April was waiting for him when he stepped out of the Battle Shell, leaning on the side-door to her shop. She looked as though she hadn't slept at all the previous night — her customary knot of red hair looked rumpled, and there were circles under her heavy eyes. She was also still dressed in the worn T-shirt and shorts that Don knew she used as pajamas.

"Hey, Don," she said, smiling slightly as she saw him. "Thanks for coming over. I hope it isn't inconvenient."

"Of course it isn't," Don said warmly, following her into her store. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Not a lot," April admitted, as they made their way up the stairs and into her apartment. "Do you want coffee?"

"Yes, please."

He waited patiently as she went through the motions of making coffee for both of them, and finally set a steaming mug in front of him. When she slipped into the chair opposite him, her hands were trembling slightly. Her eyes stared hollowly at the tabletop, as if searching for answers among the wood grains.

"What's wrong?" Don said softly. "You sounded really upset on the phone."

"I saw something last night," April replied, even more quietly. "And I've come to the conclusion that either I was hallucinating, or my apartment is haunted. I'm not sure which option is worse."

"Haunted," Don repeated, his eyes widening. "So… you saw a ghost."

"I saw something that looked like a ghost. I don't believe in ghosts, Don," April said, her voice quavering a little. "At least, I've never seen any evidence they exist. Except — except that last night — I saw this — this thing standing in my living room."

"What did it look like?"

April stared down into the depths of her coffee. "This is going to sound crazy, but it looked like someone had sculpted a figure out of shadows."

"And you haven't seen anything strange since then?" Don asked, staring into the remains of his cup of coffee. "No other odd visions, after-images, maybe symptoms like dizziness or disorientation?"

"No," April said faintly. "Do you have some idea what it could be?"

"I — well, shadowy figures aren't uncommon for people to see," he said slowly. "In fact, they're very common with some… conditions."

"What kind of conditions?"

"Well… mental illness, for one," Don said reluctantly. "Conditions like depression and schizophrenia can cause visions of shadow people."

April's eyes widened in alarm, and her fingers tightened around her coffee mug.

"But those are not the only conditions that can cause you to see things," Don added hastily. "Sleep paralysis is often associated with shadow people. They can also be generated by sleep deprivation, although you probably weren't suffering from that since you fell asleep during the movie."

"It wasn't sleep paralysis," April said, resting her head on her folded arms. "I was up and walking around."

His nose wrinkled slightly. "I assume you're not on methamphetamines…"

"Of course not!"

Don's eyes flickered as he contemplated what April had told him. "April, I… is it possible that you could have dreamed the whole thing?" he asked.

"I felt wide awake."

"But it is a possibility, isn't it?" Don probed. "I mean, you were watching a movie with evil shadowy creatures in it, and then you saw one in your dark living room in the middle of the night."

"I… might have," April said slowly, sounding unconvinced.

"That might be the most likely answer," Don said, grasping at any explanation that didn't have more serious connotations. "At least without signs of any sort of recognizable illness or disorder that could have caused you to hallucinate. You'd need to see a doctor, though, to really rule out any medical cause, but… given what happened, I'd guess that it was a dream."

"I hope you're right," April murmured. "It was just… it didn't look like any of the Black Riders in the movie."

Don's brow furrowed. "Was it… shaped like a human being?"

"Not exactly," April said, raising her mug to her lips. He noticed a slight tremor in her hands. "It was… it was more like a tall column with a head on the very top, and it didn't seem entirely solid."

A cold prickle ran down Don's body, and he quickly set the coffee mug down before he dropped it. Memories flashed before his eyes — memories of seeing something through a rain-spattered windshield, something that almost blended into the darkness of the empty street until the headlights had shone on it. Only for a moment, but long enough to see a faceless head that plumed like billowing smoke.

"It didn't have a face — not even a place where a face should be," she continued, seemingly not noticing his reaction. "And it moved like—"

"Like fire?" Don said quietly. "As if it were flickering?"

April's green eyes opened wider, and slowly turned up towards him. "How did you know?" she whispered.

"Because last night, I saw — something too," Don said slowly. "It was only for a split second, but… it almost caused the Battle Shell to spin out of control. I thought it was a person at first, but…"

"Then I'm not going crazy," April said, sighing with relief.

"Not unless we both are, in oddly similar ways," Don said, his gaze hardening as he set down his cup. "Of course, that also leaves us with other problems, like figuring out what exactly it was that we both saw."

"And what it wanted," April said quietly. "I don't know what it was doing here last night, but it tried to grab me." A shudder passed through her, and her hand closed tightly on her coffee cup.

Don looked her over for a moment, as if expecting to see handprints on the woman's body. Then he leaned towards April, gently enclosing her small pale hand in his larger green one, and squeezing it between his fingers. "April," he said quietly, "we're going to figure this out. One way or another, we'll get to the bottom of what happened."

She took a quavering breath, and tried to smile. "I know. Thank you, Don."

Don smiled, then felt her hand moving gently against his, her small fingers fluttering against his palm like the wings of a trapped bird. He loosened his grip, but she made no motion to reclaim her hand from him, as if she were completely comfortable with him holding it. Instead of letting go, he let her slender fingers slip through his thicker ones, entwining them together lightly, just for a moment.

"Don?" April said, her fingers tightening around his. "What are—"

But the loud crash of breaking glass interrupted her before she could say anything more, as something small and heavy hurtled through the apartment. April let out a cry, and Don pulled the bo from his back almost on instinct. Then he saw what it was, lying in the middle of a pile of shattered glass — a small cylindrical object, topped with a plug and a lever.

Someone had thrown a grenade into the apartment.