Mai recognized the scene immediately. She already suffered through the death vision three times since the start of the case. Mai tried forcing herself out of the vision. Closing her eyes, she chanted the incantation Lin taught her. Like the last two times, it did nothing. She could still smell the perfume that seemed to permeate the room. Excited to see the man, she'd put on her favorite perfume and dressed as nicely as she could. He didn't come to see her, though. Not in the way she anticipated.

Opening her eyes, Mai paused for a moment. A woman's body was shaking on the floor, weeping and begging. Her makeup running; her dress torn and dirtied. Mai felt herself take a deep breath and started laughing. The woman looked up, terror in her eyes.

Something hard was in her right hand. She looked that way. A large knife picked up the light as she turned it. If the knife was there, she wasn't the victim this time. She was going to kill the woman at her feet. Mai tried to control the panic and did the chant again to no avail.

She felt herself walking forward. As the woman pushed herself up and tried to run, the blade slid effortlessly into her stomach. Mai's stomach tightened as she remembered the blade moving through her stomach in the three previous visions. Nausea gripped her throat. She wanted to vomit at her actions, but couldn't.

The blade pulled out, only to go back into her again. Mai looked at her hand, covered with blood. She tried to stop the hand, but couldn't. She continued laughing and stabbing the blade into the woman. As the woman stopped moving, the blade continued to move swiftly in and out of her body. There was no escape, no release from the vision. Madness seemed to take over her mind. The blood looked beautiful. It was beauty. It was art. The walls were her canvas. The woman was merely a tool to be used.

The murderer grabbed the dead body by its feet and pulled it onto a large piece of plastic. The rug that had been under the victim was thrown on top, dripping blood as it was moved. She dropped the knife on the rug and rolled it up.

Thuds as the body was dragged down the stairs seemed to echo in Mai's head. Blood left a path that showed her descent. She made her way down the stairs to the main floor, then to the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement. She continued to try to fight her way out of the vision only to be pulled again into the man's body and mind.

A hole was already dug into the far corner of the basement. As the woman's body rolled into the hole, Mai felt the familiar pull back to her own body.

- x X x -

Mai jumped up from the wooden table she'd been sleeping on. As she moved, she knocked the wooden chair she'd been sitting in to the ground. Stumbling, she grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself. She didn't hear the concerned comments and demanding questions as she ran from the room. She looked at her hands as she ran to the bathroom.

She had to get it off before the others saw what she had done. It wasn't that she wanted to do it. He made her to it.

The water was cold. Mai plunged her hands into the water, then grabbed the soap and started rubbing. Why wasn't it coming off? She scrubbed harder, but the blood refused to come off.

Arms reached around her, pulling her away from the sink. Blood dripped from her now raw hands.

"Mai, what are you doing?" Naru's voice moved over her shoulder. He could feel her trembling. Mai looked up, meeting her boss' eyes in the mirror.

"I have to get the blood off. I didn't want to kill her. I tried to escape, but he made me do it. He made me do it all." Tears flowed down her face. Naru understood immediately. Mai had shared her death visions with him. He pulled her close, waiting for the vision to lose its hold on her.