A/N: Hey guys! This is an extract of my new Zadison fanfiction, a paranormal investigators AU in which Zoe does the investigating and Madison is a ghost. If you like what you read I’ll leave a link to the full story at the end!
"I'm here with Cordelia Goode, the owner of Miss Robichaux's Academy. Thank you for letting me investigate your house and agreeing to answer a couple of my questions."
"Of course. I mean it's not really my house. I haven't set foot in it since the repairs that were done a couple of years ago."
"How did you come into ownership of the house?" Zoe asked.
"I inherited it through my mother," Cordelia explained. "She bought it in the nineties when the previous owner put it up for sale but she'd never done anything with it. She simply bought it for sentimental value, because she'd attended school there when she was young."
"But you didn't?"
Cordelia shook her head.
"No, it closed before I did."
"Were you aware of the strange things happening there before you inherited it?"
"Absolutely not. I'd never been there, the building had been closed for decades so no one had been inside since the seventies, I think. No one had told me anything. I had plans to turn it into a Bed & Breakfast because it's a very big house, too big for me anyway, but after what happened during the repairs, I just closed it off completely."
"So you've never returned there?"
"I don't intend to, not after what I saw. My wife would probably kill me if I even thought about it. She says the house has very bad energy. Our daughters are a bit young right now, but I don't plan on ever telling them about the house. I'm not risking it."
"What sort of things did you see?"
Cordelia was thoughtful for a moment.
"Let's see... I slept into the house a few times overnight. I heard a lot of shuffling above my head as if someone was walking upstairs. I heard women speaking too, out of nowhere. A few times I thought I had imagined them but at one point they became so loud, at yet I still don't know what they were talking about. And one time I woke up and saw a tall man standing by my bed. That was the most terrifying of them all. Coupled with a few strange occurrences too. We tried repainting the walls but the paint wouldn't dry, not even after days, it just dripped away. The few doors that were changed were busted, some of the paintings I hung were taken off during the night. Strange things like that, which made the repairs impossible to complete."
Zoe nodded.
"Is there a history of hearing voices in your family?"
Cordelia shook her head.
"Not that I know of. It had never happened to me before, and has never happened to me again since."
"What about sleep paralysis? Waking up to see someone standing by your bed is a pretty normal sight when someone is a victim of sleep paralysis."
"I wasn't paralyzed," Cordelia replied quickly. "As soon as I saw him I ran to hide under the desk. When I looked back out, he was gone."
Zoe nodded. Then, she turned to Cordelia with a smile.
"Thank you for your time, I think that should be enough."
Zoe stood out and turned off her three video cameras and sound recorder. Cordelia stood out of her chair.
"You still want to go there? Even after what I just told you?"
Zoe took the cameras off their tripods and placed them in her bag.
"I'm even more interested to go there now. If there's a chance that I can finally record something tangible, I think it's gonna be in this house."
Cordelia set her and Zoe's chair around the table once again.
"You're a lot braver than me, then."
Zoe folded a tripod, placing it in a duffel bag.
"Or a lot stupider. That's what people tell me most of the time."
Link to the story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892523/chapters/57439627