Night Owls

Jerry glanced down at the photograph in his hand, then back up again at the woman sitting alone at the back of the cafe.

He wondered why the woman seemed so grumpy. She looked so happy in the photograph. What had happened to Edith Fitzgerald to make her so weathered and weary?

All at once a blinding light coursed through the space. Jerry and the woman froze. And then a creature appeared, seemingly from the air itself.

Edith Fitzgerald looked at the creature, then to the strange man with her, the space suddenly transformed into what felt almost like a void. “N-no,” she said, fear overtaking her voice. “I can’t… I can’t host you again. You took everything out of me last time.”