Annabelle Wong Hin Sang (10) | STAFF REPORTER
Exactly one year ago, the house on the hill burned down – I think I’m the only one who remembers.
I moved here a long time ago. The neighbourhood is essentially a line of houses and a single road that trails up and stops abruptly at the bottom of a small hill. On the top of this hill, there used to be a small house sitting far from the neighbourhood road. We were all sure it was abandoned.
I was sitting at my desk, staring out the window, watching as the rooms in the houses across from mine turned from bright yellow to pitch black.
But there was something I saw out of the corner of my eye. I leaned in closer until my face was right next to the window pane. Floating down the hill was a shadow- no, not a shadow. A void. A dark mass hovering above ground, sucking in all the light, unlike anything I had ever seen before.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to fall asleep.
It happened in the early morning. Or maybe late at night. I woke up to the sound of crackling outside my window. I slowly sat up and looked over, to find the entire hill, once a lush green, now consumed by a raging mess of red and yellow. Behind the flames, there stood a wavering shadow of the house. Its pale yellow bricks and grey-brown roof remained completely intact, and there was no sign of it collapsing anytime soon.
I dashed out the front door, and was immediately met with smoke. My eyes stung terribly as I ran through the neighbourhood, knocking on the doors of as many houses as I could. The fire continued to inch closer to the general neighbourhood area, and one by one, people were poking their heads out to see what was going on. It wasn’t long until shouting voices were all I could hear.
Suddenly, colours were blending together; the houses, the fire, the hill, the crowd. It was like thousands of candles melting into a pot, and eventually turning into complete darkness.
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I leapt out of my bed and ran outside to find a group of five or six people sitting in someone’s front yard, each one of them smiling and laughing as they lounged around. I recognised only two of them, Dill and Linda.
“Are you alright, son?” Dill, a man I was well acquainted with, called out. “Here, why don’t you come and join us.”
I proceeded cautiously, glancing around the neighbourhood. Everything was disturbingly normal. “What happened to the house?”
Dill chuckled. “We live in a neighbourhood full of houses. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
The whole group was watching us. My eyes hastily examined their confused faces, and, seeing their expressions, I nearly laughed in disbelief. “The one that burned down last night. On the hill.”
Linda, Dill’s wife, held an arm out, motioning for me to come over. Once she saw I wasn’t moving, she smiled. There was something unsettling about her smile – it was unnaturally wide. “Hon, there never was a house on that hill. It would be rather odd if there were, wouldn’t it? Now come and take a seat.”
It’s as if the fire had never happened.
