Booker rocked back on his heels, breathless, covered in sweat, soaked, with the barrel of his pistol pressed against the side of his head, his finger on the trigger. He’d thumbed back the hammer already (impossibly loud).

Seeing his reflection distorted in a dust-streaked mirror, he stumbled back and dropped the weapon. The gun discharged, hitting the floor, and clattered away. The gunshot filled the room like the shout of a wrathful god. The mirror shattered, the bullet splintering it to shards. Backpedaling, Booker tripped over the bottom step and splayed the staircase upwards. He stared at a lone angle of age-fogged glass still gilt-framed across the room; he stared at the image of his own eyes.

(do you remember—)

(“you’re going to be—”)

(—nobody was ever really okay)

He used a smooth wooden railing to pull himself up. His legs felt weak, his knees, unsteady. He took off his glasses and polished the lenses with a flap of untucked shirt. He looked away from the mirror-shard before putting them back on again.

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He felt sick. His vision blurred and tunneled. His heart beat at his ribs like a desperate prisoner. He needed five things he could see. He needed five things. He saw—

In the basement of a dead man’s house, someone had built a shrine. A once-white sheet covered a piled pyramid of totes and crates. At its peak, an antique box sat, lid open like split jaws, old wood painted with white-out. At the foot of the dais, a spread of objects extended across the floor; one for each known Slasher victim…plus a couple more.

Booker fought to steady his breathing. He stood near the shrine, left arm locked, leaned against a dusty wall. He heard…nothing. His pulse drummed his temples, echoed in his skull. He heard…

A stair creaked.

Pushing away from the wall, Booker spun around.

“Christ,” Virgil muttered, a non-standard-issue pistol clutched in his hands. “Scared the shit outta me.”

“Virgil?” Booker asked, somehow shocked to see the man.

“I heard the gunshot. What happened?”

“I…” Booker trailed off. What the hell had just happened? “The back door was open. I thought you’d gone in already.”

Virgil’s gaze fell to the pistol on the ground. Lifted to the gilt-framed shard of glass. Drifted to the shrine. “What the hell…?”

“Yeah,” Booker muttered, still short of breath. When had he put the gun to his head? He hadn’t. He’d found someone…. Who? The minutes that had passed between the house’s back door and basement disintegrated like dreams. “Uh…yeah. I think this is pretty concrete evidence, right here.”

Virgil thumbed the safety lever on his big-mouthed pistol. He walked slowly toward the center of the room, keeping a distance from the sheet-cloaked pyramid next to Booker. “If it wasn’t for the fog, I’d say…” he hesitated. Holstered his pistol. Brushed his lips with his fingers. “Hell with it. We have to call this in. We need people down here yesterday.”

“We needed people down here forty years ago.”

“Only radio I brought is in the car,” Virgil said. “We’ll have to make the call, then circle back and secure the scene.”

Booker’s gaze had fallen on something from which it could not again arise.

How?

(because I rem—)

(—I chose you)

“Book?”

His ears rang. The basement blurred around him. The old puzzle cube seemed to glow from within; it seemed to crackle with restrained energy. He saw nothing else. On one face, four-by-four, all but a single square throbbed red. Did a heart beat inside of it?

“John!” Virgil grabbed him across the chest.

Booker blinked. He’d walked into the array of objects and had started to reach out toward one. A puzzle cube. How? His ears—

“John!” Virgil shouted again.

John Bowman Booker stumbled back, dazed. Virgil let go of him. The two men hovered near each other, unbalanced.

“What the hell was that?” Virgil sputtered. “Did you come all this way just to touch the fucking evidence?”

“No, I…” Booker pulled off his glasses, rubbed his face. Why had he reached for the—the thing? “I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s been a weird night.”

“Always is, with the fog. Now come on.”

Booker glanced only briefly over his shoulder as he—

a s c e n d e d

—the stairwell.