A/N: Inspiration stuck again... like a jellyfish and it won't come off. I guess that's a good thing. ...not the jellyfish. Those hurt. Still got the burn marks that prove it.

Enjoy.

CHAPTER TWO

She tried to make contact when she found a candle in the cupboard in her kitchen. She asked him to come forward if he needed to say something. She had walked around the couch to stand where she had and sat down. Tucking her legs underneath herself, she had waited. And waited. And waited.

The light spilling into the small apartment room alerted her that the storm was over. She blinked. Had she fallen asleep? She stopped short. She touched her forehead. No headache.

No way.

She swallowed and steadied herself. No headache. How was that possible? She always woke with one. Shaking her head, she stood. An extinguished candle fell to the floor. A bit of the still warm wax spilled onto the floor. She cursed and picked it up. How wise of her to fall asleep with a lit candle. She placed the white candle in the kitchen sink and headed for the shower.

She quickly stripped of her pjs and wrapped a towel on herself. She tried the knobs. Nothing happened. With a near silent huff, she turned and readied herself for a wrench vs pipes showdown when she stopped.

"Why did you not come forward when I asked for you?" Her bathroom held a small tub and the toilet and sink were symmetrical with the tub. A small foot wide and wall length closet for towels and other belongings was placed near the door. The closet's door stood slightly ajar.

She spoke towards it.

Something shifted inside.

"You said something before," she continued, "You said you weren't dead. ...I'm sorry to say, that if I can communicate with you, it usually means that." Still in monotone, she side-glanced into the closet's depths. There was no way a man the magnitude of which she had seen last night, could fit in there. But in reality, entities could fit anywhere.

"...NO..."

"No? No what?"

"...NOT...DEAD..." She breathed out. This wasn't her first interactive encounter with an entity. Her first had been at age five. A man, fully clothed in a tuxedo, was looking for his bride. Needless to say, that had freaked Raven out. But she hadn't called out to her mom. She knew she was no help. She had looked away, escaping to her room. But it appeared almost every other night. Finally, she had peeked from under the covers and had whispered that he was a ghost, and that she didn't know where his bride was. The man had stopped and given her a look of disbelief. Then, he had spoken the words that had chilled her more than any nightmare had:

"...HELP...ME..."

Bits a pieces were now foggy with age but the memory was still there. She had gone out of her five year old way and looked up the man's bride. She had survived a car crash they had both been in on their way to their honeymoon. The man had disappeared shortly after that. But Raven had a feeling it wasn't over.

She had gotten grounded for walking to the public library a block away from home. She didn't make up an excuse for herself and had sat in her room, awaiting the return of the man. He did return. Two days later. He looked defeated. Still scared, she swallowed her fear and had neared it. He thanked her for her help and had disappeared before her. And left her finally feeling the room alone.

Raven blinked. He wasn't the first thing that had tried to contact her, but he was...different.

"You still there?"

No reply.

She cursed herself slightly. She wet her lips and turned. Suddenly, her knees buckled to the floor. She landed in a slightly flooded bathroom floor. Her gaze sped up to glare at the faucet overlooking into the tub. Now it had started working. The warm water had made the room humid and goosebumps rose on her naked skin. She rushed to shut the water off. It closed with a small squeak, alerting of its rustiness.

She felt him again.

She turned.

Her bathroom mirror, about as big as a 2x4 block, was fogged up as pretty much the rest of the bathroom. But unlike the rest of the bathroom, it had a message on it:

DIRT-BOX-NIGHT-NOW

It was fresh, because the condensation beads had not began to fall down the surface of the mirror. The letters were thick, sharp, precise. Obviously, this was a man who dedicated into doing things his way, and very careful.

She repeated the letters to herself. One after the other. There seemed no obvious connection of the four letters. And she really didn't expect much, they had trouble communicating sometimes. Thoughts – if they really had them – were inconclusive and sometimes made them violent because they couldn't understand.

So the letters weren't really a bit help. Dirt? Dirt what? And box? ...perhaps he died in a box and hasn't noticed it. She turned away from it and rubbed her forehead. Right. Bath first. Then clean up. Then work.

--

"I don't understand," the old woman, white hair stringy into a bun and wearing her gardening clothes, kept the small line of five customers waiting.

"It's not on sale, ma'am. I apologize."

"But I found it in the ON SALE section of the bookstore," Raven inwardly stomped her feet and yelled at the woman. Outwardly, through half lidded eyes, she turned the book so as the woman could see its spine.

"The ones on sale have a purple sticker on it. This one doesn't have one." There. Maybe she'd get it that the book was misplaced and that it wasn't on sale.

"Then maybe someone took it off." Oh for Pete's sake!

"Fine," she growled and scanned the book's bar code. Then, scanned the bar code on her ID badge. The woman looked smug and gave the people behind her a smile. They grumbled and looked away. Anything to get the woman out of the bookstore. Just another 10 minutes on the shift then she was out for the night. "Here." She handed over the book. She looked at Raven in disbelief.

"And my bag?"

"...next!" she replied, curtly. The woman had the courtesy to apply on an offended look and reluctantly moved away from the line. The rest of the line moved on smoothly after that. Figuring the woman's discount wouldn't take out too much out of her paycheck, she stuck on her black coat and stepped out of the store, having checked out.

It was a quaint little store. Found almost on the edge of the nicer side of Bludhaven – still unmarred by its underworld – the little bookstore held books for the avid readers. Some of the main streams were inside, but mostly heavy books and college literature books. They had only hired Raven for the deep knowledge of literature and its art, for otherwise her ...peculiar social skills would have kept her jobless.

She retied the belt like bands on her waist and hugged herself.

It was getting cold. The rain wasn't helping any.

"Hey you!" She stopped. No cars seemed to be coming up or down the streets. Great. She turned and faced the man down the street. He obviously wasn't expecting her to turn around and face him. His cocky footsteps faltered at her movement, but continued on, recovering. "Little too late for a girl to out on her own, ain't it?"

Was this guy for real?

"Goodbye," she turned and with non-hurried steps continued on her way. His footsteps sped up and suddenly, he grabbed her arm. She carefully turned and stared up at him. He was stout, unshaven. But still no beard. He had a scar on his face racing from his nose to his left eye, probably the work of a rival gang.

"Where you going? It's dangerous out there. Doncha know where you live?"

"Yes. Do you?"

"...Oh! Haha, I get it. You all expectin' that Night bird or whatever to come to your rescue, right?"

"Please. He's a fake. A mentally unbalanced man in tights playing hero on the rooftops. Why would I want that?"

"Uh...right. S-so, if there's no hero, let me be a gentleman and escort you to your house." she gripped the man's wrist and squeezed. Not expecting the move, she broke free and walked away. "Wait a minu-"

Suddenly, he was shoved back in a painful blow. She stopped and stared back, wide eyed. The man was more confused than herself. His body had landed a feet away from her own, a knife clattering out of his reach.

"What the hell?" He looked up at her. She seemed like the obvious culprit for the hit. She turned fully to him.

Raven knew what had hurt him.

Sometimes entities were strong enough to push things around in a house. Several of her artifacts had learned that the hard way. But she had never seen one push anything with that much strength!

"What the hell did you do, you bitch? You think I'm kiddin'?"

"It wasn't me," she warned coldly.

"Right. It was Casper, huh? Was that it?" Oh...he wasn't far from the truth.

"Not Casper per say." He picked himself up walked towards her. She blinked, and her lips parted. The guy must have taken her shock to be her fear for enraging him so he continued more confidently towards her.

"Don't," she whispered.

But the entity ignored her. It dove forward and to her amazement, gave the guy a punch to the gut, followed by a perfect roundhouse kick, knocking the mugger down.

"Stop!" she almost yelled. She didn't know who or what this guy was but she knew that entities sometimes didn't know when to stop. It could actually kill the mugger. She took a step forward.

"Get away from me!" the delinquent all but yelled. She stopped and glared at the "see through" shadow that hovered over the man. The mugger with the bad punch lines ran/crawled away from her and made it around the corner without looking back at her.

"So you can manifest enough energy to hurt people...," she almost snapped at him.

"...DON'T HURT...HELP..."

"..You helped people in another life time?" Now, the shadow took a bit more of a defined shape. But it wasn't enough. He was still enveloped in darkness. Some entities were like that. They couldn't "manifest" well enough for people to see them as they were before they died.

Clearly it was the case here.

Her breath stopped when she saw his facial expression change. What appeared like lips, split into a crooked smiled.

"....DEFINE...HELP..."

Then, he left her alone again.

A/N: Thanks again reviewers. You keep me young. Lol. Wow, I went back and there was a lot of grammar mistakes on the first chapter. Why didn't y'all say anything? Hehe...I'll fix 'em...eventually.

Second chapters are the worst. This is what really defines what direction a fanfiction is going. Hope I haven't killed the "illusion". :D