text: The first time I heard her voice, I was about to die. Faint and distant, it sounded like someone shouting into the wind. The monstrosities in the storm were tearing at my flesh, flaying my arms to the bone, and my lungs were filling with black rainwater. That's when I heard the voice, fluttering over the mayhem below like a stray bird. I knew that it was my language she was speaking, but by the time the voice reached me, it was shredded into something inhuman that filled the spaces in my ears. And then I woke up. Yeah, yeah. I know. That was the first of many. Most nights I was fighting for my life in one way or another, and whatever was trying to kill me would have been sure to win eventually. There was no escaping it. But whatever it took the form of each night, it never quite got the chance. She would wait for my final moments, just before I was shocked out of sleep by my own almost-death, to send me her muddled messages. I assumed she meant me harm. A pretty safe assumption; most entities did in my dreams, but I didn't know for sure. What I did know is that each encounter left me cold to the bone. In my defence, the temperature was not an entirely spiritual matter. The apartment block next to mine had been pulled down almost a year ago for one reason or another. My landlord owned that place too, and he had kept quiet on the details. I know now that he had had good reason to. That is to say, where there was once laughter, and light, and...*heat*...well apparently I had gotten a lot of my warmth from next door. Very generous of them. The Eastern Wind was my new neighbour. As for my days, the story was not much better. I had nothing. I did nothing. It's not really important. I whiled away my days as people do. Not to mention I feared for my life. I feared for my life in that fucking place. I realised pretty quickly that the voice was a woman, but her words still came in broken pieces, ripped apart and tossed around on my own personal tide of horrors. Most of the time the dreams felt liquid, sliding past my eyes, and formless evils would strangle me all in darkness. Every now and then though, I would be transported back to Hell with clear sight. Hell was hearing the conversations from that morning. The bartering and the taunting, crying, hysterics, and then the way the air turned sour before they ripped it all away from me. My eldest, almost a man, screamed at me like only a son could scream at his father, and I knew there was nothing I could do. I'd kept the weapon one of them had used under my bed after that, a large framing hammer with a blue grip. A small part of me actually believed I would be able to use it. I'd get the chance, I was sure of it. They would be coming back for *me* if I didn't do my job this time, and I hadn't. I'd lost everything already. Why the fuck would I? But they never came back. Those dreams were the ones where I truly died, in soul if not in body. The was no waking up from those in time, I suffered to the end. The woman sounded closer to me as well, I could almost understand her. Honestly, the more I heard her, the more I wanted to. It was a nice voice, even if it was scattered and senseless. But one night, it made sense. Just as I felt the familiar evils closing in on me for another night, they crumbled and died and the storm abated. And I heard the voice. “*Pick up the hammer.”* I woke up. My breath wasn't jagged, and I didn't feel scared. The air was warm on my face. “Well fantastic. Company*.*” My eyes snapped open and I searched around my field of vision for a source. The voice was sharp. Crystal clear. It was the same voice, I knew it was. It followed me out. “Why didn't you help me?*”* I leapt up and whirled around, and stared. The voice had spoken like it was coming from right above the headboard. But before I could get any closer I noticed my peripheral vision screaming at me to look *down*. I looked down and saw the hammer. The hammer I kept under my bed was now up on the pillow. Wet blood coated the metal, soaked into the covers. There was a man lying face up, with his skull split in half on my bed. A woman's hands came through the wall, then her face, and the rest of her, slipping through the brick like water. She had wild chestnut hair and olive skin, and icy eyes that glowed green under yellow tinted glasses. She was quite out of place in my little grey apartment. She moved like she was walking through water, and left a trail of shadow behind her. She looked angry. “Why didn't you help?” she repeated. “Are you the woman from my nightmares?” I asked her. “I was in them”, she told me, “But not from them.” She even looked a little offended. I don't think I totally heard what she was saying at the time. I was a little slow to process what was happening. “You're...good looking.” I decided to say. She laughed at me. There was no humour in it. And she told me that I hadn't seen her yet, not really. Her eyes were growing fierce again. “They put me in there.” She motioned to the spot above my headboard. “Buried me in there.” I looked above my bed to the wall. She told me that they'd buried her standing up, so she would never rest, and rest she hadn't. It was hard to fathom. With my eyes, I stripped back the wallpaper, plaster, and the stone that had stood between me and the wind that seemed like it never stopped. I told myself that there were eyes staring back at me through the layers. I believed it. The freshly dead man was lying right where I had been sleeping, so I figured it out in good time who it was. In my defence, it's hard to recognise yourself from the outside, especially with a messed up face. Yes, I had been right to keep that hammer, but it had done sweet fuck all to help me. I'd made it as easy to kill me as it was my kids. I wonder if they'd recognised that it was the same weapon. I hope they appreciated the poetry as much as I would have, had I been the victor. Honestly though, even if I had woken up in time to see them standing in my room, I had always been total shit at fighting. Like a lot of people I imagine, I wasn't a great fit for the life I'd chosen. “You can't leave?” I asked her. She shook her head. “Not while I'm in there.” I started to wonder what kind of life this woman must have chosen *herself*, to wind up being entombed like this. Set into the rock, becoming part of it, even. Killing her hadn't been enough. She was looking down at my body. “You were quite handsome before, you know.” she said. I suddenly felt embarrassed that this woman had been watching me sleep this whole time. I even remember blushing, or feeling like I was blushing, and I remember thinking that even dead I was shit with women. “Kind of a shame," I said, "You're the type of woman I would have liked to take home with me...” Her eyes brightened. “Maybe you still can.” she said. The closer to death you are, the easier it is for spirits to speak to you, whether it's real or in a dream. Spirits can't tell the difference, because there barely is one. You realise the arbitrary nature of physical life only in death. That's how she explained it to me. She'd just wanted me to get the stupid hammer and break her out of that horrible wall. I did try one more time to pick it up, but my fingers moved through it. It wasn't my world any more, as it wasn't hers. I didn't want it to be. “We can make them notice. When they come to take me away” I told her. But of course we couldn't. It took a month for the landlord to find me, and when he did, he was a bit preoccupied with the poor dead bastard lying on the bed. He was a good guy, I'm sorry he had to be the one to find me, but there was nobody else. They buried me last week, and I'm with my kids again. We all visited her the other day, and she told us the apartment building was now up for demolition, just like next door. Looks like the best thing I could have possibly done for her is be bludgeoned to death. I suppose my landlord drew the line at finding me with half a face in my room and cut his losses in the property business. Can't say I blame him really. I hope he's a long way away when they find her, he's too old for any more of that shit. But I'll be there. Maybe I can finally take her home with me.