Wind swept around the grounds of O'Mailey's residence. Plants seemed to reach out to the house as the air tried to drag them from the ground. A few lights were on in the house. Two solid steady lights in the servants' quarters below and a wild flickering light from a fireplace on the second story.
Wrapped in layers of clothing with a blanket across his lap O'Mailey sat in front of a blazing fire. Once Pagetic disease had set in the only thing that really eased the pain in his bones was this ritual in front of the fireplace. Heat pads, medications, nothing seemed to caress his body like the element of raw fire. Maybe it was the nostalgia of those nights in the forest as a youth or just the flood of sensation from the heat of the fire. Whatever it was it worked and his daughter feared he would catch fire from it.
Behind him a shadow stalked slowly through his reading room. With nothing more than walls of books and some lounge furniture the shadow had very little to work with, but it survived growing ever so slowly behind him.
"All men dream: but not equally, Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did." O'Mailey said as he turned towards the shadow.
"Why fear an old man dark one?" he said after a pause.
The shadow pulled out a canister and sprayed an aerosol into O'Mailey's face. He began to breathe erratically. The cardiac arrest would hit him hard. Before his body had gone cold his only daughter would unknowingly bring his memory to the very ones who killed him.