After Wyatt’s surprise phone call, my body was overflowing with adrenaline. Even a half hour later, I was wired up like I had just drank four straight mountain dews. Honestly, It didn't matter what position I seemed to lay in, nothing was going to help me fall asleep tonight.

Yeah, this was dumb, there was no way I was getting any sleep. It was time for me to give in and admit school tomorrow was just going to be a rough one. I guess If I was going to be up all night anyway, I might as well do something productive with that time.

I pulled myself out of bed and sat down at my desk. Then I logged onto my computer, and proceeded to spiral down a rabbit hole of increasingly annoying questions I still lacked answers to.

First up, I tried my best to continue the research I had started around the murders near Ravenwood High, but after hours of hitting dead ends earlier, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore.

So instead, I transitioned my efforts to the Roche brothers. Unlike with the first topic, this one was easy to research. I was only a handful of articles in, but it was already clear they had a universal reputation for being less than stellar human beings.

In fact, the most common words used to describe them in the stories were assholes, predators, and a few even called them mini hitlers.

As if the names weren't bad enough, there were also a plethora of lawsuits against them which for the most part I couldn't even pretend to understand.

However, there was one lawsuit that I was able to follow. This one involved a group of young women who worked as personal massage therapists for the younger brother.

The lawsuit claimed the brother assaulted the workers by requesting sexual favors in return for money. Those that refused found themselves stalked by the brothers staff until they agreed to keep quiet.

Sadly, after one of those women failed to show up for trial, the rest panicked, and eventually the lawsuit was dropped.

I looked for names or photos of the women, more out of curiosity than anything else, but came up empty handed.

The other thing that became glaringly obvious about the men was that they were also rich as fuck. One article had them ranked as the twelfth and fifteenth richest people in the United States. I knew they were rich, but I had no idea they were that rich.

The fact they might have some involvement in all this was frankly terrifying. Based on what I had read so far they truly did sound like monsters.

Speaking of monsters, there was one lingering question that had been bothering me since the night I took Dr. Klanderman's life.

If the doctor and nurse weren't zombies or vampires, what were they? I knew what they looked like in monster form and that they were hurt by silver. But that was all I really knew, and honestly, I got lucky as shit with the silver thing. There was a good chance I was going to have a run in with Nurse Asshole again, so I had to know what I was up against.

I typed monster, needle hand, and rotting flesh into the search engine, but my search only returned three pages of results.

That wasn’t a lot to go on. Especially once I realized the first page was filled with useless crap.

By the second page, I was beginning to doubt I’d find anything.

Then, at the bottom, a single link caught my eye.

It was titled “The Index - A collection”.

The link appeared to redirect to an old Geocities page, a website hosting service I had used as a kid.

Given how long it had been since I had seen another Geocities link in the wild, it most likely meant I was heading towards another dead end.

The page loaded with a black background, white stars, and a single floating table in the center. Just like with my old sites, there was even a guestbook at the bottom.

The site itself was interesting enough,. It contained row after row of drawings and descriptions of different creatures. Some were clearly inspired by folklore, others looked like they came straight out of some goth kid’s sketchbook.

Then I saw something that made me freeze.

This specific drawing was a spot on recreation of what I saw inside Cottonwood. It portrayed a ghoulish woman with hollow, deep-set eyes, a grin that showed more than just teeth, and skin so rotten and stretched it looked like it was barely hanging on.

"Holy shit," I whispered. "I found them."

The site called them Wraiths.

Hmm, that was Interesting, I only knew about the word wraiths from the game Halo, and these were definitely not the same thing.

According to the description,

> These monsters feed on the fluid surrounding the brain using a long spike that protrudes from their wrists. In order to feed, the victim’s brain must be in a relaxed, dream-like state. They insert the needle into a soft spot behind the ear.

>

> They are manipulative and prey on the weak. Be careful around them. Once fed on, the victims brain swells and if too much damage is done, the victim will enter a vegetative state. If left for too long, the process is irreversible.

Well, that was horrifying. How did they know so much about these things? I had to find out where this information came from.

I clicked on the guestbook. There were no messages, which wasn’t exactly surprising. There was however, one username listed at the top as the creator of the guestbook. Nola233. I bet they were the ones who created this whole thing. With a site this old, who knew if Nola was even still active.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Even so, I had to at least give it a shot, so I laid my hands back down on the keyboard and began to type.

> Nola233,

>

> I hope this message finds you. I stumbled on your site and I have information for you. It’s very important that we speak. Please reach out to me at my AIM account: JoeCool889.

"Please reply, I need someone else who understands what I'm going through" I whispered under my breath. Now all I could do was wait and hope that for some reason, the creator was still active.

With a long exhale, I sank back into my chair. My back ached, my eyes burned, and I finally noticed how dark it had gotten. The street outside was quiet. The only light came from the moon, a lonely street light, and Josiah’s ghost.

How long had I been sitting at this desk?

I checked the clock on my computer. 3:30 a.m.

Holy shit, had it really been that long? Damn, I had to be up in like three hours for school. Luckily being that it was the last week, I didn’t have to pay too much attention in class.

Speaking of Josiah, he stood by my window, peering out into the darkness. I had been so obsessed with trying to find answers to all of my questions, that I sometimes forgot he was even here.

Unlike with Nicole, he didn’t take over my bed, and he didn’t seem to need my help. If anything, he felt more like a bodyguard than a ghostly companion. I had to admit, I felt a bit safer knowing he was here.

I stretched, letting out a loud yawn, then turned to Josiah, “Hey. Whatcha up to?”

He didn’t respond. Well at least he and the other ghosts had that much in common.

I walked up beside him, then joined him, peering out the window. I don't know what I expected to see, but whatever it was, I didn't see it. Instead, I just saw a nice peaceful suburban street.

“Is this what you've been staring at all week? I mean, it's peaceful, but I feel like I’m missing something,” I said.

His quiet stare told me all I needed to know. This was pointless.

I started to turn around, but Josiah’s hand caught my attention. He lifted it slowly, then pointed out into the darkness.

Across the street, half-hidden in the shadows, sat a black Ford Explorer. Unmoving.

“Dude, thats just my neighbor Ryan's parents car,” I said.

Josiah lowered his hand, but his stare never wavered.

I sighed. “Alright, man. It’s clear you can understand me. Maybe we can figure out a way to talk? Blink if you get what I’m saying.”

I watched his eyes carefully. looking for any sign of movement but there was none. Come to think of it, I wasn't sure if they even could blink.

“Okay, uh… maybe you can point forward? I know you can at least do that much.”

I watched, but he didn't even twitch. He just continued to stare out the window.

“C’mon, dude, work with me here.” I groaned, rubbing my face. “It’s just a car. It's not that exciting.”

I patted his shoulder in frustration. That was definitely a mistake.

The second I touched him, everything fell away.

The room, the night, reality itself was gone. My vision turned inside out and my stomach turned sideways before I felt myself disappear into the night.

###

When I finally regained my vision, It was clear I was no longer in my bedroom. But this didn't feel like the last few blackouts. I wasn't sure how to explain it, but I didn't feel like myself.

Instead, It felt like I was reliving a dream, only not my own dream. I'm not sure how else to explain it. It was almost closer to watching a movie in first person.

I stood in front of a mirror in an old rundown bathroom. That was the first clue something was off. As I looked up into the mirror, everything started to make more sense. There was a man that was staring back at me. But it wasn't me, It was Josiah. Or at least it looked like him. Except this version was younger, and his curls were replaced with a tight buzz cut, and he was blonde for some reason.

Based on the supplies on the vanity, It looked like he had just finished dying his hair. He wore a wrinkled black button down shirt, dark blue jeans, and a designer watch on his wrist.

After a deep breath, he reached down, took a swig of liquid from a nondescript bottle, then proceeded to vomit into the sink.

Even though it was clear that I was stuck in some weird vision, I could still taste the vomit as it left Josiah's mouth. The smell that filled the bathroom was also pungent and unpleasant. I couldn't remember ever smelling or tasting something in my normal dreams, so maybe this was something else.

As we walked out of the bathroom, I caught out of the corner of my eye a white tank top that appeared drenched in blood crumpled up in the bathtub. Something happened here. Something bad.

We exited the room and found ourselves alone in some sort of log cabin. The cabin was clearly old, with no overhead lights in sight. Instead, it was lit purely by a small lantern Josiah held in his left hand. Shadows bounced around the walls as we walked causing a somewhat nauseating effect.

Finally, we walked over to the window, peering out the same way the Josiah had back in my bedroom. He reached down without looking, but I felt the cold hard steel of death wrap slowly around his hand. He had a gun, and from what I could tell, he was used to using it.

We waited there for a few minutes, until a pair of blinding lights temporarily pierced my vision as a car pulled up the long winding drive. Once my vision resettled, it was easy to see why he was so worried about the car across the street.

The car stopped and I felt his heart start to race, and I felt sweat bead down the side of his face. The headlights of a black Ford explorer flickered gently in the night while the sound of the engine cut off.

The doors flung open, and that was when the vision slowly faded away.

###

Reality slammed back into me like a rush of cold air. I quickly yanked my hand away from his shoulder. Man, that was a bad idea.

I grabbed my wrist and did my best to hold back a scream. It felt like my fingers were literally on fire at this point, and my heart was thumping out of my chest. I felt a sharp pain radiate up my arm for a moment, before everything slowly returned back to normal.

If I didn't know any better, I would have assumed I just tried to dip my hand into a burning fireplace. The pain was excruciating.

“What the hell was that,” I yelled.

He stood there as if nothing had happened, but when I examined him more closely, I noticed something strange.

The flame that surrounded his form appeared to dim ever so slightly. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely noticeable.

What the hell did I just experience? Was that a new power? I had no idea how real any of it was. It felt like something out of a movie. But something told me, I had just peered into one of Josiahs memories.

Assuming it was real, Josiah was like a real life Jason Bourne character.

“Man, what the hell are you?” I whispered.

If I was going to find that out, I had to go back in. Damn, this was going to suck. I reached over, cautiously placing my hand on the same spot as before, only this time nothing happened.

There was no pain or vision. Instead, I just felt the normal warm glow let off by their form.

I let out a sigh, unsure if it was one of disappointment or relief. To be honest, it was possibly a little of both.

Maybe there was something in the book, or in Alex's guide that would help explain what I had just done. If I could figure it out, maybe I could use that power to figure out who the woman in the gym was.

At least I had something to focus on until morning.