***

A Month Later (Monday to Be More Exact)

***

The picture jumped twice, displaying horizontal lines before registering a blur that sluggishly came into focus. A still shot of a darkened room sat dead center on an open window before panning around slowly.

"You're paying me, right?" spoke a young woman's voice off camera. "Twenty-five fifty." The camera swerved and ran steady on a young boy standing by a digital clock on his nightstand, setting his wristwatch accordingly.

Dib glanced up distractedly. "Yeah, yeah."

"Hey, I just want to make sure our priorities are straight," said the disembodied voice. "I don't want you to short change me." The camera panned down lower when Dib dropped on his knees to reach under his bed. "What are you looking for?"

"My stake."

"Your steak? What does a steak have to do with. . ." Dib pulled it out and showed her. It was long with a pointy tip. It was also made of wood. "Oh, a stake. Gotcha."

He grinned. "Just in case."

"We're going in the middle of the day, Dib. I don't think you'll be needing it."

"You never know." Dib got to his feet and brushed off his pants. He gazed around his room for a second and nodded, appearing satisfied. "Okay. I think I have everything."

"Do you have the twenty-five fifty?"

Dib looked right into the camera's eye. You could plainly see the annoyance on his features. "Yes, your Holy Goddess of Everything, I have your twenty-five fifty. If you quite badgering me about it, I'll give you thirty."

"Wee-hoo!"

At her enthused reaction, Dib simply shook his head in defeat. "Geez, I can't believe they sent me you when I requested a cameraman!" He slung the duffel over his shoulder.

"I'm the best they got."

Dib stuck out his tongue. Then he had a sudden dumbfounded reaction. His mouth fell open. "I can't. . . believe you just did that."

"Hey, I never claimed to be a lady."

Dib came right up close to the camera. "Cut the act, Agent Sky Fox, or I'll report you."

The female voice laughed as it followed him out the door. "You really have no sense of humor, kid."

"Don't call me kid." Dib paused at the bottom of the stairs while the camerawoman remained somewhere halfway down the middle. "Look, this is serious investigative work I'm doing and I don't need this. Please act professional." Brief thoughtful pause. "Or at least try to."

"Alrighty," she said playfully. "You're the boss."

Dib only grunted in reply.

The camera switched off briefly. When it came back on, Dib was standing in front of an old run down house in the middle of the forest. He looked at the camera and pointed to the debilitated structure. "This is the old Ottoman House on Spooky Lane." He smiled then, as if to make a joke and then shook his head. Let's not go there. "Built by a Turkish family back in the early 1700s, it was abandoned during the 1940s cos of, well, a cockroach infestation. It had a brief resurrection in the 60s during the Vietnam War for those fleeing the draft until the authorities tossed in a smoke bomb. Ran those suckers right out." Agent Sky Fox chuckled as did the audience watching the recording. "Until recently no remembered it until rumors of a vampiric occupation began to fly about. That's why we're here, to see what's up with that."

"You sure it ain't Count CoCoFang?" remarked Sky Fox. "And is vampiric a word?"

Dib whipped around from where he'd been looking up at the house. "Hey! I thought I told you no more jokes!"

"Sorry."

There was bout of silence while both Dib and the camerawoman entered the house. It was a nothing-special run down place, mostly constructed of decaying wood and shoddy bricks. There was no furniture except the remaining pieces of an old couch. They searched all the rooms on the ground floor. Dib sometimes took out a magnifying glass to examine anything even slightly irregular to his personal analysis of what he considered the norm.

Finally, Dib stood in the middle of what had once been a kitchen, scratching his head. "Ohhhhkay." His back to the camera, he turned to face it, a diffident expression on his face. "Want your money?"

"You mean it's not here?" Sky Fox exclaimed. "We haven't even tried upstairs!"

Dib brightened suddenly. "Oh yeah! Thanks." He looked embarrassed. "Some paranormal investigator I am."

"Hey, you're young," the camerawoman said lightly following him back toward the stairs. "You think Fox Mulder became one in a day?"

Dib deliberated momentarily. "Maybe." He stopped by the stairs and got that familiar 'I'm going for it!' expression on his face. "Rest easy no more, Dracula! Dib's here!"

Then he raced up the stairs two at a time. Agent Sky Fox followed, muttering, "The National Lampoon's Dracula starring Dib Membrane." Louder she called, "Hey, little boy! Wait up!"

The camera's image bounced around wildly until it caught sight of Dib standing outside an open room. There was a long, gravid pause. Slowly the camera advanced. Unmoving, Dib remained transfixed to the spot.

"What is it?" hissed the camerawoman.

Ever so gradually, Dib turned his head and ever so gradually he raised his arm and pointed into the room. "There's a coffin in there." He said it the way you or I would have said, 'There's more milk in the fridge.'

"Neat!" The camera bounced close and then pointed into the room. Under the sunlight streaming through the cracks in the roof, a black oblong coffin sat smack dab center in the middle of the room. "Hey, look at that! You were right!"

Dib grimaced. "Hunh." The tone of his voice suggested he didn't altogether trust what he was looking at. He grabbed up the stake and crooked his finger at the camera. "Follow me."

"Okay. Why are we whispering?"

"I don't know," Dib whispered back. "Maybe because I think we're on to something. Hold there." He put his hand up. "I'll check first."

The boy crept toward the coffin. Stretching out his arm, he used the stake to lift the coffin lid. Coming closer, he peered down. Quickly his head snapped around, his eyes bright and shiny. "Holy shit, there's a real live sleeping vampire in here!" Excitedly, he gestured for her to bring the camera over.

Obligingly, the camera came in close and pointed down. Right there in its coffin in the classic slumbering pose of the blood-drinking creature of darkness, was a vampire. A female vampire with long blonde hair with the palest complexion ever seen on a human being lay in repose. She was dressed all in black from head to toe. Dib reached in and gently depressed her cheek with an index finger.

"Yep. Cold as ice. She's dead." He couldn't be more absolutely thrilled. Happily he smiled at the camera. "See? Toldja there was a vampire in here."

"Nah-uh, show me the teeth."

Smile falling, Dib winced in disgust. "You want me to. . . All right." Resigned, he pulled back the vampire's thin upper lip. The sharp incisor teeth could be plainly seen. No question about it at all, there was a real vampire living in the Ottoman House. "Convinced?"

"Yup." The camera held tight on the vampire's sleeping form for another few seconds. "You wanna slay her Buffy or shall I?"

Dib shook his head and put the stake away. "Naw. Then this proof wouldn't be valid. Besides it's cowardly."

"She drinks blood, Dib."

"I know," he insisted kind of weakly. "But she can't help it. Let's go."

"She's a real babe, Dib," laughed Agent Sky Fox. "You men are all alike. From the cradle to the grave."

"Oh be quiet." He gestured to the coffin. "So ends my investigation. Are vampires real? You bet they are! Agent Mothman, signing off."

"That was so lame. Can I have my thirty now?"

Dib sighed and dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a few dollar bills, counted and handed them to the camerawoman. "Thanks for doing this," he said sincerely.

"It's nothing. I'm just doing my job, kid."

"Well, thanks anyway."

"No problem. And hey, if you need someone again, call me. Although I ought to warn you my fee for service goes up when . . ." Agent Mothman grinned evilly, reached out and covered the camera lens with the palm of his hand. "HEY!"

The picture skipped and went to black.

***

After the last video ended, Gaz stood up and stretched. She glanced at her watch. "Aw damn. I gotta go."

Zim remained where he was. He tried not to let on how disappointed he was when she'd stood up. It's been kind of nice having her sitting there beside him. A chill rushed in when she vacated the spot. One eye went to a window. Pitch black outside. Had they really been watching the tapes all afternoon?

"What time is it?"

"After ten." She retrieved her coat, graciously handed to her by Gir when she reached for it. "Thanks."

Zim moved to get up. "I'll walk you home."

Yes, walk me home. Instead Gaz flicked her wrist out in dismissal. "Nah. I have to stop off at my job to pick up my paycheck."

Worry flooded his face. "Are you sure you don't. . .?"

"It's fine." She spoke perhaps too sharply and quickly. Trying to soften the blow, she added almost politely, "Thanks for the offer." Why won't you argue? C'mon, insist on walking me home, she plead silently. COME ON.

He wouldn't play though. "Okay." He didn't look happy but he got up and opened the door. Gaz shrugged into her coat, slipping her hands into her pockets to make sure she had her keys. They jangled. The sounds were loud in the silence only the crickets in the night broke.

Gaz zipped up her coat and paused at the door. I want to say something. Absently she ran a finger up and down the doorframe. What is it though? I knew what it was a second ago.

"You can keep the tapes. I'll come by for them tomorrow."

He nodded, still holding the door. Watching her, he kept trying to ask her to stay. Don't go, Gaz, don't go. The words refused to come out. So he leaned in toward her. Catching the movement, she turned her head deliberately, pretending to check to see if she left anything behind by accident. "Um, I'll see you. I guess. Whenever." She gave him a two-fingered wave. "'Night."

Zim caught on just in time from making a blatant fool of himself. Feeling embarrassed, he only muttered. "Yeah." His eyes followed her down the walkway. Whenever. For a few moments, he watched her small form until it vanished into the darkness. Then he shut the door and leaned against it. When he looked up again, Gir was on the floor before him, peering up at him expectantly. A long time passed where the only true sound in the house was the ticking of a clock.

Softly, he spoke. "Why do I do it, Gir?"

The robot shrugged.

Zim made two claws of his hands and took a threatening step towards the tiny automation. "I'm ACTUALLY asking you!"

Gir started at his master's intensity and shrank back. "Um, because you love her?"

Zim glanced at the door. "Is that it?" he asked, almost wonderingly. Such a strange, simple sounding word used to describe a multitude of confusion and unbelievable agony.

For me anyway.

Gir shrugged again. "I love her," he tittered. He hugged himself. "I love her sooooo much!"

Wearily the Irken walked passed his robot. "I don't it's the same thing, Gir."

The little bot only took a stuffed piggy out of his head, a toy car and made the pig ride on top of the car.

Zim stood by the entertainment center and raved. "Does she enjoy torturing me?! I can't think straight anymore because of her!" He growled and punched one of the video screens, cracking its surface. "I know she wants to pretend it didn't happen. I have to respect her wishes. But every day that goes by - ! God, Gir, you have no idea." He made another fist and aimed it at the video screen to the left of the cracked one. Taking his blind anger in check, he stopped just short of making another mess of glass on the floor. Instead he shut his eyes and tried to block it out. Ever since that forbidden part of him had awakened, he was having a hard time controlling its often powerfully intentioned urges. Being around Gaz only concentrated it, giving it unbearable strength, causing every impressible nerve in his body to wrack with deep-seated screams. Whatever was going on with her, he had no idea. Desperately he hoped her own body was abusing her mind the way his was. It would make a fitting intermediate for the sheer torment he had to endure.

Give me water. Give me a busload of humans. Give me a giant rampaging hamster of doom. Give me anything but this monster ripping and shredding what's left of me to teeny tiny pieces. I can't survive this. This is the thing that's gonna kill me.

Zim's antenna twitched, the only remaining outward sign of his agitation. I have to conquer it, he thought picking up the remote. I can't let these FEELINGS cloud my judgment. I mean, what kind of Irken am I if I can't control mere animal urges?

Animal urges? I thought it we were calling it love.

Was it? Is it?

Outblown, he let out a huge exhalation. "I don't know. I don't want to think anymore." Pressing a button on the remote, he made the video switch over in his forty-seven tape changers. That way he didn't have to manually keep switching them, the changing system did that for him. He pressed play and went to sit down.

"Hello Zim."

The alien yelped and looked around wildly. "Huh? What?"

Gir glanced up from his play and pointed to the TV. "It's coming from there."

From . . . there? Astonished, Zim looked to the TV screen. Dib was sitting behind a desk, hands folded in front of him. He was staring straight into the camera lens. Almost as if he'd noticed he gotten his enemy's attention, Dib smirked. Even gave a mocking little wave.

He continued after a reasonable lapse of time. "I'm recording this on my computer camera. Isn't that cool?" Pause. "Well, I think it is." He stood up and braced the desk with both hands, leaning into the camera. "If you're watching this, I must be dead. There would have been no way you could have gotten this without me dying first. Either that or you're a lot better than I thought."

Gradually Zim sat down, staring intently at the screen.

Dib sighed and sat back. "Wow. I'm dead. I can't believe it. Either way." He blinked hard several times in disbelief. "Man. Sorry, it's just really not something I can comprehend at this point. Guess being a kid and all, death isn't exactly a concept that comes to mind a lot. Most of the time all I'm thinking about is saving the world and trying to prove whatever it is I'm trying to prove." The boy sat back heavily. "I don't even know anymore. All this," he grabbed up a bunch of photos, regarded them and then tossed them over his shoulder. "This BULLSHIT that I think is so important. It's making me lose sight of myself. Then I think, what's really important?" In mock frustration, he threw up his hands. "You know what, I have no idea. Saving the world, that's important. To some people. Like me," he raised his hand, "yes, little old Dib-worm. But the truth is, Zim, and I'm rolling over in my grave admitting this to you, but the truth is . . . . sometimes I don't care. Did you know my first impulse is to blurt, 'Fuck it, let him destroy the earth.'" He paused as if to let that sink in. "Does this shock you, space boy?" Zim shook his head. "It shouldn't, should it? Look at me," he spread his hands and pushed back his chair a little. "I'm this little twelve year old kid. I don't fit in and have to live with being called crazy 24/7. I might as well have the damn word tattooed on my big head!" Making a grunt of exasperation, he ran a hand through his hair. "It don't know if this makes a difference now. Am I getting through to you at all?" Dib squinted, as if peering through the past and into the future. "You're probably laughing. Pathetic human creature. That's all I am, aren't I?" His voice cracked on the last sentence. Catching himself, the boy rubbed at his nose. "I'm only one person, Zim." Dib got up and made a fist. "Do me favor for once. Stop toying with me. It's not getting any better. Don't you see it in my face? I'm tired of losing all the time. To you. To society. I've got no one but my sister and she hates me. Do you know what's it like to love someone and not have them love you back? Or at least love you in the way you should be loved?"

All too well, Zim thought.

Meanwhile on screen, Dib reached down and picked up a small orange bottle and rattled it at the screen. "You know what this is? This is a prescription. I'm on freakin' pills, Zim. I have a psychological disorder and without these pills, I'd be a lunatic. A real one. I can't brush my teeth without popping one of these once a night. I'm lucky my father hasn't had me committed already. But he won't do it." He put the pills down. "I asked him once, you know. Why we have to keep the fact I'm sick between us. He told me it'd ruin his reputation as a scientist. Supposedly if people found out he had a clinically proven nutso son, they'd think HE was probably a clinically proven nutso scientist." He grinned ironically, wagging his index finger back and forth as a thoughtful smile played across his lips. "Here's the kicker of it all, I mean it's really funny. Had I been able to tell everyone I was sick, I wouldn't have been mocked. I might even have gotten some sympathy. People would've been nice to me. Hell, I'm willing to entertain YOU might've even pitied me. Gaz doesn't know and I hope to God she never has to find out." Dib suddenly reached out to the camera, touching it. "Please don't tell her." He lowered his hand and his frail figure slumped in his chair. "I still don't understand altogether why I'm telling you this stuff. You're an evil space alien without a moral thought to scratch. On the off chance you aren't, then I guess I didn't die in vain. Or maybe I did. I don't know." He stopped. "I-I don't want to die." Dib kind of looked off into the distance. "I want to get past this thing, to peek over the horizon. I'd like to think maybe ten years from now I'll be doing something else. I'd like to have kids. Maybe a little girl like Ann, you know?" Dib smiled, going off into a dreamland Zim wished he could have seen. "Yeah, I think I would have liked that." He blinked slowly and his eyes cleared of the fancy. "I hope I'm not dead, Zim. Perhaps I'm being foolish. I hope I'm not. I'm not trying to beg for your sympathy either. I just want you to see the real me, however you judge me." He kind of shrugged. "However it turns out." He smiled then, his expression becoming almost introspective. "It was a really good fight wasn't it? Thanks for that. Whatever anyone else says, at least one of us can say the long haul was worth it in the end." Before he reached up and shut the camera off, he looked directly into Zim's eyes and asked, "So was it?"

Zim stared at the rolling VDT for a long time. Dib thought he was dead. That earth-stink actually thought if he quit breathing and got buried six feet under that meant he was dead.

He closed his eyes and let the remote slip from his grip. The TV screens were all white static noise, filling the room with an unearthly glow.

***

Sure is cool out tonight.

Gaz walked slowly, her eyes half-closed against the breeze. Hot windblown tears warmed the corners of her eyes, blurring the world between blinks. Hunching her shoulders together, she watched the cars pass by. Soft swishing sounds of tires going through puddles, the water fanning out from their wheels. Traffic lights glowed brightly in the darkness, changing from green, yellow to red and back again. Late night shoppers scurried this way and that, into stores or cars waiting to pick them up at corner curbs.

A group of kids she recognized from high skool herded by, calling out greetings to another herd coming from another direction. Neither group, some members of whom knew her, acknowledged her presence. She treated them with the same silent scorn, focusing instead on the red neon café sign five feet ahead. It said COFFEE SHOP and buzzed audibly with the electricity coursing through it. Entering the shop, she approached the counter, moving her eyes about in search of a familiar face.

A young man came out from the back holding a steaming cup in one hand.

"Hello Bobby."

Hearing his name, the young man smiled and headed her way. "Hi Gaz. Coming to pick up the bacon?"

She nodded.

He winked at her. It kind of annoyed her when he did that. Bobby liked her. All the guys here did. What pissed her off about it was despite the rather antisocial way she treated them, they STILL gave her the same smile and respect the other nicer girls received. Men are stupid, she smoldered. Treat 'em like gum on your shoe and they still can't quit staring at you.

Bobby disappeared briefly into the back office and came out holding an envelope. He kind of played with her by holding it above her head. Tolerating his antics for a few seconds, Gaz played along, hopping a little trying to get it. Eventually the carefully contained sound of warning came from her throat. Hearing it, Bobby surrendered the check. "What're you doing tonight?"

Brave, she thought considering him in a jangle of regard. Somebody give this guy a medal. Gaz shrugged. "Nothing much."

Doesn't want to talk, Bobby reflected. "Yeah, I hear you." He watched her leave. Turning to another guy who worked behind the counter, he commented, "God, I wish I knew what her problem was."

"How do you mean?" The other poured a pitcher of coffee into a container. "Oh her? Yeah. Gaz Membrane. I've known her since grade skool. Always been like that since her brother was killed."

Bobby stared at him incredulously. "I didn't know she had a brother."

The guy shrugged. "Yeah. He was in my class."

"Were you friends?"

His coworker smiled sadly. "Not exactly." He passed the container to a waitress. "Dib Membrane wasn't the kind of kid who had friends. Back then everyone thought he was crazy. Even me."

"Man. That sucks. How'd he die?"

"He got hit by a car saving his sister." Bobby's face furrowed in sympathy and muddled shock. "It was a damn shame."

Bobby looked in the direction Gaz had disappeared. "God."

"I know what you mean." The guy paused grabbing a broom. "The guy really was out there but he had a lot of life. Took most of everyone else's with him when he went."

"That's pretty deep, Torque."

Torque only responded with a half-hearted grin.

Neither boy said anything else for the rest of their shift.

***

Gaz didn't go home right away. What was the point of sitting alone in the unbearably silent house staring at the four walls until she had to go to bed? Briefly she considered going back to Zim's and quickly decided not to. The state her mind was in tonight, she'd make the same mistake she'd made over a month ago. Sweet oblivion had its uses but it could never last forever.

Nothing lasted forever.

She wasn't blind. It didn't take an expert to tell the obvious signs. The alien was in love with her. Not like the guys at the café, she could tell from the way he looked at her it went much deeper than that. Gaz had never seen Zim want anything so badly in all his life. It wasn't the sex he wanted, Gaz reasoned reluctantly. He already knew that from what they'd talked about a month ago it wasn't something that was likely to happen again. No, if it was sex he wanted, he could have gotten that from her at any time. Gaz knew Zim like the back of her hand. If driven enough, the alien could get almost anything he wanted. Regardless of how much he'd changed, the natural instinctive ruthlessness was still a part of his personality. If prodded enough, it came out in all its vengeful glory.

But he held back and she knew why. Gaz clearly saw without a question in her mind Zim respected and valued their friendship and held it in higher regard than his personal desires. She did too with a kind of steely resolve rarely exhibited outside of video games. Yet while she held on to the last shred of the one good, solid thing in her world, she felt it shaking. Conflicting thoughts and feelings scrambled around inside of her, chasing each other in circles.

I don't know what to do anymore. None of this makes sense. I had it all figured out until about a month ago. Everything was the way it was supposed to be. No regrets.

Right. No regrets. What a despicable joke.

They were sitting at the kitchen table. It was a bright late summer morning and the windows had been opened to allow the warm breeze in. Dib glanced up from his UFO magazine. "Don't you ever get sick of playing that thing?" he asked sounding irritated.

"No. Go away."

"You never want to talk to me anymore."

"All you talk about is Zim and saving the world." A high-pitched electronic sound emitted from the GameSlave, punctuating her reply. "No one cares about that, Dib."

Dib sat straight up, waving his arms. "It's important! I still can't believe you, of all people, don't see that!"

"Shut up."

Dib narrowed his eyes at her. "You know I'm right."

"I don't care what you think I know. I just want you to leave me alone."

"But. . ." he protested quietly. "I don't have anyone else to talk to."

Finally she looked up right at him. "Talk to yourself. You're really good at that." Her voice was low and cold.

Dib stiffened and pushed back his chair hard. Unshed tears stood in his eyes. "I hate you." He stalked out of the room.

Enraged, Gaz put down her GameSlave and screamed after him. "YEAH, WELL, I HATE YOU TOO! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD!"

Then three days later. . . Biting her bottom lip against the cold, Gaz took a detour off the main street. Some months ago she'd discovered an abandoned oil plant. Its spindly, spiky towers still sticking into the sky overlooked a wide lake. When she'd first come here, she'd been seeking the kind of solace strangely lacking in this city and to her immense surprise, she'd found it. No one came here at night so she had complete people-free solitude.

She craved it tonight. Just her and the lake. The water and the sky.

Settling on the shoreline beneath one of the erector set looking towers, Gaz drew herself together tightly. Her mind settled into a peaceful lull over the still water. The sky was so clear tonight, it reflected a double image on the water's surface. It was beautiful.

For many minutes she sat, thinking of nothing, listening to the distant sounds of traffic. Peace. True peace.

A steadily increasing commotion alerted her. Curiously, Gaz looked around until her eye caught movement on the side of the lake closest to her. A young woman was running along the shoreline. For a second, it appeared as if she were a late night jogger. The two men chasing her quickly changed her mind.

The woman cried for help when one of the men caught up with her. He grabbed her by her flying hair and tripped her. Gaz got to her feet, frantically feeling around for her cell phone.

Left pocket. Empty. Right pocket. Empty.

She watched in horror as the other man caught up and pinned the girl down. Her screams could be heard.

They're going to kill her.

Gaz scuffled around, searching wildly for something, anything. C'mon. . . c'mon. . . think Gaz, think . . . There! Would that work? Yes. Yes. Her hands wrapped around the length of metal pipe she found lying somewhere nearby. Hefting it, testing its weight, Gaz held it like a baseball bat and hurried. Her feet pounded the gravel, which crunched beneath her feet. The screams of the girl spurred her on, ebbing away any and all of fear. Nothing else mattered to Gaz right then except that woman's life.

They're not looking. This is my chance.

Reaching the three, Gaz judged where a hit would be most effective. Bringing it down heavily, she struck the man pinning the girl to the ground between the shoulder blades. He grunted and toppled to the side unconsciously. Gaz turned to the other man, bringing the pipe up again. This time, though, he was aware of her and caught the pipe.

"Let go!" she screamed twisting it around back and forth. Her hands began slipping. I'm losing my grip, I'm losing my grip. . .

When the man's strength proved too much for her, Gaz stumbled backward. Automatically the man swung up and brought the pipe down. When she ducked instinctively, he missed her head and struck her collarbone. There was a sickening crack. A thousand splinters of pain wracked her body. All she managed to utter was, "Uhnh," before her legs buckled. Lying sprawled on the ground, she could only watch helplessly as the man spun the pipe up for another blow.

Someone caught it mid-swing. It was the young woman. In disbelief at her sudden resurgence, the man let go. After wresting it away, the woman wasted no time in whacking the pipe across his legs. He went down, collapsing in a moaning fetal ball of pain on the ground.

"Bastards!" Gaz faintly heard the woman scream. But she could have been whispering for all that she heard. It seemed ages before Gaz became aware of the woman kneeling by her. Cold fingers pulled back her coat. Faintly she heard a voice say from a distance, "I'm calling 911. Hang on, okay? I'll be right back. . . "

The rest of it was lost in a swirl of darkness.