Caitlin was not enjoying this one bit. Since the moment Cisco had turned the lights off, casting the entirety of STAR Labs into a heavy darkness, she hadn't moved from the hallway just steps away from the Cortex they had all started in. The thermal camera Cisco had given her was clutched tightly in one hand, not even turned on yet; the recording device was shoved unceremoniously in one of her skirt pockets, and she found herself absentmindedly wishing that she had worn something more practical.

But for what reason? The part of her mind desperate to stay logical throughout all of this retorted. It's not like you're going to find anything worth running from.

The doctor sucked in a deep breath and turned the camera on finally, watching as it loaded and eventually showed the space in front of her on the screen, bathed in unnatural colors of reds, oranges, purples, blues – a multitude of different shades for all the objects with different heat signatures stretching out before her. Then, slowly but surely, she started walking again. Because the logical part of her brain had to be right. Ghosts? She didn't know why she had let the boys convince her they were a legitimate explanation for what had been going on. Ghosts couldn't – didn't – exist.

Metahumans didn't exist either, but look at you now, another part of her mind decided to chime in.

"Shut up," she reprimanded herself aloud, letting out a frustrated huff. Either way, creeping through the complex in the dark was not her ideal Friday night, and was something that she definitely never wanted to do again after this was over. The only reason she was even doing it now was because, ghosts or not, something was going on. And she was fed up with it.

Sighing, Caitlin picked up the pace a little, determined now to get through as much of this part of the building as she could despite her unease. The quicker she did this, the quicker she could meet back up with Barry and Cisco and get the lights back on. She kept her attention hyperfocused on the screen of the thermal camera, using it as a guide so as not to run into any walls in the dark. It was actually pretty intriguing, she admitted to herself, seeing STAR Labs quite literally through a different lens.

The singular positive thought immediately fled from her mind once she rounded a corner a few minutes later.

Much to her surprise, the camera showed a figure standing in the middle of the hallway, and she gasped, startled backwards a foot or two. She hadn't been expecting anyone to be in her area.

"Barry? Cisco?" she asked tentatively, moving her eyes up from the camera screen to look directly down the hallway in front of her. She squinted into the blackness, willing her non-adjusted eyes to pick out whichever of the boys was standing there. She felt her large sense of unease coming back however as, despite her best efforts and slowly being able to pick out other details of the hall, she didn't see anyone. Her heart rate speeding up, Caitlin looked back down at the thermal camera to see that the figure was still standing there, unmoving as if staring her down. It was also then that she picked up on the coloring of the figure on the screen, and suddenly her mouth felt dry, goosebumps running up her body. Because it was a deep purple hue, and Cisco and Barry wouldn't show up with that coloring. No person should be that color.

At least, no living person.

Suddenly, the doctor found herself in a panic, her fight-or-flight instincts quickly kicking in as she turned tail and ran the hell out of there, not bothering to look back. For the first time, she found herself envying Barry's super speed, desiring nothing more in the moment than to take off at nearly a thousand miles per hour and leave STAR Labs in the dust. But she was utterly human, and she was painfully aware that she could only move so fast with her natural abilities, and in high heels to boot. She didn't slow down until she had twisted and turned down several other hallways, coming to a stop and leaning against the wall as she tried to catch her breath and calm down. What the hell had just happened? She had literally just convinced herself that ghosts did not exist, but – well, she wasn't exactly sure how else to explain what she had just experienced, and she wasn't in any rush to get moving again after that. Maybe if she just stayed here –

A large crash suddenly sounded off to her right, and Cait let out a squeal equal parts terror and surprise. She whirled towards it, camera pointed out, and for the first time in a long time let out a real curse.

"Oh fuck no," she groaned upon seeing the figure back on the screen next to some kind of object on the floor beside it, possibly a framed blueprint or something it had knocked off of the wall. Hands shaky, she turned herself around at a speed Barry would have been proud of, ready to run once again, but froze in place as the camera picked up another figure at that end of the hallway. An undignified squeak flowed past her lips and her eyes widened, her hands shaking worse now, barely allowing her to keep a grip on the only device that was allowing her to keep track of these figures. Her breaths were uneven as she turned back to face her initial direction, hoping against hope that the first one was gone. Of course it was too much to ask for, because not only was it still there, but now it wasn't standing by idly. It was moving with an alarming rate of speed towards her.

She made a split-second decision, forcing herself, however horrifying, to turn away from it and back towards the second figure. She tried to ignore the fact that she could clearly see that it was now moving as well as she charged towards it and right into a room, throwing the door open and slamming it behind her just as fast.

There wasn't much time to weigh her options before the pounding on the door started.


Cisco wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting during the lockdown him and his friends had been anticipating for days now. So far, however, it was one of the most uneventful things he had ever experienced. After going down into the basement and powering down the lights, he had been incredibly cautious, searching the place twice over after remembering what had happened to Barry the last time they were down there. But nothing out of the ordinary had happened, aside from walking into a spiderweb and nearly injuring himself in his panic. He would definitely not be mentioning that detail to Barry and Caitlin when they met back up. That incident had been nearly a half hour ago, and since then he had been wandering around on what, if he remembered correctly, was the fifth floor. And he hadn't yet gathered any evidence of the paranormal taking up residence in STAR Labs.

Needless to say, it was incredibly annoying. For the past week, there had been an influx of events targeting all three of them, and now the facility seemed far too calm. With a sigh, the engineer shifted the night vision camera he was holding to his left hand, pulling his phone out of his pocket with his right with the intent to call his friends and see if they were having better luck. Cisco frowned, however, when the screen lit up to reveal that he had no service, which was strange. He always had service in the building, and there was no reasonable explanation he could come up with as to why there was now a lack of it. He supposed that the odd phenomenon was a small start, at least, in showing that something was definitely off about the place. Shaking his head, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and switched the camera back to his dominant hand before continuing to walk through the darkened hallways, eyes focused on the screen to see where he was going.

After several more minutes of exploring without incident, Cisco found himself in an empty lab that he actually recognized, and he forced himself to swallow a lump in his throat. It had been the workspace of one of the former doctors who had worked for Dr. Wells. Cisco hadn't known the woman well, but they had crossed paths a few times because of his association with Caitlin, who had been somewhat closer to her due to their similar jobs. Not quite friends, but acquaintances. Unfortunately, she was one of the unlucky people who had died the night of the explosion. It somehow felt wrong to be in her workspace. Biting his lip, the engineer turned on his heel, fully intending to exit the room and go search somewhere else for the evidence he was trying to gather.

His plans were stopped rather quickly when the door slammed in his face before he could leave.

Cisco let out a yelp, jumping backwards both in fright and to avoid any appendages being slammed in the door. He placed his free hand on his chest, over his rapidly thudding heart, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end suddenly as a very sudden, very uneasy feeling washed over him.

Someone – or something – was in the room with him. He knew without even turning around to look. For several tense seconds, he considered trying the doorknob to see if the door would open back up, and if he could escape. He had the terrible feeling, however, that he would only find it sealed shut. After all, for what purpose would it have been slammed on him if he could simply run away? Slowly, and very much dreading what he would see when he did so, Cisco turned around.

And was met by the pale face of the doctor whose lab he had wandered into.

"Holy shit!" Cisco cursed, stumbling backwards with a surprised and panicked look on his face. "You – you're –"

"Dead," the woman said impassively, and Cisco realized belatedly that he couldn't even remember her name. It sent a small pang through him, but it wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. He tried to keep himself composed, holding the camera up to capture her figure – only to see that she was gone. Judging by the pockets of cold air in the room, however, she was definitely still in there somewhere. His theory was proven by a loud scraping sound as the metal lab table beside him was suddenly pushed forward: not much, but enough and with enough force to ram harshly into his side. He let out a hiss of pain, nearly dropping the camera as he stumbled. Despite the fear that had enveloped him, Cisco attempted to hold his ground, eyes scanning the darkened room for another glimpse of the woman.

"What do you want!?" he demanded, moving the camera around as well, hoping to capture some of the activity on the device. He wanted to make sure that he had something to show his friends, to prove this had happened. After all, it was a big jump to go from experiencing what he had only guessed were the antics of something paranormal to actually see the paranormal.

"You suffer," came her disembodied voice, and he felt a shiver run down his spine at the chilling words. To suffer? Why on earth

Cisco didn't get much time to ponder over the clear answer, letting out another yelp as something crashed against the wall, dangerously close to his body.

"Nah uh! Not again with this shit!" the man exclaimed, having an unpleasant flashback of the lamp that nearly hit him a few days before. Biting the bullet, he rushed back at the door, attempting to open it with his free hand. As he had predicted, unfortunately, it wouldn't budge. The engineer could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He had to get out of the room. But how –?

He ducked as he heard rather than saw something else being hurled towards him, wincing as whatever it was – a beaker? – crashed against the wall just as the other object had and shattered, pieces raining down on him. Letting out a string of curses, Cisco took a moment to silently pray that what he was about to do was as easy as it looked in movies before taking a deep breath and raising a leg to kick out as hard as he could at the door. His foot hit it flatly with a dull banging sound, and although it seemed to give a little, it definitely hadn't opened – and it had definitely hurt like hell. So much for easy.

"Damn it!" he yelled, but didn't dwell too long on his failure as he heard something rattling behind him and, assuming the spirit was gearing up for another attack, he raised his leg again.

"Please work," he had time to quickly mutter before slamming his foot back into the door, harder than before. Despite the jarring pain now worse in his foot and spreading up his leg, he found himself quite happy for the moment as the door gave way and flung open. "See ya!" he yelped, taking his chance to hobble quickly away as fast as he could, not daring to look back. He didn't stop for what he figured had to be a solid five minutes or so, finally pausing to catch his breath after ascending two flight of stairs.

Hoping he was safe for the time being, he shifted his weight off of his aching foot as much as he could and pulled his phone back out of his pocket. He needed to get in touch with Caitlin and Barry. Much to his disappointment, however, he saw that there was still no service, even away from the area where he had encountered his ghostly assailant. That wasn't good. He resignedly put it back into his pocket once more and tried to think. If he had been attacked, had they too? He had been so concerned about himself and trying to gather his own footage that he hadn't even considered that, but now that he had, he felt sick. He had to find them, but he had no idea where to start. STAR Labs was huge, and they had all gone in different directions and probably to different floors. The man sucked in a breath. How was he supposed to locate them without a working phone? It would be virtually impossible, and he was painfully aware of the fact.

Then he heard the scream.


Author's Note: Whoops, cliffhanger! Who's screaming? Caitlin or Barry? Find out next chapter ;) Thanks for reading!