"What do you mean he's there? I know he's there, you showed him to me, like an hour ago!" I raised my voice, the traffic, and Mason's obscene road rage doing nothing to relieve my frustration. Mrs. Kowalski was blubbering on the other end, hungrily gulping for air.

"No, no, no, sweetheart, ya don't understand, he's downstairs, he's..." she whimpered, choking on her words.

"What are you talking about?!" I growled, just as Mason swerved.

"Jesus!"

"Suck my tits, you smug asshole!" Mason shrieked through the half-cracked window, "Tell that Dolly Parton reject to quit spitting nonsense and tell us what's going on?"

"Sorry about that Mrs. Kowalski."

"Oh my lord, oh my lord, he's comin'!" Hysterical tears made her voice break.

"What? Who's coming?"

I jerked at the scream that erupted in the background.

"What was that?!" I demanded.

"Oh my god! Ronnie!" she shrieked, as another crash reverberated in the distance.

"Hello?! Mrs. Kowalski?! What's happening?! Hello?!"

The world went dark when a papery whisper echoed on the other end.

"Help me..."

I jumped when the line violently cut off in a gurgle of background noise. After that, stone-cold silence.

"Hello? Hello?!" I repeated, even though I knew I wasn't going to get an answer.

"What, what is it?" Mason roared, overriding the distant screams of air horns.

I shot him a look. "We need to step on it. Like now."

Though we broke several traffic laws, it still felt like it took us forever to get to the funeral parlor. No sooner had Mason's tires screeched to a halt than I was at the front door, my hand ready to tear it open. I wish I'd waited, and mentally prepared myself.

"Holy shit..." Mason whispered behind me. His gaze was locked onto the ruins of what was once the Kowalski's horrendous, cat lady paradise. From the entrance, all the way through to the living room, down to the disproportionately tiny kitchen, the entire house was in ruins. Broken lamps, torn drapes, tables turned over, bits and pieces of smashed cat figurines littering every surface; the entire place looked like it had been defaced by a wild animal.

"Mrs. Kowalski?" I called out. No answer.

I skipped over a broken lamp, passing the chaos in the living room to enter the kitchen. Every inch of tile was slathered in bits of leftover food and broken cutlery. So far, there was no sign of any kind of substance resembling blood.

"Mrs. Kowalski?!" I called out again, Mason at my heels.

"V, maybe we shouldn't be in here..."

His words died on his lips when a loud bang sounded behind us. Our heads snapped in the direction of the elevator embedded in the base of the staircase. It's doors stood open, the lights inside it flickering, on the verge of going out.

I was moving before Mason could stop me.

Surprisingly, the sanitary hallways of the underground parlor seemed untouched. I marched past what I believed was Mr. Kowalski's office, instinctively stopping just outside the double-ended metal door. A strange feeling of weightlessness settled over me. My right hand hovering just above the handle shook. Mason appeared at my side again, surprisingly assuming the role of the voice of reason for a change.

"V, seriously we can't just..."

I forced the door open with a painful shriek of metal.

Logan Winslow's figure came right into view, sat hunched on the morgue slab.

Yes, sat. Upright, taking in slow shallow breaths. Alive

"Oh, what the fuck..." Mason mumbled, his eyes as wide as figs. Yep, I was not imagining it.

My reap was alive. The guy, whose name had appeared in the Ledger, whose autopsied, corpse I'd seen only an hour earlier, was alive.

"But... but how? We saw him... he was here, he was..." Mason babbled, his voice shivering, "The Kowalskis said... they said..." He paused, his breathing abruptly cutting off. "The Kowalskis..."

I shot him an incredulous look. There was no way Logan could ever hurt them.

-Right?

We both jumped up when a loud moan burst from his unnaturally blue lips, his voice a startling scraping of metal against stone. He swayed from side to side, before his head dropped into his hands, the moans trickling from his muffled. His skin was so shockingly pale—not the standard lily-white of a recently deceased corpse. But a sickly, grayish-green, that made him look like a ghoul, an unholy creature that had crawled out of the deepest pit of hell.

Not that beautiful, radiant boy whose eyes pierced my undead heart at the bar.

-This isn't right. He's not right.

I all but began crying again but was forced to bite back tears when Mason took a few tentative steps forward, his back straight and chin high.

"What are you doing?!" I hissed, trying to pull him back.

"Hey," He said shakily, staring at Logan as if he were some dangerous animal that was going to pounce at any second.

"Mason!"

Logan ignored him, slowly rocking back and forth. I bit my lip. Why was this room so cold?

"It's okay, it's okay, I got this. Hey!" Mason repeated, this time louder, "Hey, Rick Grimes, anyone home?"

Against my fervent protests, he drew closer and tapped Logan on the shoulder

"Hey, man, you gotta wake up. The hell happened..." my gut did a cartwheel when Logan screamed and swatted Mason's hand away. He crawled to the edge of the slab, to hug his knees.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Mason put his hands up defensively. Logan continued to moan and wail, his wild eyes darting all over the room. "Dude, calm down!"

I whimpered when Logan grabbed a surgical instrument, resting on the table next to the slab. He flung it at Mason, screaming like a raving madman. Luckily, he managed to avoid it, and the scalpel ended up buried in a broken chair.

"Mason stop it!"

"Me? He's the one throwing shit!" he protested, just as Logan flung another round of surgical instruments at him. Mason once again danced out of the way, and the metal container smashed against the wall, scattering white cotton balls all over the pristinely white tiles.

"Hey, hey, snap out of it, we don't want to hurt you!"

"Stop that, stop it!" I shrieked, unable to stand Logan's insufferable cries. Without thinking, I lunged at him, intent on grabbing the scissors he was clutching in his hands when...

The world came to a stand-still. The moment my hand brushed against Logan's cold, stiff skin everything faded from my vision. I got the same electrifying buzz I got whenever a name popped up in my notebook—except this jolt was five times stronger, like drinking a liquid lightning bolt. I jerked back violently, almost falling over myself and pulling Mason down with me. But my panic was nothing compared to the rush of fear I felt when Logan suddenly gasped as if waking from a terrifying nightmare. He blinked rapidly, his body locking firmly in place—those dull blue eyes, wild and disoriented filled with terrified confusion as he gazed at me, burrowing holes into my skull.

"Holy shit..." Mason breathed, pulling me firmly behind him. I could see the vein on his neck pulsing as if it were going to break through his skin.

Logan continued to glare at us unmoving. His eyes might have been firmly glued to mine, but I could tell he was looking right through me.

-He looks so.... scared.

A sudden warmth blossomed in my chest, pushing aside the acidic fear. An insurmountable urge to go to him, ease his pain, and give him comfort, just as a Grim Reaper should, overwhelmed me. I had actually taken a few steps forward when Mason jerked me back.

"What are you doing?"

"It's okay," I breathed out with surprising confidence, "Let me."

Stopping just short of where he sat on the slab, I tentatively leaned forward, only inches away from his face.

"Logan?" I whispered, my voice breaking.

I thought he had gone catatonic again when he suddenly blinked. My heart clenched as I was sucked into the bottomless blue pits of his eyes.

"Can you hear me?"

He didn't respond. Instead, he frowned, indescribable pain marring the face that was once brighter than a dying star.

"C-c-co...." He breathed, his voice thinner than a whisper.

"What?" I shivered, wanting to lean closer so I could hear him, but forcing myself to stand back. "I can't hear you."

"What's he saying?" Mason butted in, his voice sharp. I shushed him with a quick wave of my hand.

"Co... cold." He mumbled, this time louder.

"What are you... cold? You're cold?"

"Cold," Logan whispered again, making me sigh.

"Okay, okay, I'm going to get you a blanket then. Mason, could you find him a blanket?"

Mason snapped his attention to me, his leather jacket rustling.

"Oh, uh-nuh, I'm not leaving you alone with..." He paused, pursing his lips, "...with him."

"But he said he's cold!"

Mason scoffed. "Yeah, I heard him, he... wait. Cold?"

I squinted at him. "What are you..."

It dawned on me, just as Logan took another deep breath, his blue eyes glittering with a thin film of tears.

-Holy shit. Is he...

"I was so scared..." He mumbled, his voice cracking, "it was so cold and so dark, and I couldn't... I couldn't find anything."

He squeezed the edge of the metal slab, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Where am I? What is this? It hurts, it hurts, I don't want to be here!"

He groaned and began viciously hitting himself on the head.

"Whoa, hey no, no, stop it!" I squealed and tried grabbing him by the wrist. I jumped back when he screamed and swatted me away with more force than I thought he possessed. I thought he was going to come for me again when Mason butted in and shoved him back down.

"Hey, hey, hey!" He raised his voice, and keeping his palms up, stood firmly between Logan and me. "Take it easy, pal. Just take it easy."

Logan exhaled, sobbing quietly, every inch of his chalk-white flesh shivering. Sickly skin; sickly and wrong.

"Why am I here?" Logan sobbed quietly, his piercing blue eyes once again lifting to meet mine.

Staring into them, I felt like I could see the entire world collapsing. The end of his sanity; the end of a person.

I wanted to say something, comfort him, get to the bottom of this. Yet, all that need to help him must have vanished, because when I opened my mouth to speak, no words came out. For the first time in my career as a reaper, I had absolutely no idea what to say to a dead person seeking comfort.

For the first time ever, I had no idea what to do.