A/N: Happy Halloween! I wrote this in about a half an hour, so please excuse any errors. It might be a little spooky, maybe a little creepy. I dunno. Either way, it's a little Halloween treat for my readers!

I don't own anything; it all belongs to Stephanie Meyer. Enjoy!


Echoes

The clock on the desk struck ten o'clock. The room was dark aside from the slight moonlight coming in through the bedroom window and the glow from the laptop screen. Nessie blinked a few times to keep her eyes open as she typed. She was nearing completion of the next chapter of her novel; only a few paragraphs left to type. The words were becoming harder to find as she fought with her deadline.

She took a deep breath and picked up her glass of water from the desk. After a few quick sips, she set her fingers in their assigned spots on the keyboard.

"Okay, Nessie," she said to herself. "You can do this." She lightly tapped her fingers against the keys. "So Marcus goes to the other room while Sharon stares after him. Then what?" She closed her eyes tightly and turned her face toward the ceiling. "Oh! I've got it." She smiled to herself and began typing again.

Fifteen minutes later, the front door opened and closed. She heard her fiancé drop his keys on the small table by the door and his footsteps as he went to the kitchen.

"Hey, Jake," she called, not stopping as the words kept coming.

"Hey, Ness," he answered from the other room. "How's that novel coming?"

"Great. Just a sec, I'm in the middle of a breakthrough."

"No problem, babe." She heard him rustling through papers, probably going through the mail on the counter. He opened the fridge and got a glass out of the cupboard.

She became more engrossed in the scene she was writing, the words coming faster and more demanding. She was so close; she could feel it.

A glass shattering in the other room caught her attention. It wasn't followed by the normal curse that Jake would have uttered. She waited for a moment to hear him moving to clean it up. "Jake?" she called. "You okay? What happened?"

There was no answer. Curious, she saved her document and got up to check on her fiancé. She walked into the living room to see a glass in shards in the middle of the floor. The cranberry juice it had contained sat in the middle like a pool of dark blood. "Jake?"

Carefully avoiding the glass, she walked around looking for him. There was no sign anywhere. His keys were not on the table, and the mail sat undisturbed on the edge of the counter. "Okay, this isn't funny. Where are you?"

The front door opened, and she jumped as she turned to see Jake smile at her. "Hey, babe. You okay? You look a little spooked." He set his keys down on the table and took his jacket off.

"That's not funny, Jake. You scared the shit out of me. What the hell was that about? You know I'm working on a deadline here; I've got to get this chapter finished and sent to my editor by the end of the week." She put her hands on her hips. "I thought you were really hurt."

His brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? I just got home."

Nessie's stomach curled. "No you didn't. You got home like a half an hour ago. I heard you."

"You heard someone come in the house?" He looked around.

"No, I heard you come in the house. I talked to you. You asked me how the novel was coming, and I told you I was in the middle of a breakthrough. You went through the mail, got a drink, then you dropped your glass right there!" She turned to point out the mess on the floor and stopped short when there was nothing there. Her body froze. "There was a broken glass right there when I came out of the bedroom, Jake."

He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders. "Nessie, I think you might be working too hard. I promise I just barely got home. I stopped by Sam's on the way, and Emily gave me some of that wine you like. You want to take a break for the night and spend some time relaxing with me?"

She sighed. She didn't understand. She had seen the shards of glass as plain as day. It wasn't her imagination. She nodded anyway, knowing it would be a good idea to spend some much-needed quality time with her fiancé. "Yeah. Let me just go turn off the computer."

She checked her document before she turned everything off. It looked the same as it had when she heard the shatter. She shivered and turned everything off, then went back out to the living room. Jake was sitting on the couch with two wine glasses and the TV remote in his hands. The bottle sat on the coffee table beside him. As she walked across the floor, something stabbed her foot.

"Ow! Dammit!" She hissed and went to the kitchen to see what she had stepped on.

"Are you okay, babe?" Jake asked. He came in the room with her.

"Yeah, I stepped on something." She lifted her foot and felt herself go cold when she saw what it was.

"Huh. I wonder how that got on the floor. Squeeze my fingers." He offered his hand as he reached out to pull the tiny shard of glass from her foot.


A/N: Power of suggestion? Or was it proof that Ness really experienced what she thought she did? Either way, I hope someone got a little uneasy reading it. I know it made me a little wary writing it :)

Thanks for reading. Have a safe, happy, and scary holiday!