"My brain is playing tricks," he muttered, his voice raspy from years of smoke. "Hypnogogic hallucinations. Lack of sleep. Stress."

He survived that night, emerging into the gray Egyptian dawn with more white hairs than he had started with. He sat on the porch, lit a fresh cigarette, and watched the mist roll over the Nile. He had proven nothing, yet he had felt everything. The first chapter of his journey into the unknown had closed, but the veil between the worlds had been permanently thinned.

From the darkness, the girl reappeared. She wasn't a ghost in the traditional sense; she was a memory made manifest, a jagged piece of a tragedy that Refaat had tried to bury decades ago. Her name was Shiraz.