I open that door to the ghost of memories. Stepping inside the house, I'm immediately under the suspicion I'm not alone. I can't tell what it is, but there's an aura. A deep underlying dread. The floorboards are rotten and coated in a thin film of what can only be chalk. A man's hand has etched it so deeply into the rough wood beneath the turned-up carpet that I can still see his bootprints and the shins of his knees matted in the old, curling fabric. And beside the window, which is splintered with shards of broken glass--and most of them rusty with a red perfume that looks almost like blood in this wicked, greying light stands a microscope. The kind you view the stars with. Only this one is hanging limp, like a broken bone before the moon; and the moonlight is the only colour in the room except for the red on that glass. I'm almost certain someone died here; if not in life, then perhaps in spirit.

"Why the fuck is this so familar...?" Is all I can manage. I look around the broken room and take in the shelves and old cabinets and the mottled sofa-couch which has been shoved so far up against the wall that the pillows are gone and the underboard shows. I look at the pictures on the wall, but the faces are all blotted out. I look at the kitchen door which is nailed shut; and then I look at the exterior hallway, which is as about as inviting as an empty picture frame, asking me to walk down it and become a lost memory. I don't move from the front door. I don't even want to step foot in this room.

"Fuck this," I utter, with no inclination to go any further. Then I reach back to open the door I came in through, only to hear a muffled, child-like giggle from outside.

"You little pricks?!" I shout to the glass as a shadow runs across the window, making me leap out of my skin.

The laughter curtails off into the garden, and I realise the door is locked. I try it three times, each time more violent than the next, but it doesn't budge. I go over to the broken window, narrowly skimming the cemetary of some man's life, and take a glance out through the broken pane. I see a black something curb around the corner, roughly the size of a kid.

"This isn't funny!" I yell after them, then hear how afraid I sound. My voice is shrill and tight, and no wonder. Things creak in this room. Things move. I keep glancing over my shoulder, looking for the source of the sound. Like there's a cat in the room. Like someone's watching me. Like there's shivers under my skin, slowly growing, an insane paranoia gnawing at my fucking mind;

"I swear I didn't see her, I just took the outside lane... and she was there. I had my wipers on, I swear. But the rain, and that stretch of road. None of its lit-up. I just... I didn't see her," I beg. I then slump to my knees, briefly paralyzed by fear, and then realise--the floor is thick with newspaper clippings.

DRUNK DRIVER RUNS DOWN WOMAN - TURNS OUT TO BE MIDLANDS COP. INEBRIATED POLICE OFFICER STRIKES CELEBRATED SCIENTIST, COUNTY MOURNS. ASTROLOGER PERFORMS WAKE FOR HIS LOVING WIFE - RETIRES FROM UNN UNIVERSITY ON GROUNDS OF GRIEF.

I fling myself back against the wall, then let out a sharp rasp as I feel one of the glass shards on the floor stab me in the back. I howl in agony, then thrust myself around to look at the moon.

"I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!"

There is a howl from the wind. It rips through the room and takes me beneath my clothes; and for a moment, I see her. Out in the garden. A skeletal, jaded, rippling face; black-eyed, haughty, her mouth hanging low, the gap where her teeth should be frighteningly wide. A woman. The woman I killed; my eyes fill with tears; my throat turns to lead; I see only my own Death. Then I find myself tumbling away as she walks across the garden towards me, pointing with a crooked finger. All her arms are bent and broken. Twisted beyond belief. I turn from her as she begins to pick up speed, then hurl myself down the corridor....