“No!" Everything suddenly stopped; I felt their eyes on me. "You don't understand. I'm dreaming and you're all part of it." At this point in my dreams, things usually get tense. My mind can do whatever it wants with me—controlling my thoughts while I remain fully aware of it, yet inert. This time, they were just confused and scared. One of them, with sadness in his voice, asked "Will I die when you wake up?"  And I couldn't answer. The fear in his voice reminded me of my own. And then I wake up.

It’s still very early in the morning and my body feels stuck. With much struggle, I get out of bed. Standing still, silence wraps around me. I’m not afraid of sleeping anymore, but not being able to wake up.

Nothing feels familiar in my room yet there is comfort in the idea I’m here, alone. Then, the silence breaks: a cacophony of sound but the noise is spiraling out of my mind. In the distance, a quiet buzzing appears and all of the sudden the noise stops and a voice quietly asks: "Will I die when you wake up?"

I blink. And then I wake up

Felicity scanned the musky old study. Neat rows of books lined the walls. Scattered on the floor beside an oak desk was a wreckage of torn papers, broken drawers ripped from their cavities, and occult books strewn about. Behemoth claw marks gouged the herringbone floor.

“There appears to have been a struggle.”

Gareth fixed a chair under the doorknob and pinned his shoulder against the door, his face contorted with effort.

“Ya think, Flick?” The door shook with an inhuman thud. The impact pushed him away. An acrid stench breached through splintered cracks. Gareth rammed his shoulder and thigh back against the door. “Where’s the book?”

“It’s not here!”

“It has to be!”

She checked the spine of several fallen books. “It’s not. What do you want from me?”

“You said it’d be here, Flick. You promised. What do we do?” Felicity stood, facing the question with sad eyes. Gareth rolled to face her; his back pressed against the heavy door. His desperate eyes met hers. “What do we do?”

An explosive impact flung Gareth forward; the door loosened from its frame.

Her dour expression and the smallest shake of her head answered him before she could whisper, “I’m sorry.”

“There appears to have been a struggle.”

The captain and I were standing just inside the door to the apartment.

“I don't know, Cap. Don't you think it's a little over the top? I mean, look at that,” I said pointing to a shattered mirror.

“What about it?”

“Looks more like someone took a hammer to it than that it got knocked off a wall during a struggle.”

Cap walked over to the mirror and squatted down for a closer look. “You may be right, Les. But why make it look like a struggle?”

“To divert suspicion, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, a struggle lends itself to thinking the victim fought off a stranger.”

“But you don't think so.”

“No.”

“You think the victim knew her killer.”

“You know she did, Cap.”

He slowly stood and faced me, his face a mask.

“The building security cameras were non-functional, but the neighbor across the hall has a door camera activated by movement.”

Cap paled.

“We have a clear video of the killer entering and leaving.”

Uniformed officers filed in.

“You don't understand. It was an accident…”

“Captain Maynard Brunson, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”

Margaret Elizabeth McCabe, beloved wife of wealthy industrialist C. Hiram McCabe, was buried in her finest dress. The ruby earrings, emerald broach and pearl necklace complimented the diamond ring on her left hand. This rumor circulated among Baltimore’s undesirables in 1876 when Silas Odgen heard it.

Silas procured bodies for medical research a local hospitals. The pay was sporadic, the work backbreaking. Visiting Margaret would reap financial spoils without any heavy lifting.

The full moon that night meant Silas must work quickly. This coffin felt lighter than the others. Minimal effort was needed to release it from the earthen grip. When opened, Silas was shocked to see Margaret was absent, replaced with tattered fabric, mostly on the lid’s silken lining. There appears to have been a struggle, a prolonged violent struggle.

As Silas was bent over, a dark force knocked him into the coffin. The top slammed shut. Muffled cries were heard while it was lowered back into the freshly dug grave.

C. Hiram McCabe never married. His wealth was not from astute business practices. His fortune was gained from making a deal with the devil. Silas was just one more soul C. needed to pay down his evil debt.

There appears to have been a struggle. The struggle’s specifics cannot be discerned currently, but someone has died. Their death was determined by the presence of blood and bone fragments at scene of the crime. The species of the bone fragments cannot be determined currently, but something with vertebrae died, or was crushed somehow, which is unlikely to have occurred without death or serious disfigurement of the spinal column. Serious disfigurement of the spinal column typically results in death, at least in all known vertebrate organisms on Earth.

Was it possible that the struggle occurred off-planet? No known organisms currently containing bones can be found anywhere other than Earth, but it is impossible to rule out the possibility that alien time travel could have been involved in the struggle. Then again, the vast majority of struggles involving blood and bone fragments occur on Earth, with known species as the combatants. Yet the blood has not been tested to discern the specific species, nor have the bone fragments been tested for DNA. Therefore alien or off-planet interference cannot be conclusively ruled out as intervening factors in the yet-still-unspecified struggle. Further reporting may be forthcoming following an actual investigation of the scene.

My name is, Smith and I'm a homicide detective. I've seen all kinds of death, but what I witnessed today was a first. The call was a body found at the Single Arms Apartments. It's one of those 1-2-3 complexes that cater to twice divorced men. You know, the bastards that marry once for love, twice for lust, and thanks to divorce lawyers, work three jobs to pay for the consequences in alimony and child support.

I arrived at the scene to find our M.E scratching his head. The body hadn't been moved yet. The victim's feet hung just above the floor, his obviously new jeans still around his ankles. The rest of his body lay backwards on his bed. His rigor-mortised face was strangely red.

"Hey, Bob, whatcha got?" I asked.

"Hi Smith," He grumbled. "Third one this week."

"Really?" I asked. "This makes a third murder?"

"Not murders." Bob replied. "Three middle-aged bastards who gave themselves heart attacks trying to squeezing their fat asses into skinny jeans.

Suddenly, it made sense. When will poor middle-aged bastards realize that no amount of skinny jeans can retrieve their youth especially when you add loneliness and a diet of microwavable burritos.

Janette wheeled the barrow through the thick oak gate. After months of pleading with Ms Rhodes, the stately lady had sighed resignedly.

"You may enter the garden. But please, remember this was your idea."

The garden on the other side of the gate was beautiful and wild. Vines curled and danced, the air was fragrant with the scent of flowers.

A dark corner by the far wall drew Janette's eyes. A wall of verdant ivy draped down to the ground and something glinted in the morning sun.

Setting the barrow down, Janette picked her way carefully across the garden, over cracked pavers and sun-parched weeds.

Reaching the far side, she bent and swept a handful of the ivy to the side, with her gloved hand. Then she peered into the inky shadows. Light glinted again. Off eight shiny round orbs. The larger were the size of oranges, the smaller were like plums.

Janette felt the scream building in the pit of her stomach, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom and slowly revealed the owner of the orbs.

She dropped the ivy, turned and sprinted to the gate. It slammed shut. CLICK. Across the garden, the ivy rustled and twitched.

There appears to have been a struggle. Something violent. Something had finally snapped. Something terrible. This struggle capitalized on knowing one's weaknesses, soft spots, and vulnerabilities.

Some fights are over material things. Or a lover. Or jealousy. Not this one. This wasn't what came by surveying the aftermath of blood, sinews, and even the gray matter that had stood in somebody's way. An obstacle someone couldn't abide.

Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was how hurt I was to see what I saw, cutting deeply into my sensibilities. As if I'd been involved. I felt shame that must've emerged from the ugly scene that had only recently ended, smoldering in disgust and disappointment.

How could such a disagreement come to such carnage? There were no winners here, certainly.

But this wasn't the first time I'd opened a door to witness a body count. Truthfully, you only need one finger to count to one. The struggles I have with myself leave me bleeding grace and atonement.

It takes two to fight, it's been said. Now I wonder. That's never been true for someone like me. I open the doors of rooms to clean up what's left of the struggles within.

The faint sounds of a piano trailed down the hallway from the ballroom. Anthony was sure his sister had locked herself in again, drowning her crises out with music. The ballroom was her sanctuary, the echoes of open space the closest Elise could get to escaping the castle walls.

A resounding crash interrupted his musings and the music that had been playing only moments prior.

Peering into the ballroom, a thousand crystal shards lay shattered across the floor. Above them, the dull metal chain of the chandelier was still, almost eerie in its lonesome, hanging unadorned from the ceiling.

Anthony took a step forward.

"Elise?" He called. The room was silent. He sidestepped each of the crystal shards, fragments of his reflection mirrored in every one.

"Elise?" Worry etched itself into his tone. The piano in the corner lay uncovered, adorned with sheet music. Anthony watched the papers rustle in the breeze, pausing. All seven of the glass windows were open, wind pushing the curtains to and fro, sending whispers across the floor, and a shiver down his spine.

What was happening?

Elise was missing, the wind was blowing, and somehow the chain from the fallen chandelier remained still. Unmoved.

The train screeched to a halt in the middle of nowhere. Sophie jolted awake, her carriage eerily empty. A single light flickered above, casting long, ghostly shadows across the rows of seats.

She glanced at her phone—dead. Panic crept in as she realized she hadn’t seen another passenger for the last few stops. The conductor hadn’t come by either. Heart racing, Sophie stood up and peered down the dim aisle, but darkness swallowed everything beyond her sight.

A faint scratching sound echoed from the front of the train. Trembling, she stepped forward, her footsteps hollow on the metal floor. As she reached the door leading to the next carriage, a soft whisper broke the silence.

“Sophie…”

She froze. She hadn’t told anyone her name. The whisper came again, closer this time, the voice familiar yet distorted. With a mix of dread and curiosity, she pushed the door open, revealing more darkness. Her breath hitched when she noticed a shadow moving—no, slithering—across the floor.

Suddenly, a cold hand grasped her wrist. She turned, but there was no one there. The air felt thick, suffocating.

The last thing Sophie saw before everything went black was her own reflection, smiling back at her.