Author's Note: Hey guys, welcome to the first chapter of my new story! I'm super excited to be working on this one, and I hope you all will enjoy! I've actually put some effort into researching things about ghosts and hauntings to try and make this better! Hope it pays off! I know this is under 2000 words, which I always try to avoid, but this is just the first chapter - the next ones will be longer!

Barry wasn't quite sure what had first started drawing his attention to the strange sounds.

There was always so much background noise at STAR Labs in general that it was almost weird he had managed to isolate the ones that didn't seem to quite belong: alternating small metallic bangings, like someone hitting a pipe, and a kind of knocking, almost methodic as it echoed throughout the building. Once he had noticed them, however, it was frustratingly impossible to ignore - and he had roped his friends into focusing on them as well.

"Cisco, that noise is driving me crazy. Please tell me you figured out what it is," the speedster said as he walked into the Cortex. He had been in the building for all of two minutes, and already he was exasperated. In his defence, however, it had been about a week since he had first made the discovery of whatever it was - and it was not going away.

The engineer turned around to look at Barry as he strode in, shaking his head with a huff. "Dude, I swear to God, I've looked everywhere. Anytime I feel like I'm getting close to it, it just stops!"

Barry sighed at the response. In reality, he probably should have been the one searching for the source, what with his newfound super speed. Cisco, however, knew the facility much better than Barry did. He had been working there for several years, whereas Barry had barely been anywhere but the Cortex in the short time since waking up from his coma.

"Damn," he muttered.

"What are we talking about?" The new voice belonged to Caitlin, just getting in for the morning, an eyebrow raised as she saw the two boys already there; usually she was the most punctual, especially considering that Barry didn't even work there. She was rivaled only by Dr. Wells in her earliness, but the man was out of town for a few days, supposedly attending some science seminar. It was a Saturday, however - the young CSI didn't have to be at the precinct, which explained his current presence.

"The noise," Cisco supplied for her, and Barry watched as the doctor rolled her eyes.

"You knuckleheads are still hung up on that?" she asked, setting down her bag. "Honestly, it's probably the pipes acting up, or rats on one of the lower levels or something. This place isn't exactly top of the line ever since the…explosion."

"Oh hell no. It better not be rats," Cisco said, and Barry snorted.

"At least if it's rats we can do something about it," he pointed out with a shrug. "Maybe we should set some traps."

"I can pick some up later," Caitlin said with an amused smile. "Until then, just try and tune it out. I think it's stopped now anyways," she added, sitting down by the computer monitors.

"Yeah, for now," Cisco muttered, and Caitlin laughed.

"You see what you've done, Barry?"

The speedster shrugged. "Hey, we're a team now, right? If I suffer, you guys should suffer too," he joked, crossing his arms; Caitlin shook her head at both boys.

"Alright, enough talk of these mysterious noises. Training time, Barry. Just because Dr. Wells isn't here doesn't mean we're skipping it. Hit the treadmill."

"Yes ma'am," Barry said with an amused grin, speeding over to the treadmill room in a blur of lightning; several papers went flying.

"We really need to get some paper weights," Cisco sighed, beginning to pick them up. Caitlin chuckled, moving to follow Barry.

"Definitely."

"Alright, Bar, slow it down - that's enough for today!"

An hour later, at Caitlin's command, Barry came to a stop on the treadmill, panting slightly but with a large smile plastered on his face.

"Man, that was awesome!" Cisco commended from behind the glass window he and Caitlin watched from, his smile nearly as wide as Barry's. "You almost hit a thousand miles per hour! If you keep steadily improving like this, there's no telling how fast you'll get," he said excitedly, eyes practically sparkling. Barry let out a laugh, still grinning as he hopped off of the treadmill and joined his friends outside of the room.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," he admitted as Cisco clapped him on the back. Caitlin smiled at the two boys.

"You need to go eat something, Barry," she said. "Cisco left a bunch of the new calorie bar prototypes in the storage room. Go grab a few."

"On it," he replied, zipping quickly off. He at least knew where that was, not far from the Cortex they spent most of their time in. He skidded to a stop in the middle of the room, just short of slamming himself into one of the shelves; he definitely had to work on stopping better, but for now he shook it off as scanned the area, searching for the bars that Cait had said were there somewhere. They weren't the tastiest things going, but at least they helped with his new enhanced appetite. After a few seconds, he spotted a box of them at the top of one of the shelves across the room. Smiling to himself, he walked over, reaching up to grab the box - but he never got to.

Without warning, the large shelf suddenly pitched forward - fast enough that, even with his newly developed powers, he was unable to avoid it in his surprise. He was utterly helpless as it fell on top of him, pinning him hard and causing him to slam his head painfully against the floor as he landed on his back. The unfortunate speedster groaned, head throbbing and body aching, black spots threatening to overtake his vision as he laid there. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long before Caitlin and Cisco came running in, eyes wide at the scene they stumbled across.

"Oh God, Barry!" Caitlin shrieked in surprise, her voice slightly muffled in his daze. The doctor immediately rushed over to one side of the shelf. "Cisco, other side! We have to lift it," he heard her direct the engineer as he focused on trying to blink away the blackness still swimming at the edge of his vision. There were grunts of effort as, out of his line of sight, the two slowly worked on lifting the heavy object off of him. After a minute or two, the pressure on his body finally relented, and he felt a pair of arms dragging him quickly across the floor before the shelf was dropped again, too heavy for Cisco to hold on his own.

"Easy, Barry," Caitlin advised in a worried tone as the two of them got him to his feet, easing his arms around their shoulders and practically dragging him down to the room they had dubbed the med bay. He blinked hard again as they laid him down on the single bed in, still attempting to get his vision back to normal and his wits completely back about him.

"Dude, what happened?" Cisco's voice asked from the right side of the bed as Caitlin grabbed a penlight and started shining it into his eyes; he squinted against it, lamely trying to swat her hand away.

"The shelf fell," he groaned out, wincing as Caitlin shut the light off but immediately started poking and prodding different areas of his body.

"Yeah, we gathered that much," Cisco snorted somewhat amusedly. "I mean how?" he clarified. "Those things aren't exactly easy to topple."

"Mmh, dunno," Barry muttered, attempting to hit Caitlin's hand away again as she touched a particularly tender spot on his right shoulder.

"Stop that," she admonished, though, much to Barry's relief, pulled her hand away seconds later. "I don't think anything's broken, but your right wrist definitely has nasty sprain and I'm almost positive you gave yourself a minor concussion," she said, giving him an odd look as if wondering the same exact thing Cisco had just asked.

"Great," Barry sighed, letting his eyes close and wishing not for the first time in the short period since gaining his powers that pain meds would work on him. He heard Caitlin sigh, and cracked open his eyes to see Cisco shaking his head.

"I can see the headlines now: Central City's New Vigilante Injured After Vicious Shelf Attack. I can send Iris the details, since she's taken such an interest in writing about the mysterious red streak," he joked. If Barry didn't think it would hurt, he would have rolled his eyes. Caitlin at least seemed to have his back.

"Not funny, Cisco," she said, crossing her arms. "He could have been seriously hurt. Those things weigh a ton."

"I'll live," Barry grunted, throwing the arm with his non-sprained wrist over his eyes; the lights weren't helping with his headache.

Caitlin frowned, looking down at him. "Get some rest, Barry. You'll feel better in a few hours," she advised, dimming the lights in the med bay and grabbing Cisco by the arm, pulling him out of the room to give Barry some quiet. She released him once they were out, sighing.

"Will you take a look at the shelf, Cisco?" she asked. "I don't know what on earth could have possibly made it fall."

Cisco shrugged. "Maybe he just bumped into it hard?" he suggested, but Caitlin shook her head.

"If that were the case, it would have fallen away from him, not towards him," she pointed out. "I'm thinking it must be unstable, or the floor is starting to slant. There's no one to look out for that kind of thing anymore," she added sadly.

"I don't know what I can do, but I'll look," Cisco said, patting her lightly on the shoulder with a soft smile. He hated seeing her sad, and it was an occurrence that happened much more often since the explosion that had changed everything; she gave him an appreciative look before walking off to one of the labs behind the Cortex, most likely to look at Barry's cells under the microscope again or something. He headed the opposite way, cautiously walking back into the storage room and eyeing the other shelves warily as he approached the fallen one.

He crouched down behind it, observing the bottom for any kind of anomaly or broken piece, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He then took to looking at the floor, searching for any dips, cracks or unevenness, but again drew a blank. Cisco sighed, standing back up and crossing his arms as he looked down at the shelf; he shook his head at the object before walking back out of the room. This place was falling apart.

Author's Note: Let me know your thoughts on how the first chapter went, and theories for the future! Until next time guys!