Merrill shook his head softly. ”I don’t think any of us ever have that when fate comes for us. I.....”

He shook his head, never finishing the sentence. Slowly, Merrill turns the seat round. 

The corpse that was on the seat was in an advanced state of decay. Whoever it was had once been human, butnthat humanness had long since disintegrated with the passage of time. Now there was nothing but bones. The man, or woman, whatever they were, stared at Callie and Merrill with two gaping and empty eye sockets. It’s lower jaw was snapped off, leaving the upper jaw and row of teeth only. The grotesque sight was completed when a centipede crawled out of its empty left eye socket and dropped to the floor.

”I’m sorry to show you this Callie, but it was this I needed you to see,”

Reaching slowly into the tattered and torn blue shirt that the skeleton was wearing, his hand went slowly into its pocket. He winced as his hand touched....things that he likely did not want to know what they were. Finally, he brought something out. It was a thin, black rectangular object. There were large, hair-line fractures running across its surface.

Looking to her, Merrill started to pass the object over, ”Here,” he said softly. ”Tell me it’s......”

The night sky outside the window suddenly exploded into flames in the distance. Merrill looked back as orange fire illuminated the night sky.

It came from where Edhel was......