The scream was coming from two places at once, upstairs and downstairs in the closet.
At first Mike hesitated, unsure of which place to investigate first. Then, he heard a voice. It was soft and hollow. "Go. Go upstairs," the voice said. It sounded weak. He turned to look for the source of the voice. Then, he felt something which he later found difficult to describe. He felt a dull pain in his chest. But it wasn't a dull pain. It was sharp, though somewhat numbed. Then, he felt the need to obey the voice. He turned and ran up the stairs.
Peter wasn't sure why he had screamed. He'd just felt an incredible need to release energy. But as he screamed, he listened. He realized that it wasn't just him screaming. Someone somewhere else was screaming at the same time. The combined effect led to an almost supernatural sound, with twice the volume, twice the power, and twice the energy release. He stopped screaming to listen to the other scream. But whoever was screaming stopped at the same time. He had no idea where it was coming from. Then he remembered why he'd felt the need to scream. He'd had a dream, he recalled, and tried to remember what it was about. But he didn't know. He probed his mind. When he thought he was close to remembering, he felt a mass of fear. What was he afraid of, he wondered to himself. He shut his eyes and probed deep inside his mind.
When Mike came upstairs, there was no outward sign of why anyone would have screamed. Micky was still sleeping soundly, his thumb in his mouth and his arm wrapped around his puppy. And Peter was sitting up in bed, leaning back against the pillows, his eyes open in a blank stare. Mike noticed Peter and then did a double take. He went over to Peter and waved his arm in front of his eyes. Peter didn't respond. He called Peter's name, to no avail. Finally, he tried to scream Peter's name in his ear. This, incredibly, also produced no response. Amazingly, Micky still remained sound asleep. Mike observed this. Had Micky always been a sound sleeper? He found himself unable to remember. Now what, he wondered, beginning to panic. Peter wasn't responding, and Micky wasn't awake. What would he do? Why had someone screamed? Had he imagined it? He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands, frustrated, and unsure of what to do for the first time in a while.
