Nick didn't make a sound all the way back to the anomaly. And for the most part both the captain and I were silent.

He'd laid the professor down on the ground in front of the anomaly, as I'd sort of milled around beside him, collecting rock samples, snipping cuttings off the trees nearby and putting them all in pots and dropping them into my backpack.

I was snipping a yellow flower from its bush nestled in between the rocks at the foot of the slope, when I heard a noise behind me and spun around.

Nick groaned, his eyes blinking as he took a second to adjust to the light before he tried to sit up.

'He's awake!' I called back to Captain Ryan. I straightened up, rising to my full height before I walked back towards the rucksack.

The captain turned away from the anomaly. 'Professor,' he said as he started towards him, arm outstretched as though to offer him a hand up.

I zipped up the backpack, and pulled it up onto my back, just as Nick pushed himself to his feet. In a split second, he'd raised a fist, and instead of accepting Captain Ryan's hand he lurched forward and punched him in the face.

The captain was sent stumbling back, but quickly caught himself before he raised his fist in retaliation.

'Whoa!' I called, lunging forward to impose myself between the two of them. 'Stop it, stop it.' I stretched out my arms to keep them both apart, but still reeling with anger, Nick stepped forward, his chest bumping into my hand and I turned my head to look at him. 'Don't,' I warned, as I pushed against his chest, 'come on.'

I heard the captain sigh. 'Don't do that again!'

Nick groaned, he rolled his eyes, and his mouth opened ready to release some sort of smart remark but he didn't get the chance.

'The anomaly's closing.'

With Captain Ryan's words, my head whipped around. And he was right. There was an immediate following of panic that flared up in my chest, the horror of an idea of getting trapped flashed through my mind, but as quickly as it permeated through me, it disappeared, and all I could do was keep my apprehensive attention firmly locked on Cutter.

The captain started towards it, but Nick didn't move. And noting his stillness, I turned my head to him and stared. Then, he dropped down to his knees, like an admission.

'Quick, come on!' The captain called sharply. 'Do you want to be trapped here forever!'

'I'm staying here. Go, if you want to.'

'I'm not leaving you behind.'

'What you gonna do? Shoot me?'

I took a deep breath but said nothing.

The captain came back from the anomaly and dropped down into the sand beside Nick. 'Alright, you stay, I stay,' he said.

Nick rolled his eyes. 'That's– that's just childish.'

And I sighed in exasperation, and to prove a point fell to my knees too. 'You want to stay here? Fine,' I said, 'but its suicide to stay on your own. So we're not going anywhere.'

And as though he thought we were bluffing, his harsh gaze moved from Captain Ryan and on to me. His eyes softened slightly, and he held my gaze but stayed silent.

'So they'll never know what happened to us. What we found here. Stephen... Connor... no one will know. They'll just assume we're dead. I don't know about you but I really don't want that. We'll find out what happened to your ex-wife, Nick, I promise, just ... not like this,' I continued hurriedly.

We didn't have much time.

'I don't... I don't really care about what happened to Helen,' he admitted in confusion.

I frowned. 'Then what?'

'This...' he said, and he gestured around us, 'it feels far too big to just let it go.'

'The anomaly'll re-open.'

'And if it doesn't.'

'Then we can move on with our lives, but I bet there's enough already to spend the rest of it trying to explain all this.'

The second it took him to deliberate felt like an eternity. My gaze flitted back to the anomaly, and the thought of Connor standing there on the other side waiting for us to come back home made my heart twinge. I couldn't leave him there. I couldn't leave him alone and wondering what happened to us.

I got up. 'You coming?' I asked, as I turned and held out a hand for him to take.

'Aye, alright then,' he finally agreed. He clamped his hand down into mine, and I pulled him up, as the captain got back onto his feet and started for the anomaly. Nick lunged for the camera, hauling it up with him before he followed me up towards the anomaly.

The captain went through and I fell through not a second after him, and before my eyes the scenery changed. I crashed into the back of the captain as I landed on the other side, back in the cool darkness of the forest, and we both went tumbling down into the dirt.

Nick followed behind us, tripping as he stumbled through and falling down to the ground at my side.

'Anna! Anna!' I heard Connor's footsteps, and it almost completely obscured the dull sound of a camera shutter clicking before he skidded down through the dirt. 'Are you okay?' he reached down, grabbing a hold of my arm to pull me up. 'Do you need the medic?' I shook my head. 'The readings were getting weaker,' he then stammered out explanatorily, 'I didn't think you'd make it.'

I hummed. 'Yeah.' I glanced back to Nick over my shoulder, as once again he started pushing himself up to his feet. 'We almost didn't.'

Connors arms wrapped around my shoulder, and he pulled me in to a quick, relieved hug, before he stepped back. Behind him, I saw the anomaly close, leaving nothing but an empty space in the clearing.

I dug my hand into my pocket. 'I got you a present,' I said.

'Huh?' I held up the keychain with his front door key in my thumb and forefinger before I turned them over in my hand and tossed them to him. 'Oh,' he said with a grin as he caught them, 'thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

'What did you see?'

'There was a camp,' the Captain answered, 'it looked like a military camp. You're not going to believe it...'

'Someone's been there before?'

The Captain nodded.

'What was it like?' Connor then continued, with a little more excitement.

'You've got to see it.'

I turned away from Connor, leaving him engaged in his conversation with the captain, and my eyes immediately met Nick's gaze. So, I took a couple of steps towards him, and he reached out to lay a hand on my shoulder. 'Good call,' he admitted quietly, under his breath.

'I know,' I replied, trying to remain straight-faced and serious, but the second his lips started curling up into a smile, I couldn't help but mimic his expression.

A sudden scream made me snap my head around, Nick's hand fell from my shoulder, and my eyes narrowed, but I shouldn't have bothered; it was all too easy to see the dark looming shape of the Gorgonopsid charging out of the trees towards us.

The sound of gunfire swallowed my senses and I froze in fear.

For a second, I wasn't in the woods anymore. Everything around me faded, and crackled, flitting like a cut scene, and the forest snapped out of my vision and I was in the dining room of our house.

I could feel the cold metal against my forehead. I could see the grain of the mahogany floorboards, and the slow pooling of red beneath me.

I was back there, in that moment.

'Anna?'

Someone was calling my name.

'Anna! Come on! Let's go!'

I was ripped from my trance, yanked off spot as Nick slammed a hand down around my arm and suddenly started running, and I had no choice but to follow. And it took me a moment, in the wake of the hallucinative, viciously vivid memory, to find any sort of clarity.

'Wait!' I heard myself exclaiming, as I started to pull against him. 'Where's Connor?' my hand broke away from the contact and I turned on the spot trying to locate him. 'Connor?'

His exclamation of fright rippled from his throat, and brought my attention to him, just as he tripped and fell to the ground. The Gorgonopsid slowed, as though aware its prey couldn't put up much of a fight, as it quickly closed down the space between them.

I cupped my hands round my mouth and whistled. 'Hey!' I shouted, 'Hey!' I waved my arms in the air trying to catch his attention. 'Look at me!' I murmured, 'come on.'

I was barely aware of Cutter shouting my name, and chasing after me, attempting to pull me out of the creature's path as I took off into the forest and the Gorgonopsid turned its attention to me, and started a charge.

A noise from the road caught my attention, and getting an idea, I changed trajectory towards it, feet pounding through the dirt, and within a moment I spotted the headlights of the vehicle. So I pushed myself harder, closing down the distance to the road. The truck was close. I recognised the vehicle from the home office– the same kind Nick and I had used to get back to the forest– and I reached the road just as the truck was about to cut in front of me, but I ran straight out, the Gorgonopsid's breath fanning out behind me. I jumped across the road, missing the speeding vehicle by mere inches.

There was a squeal of breaks, I crashed down into the dirt, and the car struck the Gorgonopsid. It hit the ground.

I didn't have a second to exhale my relief before the car door was thrown open and Stephen emerged, and despite his paleness I could see the flush of anger burning up through him. 'Anna?' he questioned as though in disbelief. 'What the hell were you thinking!?' he demanded, 'What the hell was that?' then, as he rounded the front of the vehicle, his eyes widened. 'Are you kidding me, did you lure that thing here?'

I narrowed my eyes to a glare. 'What?' I returned, 'yeah.' I pushed myself onto my elbows. 'Don't start with me, where the hell have you been?

I watched him prickle. 'Oh, you know, just around,' he returned, sarcastically. 'Why?'

'Well, you've certainly missed a lot.' I sat up and dusted the assortment of dried pine needles and twigs and leaves from my palms.

A moment later, Nick and Connor burst through the treeline, huffing, trying to catch their breath before they saw me on the ground, and their attention shifted over to the Gorgonopsid, illuminated by the beams from the headlights.

'Oh, no, don't worry,' I said, airing a tone of sarcasm, 'Stephen's hit it with his car!'

Stephen huffed back at me in frustration. 'Yeah, and be thankful that was the only thing I hit. Seriously, I could have killed you!'

'Yeah, but you didn't.'

'I thought you'd be a little more grateful. Technically, I just saved your life.'

'I saved my life,' I returned, 'my plan.'

Stephen frowned. 'I just killed that thing.'

'Seeming as you like being technical so much, that thing killed itself, it just used your car to do it.'

'You should be more careful.'

Immediately, I was insulted. I didn't know if he was sexist, or stupid, or both, but I really didn't like it. 'And you shouldn't feel you have the right to tell me what to do.'

'We developed the film in the camera you brought back,' Lester said. Nick reclined in his seat, his face falling void of expression.

Sitting next to him at the table in the otherwise empty room in the home office, I leant against my hand, lips pursed in concentration and swept my fringe out my eyes again

'It's her. It's Helen,' he managed in response.

'I'm sorry for your personal loss, professor,' Lester continued as the screen went black and he walked towards us. 'This camp that you discovered, there was no clue of who made it or what it was for?' But Cutter shook his head. 'The thought that someone's been there before us is far from reassuring. And I used the think the EU common agricultural policy was farfetched. Still at least the immediate crisis is over.'

'Some force!' Nick exclaimed as he got to his feet, 'out there... ripped the boundaries of space and time to shreds. Maybe it's happened before in which case every single thing we thought we knew about the universe is wrong. Or this is the first time, in which case what changed? What happens next? Believe me it's very, very far from over.'

Two hours later I had scanned my markings, and immediate observations– complete with diagrams and sketches of the creatures– into the computer and printed them off onto big sheets of paper. Nick was sitting behind his desk, watching me as I copied out my original equations onto the whiteboard to the left of where he had bluetacked my papers.

'Okay,' I said, as I stepped back to get a better look, hoping it would help me check the accuracy of my equations, and my eyes narrowed suspiciously, 'does any of this...' I gestured to the board, 'make sense to you?'

Nick cocked his head. 'If I'm being honest... not really.'

And sighing– in agreement– I lowered my chin to my chest. It felt like it was defeating me, and I was getting rather internally frustrated that I couldn't work it out. 'Yeah, me neither.'

'Aren't you tired?'

'Kinda,' I answered. 'I probably shouldn't be doing this now, but if I don't finish it, I won't be able to sleep.'

'Thinking about it?' he questioned.

I turned around to face him. 'Are you not?'

He exhaled a breath of laughter. 'Do you want a drink then?'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Is that university policy?'

'You're not going to tell anyone, are you?'

'Well...' I counterposed, 'that's going to depend on how much you pour.'

His lips curled up into a smile as he stood from his chair, moving across the room to the kitchen in the alcove.

I pushed the cap onto the pen and reached over to put it down on the desk, when I noticed the photo of Helen that had been there earlier was now face down against the table. I wanted to move it, to prop it back up or something because I felt bad for him.

I couldn't help it.

Nick Cutter was like a little Labrador puppy. He was so fucking cute it hurt. And at the same time he had this way of holding himself that was intriguing. I'd assumed it was grief. I thought I'd recognised it.

However, Helen wasn't dead. She could still be alive out there. I turned my attention back to him and registered the lost look in his eyes as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

'Are you okay?' I asked as I stopped beside him.

'Hmm? Oh, yeah... just...'

And he didn't need to finish that sentence because I understood. '...yeah,' I agreed.

Nick stepped forward, he reached up and grabbed a bottle of scotch from the top shelf. He put the bottle down on the work top and pulled two glasses towards him.

He poured both drinks and offered one back to me. I had to take a step further into the alcove to reach it.

'Thanks.'

'You're welcome.'

I took a sip. 'It's late, Nick,' I noted. 'You could go home.'

He shook his head. 'Not yet.'

'Something on your mind,' I proposed. Then, realised that was a stupid statement, I half laughed under my breath. 'Course there is. Can I help?'

'My marriage,' he began with a soft sigh, 'ended four years before she went missing. I haven't loved her for a very long time. Is this why? Is this what she thought she'd found before she disappeared and did she just keep it all to herself? I just want to know what happened.'

There was an expansive silence, as again I raised the glass to my lips and took a sip. He watched me, with this expression in his eyes that suggested he was only half focused on me, and more internally held up in his own thoughts.

And he didn't say anything for at least a minute.

I took another long sip of scotch.

'You think you've found the answer?' I eventually replied.

He nodded softly, before he seemed to pull himself yet again out of his reverie and quickly rolled back his shoulder and put his glass down beside him on the worktop. 'Yes,' he said, 'but...' he reached out, tucked my hair behind my ears and took a step towards me. 'Different question.'

He leant in, and my eyes closed as he placed a kiss against my lips. Then, pulling back just far enough to study my reaction, he took my glass from me, reaching out to deafly shove it onto the worktop next to his, as his arm wrapped around my waist, and he held me against him.

His lips pressed more firmly against mine, and as my hand snaked up to wrap into the short hair at the nape of his neck, he took a step forward, and my back hit the wall.

Then there was a sound and I was forced to pull away, whipping my head around to scan the room for the source of the noise I'd heard.

'Anna?' Nick questioned as he also turned to find an empty room.

'I heard something,' I told him in response.

I slipped from his hold and made my way back to his desk. The photo had gone, and in its place lay an ammonite. And at first glance it appeared strikingly normal, to the point I almost started to question of my tiredness was playing tricks with my mind, and it had in fact been there all along. I opened my mouth, as though to say it was nothing, when the creature slipped out of the shell.

It was alive.

At that moment, the door slammed. I jumped, just as the sound of clumsy and inelegant sort of stumbling footsteps echoed back from outside his office. And Nick and I decided in the same moment to follow the sound.

I was quicker than he was. Not a surprise, I used to run track. Except, whoever it was, or whatever it was that I thought I could hear was somehow faster than me, and once I was out the building and had stumbled down the steps outside and rounded the boardwalk, they were already gone.

I stumbled to a stop, scanning the immediate vicinity in confusion, squinting into the shadows as I tried to catch sight of it.

Then something caught my eye. A shadowy figure caught just in the edge of the light from the streetlamp, and I saw the billowing of a brown trench coat and the ends of the long brown hair whirling around, before the figure disappeared.

And undeterred, I sprinted past the windows of the atrium, until I reached the end of the path and had to stop in front of the railing.

Nick came to a halt at my side. 'Who was it?'

I had to shake my head. 'I don't know,' I answered reluctantly. Because I honestly had no idea. But then something came to mind, something so ludicrously unrealistic that I didn't even say it out loud. It could have been Helen. I turned my head towards him. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I continued with the lie 'I didn't see.'