… downstairs? The basement level was supposed to be a recreation area. I'd only been down there once. They'd talked me into it with promises of "relaxing," but the second I saw that big pool of steaming water, I knew what was coming. They'd held me down in it until I couldn't stand, legs shaking, begging them to stop. The memory was so obscene it made my tailbone ache just thinking about it.