The darkness seemed to fill Eleanor's lungs with a thick fog. The air no longer had the scent of perfume wafting, but a faint scent of blood, and it pained the poor woman with every breath. Each rapid step drained more and more life, the thickness in her lungs could not support her movement. It was an underhanded battle.

The man could run like a deer! She thought. His movements nearly blurred with agility. The woman had noticed, early on, he had an abnormal sensitivity and awareness to everything around him. His refluxes were inhuman. If he heard you behind him, the first footstep you made would reach his ears and he would dart backwards staring calmly, but not without a certain implacable intensity that could command the National Guard.

Each pump of her heart was like tar running through her veins. Each of her limbs seemed to lose feeling, as did her sense of courage. Small, strenuous tears crept onto her face, but she pressed on.

Suddenly, no more footsteps. A voice in her head told her to run. Run as if time had sped up and life continues at extraordinary speed. That Toller man could have been anywhere, following her. She could feel his all knowing eyes burrow into her, gloating. Her lungs could not gasp another breath of awful air, nor her heart pump another awful quart to a body that would continue.

"Our room!" she whispered in exhilaration. Salvation.

She quickly opened the door and dashed inside, only the hope of peace prompting her body now. Mrs. Creedy slammed the door. The blood began to flow like water again as she indulged in an exhausted gasp. For now, there was salvation.

Then, through peripheral vision, she saw a lean figure dressed in a svelte beige suit. It was paranoia, surely. A dream hailing from intense panic. When it began to speak, however, she thought differently.

"You're quick, I'm nearly out of breath." Said Cedric calmly, leaning on that awful stick of his.

Quite nonchalantly, he began waving it about wildly, striking everything in his path. Elle

was perplexed, a feeling when mixed with raw fear for one's life can knot up the stomach

in an awful way.

"Are you mad?" she exclaimed, taking up a porcelain doll in his path.

"No," he said simply, and began rummaging through her dresser.

The old woman dashed for the door. Setting eyes on him…breathing the same air as him

Caused her to loathe herself, and her lungs to shut like a clam. The doorknob sent her a

sudden sensation that seemed as cold as death. Were her ears playing games or did she hear a soft click? She rattled the door further. It would not budge one inch to the left nor to the right. She was in a fury of turns, pushing and pulling the door, the desperate tears creeping back into her eyes. Her head whipped back, and saw Cedric gazing at her struggle with a shadow of a grin. This sent a swift jolt through her body. The heart began to pump faster, the new supply of blood seemed to overflow, blurring her vision into spots. No longer could she feel the smooth and now slippery doorknob, no longer had she the strength to keep her vice grip on it.

There Eleanor Creedy lay, dead as dust, with one frail, withered, and now frozen hand weakly clutching the door.

Cedric smiled inside (manners would never permit him to laugh in the presence of a lady) at the woman before him. No salty, sticky blood on his hands this time, no body to fumble with, no witnesses to charm, save the half-wits in the foyer. How lovely it was that old women were famed for cardiac arrest!