Nightmares Vs Magic

"If my phone had any signal, I'd be taking a picture of this and sending it to someone back at the agency to do research on." Laurence said, still taking a picture of the idea anyway. His hand was covered in soot, all the way past his wrist and almost reaching his elbow.

Dove thought and then looked up. 

There were other rooms throughout the house. A washroom, a bedroom, and a locked door. Dove alerted Laurence that she'd be checking the washroom first. 

There was no mirror, and the only sign that there used to be a mirror is the glue on the walls right above the sink. Dove rubbed her hands over the glue, noticing how dusty it was. The natural kind of dust, not one caused by having dirt thrown over it. She opened a drawer and found a crumpled-up ball of paper. 

Unraveling it revealed a little letter in some sort of controlled handwriting. The writer knew how to write the letters in a computer-like way to avoid revealing his style of handwriting. 

'You are Simon Atkinson, a man who has known about these strange monsters that few people can see. You could see them for years

This is because you have been blessed to see the truth and are tasked with studying them. The ones around you can be tamed, but you need to remember how. 

The mysterious monsters can only give you more data if they have more people to interact with. If they are bothering you, that is because they are hungry. 

As the sole resident of the island, you have to figure out how to feed them.'

She folded it up neatly and put in her pocket, checking the other drawers. 

In the sink cabinet was a toothbrush that was carelessly tossed in there, along with messy, scribbled drawings made in pencil. Dove picked one up, recognizing the child-like drawing of being similar to the upright deers that were seen earlier.  

The bathtub had the shower curtain pulled over it. She pushed it back and hummed. 

The bathtub was full of water, and in the water were things like hard drives, USB, two burner phones, and a laptop. She was about to reach and fish it out, but Laurence's hand came out and stopped her. 

"We have no idea what's in that water." He told her, taking his phone out to take a photo of the items instead.

"Don't go to the bedroom, there's only illicit magazines there. Mind helping me unlock the mystery room instead?"

"Oh, okay."

They went down the little hall and found the locked door. It had been poorly painted over, almost matching the color of the wall. If someone were being chased and running down the hall, they'd have missed it. 

Dove did the usual of unlocking the door, but the lock wouldn't budge. Laurence gave it a try, ended up breaking the doorknob, and opted to pushing at the door and looking at the inner edges. 

"Oh, someone caulked it shut." He noticed just through the tiny crack in between the door and its frame, the white, dried-up glue substance.

"Good thing caulk isn't actually a good adhesive. It deteriorates over time." He told Dove as stepped back. 

He rammed his shoulder into the door this time and made it crack open further. The cracking of wood came from the lock part of the door, which stayed in place while being torn from the wood. 

"So what type of glue was used for that?" 

In order to find out more, Laurence pushed the door open further until it swung open, the lock part now separated from its body and still stuck to the frame. 

Now looking inside and able to see the other side of the lock, a grey, dried up substance could be seen. But even that was beginning to crack loose.

"J.B. Welder glue." He answered. 

The study room was small and had a desktop computer, but all the wires were cut, the keyboard and mouse broken. 

"Someone went insane." Laurence let out a low whistle at the mess. 

The drawers had papers with handwriting. Attempts to write something before the writer gave up and scribbled over it. Similar attempts were made but they were torn up and littered the floors. 

Dove checked the other drawers and found magazines on how to start a vegetable garden, the pages torn. Then when she stands up and looks to the door where they came in, she sees on the wall beside the door was a bulletin board. 

Pinned to the bulletin board by thumbtacks was an invitation to come to this island, coordinates and a summarized map of the place. The island is remote and is owned by someone who gave out an anonymous offer to come and stay on this island as a caretaker. The date at the corner of the invitation showed that the deadline for accepting the offer was nearly a year ago. 

Laurence looked through the printer beside the desktop and opened the paper drawer. There were only five copies inside with the same flyer designs. The person who put them in there was creating double-sided flyers, but left five pages inside, likely getting the numbers off. 

'Come and explore a remote island! Rumors of haunted houses and an old lighthouse await!' It said in big, bold, advertisement worthy font.

"Everything is so much clearer now." Laurence said. 

He looked up and saw Dove taking the invitation down and looking at the back. There was another letter in the same handwriting she found on the crumpled paper. 

'It must be so hard, seeing monsters and not knowing why. But you're not alone. What if I told you that there are more people out there just like you? If you want to figure out how to meet these people, I can help you. You just have to do exactly as I say. 

Below is a number you can contact me through but only temporarily. Send me your progress and if you do a good job, I'll reward you.'

"This person is terrible at getting rid of evidence." Dove said as she folded all the evidence up neatly and put it in the briefcase. 

"But at least this makes it easier for us." The detective told her as he also gave her the ID they found, to add to the collected evidence.

They then suddenly heard several crashes and left the study room. It was a very muffled set of sounds coming from the basement, but Laurence decided to investigate, beckoning Dove to follow him down to the basement to find the others. 

"By the way, this is just a one-time thing, but the next time you see a person that looks like me and he's asking you to come down a basement with him, first make sure that it's actually me, and that I'm not possessed. I'll come up with a code-word later- but for now, we have some people to find."

In the basement, they realized why it was taking the sirens so long. 

Similar to the archives at Macabre House, the room was less like a room and more like a tunnel system built by a person who either lived through World War two and hated it or fully believed in the apocalypse. 

The room they first walked into had shelves and racks of canned food and other non-perishables. Past those isles was a metal that was also left open by their teammates, leading into a bunker room. The bunk beds were used, as evidenced by the wrinkled sheets and messy blankets. There was a small bathroom area, quickly avoided, and then a little kitchenette area next to the beds. 

"That is adorable." Dove said as they passed it when seeing another door. 

"Oh, I didn't know you liked minimalist things like that."

"It's less space to clean up after cooking, and much more efficient to maintain."

More crashing sound were heard, along with sets of voices, and in the next room was where they found out why it had been taking so long.  

The room couldn't even be considered a regular one, more like a long corridor that you just so happened could see the end of. Were it completely dark, a person who didn't know about the room would run down, thinking it was a corridor, before hitting the wall, realizing they were cornered in the dark, and then get killed by whatever was chasing them. 

Puppets, or marionettes of sorts that mimicked the bodies of women. Nearly lifelike in proportions and size, save for some of their limbs. Some dolls had sickles instead of hands. Other had dozens of needles instead of teeth in their mouths, and chunks missing at the ankles. But the one, disturbing feature that all of them had were voice boxes in their necks, emitting the sounds of girls screaming and crying for help. Records played on loop. 

Callius, exhausted and clearly upset, looked down at the broken doll that had attempted to kill him earlier, now laying on the ground with no way to get. He had broken all its limbs to get it to stop attacking him.

The gentleman lifted his foot and stomped hard on the voice box in the doll's neck, stopping the looped 'cry for help' recording. 

"It was a trap." Calder leaned against the least dirtiest wall in the room, clutching his bleeding forearm. 

"There was noise coming all the way from this room, deepest room in the property." He said with ragged breath as he winced, squeezing the large laceration. 

There was another, smaller laceration on his face but he didn't have an extra hand to apply pressure on that wound, and Callius didn't want to infect his wound since his hands were covered in ichor and also has small cuts. There was also a laceration on his thigh that he refused to acknowledge, even when the blood was darkening the shade of his already black pants. You couldn't tell how much he was bleeding until you took a brisk look at the red blood streaks down his ankle. 

Laurence cursed under his breath. Dove searched through her briefcase for a medical kit and went up to Calder, asking him to sit.

"Christ your hands are cold!" He jolted when she put a hand on his skin, catching her off guard.

He quickly apologized and she assured him that she wouldn't pay it any mind as she sterilized and dressed his wound. 

"How do you know how to do this?" Calder couldn't help but ask her as she knew which ointments to use to clean his wound, and he watched her dress his wound professionally. 

Dove stayed silent, before simply telling him that she just knows a lot of convenient things for emergencies. 

He could hear her heartbeat. She was not lying, and so he did not ask further. 

"You both will need stitches when we get back." She said before finishing up the knot on his bandage wraps and was about to go up and help Callius with his. 

He raised a hand up, gesturing for her to pause before coming closer. 

"It's okay. Mine's not that bad."

"The ones on your hands? Perhaps, but the huge laceration on your leg? No. Your blood is about to flood your shoe, and your entire pant leg is one hour closer to looking like you exploded your varicose vein."

"How,,, do you know that term?" He asked, caught off guard, not expecting her to know that much medical terms. 

"How about you put on a coat?" Laurence said as he reached to get the aid kit from her. 

He pointed to her briefcase, letting her know there was a coat in there too. He kept staring until Dove took out the coat and put it on and was then given a task by Callius as Laurence wrapped up his wound. 

He instructed Dove to use a flashlight and her baton, shapeshift it into a tool of any kind, and use it to remove all of the voice boxes from the other dolls. The recordings were smaller, dimmer now, but the sirens had sensitive ears, and the content of the recordings were still bothering them. 

As Dove got to work, removing as many as she could while Laurence wrapped up the long cut on Callius' thigh, they heard a different sound. Laurence looked over to check if Dove accidentally triggered one of the voice boxes into emitting a rumbling sound, but she showed that the sound wasn't coming from any of the dolls. 

She listened as well, and then Calder alerted them that the sound was coming from up above. He got up and pulled Dove with him, moving both of them out of the way as he could hear the sound getting closer. 

The ceiling could be seen shaking silently, and then rumbling audibly, before cracks could be seen and Laurence stood up, ready to pull his gun out. 

A huge chunk of the ceiling was broken off and fell to the ground, revealing a paw with big claws reaching in and retracting. A snout then appeared, poking in to sniff around the new hole the creature made. Laurence frowned and stepped closer as Calder held an arm out in front of Dove. 

"Ursa?" Laurence took a guess and called out. 

The snout retracted and calm, monotone voice replied. 

"Did you finally give in to your dark thoughts and bury yourself?"

"Dove cover your ears please." He said over his shoulder instantly. 

Dove covered her ears, and he glared up at the hole in the ceiling that was now revealing some moonlight, as if he could already see Ursa. He took a deep breath.

"One. Don't bring up anything about my dark thoughts, I haven't had one for a few months now, let's forget it. Two. How many hellhounds do you have? Because unless they can dig a bigger hole, we can just get out through the way we came in."

A humming sound was heard, and then a whistle as Ursa summoned the attention of the hellhounds she currently had out. One was standing beside her over the ground where the tunnel room was, others were sniffing about. 

She called for her dogs and instructed them to dig into the already-made hole that the first hound made. 

The hounds dug and made the hole bigger, and then some small items were dropped down. Confusing to look at upon first glance, until they all soon realized the items were peach pit seeds as they suddenly grew and sprouted, growing roots and taking up space. Laurence and the others backed up further as the roots grew more and more until there was a very oddly shaped peach tree in the room, reaching up past the ceiling. 

Dove's pupils widened and when she looked up, she smiled. 

"Vernon?" 

Laurence helped her climb up first, realizing that the shape of the tree oddly resembled stairs. Vernon peeked his head out from behind the branches as he gave Dove a small smile and a wave. 

"Where's Merel?" Callius asked, climbing up the steps next. 

Laurence had Calder go up after and he climbed out of the basement last after ensuring nothing was missing and all the dolls weren't moving. He still had a hand hovering over his gun holster, waiting for one of them to twitch. 

"She found five survivors that were kept prisoner in a cave, all women. The eldritch deer caught them and gathered them together for reasons she never figured out, because she killed all of them." Ursa answered as she rewarded each of her hounds for a good job with pets and scritches behind the ears.

"Mori and I were keeping watch at the beach to make sure nobody, or nothing came in attempt to destroy the boats, and we saw her coming over with Vernon, and the survivors. Mori went with her to help drive them over to the mainland. She'll be back. Did any of you find anyone?"

Calder shook his head as he raised up his bandaged arm with a disappointed face. 

"Nothing but a trap and some new disturbing memories. Did you meet up with Lucas and Sienna?"

She shook her head. Then scanned the area, doing a head count. 

"Is Annabelle with you?"

Dove's eyes widened. 

"You didn't see her? She was at the front of the house." 

Ursa shook her head. 

"You don't know where Annabelle is?" Vernon asked. His voice was also calm but there was a tremor of worry. 

Dove moved quickly, running all the way back to the front of the house. Laurence called out, telling her not to run too fast as she was still recovering from her fall. Vernon ran after her, also wanting to know about his friend and just because he wanted to be with Dove now. 

She ran as fast as she could despite the soreness from her beat up body, but with some adrenaline from fear and worry, she could ignore it. 

The girl made her way to the front of the house and saw that nobody was there. Her chest rose and fell anxiously. Dove's head darted from every which direction, looking for any signs of where Annabelle or the man who called himself Simon, could have gone. Vernon shined light from his phone and slowly scanned the vicinity with it, landing on a tree branch that had strands of something bright and shiny. 

They stepped closer, seeing that it was strands of Annabelle's hair. The girl however frowned and noticed something wrong. 

"Annabelle's hair is seriously long, these strands are way too short." 

The hair strands stuck to the branch were about a foot or point-three meters at best. 

She looked to the ground and saw footprints in the dirt. The air was humid and cold; the ground had been soft ever since they got here. 

"The trees are telling me there's something in that direction." Vernon said out of the blue, looking straight down into the dark point of the woods.

He shined his light further in that direction, revealing more of Annabelle's blonde strands of hair on the scattered branches. 

"Another trap." Dove muttered as she put an arm in front of Vernon, backing away from that direction, prompting him to step away as well. 

She asked him to shine his light to the ground, and when he noticed the footsteps as well, he shined the light to follow the trail. 

There were two sets of footprints, and Dove looked up, remembering the watch tower she saw through the window earlier. 

Laurence and the others caught up to the two and Dove silently pointed up to the watch tower. No words were said but she made it clear she was going to go to the watch tower as soon as she started walking and Vernon went with her. 

Ursa had her hounds surround them from the front and back. 

They sniffed around, looking for danger. 

Dove wanted to call Annabelle's name, hoping she'd hear and alert them to her location, but she knew yelling or too much noise would just alert their location to unwanted beings. 

When we made our way to the place, I wanted to run, but Laurence quickly let me know that would've been a bad idea, just by the first gunshot. A human figure appeared at some point, almost human like except for the way it stood very still. Humans do not stand perfectly still like a stick when seeing others. 

And humans definitely would not have moved the way that imitator did when it suddenly fell limp and then began slithering its way over, not moving its limbs to mimic a snake but actually slivering like a snake somehow. Laurence shot it in the head, and I shined some light to see that it was just, skin, the empty skin of somebody who still had their clothes on when their insides were consumed. 

Maggots crawled out of that skin bag soon after, and we had to run from those as Vernon summoned bushes of poison ivy and thorny rose bushes to catch those things. 

Ursa's phone suddenly began ringing. She picked it up as they stayed on the move and noticed it was a video call from Sienna. 

"Hey! If you're wondering how I'm calling after we just had no signal for hours! Lucas and I are up here in the watchtower." Sienna said with a smile, moving the camera to show that was outside, leaning against some railing, and then moving to show the building behind her. 

Lucas was in the background, just coming out the door. He sees the camera and waves excitedly. 

"This thing is actually signal tower of sorts! It's just disguised as a huge watchtower because of the wooden structure built around it!" He said excitedly while still waving. 

"Someone messed it up somehow, so I fixed it!"

Surprised, Laurence looks back up at the watch tower, looking at the skeletal parts and realizing the skeletal parts of a signal tower. All hidden by the structure of the watch tower and its wooden details. His eye twitched, oddly, bothered, enraged, and envious of whoever came up with the design. 

"Can you see us from up there?" Ursa asked, paying full attention to the video call. 

"Yep! I'm waving down at ya right now!"

Dove went over and asked if she could speak to Sienna. Ursa held her phone towards her so she could speak. 

"Have you seen Annabelle? Or a guy who looks like some odd happy hiker?"

"Happy hiker? Do we have any teammates who look like a happy-... Wait, Annabelle wasn't with any of the guys?" Sienna asked with a frown. 

Dove became more worried when Sienna smacked her forehead and lamented about not calling sooner. 

"Shit. I saw her going somewhere with a person, but she was so far away I couldn't see all the features of the other person! I thought she was with a teammate or found a kidnapped victim!"

"It's okay. We can call her now." Vernon said, pulling out his own phone and calling her number. 

"Lucas and I will be up in the watch tower now, so we can keep an eye on things. Oh and, have you guys been finding any cameras anywhere? There's like a buncha computer screens here, all showing different live recordings of the island."

While Ursa spoke with Sienna, Vernon tried a third time to call Annabelle, and for the third time, she didn't pick up. 

"She's not available."

Growing impatient, Dove concocted a plan in her mind and decided to execute it without consulting anyone. She asked Sienna and Lucas to give Vernon their numbers since she already had theirs, then asked them to keep their eyes on the computer screens. 

The girl told Laurence that she and Vernon wanted to go search for Annabelle, so he and the others should keep working on finding other kidnapped victims. 

Laurence only agreed after telling Dove to show him that she knew how to transform her baton into a weapon and that she'd have either of the Sirens accompany them.

She quickly chose Callius at random and they went off, searching for Annabelle.  

"Oh, and one more thing, I highly suggest Sienna drop her 'Captum' book down for Ursa to use." She said before leaving.

Callius tried to listen for anything, but there were too many noises to differentiate. 

Vernon had them pause their movements as he placed a hand on a tree and waited to feel something. 

"There's a lot of action here." He said, trying to focus.

"Still, I can feel her presence somewhere on the opposite side of the island."

"How are we going to get all the way over there?"

"Remember that time in Rangeley where I did a form of erosion but in a minimal amount for travel?"

Dove eyes lit up, realizing where he was going with this. Callius did not know what they meant but felt nervous upon hearing erosion. The kids told him to hold onto a tree, and Vernon performed his magic, finding a point to mentally focus on as he lifted his hands like a conductor in an orchestra, and caused just the portion of the ground they were all occupying, to move. 

"Just think of it like water. It's just like water." Callius muttered as the ground moved. 

"I hope this tree will be fine in the new place I'll be moving it to." Vernon said as he kept driving the land. There was some loud rumbling as the dirt shifted and rubbed against each other. 

The other side of the island was a bit higher. It elevated and they could feel that as there was the feeling of going uphill. The island was bigger than expected, seeing as there were now cliffs and little hills. Vernon pointed to a spot where there was a spot of blonde hair. 

He stopped moving the ground and essentially parked it into the new spot. All three of them felt the aftermath of all the motion. Vernon slowly knelt down to the ground, making a groan of regret as he covered his mouth, feeling motion sickness. 

"I guess this spell will just make me nauseous every time I use it." He groaned behind his hand. 

Dove lightly tapped his back and surveyed the new high ground, looking for where they spotted a hint of Annabelle before.

Callius offered to carry Vernon, but he rejected, and pulled himself up, hoping a good walk will make him feel better. 

Dove tried to call Annabelle's number this time but like with Vernon, she didn't pick up. Callius and Vernon used their phones as well just in case.

Suddenly, they spotted an odd house. The house part was normal; it was just the structure next to it that looked strange. Callius said it appeared to be a lighthouse that was never completed.

They made their way over and finally found Simon. He was anxiously pacing as he looked at some notes in his notebook, and then when he looked up and saw them, it took him a few seconds to react but soon he waved them over. 

Callius heard something peculiar and didn't want them getting close to that house with the uncompleted lighthouse structure.

Before getting close enough for him to hear them, Dove told Vernon and Callius not to ask anything about Annabelle. When Vernon asked why, Dove told him she has an idea that she wants to test, and the requirement for her plan is to not mention anything about Annabelle for now. She told them there was something she wanted to ask Simon and to trust her as she distanced herself from them.

I knew a different kind of Simon back then. He was in control of a lot of things, like a demon who had everyone in town wrapped around his finger, focused on his perfect imitation of a smile. It's been two years, but I still grit my teeth and shudder when thinking about how he almost took full possession of me. 

Things are different now. This Simon was different. A cheap copy, but I'm in control now.

When he was in hearing range, Dove waved to Simon and asked why he came to the other side of the island, when she last saw him at the front door of the old house they were at. She checked her phone one more time before putting it in the inner pocket of her coat. 

He answered that there was a monster Annabelle managed to tame somehow, and he asked her to have it take them to this side of the island, because of a working phone at the house here. 

"I cannot believe the things that girl is capable of." Simon shook his head while talking with an astonished tone. 

"She's capable of a lot of things." Dove replied, crossing her arms and then looking out onto the horizon, slowly walking over to the cliff a good distance away. 

"So, where is she right now?" She beckoned him to walk to the cliffside with her, looking over her shoulder and using one hand in that 'come hither' motion.

Simon followed her up to the cliff as they chatted. 

As Callius watched her walk away, he told Vernon to keep a close eye on her. He was going to go inspect the house. Vernon wondered if he'd be alright, for the creature inside that house, he was sensing to be very hostile. The siren assured him that he has dealt with plenty of hostile nightmares. Vernon looked at the gauze on his leg and did not say anything. 

Dove's voice, when talking with Simon, seemed to get smoother. She made sure there was no tremor or shake as she spoke, and her tone was quiet, prompting Simon to get closer and quieter in order to listen.

"Annabelle went off after helping to bring me here. I have no idea where she went." 

The girl hummed, changing the subject.

"I'll be honest. I thought you were some guy who nearly lost his mind, but considering how accurate your notes were, I'm now impressed." She told him, recalling most of the monsters in his notes.

Simon couldn't help but smile, nodding along. 

"D-do you mean you saw the other things, like the moving skin bags, the creepy dolls, the giant mouth traps in the grounds, the-the-" 

"All of it. And thanks to your notes, we survived them. They came out very unexpectedly." She told him with a little grin. 

"You can take a look at all of them, if you'd like, see just how many are at this place." He took his notebook form his bag and gave it to her. 

Dove took it gingerly and flipped through the notes, skimming each one. The moonlight was lighting up the water and emitted a faint glow that traced her face. She flipped all the way to the back before the guy could stop her, finding a photo taped to the last page. A photo of her from her second year in high school. 

Simon laughed nervously, coming up with excuses, but Dove was not surprised. 

"I-I just, I just got that photo from someone." He cleared his throat, not giving Dove any eye contact. 

"Did you recognize me when we first met?" 

"S-someone told me- one of the kidnapped victims! One of the kidnapped victims I met on this island had this photo of you! He said that you were someone he remembers." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, wanting to take the notebook back from her. 

"H-he um- he died- so I kept the photo."

The girl hummed, stepping back and looking more at the photo. 

Back in high school, I often wore blouses. Blouses with all types of colors and designs and just paired them with jeans. That was right before I became interested in suits and tuxedos, outfits that had a more professional look than the summery, happy spring clothing I wore. 

"I think I remember someone who had this photo of me." She said suddenly. 

"Really? I-I think the person might still be alive actually! I'll help you find them later..." His sentence faded and he muttered, realizing he had just said the owner of the photo was dead just seconds ago.

Dove let out an audible sigh, one that sent shivers down his spine. She pretended to look relieved. 

"I've actually been looking for the person who I gave this exact photo too! It's been years since I last saw him!" She said with a fond smile, taking the photo from the paper.

The girl then turned the photo to him, like making a side by side of her old face with her current one. This allowed to peek at the back of the photo, which had more writing. 

'Find this girl. Tell him where she is, and I'll get a bigger reward.'

"That's-that's great! I can bring you to him! Let's go find our way back and I'll get my phone-" 

"His name was Simon, just like you. Odd coincidence."

The guy gave her a wide-eyed stare, and he clamped his mouth shut as his body froze. 

"Simon Atkinson, if I remember correctly." She leered. 

And just as he was becoming more nervous, she sighed again. 

"But, I really do think he's dead, just like you said." She said with a frown. 

The guy looked in confusion. She gave back to the notebook, placed her photo in her pocket, and from that same pocket, pulled out the crumpled letter from the house. The girl showed it to him and pretended to mourn. 

"See? It's been two years since I last heard from him, and now I know why. He decided to do some research on this island, and he died."

The man's mouth fell agape, and his chest rose and fell more visibly. She let him take the letter, pretending to not notice the trembling in his hands and using the opportunity to look away, turning to the waters and stepping closer to the cliff. 

"I don't think there's any survivors left on this island, they all got killed. Even Simon's poor assistant."

"Assistant?"

"Some sort of Walter Reiss. His photo got burned for some reason." She took out the ID from her pocket. 

The man's eyes lit up and trembled at the sight of the ID in her hand. 

"Drop that."

"What?"

"I meant, where, did you get that?"

"From somewhere." She shrugged and answered vaguely. 

"I don't know the person's face, but I thought I'd take this back anyway, do some research and see if I can find this poor person's family. They can give him a funeral." She walked further to the edge of the cliff, holding up the ID to the moonlight to see better. 

The man gritted his teeth, crumpling the paper in his hand. 

"Walter has no family or friends to mourn him."

"How do you know? That's awfully rude to assume about someone."

"I know because Walter was a loser!" 

Dove looked slowly from the ID to him, watching his reaction. The guy was now slouching, his head down as he spoke under his breath. 

"Walter was a paranoid fuck who everyone bullied, he had nightmares all the time and got scared of things that weren't there! Nobody liked him! Nobody wanted him around, so he ran away to this island and vowed to be alone forever!" 

Dove craned her head as she softly put her brief case down and stepped closer to the guy who was now clutching his hair. His fingers clawing at his skull. 

"But he wasn't alone, he had Simon, right?" She said in a mockingly naive and sweet tone. 

"I'm sure Simon treated him well." 

"He did..." The guy agreed with shaking breath. and then a laugh. 

"Simon reached out to him and told him he was different but special! That he had a superpower few people had! He talked to him for months! Online therapy sessions, visits to the island! Gave him gifts! He was my only friend! He gave me this island so that I could hone my powers here!" He looked up with a tremor in his eyes, and a wide smile full of teeth and uneven breath.

He stepped forward and Dove put on a disturbed expression, stepping back. 

"Simon was a doctor who helped the mentally ill, he told me you're mentally ill too." 

"What makes you think that?"

"You can see the same things I can. But you don't have any powers like me. I can control these things on the island- he showed me I could! I made the monsters go after people, I made it so they stopped bothering me in exchange for others- and Simon knows how to do the same with you! All you have to do, is come with me, and we can call him!" 

He slowly reached a hand out, waiting for her to take it. 

Dove looked down at his hand, taking a mental guess of how far she was from the edge of the cliff. She took another cautious step back, found the ground, but listened to how close the ocean was now. 

She reached out and took the guy's hand; he pulled her hand closer. But then she grabbed him by the neck and spun him. She kicked his feet out from under him, and he hit the ground, getting the wind knocked out of him.