Running, always running. Footsteps getting closer, she could almost feel breath on the back of her neck. She didn’t know where she was going, she just knew she couldn’t stop. Risking a glance behind, she felt herself falling and reached out to stop herself…

….and felt bedsheets and hardwood floor. Melody braced herself from the fall that came all too often these days as the frequency of the nightmares only increased as she got older, and more so these last few months. In high school she’d often been sent to the guidance counselor’s office for falling asleep during class; and that only led to questions and meetings with her parents. It eventually led to her dependency on caffeine; if she could hide how exhausted she was the questions and meetings stopped. Now here she was ten years later still dealing with this recurring nightmare and having no idea why it was happening.

“3:00 am, the witching hour. Because of course it is.” Eyes rolling, she groaned and looked up at the ceiling only to see two eyes staring back at her from on top of her bed. “I guess I woke you up huh bud? Come on I’ll bring you outside and get you some water, you’re probably thirsty,” she pulled herself up until she was eye to eye with her rescue dog, Copper. She stood up and walked towards the bedroom door as Copper hopped off the bed and began to pad quietly behind her.

As she walked down the hallway she had a weird sense of deja vu but shook it off. She grew up here, of course there would be a sense of it being familiar. Even if she had spent the better part of ten years as far from here as she could get.

Her parents had passed away a few months ago in a car accident. She was left the house, their business, and moved home to take over rather than sell it. Thankfully the office manager had been more than happy to take over the majority of the work, but she was slowly picking up what needed to be done to keep the business running. She really needed to find a lawyer to figure out if making Max a partner or something in the business was feasible, she thought, as they reached the back door. She opened the door to let Copper out and reached for his dish. When he happily trotted back in, she let him have some water and then they went back to bed for a few hours. Sleep, however, was another matter entirely.

xxxx

The next morning Melody put a harness on Copper and they headed towards the office. She loved the fact that Copper was able to come to work with her instead of being cooped up at home all day; walking into work to help exercise him was just a bonus. Today though, Copper was very distracted and didn’t want to do much walking. He wanted to continue to sniff a very fertile looking flower garden right in front of Max’s house on the way in.

“Having issues with Copper this morning, Melody?” She looked up from trying to pull Copper out of the flowers to see said owner just walking out of his house.

“Apparently he is very interested in your flowers this morning. Sorry about that Max. I don’t think he damaged anything but he could be a bit of an oaf. Let me know if he did and I’ll replace it.”

“Oh don’t worry. He’s a lovable thing.” Max said reaching down and scratching Copper right behind his left shoulder, his favorite spot. As soon as Max was with them, Copper resumed their walk with no issues. Melody rolled her eyes and said to herself “This dog I swear.”

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When they got to the office, Melody fed Copper and then sat down with the portfolio her parents had been working on before they passed away, coffee at the ready. Within a few hours she felt like she was far outside of her depth. “Hey Max, this was the portfolio my parents were putting together for the Simms’ estate, correct? We really need to work on an electronic system this is so old fashioned there's different pieces everywhere and nothing is cohesive.” She put her head on the desk in a sign of surrender, hoping Max would come over and help her make sense of all the paperwork in front of her.

Her wish was granted when she saw a pair of argyle socks come over to the edge of her desk. “Argyle Max? Bit early 2000s prep no?” She teased with a raised eyebrow, raising her head. Max just smirked and took the portfolio from her.

“This is the design for the kitchen, and this is the design for their new living room. This stack of papers that you have so eloquently turned into quite a captivating mess are the guest bedrooms. The master is being left as it was redone prior to the younger Simms’ moving back into the estate.” He handed her stack after neatly assembled stack, quickly and efficiently. Melody had to hand it to him, the man knew his way around paperwork. It would have taken her hours to figure out that file.

“Well then, thank you Max. That would have taken me all day and most of tomorrow to sort out. You are some sort of miracle worker.” He chuckled at that. “With that being said though, would you mind finishing up here? This was all I needed to get done as this needed to be finalized by Thursday so the workers could start and final orders placed. And I still haven’t tackled my parents' basement. Alexis has insisted that I not spend all my time cooped up in the house”

“Well she’s at least right there. You head on out. If you need anything just give me a call. Night Copper.” He said, giving Copper a good scratch as he walked by.

xxxx

Melody stretched and looked around the mostly organized basement. She’d made quite a bit of progress in a few hours and the sun was just starting to go down. Copper had started to take a nap in the corner sometime while she was cleaning so she had just started working around him. He was completely unfazed, except for the one time she dropped a box and it was too loud for his liking. She got a lazy eyed half opened look, a groan, and he rolled back over and went to sleep. She only had a few more boxes to go through and move and then she could check the basement off the list of having been cleaned out. She wouldn’t necessarily have considered her parents hoarders, but they had a lot of stuff that she just didn’t need. She was going to bring it down to the church tomorrow. She was sure Mary, the pastor’s wife, would know of someone who could put most of it to good use.

She moved another box, and blinked slowly. There on the basement wall was the top of a pentagram in what looked to be dried blood. She looked at it, intrigued, and reached her hand out towards it. As she did, the room started to darken. Melody backed away slowly, and could hear Copper growling behind her and moving towards her side. The pentagram was beginning to glow and grow. A figure was beginning to appear inside it.

Melody turned and began to run. As she heard feet touch the concrete, she heard Copper’s growl reach what felt like near deafening levels. The basement steps seemed to get no closer as she desperately tried to run towards them. Panic was overwhelming her senses. This was just like her nightmare. Her chest felt tight and her breath was coming in short, painful gasps. She turned to look behind her, she couldn’t bring herself to leave Copper could she? Turning proved to be a mistake because she began to fall. The last thing she saw was a familiar pair of argyle socks and a hand scratching Copper just behind his left shoulder.