When I was a child, my parents would sometimes take me to my aunt and uncle's house in Arizona for the weekend. I mostly spent time playing with my cousins, Ray and Blake, who were about the same age as me. They lived on a small farm with a large open space. We were running around and basically doing whatever we wanted. If we thought we could get away with it, sometimes the three of us would cross to the next house which was about a half mile away. It had been abandoned for decades, with many of the scattered belongings of the people who previously lived there. It begged to be explored and was a gold mine for three adventurous young boys like us, especially because of the stories my cousins ​​had told me about the old haunted house. It was pretty standard fare; the man goes mad, murders his entire family with an axe, hangs himself, returns every night in the form of an angry spirit, looking for other victims. Being so young, I allowed myself to believe it. One afternoon we decided to play hide and seek. When it was my turn to hide, I ran towards the old abandoned house. Inside the house, I noticed that there was still old furniture with white fabrics on every piece. I had to move around the broken dishes and ruined books lying on the floor. The old floor creaked with every step. I went upstairs to find an old bedroom with a closet. Score. There were even long black dresses from the previous owners, still hanging on the rack, behind which I could hide. I went into the closet and found a way to close the closet door so it was almost black. My only source of light was a ray of sunlight coming from a nearby window. I crouched on the ground and waited. Some time passed and... middle of paper... police cars were lined up. I watched as all the men in blue uniforms spoke ominously on the radio. My parents were also there. Everyone wanted to know where I was, but my story made no sense to them. Since I was still a small child at the time, they dropped the matter. I never dared go near that house again. It wasn't until years later, at a family dinner, that Ray and Blake told a piece of the story. When they were looking for me, they thought they spotted me at the window of the room I was hiding in. As they got closer, they saw that it wasn't me. An old man who seemed to be carrying something on his back. , neither of them recognized him as he smiled and waved at them, beckoning them to go upstairs. That's when they returned home to tell their parents that I had disappeared, without daring to tell the truth. All this while I was sleeping in the closet.…