When Lance came by the place, the whites of his eyes red from tears, Shiro couldn't bring himself to deny the guy. He had lost one of his siblings without any plausible explanation. Shiro had seen the online articles about "the woman who vanished into ash". The news spread like wildfire and didn't allow Lance and his family to truly grieve with all the reporters bugging them. So, he forced back the desire to hid away from anyone that wasn't Matt, Pidge, or even Keith and let Lance stay as long as he wanted.

"Here Shiro." Lance handed him a notebook once Pidge had heated up some of the soup Shiro had made the other night for Lance to eat. "Veronica liked to keep a log as she called it, but the rest of us called it her diary." The poor man tried to grin and make his tone jovial. But, Shiro knew a faker when he saw it. He saw the biggest faker of them all every time he looked in the mirror. "I don't know if it will help you all. But I thought it might since in her last entries, she started writing about a manor in her dreams."

Shiro slowly took the notebook from his hands. "You sure about this?" Was it right of him to look through the personal thoughts of the woman he hadn't been able to save?

Lance smiled faintly, a bit more genuine than his previous attempt. "Yeah, I just want answers to what happened to her, and I sure as hell am not going to allow what happened to her to happen again."

"Thanks Lance." Shiro smiled and placed his hand on Lance's shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze. "Just promise me you will not visit the actual manor. We need to make sure no more people are dragged into this mess." His smile faded at the conflicted look in Lance's face. "I know you want your answers. But, I don't feel comfortable putting anyone in danger now that we know this place could honestly affect people outside the dream world."

Hearing Lance huff loudly reminded him of a certain violet eyed man he knew that could look just as annoyed when denied something he wanted. "Finnnne. Just know I'm not leaving until the fat lady sings!"

Shiro chuckled very faintly at that. "Riighhtt…" He shook his head and sat down in his lounge chair. "With me needing that image out of my mind, I will see about these entries you were talking about."

Slowly, he opened the notebook, taking care not to cause any tears in the pages. He glanced only briefly at the dates on the entries and not the contents. That is, until he arrived at an entry dated a few days after the crash.

8/13

You can never truly say you know what it is like to a see a gruesome death until you see it in person. Until you can see the mangled bodies with missing limbs and parts of their skin ripped cleanly off to show muscle. I remember laughing at Lance for finding such disgusting in movies and told him it was only makeup and CG. Never real. But, now I know how it can be not a laughing matter. To my brother, he must have felt like he was actually seeing real live people instead of people dolled up to look that way. When you're unable to convince yourself logically that what you are seeing is an illusion, it hits you like a ten-ton brick. The smell of burning flesh is the worst though. I swear the smell still lingers in my nostrils.

They said I was lucky to come out of the crash with only some injuries. They said I should be able to leave the hospital soon. I just wish to be able to be with my family again. At least the doctors allowed my family to visit and my one sister got my log for me. I think writing will help me cope with this unexpected tragedy.

And maybe help me deal with my odd dreams. For ever since the crash, I've dreamt of an abandoned manor covered in snow. I find myself heading closer and closer to its entrance as if drawn by something.

But to what, I'm not sure and have a feeling I should never find out.

"Veronica…" Shiro muttered to himself and carefully turned the page.

8/18

I entered the manor and now every time I sleep I'm inside it. I never dream of flying in space or working on a new engineering project. I don't even have my usual nightmares of dying in that crash or failing to fulfill my dreams. Instead, my dreams are consumed by that manor. I am starting to wonder if I should bring up to my doctor or one of the nurses about the strangeness of dreaming seemingly the same thing over and over again.

Or how I woke up today with a sharp pain in my arm and swore there was a tattoo there that couldn't be there. After all, the tattoo I have is on my shoulder blades not my right arm. But, I swore I saw it, and it reminded me of the woman I saw in my dream last night.

The woman covered in the blue tattoos.

"Lance!" He called out and caused Lance to jump. He hadn't realized the guy had turned on the TV until he heard the faint murmurings of people coming from the sound system.

"Woah got to learn how to not spook people." Lance teased slightly before blinking. "Found something I'm guessing?"

Shiro nodded, motioning for Lance to come over. "Your sister mentioned here a woman covered with tattoos. I've also seen that woman." He frowned and glanced towards the glass doors leading out to the backyard. "After encountering her, I too have experienced sharp pains and even seen a tattoo spread along my skin. Yet…" He placed his hand on his right shoulder, what remained of the flesh part of his arm anyway. "When I look in the mirror, I don't see anything there."

Lance furrowed his eyebrows. "I think the last visit I had with her, before she slipped into a coma, she asked me to look at her right arm and see if I saw anything odd. I just thought maybe she was worried about scars or something. I told her I saw nothing, and she frowned at that." He frowned before gritting his teeth. "I should have pushed her to answer me honestly when I asked instead of accepting her answer of nothing! I could tell she was bluffing!"

"Lance!" Shiro gripped Lance's arm and frowned. "You couldn't have known. How could you have? All of this sounds like crazy to most people." He gently let of the arm once Lance didn't look like he was going to flail about the room with his nails out like claws. "I'm just sorry we didn't figure out her connection to this sooner."

"I don't blame you." Lance quickly said. "I don't blame any of you. I'm just glad Keith made me come with him to meet you. Cause if he hadn't, I wouldn't even have had the chance to get answers."

Shiro smiled warmly. "Yeah, Keith is a good guy, even now."

"So, wait, he wasn't bluffing when he said you two knew each other a long time ago?" Lance blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Just thought he was messing with me or was just telling me that to make me a bit more willing to go with him."

Shiro's smile remained warm as an image of a much younger Keith smiling at him and-He stiffened and placed the notebook down on the table.

"Shiro?" Lance took a step back when Shiro quickly stood up from his chair.

"Sorry, I think I'll go see if the Camera Obscura has anymore photos in it. I'll come back to finish reading the rest of her logs later." Shiro went up the stairs as if darting away from someone or something.

"Woah, what's his problem all of a sudden?" Lance shook his head and shrugged. "Guess it's just me and you." He sat back down on the couch, gripping the notebook in his hand. "But, I'll let him have a chance to finish what he started before looking at you myself." He put the notebook down and focused his gaze back on the TV, gripping the soup bowl and eating the soup.

Because he wasn't sure right now if he was willing to see what could have been his sister's last words before she found herself unexpectedly disappearing from the living world.

Once he had calmed himself down after many hours and no longer found his neck feeling pressure around it, Shiro came back down the stairs. The Camera Obscura did not have any new pictures in it. But, he checked it every day just to make sure. He walked back past the Lance sleeping on the couch. When he saw Lance gripping the notebook to his chest, Shiro figured he could finish the log later. He figured Pidge was asleep in her room and Matt in Adam's old room as well so no need to disturb them

He might as well work on developing photos since he didn't want to go to sleep just yet, knowing he would wake up in that manor most likely. When he entered the hallway to head towards the dark room, he stiffened at hearing the floor creaking.

It just had to be normal house related noises, right? He shook his head and walked down the hallway. At seeing something move out of the corner of his eye, he quickly turned himself. "Oh Kuro. You scared me!" He smiled at seeing the Savannah cat come towards him and meow lowly. "Good boy." He scratched behind the cat's ears. He still recalled when he and Adam had gotten Kuro as a kitten early in their relationship. He just sometimes wished he hadn't named the cat Kuro since it was so close to his name…

"You want to come with me to the dark room?" He smiled and allowed himself to peer further into the room. He blinked at seeing someone in front of the memorial shrine. "Keith is that you?" He blinked when the person didn't respond at all. "Keith?" It looked like Keith from the back with the dark brown hair. But, as he stepped into the room, he noticed the body wasn't quite right for Keith's figure and Keith never sat cross legged to save his life (That was Shiro's thing as Keith used to joke in their childhood days).

"Who are you? What are you doing in my house?" Shiro's voice rose with his lips shifting into a frown and his eyes narrowing into a glare. "Get out!"

"Shiro?" He gasped and quickly turned away from the room. He blinked at seeing Keith standing right there. Keith had been staying here as well since he agreed to help. Shiro's cheeks reddened slightly at the sight of Keith in just his boxers and his hair slightly damp, likely from a shower. The sight of him holding Red in his arms though did warm his heart. Yet, not enough to still the dominant emotion conquering his mind right now.

"Y-yeah?" He stuttered out and didn't mean to do that. How embarrassing.

"You alright? Do I need to kick someone's ass?" Keith asked with a concern lacing his every word and a scowl on his face. The fact Red hissed as if agreeing with Keith almost made Shiro chuckle. Almost.

Shiro turned his head back towards the memorial shrine room. His eyes widened when the person had turned around and he could see now their figure was completely see through. Their old-style kimono made him realize it was one of the ghosts from the manor. But how? Why was he seeing one of them here? He swallowed and felt a warm hand gently squeeze his shoulder.

"Shiro, talk to me. Is someone there?" Keith tried to sound reassuring, but Shiro couldn't stop his heart from racing or his palms from sweating. Let alone break his gaze from the ghost slowly walking, more like floating, towards them.

"Keith…can you see it?" He finally dared to ask. "Am I losing my mind?"

He watched out of the corner of his eye and saw Keith turn his head.

His heart stopped briefly when he saw Keith's eyes faintly widen. Just the slightest hint that maybe, Keith was seeing the same thing.

"…It's spreading." Keith frowned while holding Red a bit closer to his chest. "It won't stop until we stop it."

Shiro turned to face Keith. Once again, Keith had that blurry look like at the hospital. It was like for a moment, Keith was not truly there. His chest clenched, and he wrapped his arms tightly around Keith's shoulder, careful not to crush Keith and the kitten to his chest. "We will stop it. I swear." He pulled back just enough to see Keith's eyes once more looking vibrant like galaxies.

"Yeah, we will." Keith smiled faintly and hugged Shiro back with one arm, holding the kitten in the other. "I swear it."

Shiro looked briefly to see the ghost had disappeared. Yet, the feeling of something having literally entered his house without his permission shook him to his core. He tightened his hold on Keith just a bit and buried his face into Keith's hair.

If only just for a moment, he needed to believe things would be okay.

Or else he might give into the fear that things would never be normal or okay ever again.