"Help! HELP!" shouted the girl, banging on the hard metal fence that surrounded her prison - the dark, menacing forest. She had a quick look behind her, then returned to calling for help. There was no answer. She looked into the forest again. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was there. Her voice ran out and she started to sob. Whipping out her sketchbook, she quickly scribbled a message on it. She tore out the page and tossed it over the fence. It fluttered over, but then the wind caught it and the note blew back into the forest. There was a noise from in front of her, and she looked up, wondering if her cries had alerted somebody. However, it was not a rescuer that she saw. It was him.

*

Melody, a woman in her late twenties with shoulder-length brown hair and black-rimmed glasses, sighed as she walked out of the office. Sometimes her job as a detective could be exciting, but more often than not it was eight hours of looking through files that had nothing in them. She looked at the pages in her arms that she still had to inspect. Walking round the corner, she saw a well-dressed man with short blonde hair hurrying towards her. He saw her too, but he couldn't stop, and he crashed right into her. Pages flew everywhere as she fell onto the floor with a bump.

"I'm so sorry!" apologised the man quickly.

"Don't worry," sighed Melody again. The man helped her up and they both started collecting the pages from off the floor. "What's the hurry?"

"Ah," said the man, "I have some important pictures addressed to Melody Sakria. Do you know where she is?"

"I am Melody Sakria!" she cried, almost dropping her other papers at the excitement at finally being assigned to an interesting case, "Is it very important?"

"Yes," assured the man, "The pictures were only received a few hours ago. They are rather strange. Here you go, have a look. My name's Mark, by the way. Mark Sonfields."

Melody took the envelope from the man's outstretched hands and took out the photographs. She shuffled through them. The one that most interested her depicted a young girl, wearing a thin white nightgown, lying on some green grass, seemingly dead. However there was no sign of any blood. She almost looked like she was sleeping. Another one showed a dark forest, the moon rising over it, a thin crescent. There were eight in total.

"Who is she? Is the cause of death known?" she asked.

"We've done a search, and we've found out that the girl's name was May Sullivan. We haven't recovered the body so we don't know what the cause of death was. These pictures are all we've got. There was also a framed painting. It's been placed in our new office. I'll show you in a moment."

"How did you get them?"

"A package arrived at the post office specifically addressed to you and me, we don't know why it was us two. Since my name was on the envelope too, we've been assigned to this case together. There was no sign of any return address, and we tested everything thoroughly, but they all seemed normal. There were no fingerprints, not even the tiniest smudge. The envelope is the same one the photos are in now. We included it as evidence anyway."

Carefully Melody placed the photos back in the envelope. She turned the package over, inspecting it carefully, checking every possible surface, sniffing it, feeling it, but it was definitely perfectly normal. She looked at the front. 'Melody Sakria, Mark Sonfields,' it read in spidery handwriting, just as Mark had told her. It appeared to be written with a fountain pen. Tucking the important information behind her other papers, she smiled at Mark.

"Thank you for the information, but don't you need the pictures too?"

"I've copied them, so don't worry. You've been dismissed from your other cases for now as well, so you can concentrate on this. Now let's go to our new office."

Melody followed Mark down the corridor. He led her to where the most important quarters were. He tossed her something small and metal and she skilfully caught it with one hand. She opened her fist to see a silver key.

"One for you and one for me," explained Mark, unlocking the door to the office.

To Melody, it was like stepping into an alternate dimension. The room was furnished generously with two luxury red sofas and a large oak table. Two top-of-the-range computers sat on two more smaller tables along the far wall of the office. An intricate chandelier hung from the ceiling. However there was one item that particularly caught Melody's eye.

It was a drab painting of a dark forest in between the two computers that looked strangely familiar. Melody shuffled through her papers and found the photo she was looking for. She held it up to the painting with a trembling hand. It was an exact match. This painting was of the same forest that May had died in.

"Is this the painting from the envelope?" she queried, slightly nervously.

"Yes," said Mark, "We've discovered that the painting is called 'Mystery Forest', and it was painted by John Lesdern."

"It's identical to this photo. Let's look it up, it could lead to some vital clues," suggested Melody, starting up the computer. Mark did likewise, and they searched the name. They found a website dedicated to the painter and opened it. Scanning the text, Melody found something of interest.

"Hey, it says here that he died over a hundred years ago, and the last painting he ever painted was of 'Mystery Forest'. It doesn't say where the real forest is, though. Look! It's the painting!"

Mark peered over Melody's shoulder as she enlarged the picture. There was no doubt about it. It was the same. "How interesting," Mark mused. She shut the computer down and got up. She looked at the painting again. It was getting late.

"What?" said Melody suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Mark.

"No, it's nothing," dismissed Melody. She took another look at the painting. There was nothing there. For a moment she had thought she had seen a tall man in a suit hiding behind a tree. She gathered up her papers and stood up.

"So what are we going to call this case?" asked Mark.

"The Lesdern Case," replied Melody immediately. Mark nodded.

"Let's go then," he said, "Where do you live?"

"First stop on the train."

"Same! Shall we sit together?"

"Sure."

Melody and Mark left their new quarters, making sure to lock the door behind them. On the train they talked about the case. When they got off, they travelled together, still chatting, until they reached the flat where Melody lived. There they parted ways, waving each other off.

"See you tomorrow," they called.

*

That night Melody's dreams were haunted with the case. Melody felt as if she was the girl, running from an unseen evil. She ran as fast as she could, but her feet felt like sludge and she wasn't getting anywhere. Finally she saw safety - behind a wire fence. He shouts were only answered by the deafening silence that pressed upon her, and there was nobody to help her. She knew that time was running out. She screamed, screamed, screamed...

Melody sat bolt upright in bed. She was still screaming, but slowly, her breathing calmed and her heart gradually stopped racing in her chest. Her head was spinning. What was the evil being she had been running from? Did it have anything to do with the case?

She sighed heavily yet again. Turning over onto her side, she went back to sleep.