We stop. The world stops. The cold scream ripped through the air. My jacket was up and on in seconds. David by my side as we rushed out into the hallway. I'm met with Daisy also peeking out of the doorway.

"You heard that right?" She asks worriedly.

"Yes," I pause, feeling the cold night. "Kiki..." My feet begin running down the hall reacking Kiki's door. A big hatch lock is bolted onto her door.

"Danny, what the hell are you doing?" David calls after me but I ignore him. The bobby pin from my hair is in the lock in seconds clicking away. It felt like I was in a cheesy cartoon picking the lock. But ever since those cartoons were etched into my mind I set out on a mission to learn how. Now look where we are.

The lock rattles and clunks to the ground. The door opens and I face her room stripped bare. Only the evidence of her desk, pills, and the floors were left untouched. Her window was shut, caution tape plastered to the sides. I duck under and step up on the ledge working my hands with the lever to open the windows.

"Danny!" I see David and Daisy in the doorway both with confusion and faces.

Contorted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He yells at me as I push the door open wide feeling a brisk wind slap my skin.

"I'm getting Kiki, go get Connan now!" I demand. My feet are outstretched onto the steady branch.

"Let me come!" He shouts back over the rustling of the leaves and howling wind.

"No, get Connan! Please." I look back at his hesitant face, his muscles were tense and rigid. His eyes are still on mine. "Please" I repeat. He turns and goes.

"Danny, wait but they have people searching for her" Day steps around the white chalk lines and braces herself along the squeaky floorboards.

"How do you think a delusional person is going to react with a million guns pointing at their head." I hiss struggling to grab hold of a tower branch. She now is overlooking the window ledge as I shimmy down the tree nearing the ground. The three branches were thinner and more bouncy near the bottom. I hopped onto one of them feeling it wiggle under my weight. I let out a stifled yelp. Nervously I shift my shoe to the next branch and let myself fall onto it. I was about three feet from the ground before hearing the echo of the creek and snap of the branch. I land with an alarmingly loud thump, pain is covered by adrenaline.

"Shit!" I groan.

"Danny, oh my god! Are you okay?" Daisy yells from the second floor window. I signal her with a silent thumbs up as I hop back on my feet. "If Conan asks, tell him to go alone to try and find me."

I ran out into the woods making my way out to a shed that lay just outside the gate. I wrap my hands around the cold black bars and wedge my feet in between the slits and pull myself up. Yanking my shoe free from the tight and skinny slots. The doors to the shed had been closed and locked. A sticker on the door was labeled.

CSPD: Colorado State Police Department

I rubbed my finger over the lock rattling the door to see if it would budge. I ventured a bit farther finding a thick, but small log. Dragging the damn thing back to the locked set of doors made me lose my breath. Taking in the cold air as it rushed into my lungs. Frost nipped the cold pine needle that stuck out from small branches. The recent cold had pushed a blush on my cheeks and nose. A soft and rosy red. I placed the log beneath me and stood on it. I peeked through the window above. A line of gardening tools were hooked on a wall with an old cork board. Labels had been ung above each tool. A hoe, rake, hammer, axe, screwdrivers, drill, garden knife, spade, and a...

Shovel?

The shovel was missing? Why? Why would she need a shovel? What would she use it for? Then it hit me. What was she trying to dig up?

The ideas sprouted into my mind. I was scared. The possibilities. What would she want to dig up? What was buried on the grounds of Morningstar Academy besides the graves of the Morningstar family?

The last puzzle piece clicked for me.

She's digging up someone's grave? But who's?

I pulled the red jacket closer to me wiping it tightly around myself. The graves were in a cleared out field far away from the campus.

Only a small cobblestone path led to the graves. It was surrounded by trees in a circle. A white picket fence had surrounded the holy place. As I recall from memory when we entered the ground for Vicky's funeral it was guarded by a man I don't know his name. All I know is that when he took my ticket from my hand his skin had felt dry and scaly.

The stone path came into sight. The path had strayed from the trimmed garden. The path was long and had not been used since the thousands of people gathered round leading to the white tent where a girl lay dead and cold in her coffin.

The clicking of my heel on my boots echoed in the empty forest. Snow began to fall harder, it was no longer a light sprinkle.

Heavy flakes picked up and fell in big piles. The trees are shaking in the soft wind. No birds were in the forest. I was alone, alone with only my mind, my thoughts to keep me company. The eerie silence made me paranoid. At the slighted change in sound I froze up ready to spin and face the enemy.

The snow began to fall harder, the wind picking up. The trees shived with me as my skin turned pale and red from the cold. The path was coming to an end. I had been walking for at least fifteen minutes. I heard no barking dogs and scouts from the police force.

No flashlights shined through the cracks of the forest. It was me, Kiki, and the bodies that watched from below. I saw the gates as the snow was piled on top of them. The soft and fragile flakes crunched under my boots.

The post seemed abandoned. I rubbed my eyes noticing I could barely feel them. The flakes on my lashes melted and I could see clearly again. The small building had the door open, the glass window was shattered.

A blunt force had been taken to it. I could only see so much from a distance. My heart began to pound. As I edged closer I feared what else I could see. It seemed the man was not here, he must have been off duty? Right?

Yet as I stood only a few feet away the door was swung open I could see that the man was in fact still there.

Only his grumpy complexion and body was covered in blood. Sticky blood. It fell in streams from a place on his head, red, cold, blood. It stained his skin and uniform as small gusts of wind kept small snowflakes pinching his skin. His body was splayed out awkwardly. But the soft rise and fall of his chest assured me. Fog had rolled in from the thick misty atmosphere of Colorado. The winters here were the coldest. And the murders...

The hardest to solve...

His hands were grouped around a radio. He was trying to call for help.

Kiki was here.

I cautiously walked up to the entrance. More paths were split straying to each grave. An interconnected path system. I kept walking down the main path reaching the center. My voice was caught in my thoughts. I wanted to call out for Kiki, but I knew if I did I could be asking for more than I wanted. The snow was now at least an inch thick. The wind blowing harshly slapping my face. Dead and dry flowers litter along the grounds. But in the dim light I see living roses and peonies. A gust of wind blew through the clearing. The mist evaporated and was taken to another place. I could make out a figure in the dark. The few oiled lamplights casting an ominous glow around the area. My confidence blushed and I called out.

"Kiki?" The figure's head turned. What did I just do?

I walked closer as if to test fate itself. Every step I took came closer to the possibility of interacting with a psychopath. What was happening in Kiki's mind? I blinked through the storm of falling snow. A shovel was by her side leaning on a grave. I read the engraved words.

Violet Ann Morningstar

I remembered the letters, Vi, said she could help me. But Vicky was dead?

"Oh Danny!" Her words came out excited but urgent. Her eyes stared into mine, her complexion like a sick and ravaged dog. I step back. "She's dead Kiki!" I shout "What the hell are you doing!"

"Oh, you don't understand, they need to stop! Vi told me she could make them stop!" She screamed the last words at me. I saw blood on the shovel. Yet I kept my eyes level.

"Just calm down!" I am relieved.

"No!" She drops to her knees pulling at her hair. "Stop!" I step back again as she relapses into a fit. I see the dirt next to the pile. I look down gulping in a deep cold breath.

"Oh my god." I gasp and stumble backwards. Kiki had dug up Vi's grave. The coffins lid had been propped open.

"She won't tell me!" Kiki screams at her dead body.

"Tell you what?"

"How to stop them, please, Vi, tell me!" She yells again.

"Who are they?" I ask in an attempt to calm her down.

"Don't you see them!" She throws her hands in the air and then curls into a ball covering her ears. I look around helpless. What did she mean? No one is here but us!

The coffins lid had been dented and cracked from the pointed tip of the shovel.

"It hurts Danny! It hurts!" She gasps and stands up reaching for her shovel. I inch closer.

"It's okay Kiki, please just put it down." Kiki turns to me, tears streaming down her face.

"Wake up!" She screams and raises her hands to the sky.

Someone was bound to hear us by now. I see Kiki's shadow being illuminated, I turn and see small rays of light peeking through the dense forest. I hear it now. Faint voices.

Kiki drops the shovel.

"Why did you bring them!" She yells to my face, skipping flying from her mouth.

"They tell me I'm crazy! Danny, why did you bring them to me!"

"You're not crazy, and they are here to help!" I desperately tell her, waiting for the voices to come nearer. But they still are far away.

"No one can help me." Her voice began soft and crazed. She smiled at me. It reminded me of a clown at the old amusement parks from the 90's. She turned her head from Vi, to me. I can hear the voices calling out now. I whip around to see Conan running towards me.

"Danny!" He calls out. But I hear another voice. David.

"Just trust me." I say again. "Please." She reaches behind her.

"Why!" She yells

My breath hitches as the snow starts to slow down. Everything is frozen. I focus on nothing but the gun pointed at me. I breathe heavily feeling my heart pump like a star shooting across the sky.

"I can't trust anyone!" Her last words crack sending a pain filled voice right into my ears. Then she fiers. The noise rockets into my ear.

But Connan fires too.

I guess I couldn't duck fast enough.

Pain.

Darkness.

Red.

That's all I can see.

But then I can't see anything.