"Let’s go through this again," Detective Davies Morgan’s voice cut through the stillness, his sharp eyes studying me from across the room.

I shifted in my seat, feeling the weight of his gaze. I could see the exhaustion etched into his features—dark circles under his eyes, the kind that only came from too many sleepless nights spent chasing dead ends. His black hair was unkempt, sticking up in places like he’d been running his hands through it too many times without caring what it looked like. A thick stubble had grown into a beard that was just short of wild, uneven and scruffy, like he hadn’t bothered shaving in days. He looked about my age, late twenties, but the deep lines around his eyes, the slight hunch in his posture, and the weariness in his expression told me he’d seen more than his share of brutal cases.

The suit he wore looked like it had been thrown together last minute—a wrinkled shirt that hung loosely around his shoulders, with a tie that was barely knotted, more of a suggestion than an actual piece of his outfit. His jacket was too large, the sleeves a bit long, as if he’d grabbed it off the back of a chair on his way out the door, caring more about meeting the bare minimum of work attire than looking presentable.

Still, despite his dishevelled look, there was an intensity to him. His brown eyes, bloodshot and tired, were sharp and observant, constantly flicking across the room, taking in every detail. Even through the exhaustion, he was alert, his attention unwavering, as though the weight of everything he’d been through only made him more focused. He wasn’t going to miss a thing. That much was clear.

“Start from the beginning, Miss Shelly. You were hired by Sarah Collins, correct?”

“Yes.” My voice was steady, though I could feel the tension coiling in my stomach. “Sarah hired me to investigate Richard. He’d been acting strangely, disappearing for long stretches of time, and she was concerned. She didn’t feel safe.”

Davies nodded, jotting down a note. “And what did you find?”

“I visited Luther, the librarian. Richard had been spending a lot of time at the library, researching things… odd things.” I paused, carefully choosing my words. “Luther told me that Richard’s behaviour had become erratic. He was convinced Sarah and others—his family, his friends—were plotting against him, hunting him, even. He had become paranoid, unhinged.”

Davies glanced up, his eyes narrowing slightly. “And you reported this to Sarah?”

“That’s right,” I said, leaning forward. “After learning that, I went straight to Haverstead Manor to warn Sarah. I didn’t want her to be caught off guard if he did something dangerous.”

His pen paused, hovering over the notepad. “And when you arrived at the manor?”

I inhaled deeply, feeling the familiar knot of guilt tighten in my chest. I had been too late. “When I got there, I saw… I saw Sarah.” The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. “Richard had tied her to a stake in the courtyard. He was burning her alive.”

Davies' expression didn’t change, but his eyes flickered with something—disbelief, maybe. Or disgust. “You didn’t try to stop him?”

“I did,” I said quickly. “I tried, but… by the time I got there, Sarah was already gone. She was dead. There was nothing I could do.”

The detective nodded slowly, his face giving nothing away as he absorbed the information. He was good at hiding his thoughts, a skill I could appreciate but one that made this entire exchange even more dangerous.

“And then you confronted Richard?”

I looked down, recalling the horrific scene. “Yes. He wasn’t the same person anymore. It was like something had taken over him. He was violent, completely out of control. I had no choice but to fight him.”

Davies leaned back slightly, studying me. “You shot him three times, Miss Shelly. In the chest. How does a man like Richard Collins, a middle-aged man, survive that?”

I met his gaze, steeling myself for the answer I had rehearsed in my head. “I think he was on something. Drugs. It’s the only explanation I can think of. They gave him strength, endurance—made him able to withstand that kind of injury.”

“Drugs,” Davies repeated, as if testing the word on his tongue. “And what kind of drugs would do that, in your opinion?”

“I’m not sure,” I said quickly. “But I’ve heard stories. People on certain substances can do things that seem impossible—ignore pain, push through injuries that would otherwise kill them.”

He nodded again, scribbling in his notebook, though the tension in the room had thickened. I had told him the truth—mostly. But I could feel the weight of the lie in what I hadn’t said, what I couldn’t say. The Aether had twisted Richard into something inhuman, something beyond what drugs could explain. But I had to keep the story grounded, in terms Davies could accept. If I mentioned the Aether, if I let even a sliver of the supernatural slip through, it would unravel everything.

Davies tapped his pen against his notepad, his brow furrowing slightly. “You think that’s the most plausible explanation, then? Drugs?”

I nodded firmly. “Yes. Richard had been acting erratically for a while. Paranoia, hallucinations. He must have been using something to cope, and it spiralled out of control.”

His gaze remained on me, thoughtful, perceptive. I could tell he was weighing every word I said, turning it over in his mind, looking for cracks. That was what worried me the most—he wasn’t just going through the motions. He was thinking, analysing, digging deeper. I had been in enough interrogations to know when someone was good at their job, and Davies was sharp, sharper than I had hoped.

The silence stretched, and for a moment, I thought he was going to press further, dig into something I hadn’t prepared for. I could feel the faint hum of the Aether suffusing the room—the residue from Richard’s transformation, the battle we had fought here. It clung to the air, subtle, barely noticeable to the untrained eye. But I knew it was there, lingering, waiting to be sensed. And if Davies had ever been exposed to the Aether, even just a little, he might feel it too.

“What about the marks?” Davies asked suddenly, breaking the silence. He gestured toward the walls, where faint, twisting patterns were etched into the wood—remnants of the Aether’s corruption. “Those look… unusual.”

I swallowed hard, keeping my expression neutral. “Richard was in a frenzy. He must have scratched at the walls during the fight.”

Davies’ eyes lingered on the marks, his fingers tracing one of the spiralling patterns. He frowned, but then shook his head, as if dismissing the thought. “Right.”

I forced myself to breathe, steady and controlled, as I waited for his next question. The truth I had given him felt fragile, like it could crack open at any moment. And the Aether, that invisible force, was the one thing that could break it wide apart. But for now, Davies seemed to accept my explanation. Drugs, paranoia, a man gone mad—that was something he could understand.

He turned back to me, his pen poised again. “And after you shot Richard, what happened next?”

I drew in a slow breath, my mind replaying those final moments. “After I shot him, the fight didn’t stop. Richard… he kept coming at me.” The memory of his distorted face, eyes wild with something far worse than rage, flashed before me. I shook it off. “He didn’t go down. It was like the bullets didn’t even faze him.”

Davies’ pen moved across the page in quick, precise strokes. His eyes stayed on me though, sharp and calculating, as if measuring the truth behind every word.

“He rushed me,” I continued. “Pushed me back into the manor. We crashed through the door, and that’s when I grabbed the iron poker from the fireplace.” I paused, my mouth suddenly dry. “It was the only thing within reach, and I knew I had to stop him. He was… completely out of control.”

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“And that’s when you killed him?” Davies asked, voice steady, but I could feel the weight of his words pressing in on me.

I nodded slowly, meeting his gaze. “I didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t Richard anymore. Whatever had twisted him… it had taken everything he was.” My hands tightened into fists in my lap, the sensation of cold iron still vivid in my memory, the way it felt as I brought it down, over and over, until Richard finally stopped moving.

Davies sat back slightly, his fingers drumming once more on the notepad. “The iron poker,” he murmured, his eyes drifting over to the fireplace for a moment. “You’re certain that’s what finished him off?”

“As certain as I can be,” I said, holding my ground. I had to be careful. I had already led him down the path I needed, and now it was a matter of staying there. “I don’t know what else could’ve stopped him.”

Davies didn’t respond right away, his gaze lingering on me for a beat too long. Then he nodded, flipping the page in his notepad. “And after that?”

I exhaled, relieved that the conversation was moving forward. “After that… it was over. Richard was dead, and I called the police.”

There it was—the end of the story, at least the version of it I was willing to give. But Davies wasn’t finished. I could see the gears turning behind his tired eyes, his mind working through the pieces of the puzzle I had laid out for him. And I could only hope that it was enough to keep him from seeing the cracks.

Davies scribbled a few more notes before closing his notepad with a quiet snap. The tension in my shoulders began to ease, just slightly. I had managed to keep the story straight, grounded in enough reality that it was hard to dispute. Drugs, paranoia, desperation—things that made sense to a man like him. I could feel the weightlifting, a fragile sense of safety creeping in as I realized the worst might be behind me.

Davies stood, his fingers running absently along the edge of the desk. “Well, Miss Shelly, I think that covers just about everything.” His tone was casual, almost detached, as though he were winding down from a long day. I allowed myself to breathe a little easier. Maybe I’d made it through after all.

But then, just as he was turning to leave, he paused. “One last thing,” he said, and there was something in his voice—an edge that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. He turned back to face me, his sharp eyes locking onto mine with unsettling intensity. “How did you survive the encounter with Richard?”

My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, taking a step closer, “you’ve told me a compelling story. A man, high on drugs, paranoid, violent. He ties Sarah to a stake and burns her alive, then attacks you. A fight breaks out. You shoot him three times, and he still doesn’t go down. You fight him with an iron poker in a brutal, desperate struggle inside the manor.” His gaze drifted to the damage around the room—the shattered furniture, the scorched walls, the faint marks etched by the Aether. “Yet, here you are—some cuts, a few fractures, nothing serious.”

I swallowed hard, trying to keep my face neutral, but I could feel the tightening of my chest again. The sense of safety I’d felt a moment ago was gone.

Davies’ expression was unreadable, but his eyes were cutting through every layer of my story. “You’re telling me Richard was on something so strong it made him unstoppable, but you managed to walk away with a few scratches? That doesn’t quite add up, does it?”

I forced myself to maintain my composure, my mind scrambling for an answer that would fit. “I was lucky,” I said, my voice steady despite the racing thoughts. “I got him with the poker before he could do more damage.”

“Lucky.” Davies repeated the word as if he didn’t quite believe it. He took another step toward me, his gaze never wavering. “Luck doesn’t usually leave a room looking like this, Miss Shelly. And it doesn’t explain how a man who survived gunshots and a physical fight was taken down by a single person, without much more than a few scrapes to show for it.”

I felt my pulse quicken, the walls of the room seeming to close in around me. Davies wasn’t backing down, and that keen intelligence I’d noted earlier was now laser-focused on the one thing I hadn’t accounted for—me. He wasn’t questioning the drugs, or Richard’s erratic behaviour. He was questioning how I had come out of it so unscathed. And he wasn’t wrong. No ordinary person would have been able to survive a fight like that without something more.

But I couldn’t tell him that. Not the real reason. Not about the Aether.

I shifted in my seat, keeping my expression as calm as possible. “Detective, I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been in more than a few tough situations. This one... it wasn’t any different. Richard was out of control, yes, but I did what I had to do to survive. He wasn’t invincible.”

Davies tilted his head slightly, watching me closely. “No, maybe not. But still...” He trailed off, his eyes lingering on me a moment longer before he finally stepped back. “I’ll admit, it’s impressive.”

I exhaled quietly, not daring to relax just yet. He wasn’t done with me, not entirely. But for now, he seemed to let it go.

Davies glanced around the room one last time, taking in the destruction and the strange, subtle marks on the walls, before giving me a nod. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the weight of what had just transpired. I sat there for a moment, listening to the fading echo of his footsteps, my heart still racing.

He was suspicious. I could feel it. And this wasn’t over. Not yet.

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Davies’ questions still echoed in my head as I drove through the dim streets of New Hollow. The interrogation had felt endless, his eyes watching my every move, every word. He hadn’t said it outright, but I could feel the suspicion radiating off him. I’d told enough of the truth to seem cooperative, keeping the rest—the unexplainable parts—buried. Still, the tension from his scrutiny lingered, crawling up my spine.

The city blurred around me as I drove, my mind trying to unwind from the day. Wolves. Blood. Richard. The endless barrage of questions. It all felt like a dream, one I couldn't shake, no matter how far I got from the station. My head ached, a dull throb at the base of my skull.

Finally, my apartment came into view, the old brick building almost hidden in the shadows of the streetlamps. I parked and let the car idle for a second, the low hum of the engine the only thing grounding me. There was a stillness in the air, unsettling in its quiet. No whispers. No wolves. Just silence.

I stepped out and made my way up the stairs, each creak of the wood a reminder that I was home. Home. I wasn’t sure if that word held any real meaning anymore. Inside, I locked the door behind me, the click of the deadbolt louder than I remembered. I tossed my keys on the table by the door, not even caring where they landed. My jacket, my shoes—they were shed like old skin, left in a trail as I stumbled toward the bedroom.

In the mirror, I caught a glimpse of myself—haggard, hollow-eyed, the dried blood still staining my temple. I should have cleaned it, should have done something. But I couldn’t find the energy. Not tonight.

I changed into something more comfortable, the motions mechanical, my mind already slipping into that hazy fog of exhaustion. The moment my head hit the pillow; I was out.

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It started as a whisper. Barely noticeable, like the hum of electricity in the walls. Then the darkness shifted. I wasn’t in my bed anymore. I was outside—somewhere vast and cold. The sky was pitch-black, not a single star in sight, just an infinite void stretching endlessly above me.

And then… it appeared.

A writhing, twisting mass, rising from the abyss of the sky, defying any sense of logic or form. It was like nothing I had ever seen, nothing my mind could comprehend. Its shape shifted constantly, limbs curling and stretching, extending across the horizon, swallowing everything in its path. An eldritch horror, an abomination that shouldn’t exist.

I couldn’t breathe. Its presence was suffocating, crushing me under its sheer weight. I couldn’t look away. Hundreds—no, thousands—of eyes opened across its body, each one swirling with chaos, each one seeing me. Watching me.

And then I saw them—people, countless people below. Screaming. Tearing at their own faces, their minds unraveling as they were consumed by the thing’s presence. Their bodies twisted, contorted in unnatural ways as madness overtook them. It was like they were being pulled apart from the inside out.

I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. I was frozen, a helpless observer to the carnage. All I could do was watch as the abomination reached for me, its tendrils dark and endless, crawling across the sky, blotting out what little remained of the world.

Then it spoke.

The sound was like nothing I had ever heard—a language older than time itself, guttural and raw, vibrating through every cell in my body. It wasn’t something I could understand, but the meaning was clear. It wanted me. It wanted everything.

The voice filled my head, drilling into my mind, twisting and contorting my thoughts until all I could feel was pain. I pressed my hands to my ears, but it didn’t help. The voice was inside me, ripping through me with a force I couldn’t escape.

The world around me cracked, splitting open beneath my feet as the abomination’s tendrils came closer, its eyes boring into me, claiming me. The words grew louder, more insistent, until—

—wake—

I jolted awake with a gasp, my heart slamming against my chest. My head… God, the pain. It felt like my skull was splitting in two, a migraine so sharp I could barely think. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my hands to my temples, trying to make it stop.

The room spun, the sheets tangled around me, but I wasn’t sure if I was truly awake yet. The dream—no, the nightmare—still clung to me, the abomination’s eyes, its voice, lingering in the corners of my mind like a shadow I couldn’t shake.

I forced myself to sit up, sucking in deep, ragged breaths, my pulse thundering in my ears. My hands trembled as I wiped the sweat from my face. The pain behind my eyes pulsed, relentless, as if the thing had left a mark on me, something I couldn’t see but could feel.

I looked around, my apartment bathed in the faint glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds. Everything was quiet. Still.

But I knew, deep down, that the nightmare wasn’t just a nightmare.

It felt real.