The investigation

The wind caused the flowing organza curtains to billow as it passed through the shattered window. Broken glass littered the room, a blanket of chaos, sharp and dangerous. Through the window, tall pristine buildings could be seen. His attention was not on the view but on the mess around him. Something had happened here, in this house on the hill, something strange and he was not sure what.

Glass crunched underfoot as he surveyed the room. A jovial squeak, completely out of place startled him. On the floor a rubber toy, a space alien stared up at him. Any other time and he might have smiled, startled by a toy. But something was not right, there was a feeling of dread, hanging n the air. Something bugged him about the toy but he could not put his finger on it. He tried to put it out of his mind, this niggling feeling, but it was insistent.

Shifting his focus from the toy, he tried to make sense of what happened. The police had been and gone, the family had then called him in. He was always called in cases that had supernatural leanings. The séance that had been held in this room needed his attention. He tried to piece together the evening.

He stood still, like a statue in the middle of the room. He let his mind roam free while he centred his power. He felt the shift as he stepped forward in his mind. He was not able to explain to others what he did, no one would believe him anyway. He was able to step from his body, not in a physical way. Out of his body he was able to finally ignore the pain in his knee, his headache disappeared and he knew his body was resting and healing.

Applying more focus he watched the glass on the floor vibrate, shimmering and shaking. His eyes narrowed as his concentration intensified. The shimmering steadied and the glass all around him began to glide smoothly from him. In reality it was still on the floor, what he saw was a shadow of the past. He caused the flow to speed up, glass danced through the air catching the light. He turned towards the window but too late.

It was already whole, but a dark shadow was the other side of the glass. He walked slowly forward, concentration causing a bead of sweat to form at his brow. The he willed focus and clarity but as always he was me with resistance. There was always a fuzziness about the visions he saw, it was worse as time wore on. It was as if time itself started to forget what had happened. He was at the window now.

He focused again, and nearly screamed aloud. Snapping into clarity just for a split second was pure evil. Blackness clung to it, darkness was it's armour, and without wings it flew. It had short dark hair all over its body with one exception, the talons, which were wickedly sharp looking. The size of this creature was around four feet tall, not imposing but still terrifying. Looking at this shade of the past, he felt his legs turn to jelly. Never had he encountered anything like this, he knew he should get out of there and right now. Something caused him to pause though, that niggling feeling he was missing something.

Turning around slowly, he searched the room for the source of his concern. He just could not seem to scratch that itch. He relaxed his mind and started to step back to his body. As he felt the broken glass beneath his feet once more it realisation hit him. He knew. He had to get out of the room and fast. It was darker now, the sun was sinking over the horizon, how long had he been absent from his body?. Running now, through the door, he heard laughter behind him. Mocking and twisted, the sound followed behind him.

The squeaky toy not in the room before the glass had broken. He remembered again the sound it had made as he stood on it. No longer did it seem jovial, now it seemed sinister and out of place. It had niggled at him because the occupants of this flat had no pets or children, why did they have a toy? He was breathing hard, fear held his lungs in a vice. Through the kitchen he ran, towards the door. Glass smashed and red splattered the wall in front of him. He did not stop, stopping was death. He crashed through the door, relieved it was not his blood but rather red wine that stained the wall.

Turning he new what he would see, evil stood before him in the doorway. Talons flexing as it seemed to weigh up options for attack. It smiled revealing a row of sharp pointy teeth, it mocked him with its laughter as it took a step towards him.....