We both stood beside each other, motionless. The thunder and lighting created another duet, bathing the room in the ominous flash of the storm momentarily. But that moment was long enough. She vanished in its glow, disappearing without having said a word.

Jake's shaky breathing hadn't calmed, and his wide eyes were glued to mine.

"Wh- So that... Who was she?" Jake asked, his voice cracking.

"I don't know!" I cried. "I started seeing her after the hospital, she's the one you heard me talking-"

I broke off, hit with the sudden shock.

"Wait... did you... see her?" I asked Jake, my voice a trembling whisper now.

Jake nodded, and I fell onto the bed behind me, breathless and shivering. He came to sit beside me, his own body tremors adding to mine. We gawked at each other for several minutes in silence until finally Jake spoke again, his voice calmer than before.

"You said she's the one you were talking to?"

"Yeah," I replied uneasily.

"What, uh, what did you hear, I mean... what did she say?"

I took a settling breath and thought back to that night, remembering her sudden appearance in my bedroom back home. She had said that she needed my help, but I'd never found out what for. That had been the exact moment Jake had burst in, frightened and demanding answers.

"She said she won't hurt me, and wants me to help her," I summarized. "But, Jake, you shouldn't have seen her! That's not your... thing, that's what I do. Why could you see her?"

Jake furrowed his brows, thinking deep, and I sighed. There was something so off, so wrong. Me, feeling the things that Jake had talked about feeling himself, and him, seeing the things that I could? It made no sense, even if we had been born with gifts outside of talents. And that shock, the ringing. By the time I snapped out of my lost thoughts, Jake was watching me as though I had been staring at the hotel carpet pensivly for hours.

"What if we can share?" He asked when he saw that I'd finally noticed him.

"What?"

"You know, like, you share your ability with me, and I share mine. What if..." He trailed off, his eyes widening again as the light bulb went off in his head. "Oh, my god! What if that's it! We have some kind of connection, but it only works if we maintain skin contact!"

I started shaking my head, and his face grew frustrated. "Jake... we've hugged countless times, we-"

"Maybe it only works in the palm of our hands!" He insisted.

"Ok, look-"

"No, listen! I know it sounds crazy-"

"Yeah!"

He grabbed my arm, as if determined to experiment. When nothing happened after a few seconds, he let go and went on determinedly. "You didn't feel anything just now, right?"

I shook my head.

And then, just like he had before, he grabbed my hand. The shock and ringing started up instantly, and I winced in agitation and tried to pull my hand away. Jake held it there, gazing into my eyes with a look so fierce I went still. And then, again, the ringing and static pain stopped. And a gush of emotions hurled through me like a tidal wave. But not just feelings, blurry visions that were indistinct and imprecise.

Slowly, the visions cleared, though the feelings, they were stronger. Nostalgia, a strange mix of colors that reminded me of our house. Grief, a barely distinguishable photo of mom and dad. And then, it was like he could feel what I felt, too. Shock, and a barely understandable outline of his face. Guilt, and my own memories were pulsing through me, knowing I'd tried my best but never feeling it was enough. And then-

I trembled so hard that the whole bed shook, and I yanked my hand away. The piercing scream and the cold dark was not something I wanted to think about, ever again. Nor did I want to remember the tall, lank, skeletal form of Toto, or whatever voice had taunted me in the pitch dark with no body or face to put to it.

Jake suddenly hugged me so tightly that I gasped, and then he pulled back, and his eyes were so concerned that I wanted to grip him in a hug of my own and tell him it would be alright.

"You really can see them, can't you." He said quietly. "You saw... it. Him."

"Yes." I said.

Jake swallowed harshly before replying. "Reagan... that other thing. What was it? I didn't recognize it. Was it some kind of form of his or something?"

I tried not to shudder again as my mind fought to suppress that memory but answered him. "I don't know. I haven't even seen whatever... it... was or is, I don't... I haven't got a clue."

"Is that why, before when you were... what do you remember from before you passed out?" He asked.

"Well," I reluctantly tried to call back the moments beforehand, and then jumped. "Micheal! There was a call from Micheal! And I was listening to his voicemail, he was saying something about staying away from someone and... the whole message was a mess, full of static. I couldn't make it out."

"Do you still have it? Mind if we listen to it now?" He offered helpfully.

"Sure," I said. "But you won't decipher the thing, if that's what you're expecting. It's all garbled and messed up."

Jake walked over to his bag, opened it, and pulled out the dust-covered old diary. Walking back to my side, he grinned slightly. "I'm a pro at garbled and messed up now."

I let out a small scoff of a laugh, and then pulled out my cellphone. Going back to the voicemail, I found Micheal's message and hit play.

"I know you-- me, but Reagan Cobblestone, you need to--. Stay away fr-- Sa-- he's the-- and--. You're i-- do you hear me?" The static-filled message played again, this time around without the piercing pain or loss of consciousness.

Jake straightened himself up, eager, and said, "Play it again."

"What? But, Jake, this doesn't-"

"There's sense somewhere in that gibberish. We just have to find it." He asserted. "Play it."

"Ok," I sighed, doubtful.

The message played again, and when it finished, I felt no closer to solving the mystery than before. Nothing new had been revealed, the message hadn't mysteriously changed. It was a lost cause, and I was about to tell Jake so.

"Listen-"

"Mnh-mnh," He cut me off. "Did you hear that, that last time? The hissing in the background?"

"No?" I muttered, losing energy then just as suddenly as I had the first time I'd heard the message. "Can we talk about this later? I am so tired."

"Play it one more time." He bargained. "I think... something else was in this with him, talking in the background. That's why it's all messed up."

I groaned and let my head fall onto the bed, exhausted.

"Reagan, please." Jake begged.

"Fine," I growled, sitting back up and hitting play again.

This time, however, the message played, and I tried to listen carefully. To find some hint of the hissing that Jake was hearing. And it was there. So faint, you could barely hear it unless it was dead quiet. Whispered, like the kind of EVP you expect from a ghost show. Two words in-between Micheal's plea, but they were clear in their intent.

"Find... her..."

I gasped and dropped the phone, wanting it to be as far away from me as possible. That voice, in a voice message from somebody who'd had barely anything to do with things, was impossible not to recognize. How many nightmares had I had of him? How many times had Jake spoken, but it wasn't Jake. It was that voice. Toto.

My lips quivered, and my vision blurred as I felt my whole body run cold with dread. This feeling as if I had fucked up so bad and was going to die. Jake grabbed me and pulled me into a sideways hug, and I sobbed. I felt my head fall onto his shoulder and cried myself to sleep.

When I woke, Jake had left for his own hotel bed, and I was lying under the covers of the one we'd sat on. The storm was still raging outside, and the clock on the nightstand said that it was 4:52am. I sat up, parched, and starving, and was about to head out in search of food when it happened for the second time.

The piercing scream filled my head, the ringing filled my ears, and I was sucked into the deep abyss so fast it was confounding. I could feel the tears running down my eyes, and I tried desperately to catch my breath. This time, it was as though there was water under my feet. Water that you could see, and hear, but just like in a dream, you couldn't feel it. You could try, but you couldn't touch it. I stood up in an attempt to get my bearings, and relaxed just a little when no sound of pursuit followed. I must be safe. I thought. For now.

I walked forward a little, the black so dark I couldn't be sure if I was going in a coherent direction. Hell, I didn't even know if I was going up or down. All I knew was that I needed to move. I had to find Jake, get out of here. Somehow.

A little ways away, I abruptly heard a voice calling for me. Desperate, urgent, and yet so far away. And with no light or path to guide me, I could only rely on my sense of hearing to lead me to whoever it was. The voice was so faint it was unfeasable to try and figure out whose voice it was.

"Hello?" I cried in frenzy, running as fast as was manageable in the dreamlike water.

The voice somehow got farther, and though I was trying my best to catch up to the unknown person calling out for me, I was also using up all of my stamina and getting defeatedly tired. Anymore running and I'd pass out in a place of danger and darkness.

And then, just like that first time, I heard the sickening crunch of bone. Many bones, snapping all at once, as though cracking from years of having not moved, and decayed with age. I panted, my hands on my knees, clueless and out of energy.

But just then, the voice came back, and not only that, but it got louder, like the volume blaring after minutes of whispered dialog. "REAGAN?!"

"Jake!" I screamed, both terrified and overjoyed to hear his voice in this place. "Jake! I'm here! Can you hear me? I'm here! Where are you?"

In a last ditch effort, I ran again. Not a full out sprint, but a breathless hobble toward the sound of his voice, so close he could've been feet from me. However, in response, whatever was stalking me moved again too. It charged after me, and I shrieked as I sped up too fast and tripped over myself, falling to the should-be wet ground.

As I tried to get back up, the darkness suddenly lightened. I could see. Of course, there might as well have been no light. All around me was a blank, empty void again. Nothing but nothing. And on the ground beneath me, a strange water that shimmered in the light, yet cast no reflection.

"REAGAN!"

Jake's voice shrilling desperately through the air from right next to me was like a shot of adrenaline. I jerked awake, as if from the deepest sleep I'd ever had, but I wasn't in bed anymore. I was lying sideways, choking on spit that was trapped in my throat and smeared all over my face. And Jake's face was so close to mine that I could even see the slight freckles on his cheek that had faded since birth.

I was so dizzy and confused that I couldn't understand just where I was, and it took me a moment to blink myself steady and speak.

"Why am I on the floor?" I gasped out, trying to sit up.

"No, don't move!" Jake grabbed me and held me down gently. "Are you ok?"

Though my head was spinning, I tried to think in an orderly fashion. I pushed Jake off me, but allowed him to help me back onto the bed. After he had ran and grabbed me a glass of water, he sat down next to me and couldn't seem to stop shaking.

"Drink," He ordered as I held the glass and stared at it. "Now tell me what the hell happened."

I took gulps of water, and then set the glass down on the bedside table. I knew he wasn't going to let me avoid it, I knew I should want to avoid it, but at the moment I couldn't think what it was.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "Just had a bad dream is all. I think. I don't remember."

Jake scoffed disbelievingly.

"Honest!" I argued.

"Reagan, that's not what happened! You we- were fucking screaming! And I woke up and found you on the floor freaking out! I couldn't get you to wake up for fifteen minutes!"

"What?" I frowned, trying to figure out why I had no knowledge of any of this.

"Did you see him again?" Jake demanded. "Did you?"

"No!"

"Well, then, explain, Reag! Explain, or I'm calling Father Morison and-"

"Stop!" I yelped.

Softly, a woman's voice was wheeping in our bathroom. I looked at Jake, flabbergasted. Following an instinct that was alien to me, I grabbed his hand. He shivered, and then froze.

"D- do you hear her?" I whispered, having no idea how sharing a gift worked.

Jake's eyebrows curved into themselves, and then he slowly looked toward the bathroom too.

"A woman, crying?" He asked so quietly I could barely hear him.

"Yes!" I whispered back.

Together, we stood up and made our way at a snails pace to the bathroom. The wheeping continued, though it sounded as though the woman was now taking in lungfuls of air in an attempt to catch her breath. When we reached the door, Jake looked to me uncertainly.

I opened the door halfway, letting it slide toward the wall on its own, and there, in the corner of the room, was a woman. Unremarkable, and not at all threatening like I'd gotten used to. She was just... a woman. Her tear-filled face turned to us as we stood in the doorway, trying to understand why she was so familiar, why her face looked so distantly recognized in my mind. After a few seconds, I blurted out.

"It's you!"

"ES LA NAVE DE DEMONIOS!" She wailed, and then fell to the floor, wheeping again. "Es... es la nave de demonios. Por favor... libérame. Por favor..."

As I made to kneel in front of the woman, the very woman I had seen killed by Toto at the grocery store, she suddenly shrieked in a piercing echo and vanished. As she did, Jake jerked me from the room and yelled "Jesus!"

"What? What does she mean? I don't understand." I mumbled, a crushing sadness taking over.

Jake held up his phone fearfully, his browser opened to translate.

"It is the ship of demons. Please. Free me. Please."