“Oh Christ, Oh Christ, no,” Sartok cried out, holding back his bile.

She was there again. Beautiful. Pale. Dead.

He gagged as her saw her pale skin tinted with a blue. Her hair dripped water on the floor.

He stumbled from the bed and quickly clutched a towel to his nudity, “No! God, no! Why do you come every night! Leave me be,” he begged in a high pitch whimper.

The body began to stir as it always did.

It horrified him that he knew that it would slowly sit up.

Sartok fell to his knees, sobbing. “God, what did I do to you?! Why do you keep coming?! Did I rape you! Did I kill you?! I'm SORRY!”

The girl stood. Her legs were stiff and bloated with the water dripping down them.

It sickened him how beautiful he found her, even as she creaked slowly towards him. Her eyes stared him down blindly.

“I'm sorry,” he whimpered. It was all he ever knew how to say. “I love you...”

The alarm showed him mercy. He was thrown back into reality before she could touch his face like she once had.

He curled into a ball. His golden skin gleamed with sweat, rippling over the muscles. A strange high pitched keening came from him when he saw the blood stains on the sheets.

He had to be at work. He forced himself to follow the pills he and his team had manufactured. By the time he had dressed his shaking had calmed. But the pills could never get the bloodstains out. Nothing could...