Roger fell to his knees in the auburn tufts of grass, fingertips landing in the soft ground. He had veered off the path of white limestone and was looking for something. The thick mist was rolling in and soon he wouldn’t be able to see his hand in front of his face. He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t know how to keep it from happening. All he knew was he had to help stop it.

Over the course of the last year he had been burdened with an inconceivable notion: his brother, and the rest of his squadron, who were long dead, would rise and become ghosts at midnight tonight. Roger didn’t believe it- it was absurd. Ridiculous. The supernatural didn’t exist, much less that his brother would be stuck as a ghost instead of moving on.

But then things started happening that Roger couldn’t deny… things that defied explanation, unless they were indeed supernatural.

It started with a raven. Every time he would leave his apartment, a raven flew toward him and landed on his porch railing. It was weird, but Roger shrugged it off.

Then came the insects. They started following him when he was walking. Initially a few at a time but then it became more and more. Large groups of ants and beetles and other creepy crawlies would amass behind him.

Then, he started noticing things being displaced in his apartment. Living alone and no one else having a key, he checked into a hotel for a few weeks.

When he finally returned home, he saw smoke coming from the top of his apartment like it would come out of a chimney.

He didn’t have a chimney.

He checked back into the hotel after that but even there he saw things. A golden light coming off of certain objects. A hand made of mist coming through the desk in his room.

Then, after work one day, he came back to his hotel room and a black cat was sitting on his bed, staring at him. The cat had no collar and seemed to stare Roger up and down, then spoke, saying, “So, do you believe the prophecy now?”

That was Roger’s introduction to the magical world and sometimes he still wasn’t sure he believed it. But he knew- otherwise he wouldn’t be in this field right now- that he had to help his brother and his fellow soldiers so they weren’t stuck in this world as ghosts.