Anora’s fingers tapped against the steering wheel as she drove. The sensation that something lurked just beyond the safe shell of her car only intensified, hanging thick and almost palpable in the air. It set her on edge, every loud noise or sudden movement making her snap to attention. A couple times, a purple-gold mist swirled about her before she hastily banished it before it could do any damage. She already had a busted dresser. She did not need to add her car to that list.
	[i]Get ahold of yourself![/i] she scolded herself with a scowl. [i]That dream wasn’t [u]that[/u] bad.[/i] Even as she thought it, a part of her knew there was something more to it than that, the maddening question of, “But what?” driving her near to insanity. Her tapping on the steering wheel intensified. By the time she pulled into the parking lot of Piggly Wiggly’s Grocery, she was surprised she had not created a series of dents in the faux leather. 
	Turning the car off, she took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, trying to calm her nerves and the ever-growing paranoia. Checking the time quickly on her phone, she sighed, and exited the car.
	She straightened her shirt, then ducked back inside to grab her wallet from the dash. Though she could not say what made her look up, she found herself glancing to the opposite side of the street in front of her.
	She gasped and, forgetting she was still partially inside the car, tried to straighten.	A painful-sounding [i]thunk[/i] followed by a moaned “Ow!” came from the cab. Anora pulled from the car, her wallet and phone dropping back onto the driver’s seat as she reached to rub the sore spot where her head had hit the assist handle.
	She pushed the pain aside as she straightened and leaned on the open door, her amethyst gaze falling on a creature with rotting flesh and clothing in little better state hanging from its cadaverous body.
	Had she finally cracked? Were her dreams spilling over into reality, or, perhaps, had she not actually woken up yet? No one else seemed to notice the zombie... no, that wasn’t quite right. It looked less [i]human[/i] than a zombie. She had read once about a creature known as a ghoul. Zombie-like, yet not a zombie. Less mindless. More tactical, even though they shared the same affinity for human flesh.
	Never taking her eyes off the creature, she closed the car door and took a couple tentative steps toward it, still trying to decide whether she had gone crazy or was, at long last, encountering one of the creatures she had so ardently studied. There was only one thing she was sure of; if she did not jump upon the opportunity to find out now whether it was real or a hallucination, she may never know. And every fiber of her being [i]had[/i] to know. 
	The creature stepped away as slowly as she stepped forward, but it still stared at her with its beady, hungry eyes.
	On the sidewalk opposite the creature, Anora dared tear her gaze away only long enough to glance down either side of the street to check for oncoming traffic. She sprinted across the street toward the living corpse, the chains on her shirt and pants clinking together and the task of shopping all but forgotten.
	The ghoul turned and ran from her on surprisingly fast legs for a maggot-infested body.
	“HEY!” she shouted after it as she wove through those crowding the sidewalk, gaining her a few choice words and nasty looks from people she nearly ran into. But she paid them no mind, her attention focused solely on the being she had only [i]hoped[/i] could exist as she chased it through the city. Her sizzling magic, as invisible to the nearby humans as the ghoul seemed to be, formed around her fists, the magic ready in case the creature turned on her.
	“GET BACK HERE!”