I screamed. Not a shout of horror, not a bellow of pain. Nope, just a straight up scream as I was pushed off the roof of the Channing building. I didn't even have time to windmill my arms in a failed attempt at returning to the safety of the ledge. At least the fall was fast and the impact hard enough to break every bone in my body, even my cranium was kind enough to explode like a cantaloupe.

God, at least it was quick. At least I can stop running. I could go for some cantaloupe. It was my last thought as the synapses of my brain were mashed into the pavement.

"Not yet." The things whispered in my ear, I had no skin, yet as the words crept through my essence I had goosebumps, had a shiver that ran across my non-existent spine. "You are far, far from being allowed to die."

My body was rebuilt from bone marrow and nerves all the way back to skin. And I screamed the entire time.

I woke.

It was dark in my room, only the light of my neighbor's porch letting me see anything. I felt like I had forgotten something. I had that terror of a home invader being in my house; a lingering nightmare. I forced myself to turn on my nightstand light and looked around wildly.

Nothing.

Of course there was nothing.

I sat up and rubbed the back of my neck in a self reassuring manner. That is when the shadows moved around the room.

"Leave me alone!" My words were hoarse as the air rasped over my raw vocal cords and out my ragged throat.

"Why would we do that?" The things asked me, they weren't really shadows, they were something else. I hadn't figured out what they were...yet, but I would eventually. I knew one thing about them, they were sadistic for the sake of being sadistic. They could have regrown me in a euphoria of ecstasy and oxytocin. They didn't though. They always regrew my brain and nerves first, wanted me to feel every single cell of my body being created. Their voices hurt my new ears, "We've only done this twenty times so far, we have a long, long way to go before we will be done with you, our little lab rat."

"You have to leave me alone." I meant it to sound strong, commanding and confident; it came out with a hint of a wail and ended with my voice cracking slightly. "I can't keep doing this."

The shadows started to move towards me, sniggering at my fear.

Abruptly there was pounding on my door. The things in shadows froze.

"Yo, Oliver!" shouted my neighbor (Ed) with the too bright porch light as he continued to slam his fist on my door. The same way he always did.

"Go away, Ed!" I shouted back.

Ed kicked my door in. He walked in with his baseball bat, took one look at the shadow things in the corner of my room and beat them into dust without blinking an eye. He turned towards me, his bathrobe wide open and showing me more of him than I had ever seen of the chubby man before. He was oblivious to my distraction, instead he waved his hand towards the dust "We have a freaking ordinance about harboring invasive species, and that is a big ol' invasive species and you are gonna get a write-up on this."

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"Wha?" I asked in confusion.

The burly man turned and walked into my kitchen, opened my fridge and removed a beer with a small clink. "You mind if I have a beer?" he asked it as a formality, he had already popped the cap off the top and was taking a swig.

I slowly swung my feet down and could see Ed in all his glory as he looked through my window out my back porch. "Cover up will you, man?"

Ed glanced down and chuckled "Not the first time you've seen a dude naked." He closed his robe all the same and tied the belt loosely. He pointed his bat out my window and I heard the glass crack. He jolted a little in shock at the sound. "Oh. sorry, you have this window so clean I couldn't tell where it was."

I groaned. This was Ed's normal M.O. He was as destructive as a goat in a library...If you don't understand that phrase you have clearly never been around goats. They eat briar thorns that tear through leather, and they do it with great relish. Paper, paper to a goat is caviar and candy and pizza and spaghetti and acid and heroine and all of the things. And if you let said goat into a library...well, you get the picture.

Anyways, Ed was the proverbial goat in my life. He liked to have on the brightest lights, borrowed my tools and returned them broken or damaged, dirty or low on battery.

He also always knew everything about everything, even when he didn't, one of those know-it-alls.

It took my brain several more moments before I suddenly made a connection. "You, you killed them all?"

The round man looked over his shoulder at me. "What'd I kill?"

"The shadow beings." I said. I gestured around at the area where they had been. I stared at the empty space where my tormentors had been. Then back at Ed, I felt relief washing over me as my nosy neighbor started to eat day old pizza. "You, you saved me?" My brain was having a hard time processing things, what with the grey matter being freshly rebuilt.

"I'll say, your pizza was gonna go bad, and you are almost out of beer, you should make a shopping list. I can help you write it! But definitely need some fresh, piping hot pizza."

I looked again at my beer chugging hero "Yeah, let's get dressed and go for some pizza?"

Ed blinked at me, this was the first time I had ever gone somewhere to eat with him. In fact this was the first time I probably wasn't scowling when I talked to him. His words made it clear he wasn't certain what was going on with the offer. "Really?"

"Yeah, I could use something to celebrate." I said as I walked out of my room and left behind the remnants of my tormentors. I closed the door as I said "But that bathrobe is not going to cut it put on some freaking pants, man."