Eirik jerked, his gun at the ready, firing at the bulge in the wall. It moved long behind the couch, and onto the ceiling.

He followed it, continuing to fire as it moved into the kitchen, and through the wall behind the fridge. Eirik rushed through the door into the master bedroom.

He found himself in a black expanse, where light smoke hugged the floor. Eirik walked a little ways through the space, until he found three women. All were old, and working on spinning thread.

Instantly, he knew they were the Twisted Sisters, but he was not on alert when he saw them.

The first one, who was spinning the thread on the wheel said: “You know us as keepers of the balance. But, at times we are also the keepers of fate.”

The second one, who was pulling the thread from the spindle into fine strands said: “In the end, all lives must end, as each thread must be severed from the spindle.”

The third one, brandishing a pair of scissors, and cutting the thread said: “But some strings cannot be cut, even after death. These are dead strings.”

The scissors attempted to cut through the string in the second sister’s hand, but could not, the thread seemed to shine metallic at that point.

“Care to try?” she asked, offering the scissors to Eirik.

Ryan opened his eyes. He blinked several times, and grasped at the ideas floating through his head. He was sure of what he had just seen in his mind… but was equally sure that it was not his dream.

“No no, I know you can’t find anything else out from analyzing your scans of Eirik. That isn’t what I mean?”

“Then what Ryan,” Adam replied, addressing his unwelcome visitor. “You want me to scan you? It was probably just a prophet dream.”

Ryan groaned. “Listen, you self-absorbed android. I don’t want information on us! I want information on the house! Our house. I thought about it a lot today at work, and the one conclusion I came up with was we need to look at what happened to the house itself all those years ago.”

“How do you expect me to do that? Hack into police record databases or FBI super spooky records and files?”

“No! Do a google search,” Ryan said. “I assume you must have that, or some other search engine. Check old news stories.”

The android blinked a few times. “That’s actually not a bad idea.” He sat down at his desk and began working.

Ryan paced around a little bit, thinking.

“So… care to say what was so freaky about the dream?”

“Well, for one, I was viewing it… and two, the Twisted Sisters gave us some really cryptic message… Plus… when I woke up, I had this freaky sense of déjà vu.”

“You sure it wasn’t just a regular dream?”

“Even if it was, we still need to know what is going on in that house.”

Adam didn’t reply to this, but continued checking the web. “Got something,” he replied a minute later. “Seems there were a bunch of reports about several members of a family dying in Aptos about… twelve years ago.”

“That sounds about right…” Ryan said, walking over to the desk and looking over Adam’s shoulder.

“Ok, this report says three victims of some kind of random attack. No details beyond that, other than they list the mother and daughter as having their funeral a week later…”

“No mention of Cooper though? Hmmm…”

“Hey, this one has more information,” Adam said, scanning over a second article. “Three victims of brutal attack on Aptos home. June 25th, 1991… Three bodies were removed from a home in Aptos, near Rio del Mar. The mother and daughter of the household were reported dead on the scene. The youngest child, 9yrs old, was found in a catatonic state and has been transported to a local hospital. Police are unsure how to classify the attack as there are no signs of break-in, but are questioning the father, the only person in the household uninjured after the attack.”

“Well, we at least know it was some kind of demon… but that doesn’t explain Cooper’s ghost, if he was in a coma when he left the house.”

“Wait… here is some more…Delia Jones was a noted cryptoxenobiologist, studying non-human sentient life forms. Colleagues claim that she had recently become very cold and edgy, stemming from some personal family problems. Administrators at the son’s school report they knew about the child having injuries just before the end of the school year… but no signs pointed to abuse, until now. Detectives are continuing their investigation, which includes assessing how the floors, and walls of the house became severely damaged… it trails off into some pointless statistics about Aptos and crime rates in this world.”

“This isn’t much more than what we know already. There was an incident, Cooper was injured, a few weeks later, the creature re-attacked, and killed Molly the daughter and Delia? The mother… Also, Cooper fell catatonic… and Eirik seems to feel the demon was really targeting Cooper…”

“Then why didn’t Cooper die?”

“Does Eirik have any inclination to what the demon is?”

Ryan shook his head. “None. But hey, maybe we could… I don’t know, contact the colleagues, see what they know about her work?”

“I’ll try…” Adam replied, beginning to work. Several minutes of silence followed. “So… how are finals?”

“All done,” Ryan answered, “I didn’t really have any, and the last one for anyone was yesterday.” A chirping sound began in Ryan’s bag, interrupting him. He reached into it and pulled out his comm.

“What is it?” Adam asked, looking up.

“It’s Ben. He wants to know if I need a ride home tonight as he has to go past Randi’s house and help her investigate something weird on her computer…”

“If you need to go then, you’re free too. I will keep working on finding more information on what happened. But really, what good will it do?”

“If nothing else, peace of mind to Eirik, and myself. At best, maybe we can find some way to fix Cooper’s problem…”

“Hmmm, alright,” the android replied. “Then I trust you can show yourself out.”

Ben and Ryan slammed the doors of Ben’s car outside of the driveway to Randi’s apartment.

“So what kind of problems is she having with her computer?” Ryan asked as they walked towards the porch.

“At first, she just couldn’t get onto the computer. Now it crashes constantly, and is giving odd error messages, and once in a while, just won’t start. At all.”

They knock on the door. A minute later, it opens, and Randi’s face appears beaming behind it.

“Hey guys, come on in!”

The boys enter the house, and follow her into her bedroom. Her computer is sitting on her makeshift desk. Ryan takes a seat on the small couch while Ben sets to work.

At first, it simply will not turn on. Ben unplugs and replugs all the connections in, to no avail. Ryan looks at the posters on the wall. Everything from H.R. Geiger to standard college room fantasy posters. Ben turns the computer around a little, to look at the plugs, and it starts up, all on its own.

The minutes pass. Ryan and Randi talk about a few things here and there while watching Ben work. Nothing about the computer’s behavior makes sense. Ryan gets up and walks over to investigate.

“Have you checked the-” Ryan started to say, but stopped as he knocked a cup off the desk. He stooped to grab it, but found he didn’t need to. “What the?”

“What?” Ben asked, turning his head. “Woah!”

They stare at the cup, which was floating an inch above the ground.

“I didn’t do it,” Ryan said, looking at Ben.

Ben shook his head, saying “Neither did I!” He looks to Randi. “Has anything like this ever… Randi?”

Randi is locked, as if in a trance, staring at the wall. Ben reaches his arm out and grabs her shoulder. His body jerks and the room begins to blur.

Ben released his hand and their two bodies jerked apart. As they did, the cup flew into the air, arching across the room, smashing against the wall by the closet.

“Oh my god. What just happened?” Randi asks, looking around her.

“Are you two ok?” Ryan asks.

“Yeah… what happened?” Ben asks.

“You guys froze, and I could feel the hair on my body standing on end, like the room charged with power. Then you pulled apart.”

“Aww, and look, the computer froze again!!” Randi sighed, jerking the mouse around.

Ben thought a moment. “Well, this is stating the obvious, but I think your computer problems are more closely related to whatever is going on in this room instead of hardware problem.”

“Duh!” Randi retorted.

“Ryan, do you see anything in here… that could have caused this?” Ben asks.

“Hmmmm,” Ryan murrmurs. He scans around the room, eyes narrowed. “Nope… I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. Doesn’t mean nothing is here though.”

“Is this more of your weird… super power thing?”

“Yeah…” Ben says, scratching his head. “Well, if Ryan cant find anything, maybe we should come back tomorrow with better equipment.”

“Wait… you guys are going to leave now?”

“I can’t fix your computer if its something supernatural doing it…” Ben explains. “Unless I get more stuff from the house.”

“Well I’m not going to stay here tonight if this place is haunted too!”

“What do you mean too?” Ryan asked.

“Well, like your place… with those shadow things, and your ghost.”

Ben laughed. “We got rid of the shadows… and Cooper isn’t really a ghost. We don’t know what he is!”

“Wait… you’d rather go to the confirmed haunted house, rather than stay in your unconfirmed one?”

“Well yeah! At least at your place I have other people nearby!”

Before the others could even answer, she grabbed a pink backpack and began stuffing it with clothes, cds, and a very old looking blanket. “Like it? I’ve had it for ages. It used to have the Little Mermaid on it… till it wore off…” She grabbed a few more things from the bathroom and returned to the room as the guys finished inspecting the shattered glass. “All set!”

“Ok then, I guess we’re off to Aptos…” Ben said.

“So when is Hogan due to get here?” Lucy asks as she walks out of her bedroom and into the upstairs bathroom.

“I have no idea,” Eirik calls from the living room couch, where he has planted himself again in front of the Playstation 2.

“Aren’t you going to pack? You’re leaving after the movie, right?” She says returning along the same path.

“Yeah… but anything I don’t grab tonight I can come back for.”

As Eirik plays, his legs suddenly fall numb, and he finds it hard to focus. He manages to pause the game and looks around him.

The room is quiet. Only the two small lamps are on. The heater is gently humming, producing heat. Nothing out of the norm.

Downstairs, the door opens. “Hello!” Comes the call from Ryan.

“Hey,” Lucy shouts from the railing.

The three arrivals head up the stairs.

“Got some sort of paranormal reaction to my trying to fix Randi’s computer so she wants to stay here tonight, is that ok guys?” Ben asks.

“She wants to stay here? We’re like the hotbed of paranormal!” Eirik laughs.

“Thank You!” Ryan calls vindictively as he begins to explore his options in the kitchen.

“Hogan and I are going out to a movie later on, anyone want to join us?” Eirik asks.

Ryan opens a cupboard. “I’m not really in a movie mood… plus I’m reaallly hungry.” As he closes the cupboard, Ryan turns and looks at Eirik. “Hey Eirik, did you have any of those dreams last night?”

Eirik stops suddenly. “Yeah… why?” It had been such an odd one, he was hoping to just forget it.

“Just, uh, curious.”

Lucy walks out of her room again and into the living room. She picks up a stack of stuff from the fireplace hearth. As she returns to her room, she halts abruptly. “Oh! Hi… Cooper…”

Everyone looks. Standing in front of the stairs is Cooper, in all his half visible form.

“Wow, is this your ghost?” Randi asks, looking excited.

“Ummmm….” Cooper says, eyes darting around the room.

“We don’t know he’s a ghost… yet,” Ryan said. “What’s up Coop?”

“The house… can’t you guys feel it?” He asked, looking at all of them.

Eirik rubs his arm, nervously.

“What about it?” Lucy asks.

“It’s restless… it wants out again.” He looks at the balcony windows.

Everyone walks slowly towards each other, save Eirik who remains seated. Cooper walks to the brown couch and turns around, looking at them.

“You guys should really get out of here.”

“Cooper. Are you sure?” Ryan asks the spirit. “I mean… Eirik hasn’t sensed anything. I haven’t sensed anything. Maybe it’s just in the house in the otherworld.”

“No…. I felt it too…” Eirik confirms. “Not sure what, but I feel it.”

“Great! I just can’t escape this stuff tonight, can I!” Randi says, flopping down onto the couch.

“Yes, well, we’ll just ignore it until it blows up in our faces… not much else we can do,” Eirik says, rocking to build momentum to leave the couch.

He strolled across the room and shut the bathroom door behind him as Ben emerged from his room.

“Hey Randi, did you want to see what we have to eat?” he asks.

She jumps up, suddenly renewed of energy. “Ooooh yeah!”

Ryan walks past her into the living room with a plate of food and sits down in the green chair. He looks up and sees Cooper, rigid as a board. The hair on his neck stands up again as the carpet rises into a bump, like the top cross-section of a 3D oval.

“Randi! Watch out!” he shouts, standing up.

As he moves, he feels the air around him stiffen, and time slow, making all his movements harder to do.

Eirik opens the bathroom door as the wave of altered time hits. He sees the rise in the floor turn into a hand.

“Molly! No!” The words shoot out of his mouth, beyond his control. His hand trembles, and a phase blaster rises into the air in the master bedroom, before flying right into Eirik’s hand.

The clawed hand grabs into Randi’s ankle. There is no pain, but she still lets out a cry. Eirik opens fire at the hand. The bullets pass through her leg, and into the hand.

“It’s here?” Lucy shouts in amazement.

A moan comes from the hand as it begins to pull. Randi’s foot slips through the floor as if it weren’t there.

“Oh crap!” she exclaims, trying to pull her leg out. “I’m stuck!!”

Adam sat back, still, in his chair. A link cable stretched from just under his shirt to a console on the desk. Diagrams of DNA sequences, and mathematical formulas were displayed on the desktop monitor.

A small white window pops up on the display, envelope shaped. It became highlighted and enlarged to a new text display screen. An e-mail was displayed.

To the Estate of Warden Tiberius Orwell:

We were unaware of the late sirs interest in Ms Jones’ work. I cannot provide much information on her studies, for that you should probably look into contacting her husband. However, I can tell you that she was primarily interested in the spirit world. Ghosts and the like. Wights. Shades. Boggarts. The last thing I recall her working on was gathering information on something called Vale Devils.

Hope This Little Bit Helps in uncovering the mystery that was this great man.

En Descio Vernum.

Eugene Sevris.

Adam switched back to active mode, and disconnected himself.

“Oh man, what have those fools gotten themselves into?”

Lucy ran up and grabbed Randi’s arm. She tried to pull her out, but failed. The others checked it out. The floor was completely solid.

“Eirik, did your demon buzzer go off?” Ryan asks as he pats the floor.

“NO! I don’t know why either.”

“Did any of you guys… slow down… as that all happened?” Ryan asked next. The others look at him strangely. “This makes no sense. Why would time slow like it did at Randi’s house… but only for me… and when this creature has nothing to do with Randi or her apartment?”

“Less talk, more getting my foot out of the floor!” Randi said, gesturing furiously.

Ben stepped into his room, and came back wearing his OCX glasses. He scanned the place where her foot was. “Ok. It looks as if her foot has slid through the realities, and is stuck part way…”

“What?!” Randi exclaimed.

“Are you sure Ben?” Ryan asked. “I don’t see any tear energy, or anything.”

“Well… Cooper is able to pass through the two worlds without tears or archways,” Ben begins to explain his theory, “why couldn’t the creature. Maybe she is stuck because, unlike the creature and Cooper… she shouldn’t be able to pass through.”

“How do we get her unstuck?” Lucy asked.

Ryan’s face lit up. “Got an idea,” he said as he stood and rushed down the stairs.

“Cooper?” Ben asked, looking up at the ghost, who was holding back beside the fireplace. He looked shocked to be addressed. “Can you try to pull her foot out of there?”

The spirit walked over, and wrapped his hands around her ankle. He began to pull, but with little luck.

“Here,” Ryan said, brandishing the phase dagger. He stabbed it into the floor, next to her ankle, and twisted it. The floor rippled, and the house shook. Cooper pulled and Randi’s foot slid out of the floor. She quickly collapsed to the floor, massaging her ankle.

“You alright?” Ben asked, kneeling down.

“Yeah, I’m-”

She stopped. Everyone stopped. A howl came up from the house. Their eyes turned to the spot in the floor where Randi’s foot had been. The ripple distortion in the hardwood fluctuated even more. Several hands erupted from the hardwood.

At once, the group scrambled to their feet and out of the kitchen.

“Guys!” Ryan shouted, pointing at the screen door. “The runes are glowing again!”

“What does that mean?” Randi asked.

“It means we’re sealed in the house with this spirit,” Ryan replied.

“No.” Eirik’s face was white, and his eyes seemed to be out of focus. It was almost like Eirik was no longer there, but someone else was. “The spirit is the house.”

The hands joined together into a spiked ridge of a back that moved towards them.

Through the pouring rain, a souped up motorcycle rushes down the freeway. The driver is rigid, unmoving, in a heavy black leather jacket, and a hard black helmet with dark maroon stripes.

As the bike turned off the freeway, the rider removed one hand from the handle bar and set it down on a red sphere in the middle of handles. It lit up, and the vehicle distorted and vanished from the road.

Across the reality gap, the bike reappears, and speeds off through the Aptos night.

“Eirik shoot it!” Lucy said. But he was frozen in place, unresponsive.

She grabbed the gun, fired at the hump, it moaned and slowed for a second. Lucy tossed the gun to Ben and ran, vaulting off the kitchen island over the hump.

“So what do you guys usually do in this situation?” Randi asked as Ben’s gunfire kept the wooden hump at bay.

“Keep shooting till they die or give up,” Ben answered.

Lucy came out of her room brandishing her Shock Shotgun. She pumped it and fired at the hump. Screams rang through the house as the lights flickered off then on a couple of times before settling down. The hump was gone.

“Wow, it worked!” She said.

“Good hunch!” Ryan cheered with a laugh of relief.

The front doorbell rang.

Outside the house, the motorcycle rider tapped his foot impatiently. Seeing a pair of feet rushing down the stairs, he removed his helmet.

“Adam!?” Ryan exclaims in confusion as he opens the door.

“You guys are in serious danger. You have to get out of the house fast, and then we need to destroy it.”

“You’re insane,” Ryan says as the android enters the house. “And when did you build the motorcycle?”

“Adam?” Lucy asks as he arrives at the top of the staircase.

“Where is the creature? My visor detected phase energy shots in the house a moment before I got here…” he asks, looking at the damage in the floor.

“What is going on Adam? Did you figure out what this thing is or not?” Ryan asks, rejoining them on the second floor.

“Vale Devil. A creature of untapped power. Able to manipulate space, time, reality. It’s not demonic. It’s some kind of ethereal spirit being. Only way to destroy it… is to follow the rules of the dead. Destroy its mortal tie… the house.”

“But why the house?” Lucy asked. “Isn’t there something else?”

“No, the demon is tied to the house,” Eirik says. “All the images in my head. All the memories. The demon is in the building. The demon is in the walls, the mirrors, the floors.”

The house groaned. The mirrors on all the walls of the living room shimmered.

“But it’s not from this world!” Lucy said. “It should be tied to the other house!”

“We bound it to the house,” Ryan said. “I bound it here… it and Cooper.”

Fire lit in the fireplace. The wooden door to the master bedroom hallway slid shut and bulged into a hideous face.

Lucy fired at the door… nothing happened. Eirik fired at a bulge in the ceiling. It receded, but that was it.

“It’s ok… but how do we unbind the house?”

“Wait! Let it come through!” Ryan said.

The group pulled together, all five humans, ghost, and android, in a tight group in the middle of the room, all facing outward. Ryan took several large deep breaths. The shape rose out of the floor again and charged at the group, a large claw extending from its top.

“Lucy shoot it!” Ryan shouted. She turned the gun, pumped it, and fired. As she did, Ryan shot out his hand. The whole house shook as the lightning rocked the demon projection. Ryan’s hand vibrated with energy.

Everyone felt a wave of nausea. The house seemed to contort and melt, and twist like a surrealist painting. Then things righted themselves, and all that was left of the ridge was a thin line of smoke coming up from between two floorboards.

“Hey, the seal is gone!” Lucy commented, pointing to the balcony window.

“Yes… but did we actually get rid of the creature?” Adam asked, looking around. He brought out a small device and began to wave it slowly around the room. “Not picking up anything.”

“You shouldn’t… I tried to banish its entire essence from this world back to your world,” Ryan said panting.

“But it got here once,” Adam replied, “It could come back again.”

“How did it get here anyway?” Lucy asks.

“Well, could be that it slipped over once the two worlds became so closely bound by Drake last spring.”

Ryan shook his head. “Cooper told me he knew about this world, and could see it, for a couple years. And I think I saw him on one of our first tours of the house.”

“What is the deal with that ghost anyway?” Randi asks, still looking very nervous.

“His family was killed by that thing… and when he died, his ghost was trapped in the house,” Eirik explained. “Along with his family member’s memories.”

“How is that possible?” she asks.

“Its like a nuclear bomb,” Adam pitched in. “When one goes off, people’s sillouettes are burned into walls they are in front of. Just like that, when paranormal forces kill people, sometimes instead of creating ghosts, they create mental imprints on where they were killed. People sometimes think these are ghosts, but they aren’t.”

The group was slowly dispersing, but none of them knew what to do with themselves now.

“I want to know why now… why did it choose to attack now.”

“Well Ryan… I’m not picking up any energy signature akin to the records my database has on Vale Devils. But I am picking up some form of supernatural wavelength unfamiliar to me… Maybe some kind of interference made it go mad?”

“Could explain what happened at Randi’s place…” Ben mused.

“So are we done here?” Eirik asked. “Cause Lucy and I were going to go have dinner with Hogan, Anna, and Adam.”

“No, yeah, the house checks out… we’re done here. By the way… this is a nice house you found.”

“Oh yeah, you haven’t been here before, want the tour?” Ryan asks. The android shrugged and agreed.

Dust filtered through the air, disturbed by the sudden shock to the structure.

Cooper groaned and stood up, rubbing his head. He was back inside his own home. Still empty, still lonely. It was a reminder of nearly eleven years of his memory… over half of all he knew…

He looked around the barren living room, turned and headed down the stairs. He couldn’t quite feel the other house… or the gap between the two of them. But that had happened before. He would just wait it out in his old room, and go back there soon.

Cooper paused halfway down the stairs. There was a low moan. He could sense the creature, the abandoned home’s other occupant. At least it wouldn’t bother his friends for a while.

“Ok guys! We will see you later!” Eirik called as he and Lucy stepped out the back door. Ryan and Adam got to the bottom of the stairs at that moment. Eirik turned to him, his eyes foggy again. “Wrong accent by the way.” He closed the door.

“What did that mean?” Adam asked.

“Not a clue…” Ryan replied. “Anyway… this is the downstairs, really simple. Just bedrooms and laundry room…”

“So basically… this program will be able to translate normal text into all different levels of leet. Not just the most basic level like other programs,” Ben says, showing Randi his new program.

“Cool. I can tell you what all the letters are in most of these levels, if you want.”

“Really? Great!” Ben says, wide eyed like a kid in a candy store. He keeps working for a second, then turns an eye to her. “So how is the ankle?”

“Oh! Yeah, its fine. No pain. Thanks a lot for all rushing to help me,” she laughs. “So… you guys seem to do this kind of thing a lot…”

“Not as much as you think,” Ben replied. “I mean, we go for weeks at a time without anything happening. Its just when stuff does happen, it all happens at once. Although frankly, I’m getting rather tired of all this stuff happening in our house.”

A moment of silence follows.

“I have a question though… Why were his family members killed… leaving only memories… but he left behind a full ghost.”

“Cause Cooper wasn’t dead at the time,” Adam answered as he and Ryan rejoined them.

“What do you mean?” Ben asked.

Ryan sat down on his bed. “He was pulled out of the house comatose. Based on Eirik’s dreams, I think the creature latched onto Cooper and pulled his soul out when he left the house… leaving the body alive and intact.”

“So he is still alive, in some hospital somewhere?” Randi asked. “Creepy.”

“Actually, no,” the android replied, seeming to be very excited. “After a few years, they dismissed him from the hospital as there was nothing they could do for him, and they didn’t need to hook him up to machines. He didn’t need IVs, didn’t need bedpans, nothing. So his father took him somewhere, and there hasn’t been any news on him since.”

“So… I’m not dead?”

The group looked up. Cooper was standing next to Lucy’s table by the glass double door.

Adam shook his head. “As far as I can tell, your spirit, your mind, is simply trapped between worlds. In the shadow of both houses. That may be how the Vale Devil is getting over here as well.”

“Adam, this incident happened 12 years ago, long before Drake created the shadow space of the worlds, or even before we came over to the other world,” Ryan said, jabbing at the theory’s flaw.

“Major events that affect multiple worlds ripple outward in time,” Adam explained, moving his hands. “Forwards, as well as backwards. Think of this as… prep work for you being able to come over to this world.”

“Weird,” was all Ryan said. “But that doesn’t exactly help us figure out how to keep the creature from coming back.”

“Um, guys?” Cooper said, practically blushing. “There is something I think I should tell you.”

The spirit takes in a useless deep breath before he begins. “I-” is all he gets out before the wall behind him bends outward in a horrifying shape. Six long legs protruded from the wall, as well as a large pair of mandibles. It struggled in the wall, and although it was across the room, everyone backed away.

“Quick! Shoot it!” Randi shouted. But rather than wait for the others, she grabbed a blaster from the desk and pulled the trigger several times directed at the shape. “This doesn’t work!”

Ben grabbed it from her and fired. “You haven’t been to the other world yet, so you can’t use this!” he shouted as he stood up, backing out of the room with the others.

“Plans?” Ryan asked as the humans and android reached the kitchen.

“Ok, the two houses are linked, right?” Ben began to surmise, “So if we just keep banishing it to the other world, it’ll keep coming back.”

“Then let’s go weed out the Vale Devil from the other house,” Adam suggested.

“Ok, Randi, you stay here while we go-”

“What?! No way! I’m not going to stay here alone without any weapons that work for me while a killer creature is on the loose! I’m going with you!!”

The guys sighed.

“Ben, you explain to her the risks while I go downstairs and get the dagger.” Ryan headed down the stairs, the others following closely behind him.

In the dust and grime that was the parallel mud room, empty save dirt on the floor and boxes, a unseeable ring of light appeared. Through it, Adam stepped, gun at the ready. Behind him, Ben, holding Randi’s hand to guide her came through. Ryan took up the rear, switching off the dagger.

“I can’t believe I am in a parallel world!” she said, looking around, a phase blaster held tightly in her hand.

“You get used to it,” Ben said.

“Check this out,” Ryan said, putting his hand to the back door. On its glass window was an old looking mark in black… the same rune of three lines encasing a squiggle he had drawn on the doors in the other house. Ryan put his hand to the symbol.

White Light “DAD! Hurry!!” a girl shouts. Ryan, and another man painting the symbol on the wall look behind them and see a teenage girl standing in the doorway to the entryway of the house.

“Molly go upstairs!! Help your mother!” Neither one moves. “GO!” Back to white.

“That was odd…” Ryan said, picking up his hand.

“What?” Randi asked.

“One of those imprinted memories…”

Upstairs came a deep groan. Ben drew a ghost knife and led the way.

The second floor of the house was a mess. A potted plant, left behind, had overgrown, covering much of the kitchen. The couch was in a state of disrepair, looking as if some beast had torn out the cushions.

As Ben cleared the top stair, Randi looked up, and saw a pair of long skeletal arms reach out from the mirror, with razor sharp claws at the end. Without hesitating she fired at the mirror. The hands vanished at once, and the mirror appeared to crack with spidery lines of white energy.

“Thanks,” Ben said, turning around, eyes wide behind his OCXs.

“Vale Devils are masters of illusion. They can warp reality in the spaces they inhabit to do what they desire. To literally transcend image and become potentially deadly reality,” Adam explains.

“Great!” Randi retorts.

“Ryan, you okay?” Adam asks as he stumbles to the top stair.

“Yeah, but I now totally know what Eirik was going through. I feel like there are so many unseen thoughts in my head I can’t quite reach.” He rested his hand on the handrail, and flash, a pregnant woman appeared in front of him, putting her hand right there on the rail before turning and hurrying down the stairs as a row of spikes followed her.

“But can you tell where the Devil is, not its manipulations?” Ryan shook his head in reply.

“Well, its really cold up here…” Ben said with a slight shiver. “Isn’t that usually a sign of spiritual presence?”

“It’s cold?” Randi asks.

Ben entered the living room, Randi close behind. Adam headed for the bedroom, and Ryan walked towards the small dining room, sidestepping the hole in the floor.

“Doesn’t this feel strange.. just the two of you guys of the house here?” Randi asked Ben.

“I guess. Not like Danielle was going to be around to help.”

Back in the other house. Danielle pops open the front door. She wipes off her feet and leads Miguel in.

“Hello??” she calls up the stairs. No answer comes.

Danielle heads down the hall towards Ryan’s room. Opening the door, she finds it empty.

“Ugh. They cant even shut off all the lights when they go out!” She moans before she and Miguel head into her room.

They don’t notice, upstairs, the note on the whiteboard reading: “Killer Creature on the loose in house, gone to otherworld to kill it.”

Adam enters the bedroom. His eyes turn a light green in color as they switch to nightvision in the pitch black room.

Whoever had last lived here had left in a hurry. The bedframe and mattress had been left behind, as well as one of the dressers. Spiders had overtaken the far corner of the room.

“What am I even doing here?” Adam asked himself as he scanned the room. A crack ran down the wall between this room and the kitchen. The glass mirror closet was caked with layers of dust.

“Because I didn’t want to see them get themselves killed. Even though they aren’t of any real use to me, and mostly create more problems lately…”

He lifts up a box and a mouse scurries across the floor and out a hole. “This wasn’t even what I was built to do!”

“You ok?” Danielle asks as she walks back to her bed from her closet.

“It’s cold in here,” her boyfriend replies.

“I’m sorry. The heater won’t be fixed till next week.”

“Yeah… but its colder than normal even.”

She sits down on the bed, and the two cuddle. “I guess…”

Above their heads, a ridge of spikes forms.

Unseen, in the shadow of the house. Cooper approaches the bed, arms crossed. He glares at the creature. Its twisted insect like face snarls and drips at him. Cooper hold up his palm and a blast of white energy, like lightning shoots out. It flashes against the creature, who vanishes.

A ridge of spikes moves across the ceiling. Cooper looks at his hands, shocked at what he just did. But as he watches the creature circle overhead, all he can think of is stopping it. His hand shoots out in his anger. A ring of white light flies forth, halting the beast. Another wave of a hand and a ball of the white energy smashes into it. It disintigrates.

Cooper knows it is still in the house, and runs out of the room to find it.

“You alright?” Miguel asks, as Danielle shivers.

“Yeah… I just suddenly felt very tired…”

He hugs her and they both relax.

Ryan walked through the empty dining room. This was one of the few places that had nothing in it.

On the floor were some shards of glass. He kneeled down to look at them, but was afraid to touch them. Not only did he not know what was on them, but he wasn’t sure he was ready for another memory flash.

“Aaahhhh!!” Ben yelled. Ryan turned as a bright ball of fire burst in the air as a hand receded into a light fixture.

“Its ok!” Randi called, “Its gone now. Wow Ben, you can shoot fire?”

Ryan looked back down at the glass. He touched it carefully.

WHITE “No, no, no! You’re phone is a piece of crap! It’s not Vale Devil! It’s Wall Dweller!” The pregnant woman was on a bulky cordless phone, antenae fully drawn out. She knocked on the wall. “WALL!!”

She sat down in one of the chairs. Equipment covered the table. She swept her arm over it and sent several pieces to the floor.

“Wait,” Adam said, noticing the hole in the floor. “Look down there.”

Ben enters the kitchen walkway and looks into the hole. “It’s just dark and black… and wait, I’m getting some odd energy readings. It’s like there is nothing there, only a few centimeters deep…”

“I bet this is the source of the Vale Devil’s power… from here its energies are emanating.”

“Nt vl dwllr,” fell from Ryan’s mouth, barely.

“NO! This is not some pregnancy thing! Listen! This is my son’s life on the line. I have one report that confirms this as a Wall Dweller! I need to know what it is or my Son WILL Die!”

Ben removed a ghost grenade from his gun holster and drops it into the hole. They heard it explode, but saw nothing. The house rumbled. The lights, which had been off, flickered on and off again.

The hole produced a gust of wind, and out of it came a powerful wind. An eerie blue light lit up the room.

She stood up and paced. Her eyes watered. Ryan, looking up from his position near the floor, watched her bare her teeth and throw the phone to the floor. A beaker shattered, one piece skidding over to Ryan’s finger.

The creature emerged from the whole. Identical to the being in the wall in Ben’s room, and Eirik’s vision. A large translucent blue insect creature, the house shuddered around it.

“What the hell?” Adam cried. “That’s not a Vale Devil!”

“NT Vl DwlLr!!”

“What?” They all said, aiming there guns.

The woman sat down crying as her husband came in to comfort her.

“They all think its just some harmless ghost. Ghosts don’t latch onto people. They don’t suck life energy. He’s going to die, and it’s my fault. We might be next! And it’s all my fault!! Fucking Wall Dwellers. Fuck them and their breeding ground!”

“It’s a Wall Dweller!” Ryan shouts at last, breaking free of the glass shard’s memory.

“A what?” Ben asked, gun still trained. The creature wasn’t moving. Ben looked at Adam for clarity.

“I have no idea! I don’t carry a database in my head.”

“Wall Dweller’s are psychic demons. Non-corporeal.” Cooper appears in the doorway to the master bedroom. “They feed off the mind. They are thought stealers. However, when it comes time to breed, they return to their ancestral homes, where they were born, usually beaches. This species was bred nearly to extinction, few records remain of their existence. Even fewer of them remain period. When they breed… they latch onto one mind, and use it as a way of maintaining partial physical form until the mating is complete.”

“But with so few Wall Dwellers… and the seals on the house…” Ryan said. “It’s stuck here.”

“It’s wanted to leave… but it can’t break free. It is bound to the house… and to its life force source…”

“How do you know all this?” Randi asked… “Why didn’t you tell anyone? This thing tried to kill us!”

“NO! It got confused when it was bound to the house… See, it takes on corporeality by fusing temporarily with real matter. I think… when she bound it, to trap it… she trapped it in the walls! And ever since, its been looking for a mate!”

“You’re mother… sister… Randi!” Ryan gasped.

“Holy shit! What if Danielle’s there now?” Randi exclaims. “Hurt!”

“Cooper… how do you know all this?” Adam asks.

“My mother told me, after the Dweller…”

“…attacked you and made you its life source…” Ben finished. “I can see the line now…” Ben’s goggled eyes moved along the almost invisible path from the mind of the creature to Cooper.

“Oh wow… I see it too,” Ryan said as he focused on the two.

“What if we… severed them and removed the seal?” Randi asked. “Would it leave? I mean… its not attacking us now.”

Ryan drew his dagger and nodded to Ben. Ben puzzled for a second, then drew his own ghost knife. The two approached the tethering line. They raised their blades and stabbed in together. The entire house flashed and filled with blue light. Cooper and the Dweller both cried out in pain.

“Randi! Go open the back door!” Ben shouted.

She turned and ran. The lock wouldn’t give at first, but finally snapped open. The black mark on the glass shone white and vanished into smoke before the door slid open.

As it opened, a rush of air filled the room. The bond between the spirits snapped, and the Wall Dweller sprang through the open door into the night air.

Cooper fell to the floor and almost passed straight through it.

The group breathed a sigh of relief, as the two guys shut off their blades.

“What was that?” Miguel asks, eyeing the room.

“What was what?”

“Thought the house just shook.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

They pause for a bit.

“Danielle?” comes a call from Danielle upstairs.

“Yeah?” she calls back.

“We’re back!”

“Where did you guys go? You left all the lights on! I hate when they do that.”

Randi walks into the room. “Oh, well.. we didn’t leave the house really. And guess what! No more ghost problems!”

“What?” Miguel asks.

“Oh, sorry. Yeah, I’ll tell you later. We’re going to go make grill cheese sandwiches to celebrate!” She turns to leave.

“Ok cool, could you close the door?”

“Oh yeah! Sure!” Randi laughs and pulls it closed behind her.

Steam pours out of the george foreman grill.

“Wow! This is truly amazing!” Adam says, looking at the cooking device.

“You don’t have these in your world?” Randi asks, biting into her sandwhich.

“Not at all!” He exclaims. “Humans are too busy building weapons to build fat reducing grills. Heck, grills are almost unheard of.”

“I’m glad I don’t live there!” she says, mouth full of cheese and bread.

“Its interesting, but certainly not for me,” Ryan adds, opening the grill to check the next set of sandwiches.

“Randi, you want a drink? We got Orange Cream Soda.”

“Sure!” Ben hands her one. “Ya know, thanks for taking me along. That was actually fun. Though I’m sad I didn’t get to discover my superpower.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you will someday,” Ben comforts.

“I could run tests on you in the lab, see what you can do.”

“Thanks Adam, but I’ll pass.” Her eyes open wide and she sucks in air.

“You ok? Burn yourself?” Ryan asks.

“No! I just realized I never did figure out what was wrong at my house! Can I stay here tonight?”

The others laugh. “Sure,” Ben says.

Ryan nods. “Go for it.”

“Yay! Thanks… and can I have another one?”

END