The TV news footage came rushing back to me. It was like I was watching it all over again, it was that intense!

“Witnesses described the shooter as having walked into the lobby of 1221 Dressfeldt Court, casually dressed, and with a briefcase in hand. Opening the briefcase, he pulled out a gun and began firing at anyone in view.”

No. God no. This can’t be happening. How could he have—

—I froze. I wanted to yell. I wanted to scream “run!!” at the top of my lungs.

“God…”

I heard the reporter’s words once again. I saw the terror on her face.

“Several office workers threw themselves at the shooter, trying to stop him, and though they were mowed down by a spray of bullets, it gave time for others to escape out into Dressfeldt Court, though the shooter followed after them mere moments later.”

But then he would hear, and would open fire. And the children, they were right on stage. And even if someone had been mad enough to bring a gun of their own, they wouldn’t have been able to stop him in time.

I turned around—but he was out of sight.

No! He’s already going up the stairs!

My thoughts flashed. Whatever disease Merritt had, I was infected, too.

Disease…

Maybe this was like with Andalon—a hallucination; another delusion—and there was nothing to worry about, because it was all in my head.

But what if it wasn’t?

There were times when crafty—or crazed—patients had managed to sneak out of the hospital. It was the kind of sickening, terrifying thing a person never wanted to think about, but it happened, all the same. And if it had happened…

I rose from my seat and walked out into the aisle.

“Genneth…?”

Up ahead, my wife was staring at me.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I…” I pointed toward the doors Aicken had gone through. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

I had nothing to lose, except possibly everything. So, I followed after him.

At first, the light in the stairwell was blinding. The sound of the fluorescent tubes buzzing overhead had a strange pulse to it, like waves against the shore. But there was no time: up above, a door swung shut.

No.

I ran up as fast as I could.

No. No. No.

There were two ways forward after I hit the landing: the door to the control room, right beside me, and a door to the back of the auditorium, down a short corridor up ahead.

Through the door at my side, I heard the crowd roar. The first act was over; now came the applause.

I threw open the door, yelling as I rushed in.

“No!”

But I stopped in my tracks. My dead heart sank.

The room was empty.

The rotten hair on my dead neck stood on end as I stepped toward the big window in the wall. Through it, over any beyond the buttons and slides of the control panel and the attending swivel-chairs, I saw the audience standing down below, clapping and cheering as the curtains drew to a close around Act IV of Before the Sword. Lights on the control panel flashed in a patient rhythm. Padded, seat-cushion things tiled the walls around me, making the room sound-tight.

I was alone.

Where is he?!

I ran my hands through my hair.

Maybe I really am losing my mind…

At that moment, my legs might as well have been made of jelly. I collapsed into one of swivel-chairs by the control panel. I didn’t know what to do.

Outside the control room, I heard footsteps rush up the metal stairs.

I turned to face the sound. Would it be campus security? My wife, perhaps?

My jaw went slack.

There, in the doorway, stood the Dressfeldt shooter Aicken Wognivitch, in the flesh.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Our eyes met. He scowled. The gun in his hand gleamed dully in the light streaming in from the stairwell.

“I told them,” he said, slowly shaking his arm. He stepped forward. “I told them: they were pushing me too much. They wanted me down. The bosses. The suits. The bankers. Even that little blue brat.”

“Help!” I screamed. “HELP!”

But no one heard me scream through those sound-proofed walls. At best, my voice was trapped in the stairwell.

“But I wasn’t going to go down,” Aicken said. “I worked too hard for that.”

I pounded my fists against the window, hoping it was glass, only to hit thick plastic.

Up on the stage, the curtain fluttered.

I screamed more.

But it was to no avail.

I’m sorry, Dana. I’m not the superhero you thought I was.

“Now, though… now things are gonna go my way. And it’s about damn time they did.”

He pointed his gun at me.

“I think I’ll start with you.”

“Why are you fighting…?” The words weren’t the shooter’s.

At that moment, it was like someone had pressed the world’s secret Pause button. Looking to the doorway, I saw Andalon standing there, her face as pale as snow. She looked on in abject horror as Aicken pulled the trigger.

“Why…?” she whimpered.

Light and sound flashed at the muzzle of Aicken’s gun. He fired it right at me.

I didn’t feel any pain. Maybe it was a benefit of being dead.

My zombie legs wobbled beneath me. I sank toward the floor.

So, this is how it ends, huh?

It was my fault. Everyone was going to die because I was too rash and hardheaded to yell for help. Instead, as usual, I’d tried to fix everything on my own.

I was ashamed of myself.

Aicken’s gun tilted downward in his grasp as he shook his head.

“It’s you,” he said, turning around to face Andalon. “Again.”

Andalon’s eyes went wide with fear.

Aicken stepped toward her with deadly intent. He screamed. “What does it mean!?”

Andalon shook her head. “I—I don’t…” She fell to her knees, stammering in terror.

“What do you want?!” Aicken screamed. His gun trembled in his grip. He stepped closer. “What! Do! You! Fucking! Want!?”

Andalon bawled in terror.

My heart was still beating. I didn’t see any blood.

I…

I didn’t know what was real anymore.

“No!” Andalon whimpered. “No no no no no—”

—But, phantom or not, I couldn’t stand by while someone harmed a child.

Pushing myself up onto my shaking legs, I stumbled into the line of fire, right in front of Andalon. I spread my arms, turned around, and stood to face the man with the gun.

Behind me, Andalon kneeled, the hem of her dress spreading out over her crumpled knees. “M-Mister…?” she said, babbling in terror. Snot and tears slicked her face.

“Aicken,” I pleaded, “what are you doing? Please, stop this! It’s not too late! You can still change!”

“It is too late,” he answered, spitting on the floor. “We’re just blood rolling down the windows.” He glowered at me, and then motioned his head toward the window. “You… Everyone…”

Not knowing how much longer I’d still be standing, I didn’t waste any more time. With a scream, I charged him, barreling at him, elbow first. Genuine surprise flashed on Aicken’s face. But then it was my turn to be surprised. The impossible happened: I didn’t hit him. I just kept on going. I passed through him like he was made of fog. Unprepared for that outcome, I stumbled into a swivel-chair and toppled forward. The chair rolled away as I fell. It slammed against the wall with a dull thud at about the same time as my knees hit the floor.

Ow.

It seemed the dead could still feel pain.

Aicken’s beet-red visage turned boiled-egg white. He was shell-shocked. “What did you do to me…?” He stared at Andalon and I in horror. That horror turned to cold, iron anger.

He shot me. I screamed. My ears rang. I kept screaming, only to stop as I realized there was no pain.

This time, I actually looked down at my chest. There was no wound. No holes. My white medical coat was unblemished and pristine.

Aicken fired again. I flinched at the noise, but it didn’t let it faze me. He fired again, and again. The bullets moved too fast to see, but they passed through me, harmlessly, all the same.

I gasped.

He can’t hurt me.

The only thing that hurt were my knees—and, God, they ached. But that was on me.

Aicken turned his wrath to Andalon. “You’re a demon.” He said, trembling. “You’re all demons!”

He shot her—and hit.

Andalon screamed, clutching at her chest where the bullet had entered. Blue blood poured from the wound, pale and fluorescent, glowed with an almost blinding brilliance, yet which cast nary a shadow.

Now it was my turn to cry in horror.

“No!”

I charged at Aicken again. I swiped my hands at him, somehow expecting it to work. But it didn’t.

The madman cackled.

I turned away from Aicken and rushed to Andalon’s side. She was on hand and knees, blood and tears dripping onto the floor in between her dangling bangs. I tried to hold her. I tried to staunch the wound, but it was no use. She was as insubstantial as Aicken. My hands phased right through her. Her blood dripped through my hands and arms as I wasn’t even there.

Her glowing blood puddled on the floor.

I trembled. “No… no…”

But then the phantom blood began to move.

I gasped.

At the edges of the puddle, the blood decohered, dissolving into motes that floated upward, phasing through my hands and chest as they slowly faded. The pain throbbing in my head reached a boiling point. My skull was ready to burst. Static danced across my zombie body. Fire breathed down the inside of my spine.

Suddenly, Andalon’s wound sealed itself shut as her hair began to glow. The strands floated, undulating of their own accord. They shone with the same shadowless light that had poured out from the bullet-wound.

With a quiet little groan, Andalon staggered to her feet. Her nightgown fluttered around her.

“You…” she muttered.

She rose up, lifting her head for all to see.

Her eyes were aglow.

“You…”

She raised her arm to Aicken, pointing at him with a finger that shivered with judgment and wrath.

“You’re mean!”

Blue fire coalesced from an unknown void. The flames coiled around her arm, a seething serpent feathered in fire, and ready to strike.

Andalon yelled at him. “Go away!”

The flames surged.

Aicken pulled the trigger, firing a continuous stream of bullets. Flashes scattered across my field of vision.

“Go away!” Andalon screamed.

The bullets froze midair, as did Aicken, and the light from the gun muzzle, and the waves of sound that rippled across the space.

For a moment, gun, bullets, shooter, and all flickered like broadband in the rain, and then they vanished, swallowed up by sparks and cerulean fire.

The light went out of Andalon the instant Aicken vanished. We stared at one another, speechless and awed—she, even more than me. I saw myself, reflected in her eyes and her tears as she gazed at me like I was a creature of myth.

“No… no one…” She trembled in disbelief.

“No-o one’s ever—”

—She vanished.

And the pain in my head was gone.