The blood sent a jolt through Frederick, clearing any drowsiness left. He shot upright and would’ve rushed out of bed, but a hand clamped on his arm. Amara was pressing on the wound with a cloth. With how much pressure she applied, the area started going numb.

“Lie down and raise your arm,” Amara said. “It’ll slow the bleeding.”

Frederick wanted to protest, but experience taught him that when his wife entered nurse mode, resisting would prolong her fussing. As such, he complied.

After two minutes, Amara removed the cloth and pulled him into the master bathroom to wash the gash. With the blood stopped, Frederick saw the gash didn’t cut as deep as he’d thought. From the initial searing pain that sliced though his arm, he’d expected to see flesh or even bone.

While Amara dressed the wound, Frederick said, “We should clean the bed sheets, too.”

“The bedsheets can wait,” Amara replied. “The cut isn’t deep enough for stitches, but I don’t want to risk an infection.”

Frederick nodded and waited until she bandaged his wound, then got up. However, he didn’t get far before she gestured for him to stay. Even without words, he suspected what she wanted to discuss, and he knew delaying would result in a more intense confrontation later.

After sitting, he sighed. “Do we have to discuss this now?”

“Excuse me?” Amara crossed her arms. “I woke up to find you bleeding from an arm wound out of nowhere, and you expect me to brush it off like it’s nothing?”

“No.” Frederick considered how to explain. “I’m saying maybe we should wait until after work. Your shift starts in an hour, and I don’t want you being late because of something so minor.”

He would’ve said more, but Amara began inspecting his arm. From how she squinted, he thought she was inspecting the pores in his skin. Given how she could get when she suspected he or their children were dealing with anything, that might’ve been the case.

“A random cut on your arm isn’t minor,” she explained. “A scratch is one thing, but if it’s deep enough to start bleeding, it’s important enough to discuss. Are you dealing with any skin problems or rashes?”

“What? No,” Frederick protested. “Honey, I would’ve told you as soon as anything out of the ordinary arose.”

At least, anything tangible out of the ordinary, he thought.

After a pause, Amara said, “Show me your nails.”

Frederick extended his hands, and she inspected his fingertips while comparing them to hers. Since she worked as a nurse, she kept her nails trimmed and filed. Frederick’s extended a small bit over the fingertips, but none of them were long enough that a scratch would’ve drawn blood. From how Amara furrowed her eyebrows, she’d reached that conclusion, too.

“So, that rules out scratching,” she said. “And you haven’t sleepwalked, right?”

“If I did, you’d be the first to notice,” Frederick muttered.

If Amara had a response to his comment, she chose not to share. “I’ll ask my colleagues if they have any ideas. Between you sweating up a storm the other night and this, I’m worried something worse might be going on.”

“I appreciate it.” Frederick paused before adding, “And honey, please don’t worry about this. I’ll be fine.”

“You know that’s never happening,” she replied with a smile. “I love you too much not to.”

He smiled back. “I know, and I love you, too.”

They kissed, and Amara finished preparing herself for work before departing. Since Frederick had some time, he lounged in bed until his alarm went off. After dropping off the kids at school and preschool, he had the house to himself again. With the bright, calm, and familiar environment, he had the perfect space to focus on transcribing more audio files.

Unfortunately, with nobody else home, the memories from last night flooded his mind.

Frederick gritted his teeth and tried to power through transcribing a university lecture, but his attempts to ignore the flashbacks strengthened them. The clack of the keyboards sounded like the monster’s sharpened teeth clicking together, while the bluish glow of the computer screen reminded him of scanning for energy trails. Even the cooler air from the fan brought back the icy chill in his chest when the monster lunged at him.

Eventually, his hands shook until he had to stop and take deep breaths.

What was going on?

“I guess I owe you an apology.”

Frederick whipped around. With how his pulse pounded, he had to remove his earbuds to listen to his surroundings. As expected, he didn’t hear anyone inside the house. Before, he might’ve thought someone had joined the recorded lecture without him noticing. However, even with the voice sounding distant, he recognized it from last night.

As a test, Frederick allowed his gaze to wander. His vision didn’t have to darken before he spotted Lian Hai’s silhouette hovering at the doorway. His heart jumped, but he squeezed his armrests to steady himself. When he refocused his vision, he didn’t see anyone there, but as Lian Hai described, he could sense someone in the room.

Despite feeling ridiculous, he said, “Lian Hai? How did you find my house?”

“The same way you found my cabin. While astral projecting, I was naturally drawn here.” Lian Hai moved closer. “Are you okay?”

Instead of replying, Frederick lifted his sleeve to reveal the bandage on his arm. A distant sense of panic made him guess that the sight had startled Lian Hai.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Lian Hai said. “Guess I should’ve given more warning about dangers in the astral plane.”

“Then, why didn’t you?”

“It had been weeks since the last attack, so I thought they’d stopped showing up at my cabin.” Lian Hai hesitated, then said, “Additionally, I didn’t want to risk them targeting you more if you knew about them. It’s hard to explain.”

Frederick raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”

“Well, these monsters detect prey based on physical presence, aural trails, and mental energies. Since you were in your spirit form, that eliminated the chances of detecting you based on physical presence, but it left your aura and mental energy more exposed. In the beginning, that wasn’t an issue, as your aural trail and mental energy were fairly low due to your relaxed state.” She paused. “Is this making sense?”

“Sort of,” Frederick said. “I’m just struggling to see how this connects to the monsters finding me if I know about them.”

“I’ll get to that. You can detect others’ auras at this point, right? Did you notice anything odd about the monster’s aura?”

“It was pitch black and absorbed the energy trails around it.”

“Exactly.” Lian Hai’s tone soured. “From what I’ve gathered, these monsters feed on their prey in the same way. As such, they ignore people who leave no energy trails and prioritize those who have some measure of power in navigating the astral plane.”

Frederick paused to process her explanation, then said, “Okay. So, if I know about them, will they see me as having more power?”

“In a way,” Lian Hai replied. “Remember how in the beginning, you viewed this all as a lucid dream and didn’t have any worries, whereas later on, you were more on guard?"

Frederick nodded.

"That can translate to your aura," she continued. "If you go around the astral plane with a loosey goosey attitude, monsters like those will pass over you as not worth targeting. But once you start raising your defenses in preparation for threats like them, that’s when they see you as something worth going after.”

After processing her explanation more, Frederick said, “Interesting. I would’ve thought it would be the opposite. Wouldn’t it be easier to go after weaker entities?”

“I’m sure there are creatures who operate like that, but not these monsters. Less risk means less reward. As such, they go after stronger prey to gain more power.”

Although Frederick didn’t like being described as stronger prey, he focused on the bigger issue. “So that explains how the monster was able to track me. How was it able to leave a physical mark?”

Instead of replying, Lian Hai moved around his desk to his notepad and pen. The latter rolled back and forth before settling in place, and Frederick guessed what happened. He snickered despite the seriousness of the situation, which released some of the growing tension in the room. From the faint mixture of amusement and embarrassment, Lian Hai had detected her mistake, too.

“Oops. Rookie mistake.” Lian Hai also snickered before becoming serious. “Looks like I won’t be able to draw a picture for you. Since you have your laptop open,  I can describe it for you, and you can write it down.”

After considering it, Frederick agreed. He switched to his personal laptop, not wanting his clients or coworkers to see he wrote about supernatural phenomena. 

“Two computers? That’s convenient.” Lian Hai settled into place. “I’ll start with the basics. As you’ve no doubt noticed, there are two components of yourself: the physical and the spirit.”

“Yep,” Frederick said while typing.

“You’ve also noticed how you can only interact with the physical world in your physical body and the spiritual world when astral projecting. It’s why you couldn’t grab the worm from my fishing kit and why I couldn’t stop you from falling into the lake.” Lian Hai sighed. “Sometimes, there are exceptions, like when I rolled the pen or you grabbed onto the lake edge and scraped your hand. However, as you’ve also seen, that type of contact doesn’t last long.”

Frederick nodded without pausing. He had questions and comments, but he saved them for the end, not wanting to break his stride.

“However, not everyone follows that rule.” She stiffened, and her eyes narrowed. “There are certain… entities out there that can switch between the physical and astral world as easily as we can step in and out of a room. This allows them to target people on the physical plane, astral plane, or in rare instances, both. I suspect that your arm injury is one of those instances where the monster wanted to ensure you hurt on two fronts.”

Memories returned of how his hand passed through the monster as though he attempted to grab a shadow, with nothing more than a chilly numbness to show for his efforts. His fingers stiffened as a phantom cold entered them, but Frederick powered through typing.

“From what I remember, the monster you encountered last night is not one that has stopped by the lake before. Generally, the ones I’ve dealt with take on forms resembling wildlife in… the local area.” Lian Hai hesitated for a second, then continued, “However, I recognized its aura. Those inky black splotches stand out like a sore thumb, especially with how they absorb aural energy like no other. It’s how they track people.”

A thought occurred to Frederick, and he froze. “Wait, if it was climbing on top of me and likely absorbing my aura, does that mean it can track me to my house?”

“Unlikely,” she replied. “It would have to follow you all the way back to your physical body and somehow detect your aura through the natural boundary provided by having a physical form. Even if it did, you’ll have an easier time fighting back in your home territory.”

He tried to wrap his head around her explanations and failed. “You’ll have to explain it more. What do you mean by detecting my aura through the natural boundary of a physical form? I’m guessing you mean when I’m in the real world and not in spirit form, right?”

“Pretty much.” Lian Hai moved closer. “When you’re in your spirit form, your aural energy spreads out without as much restraint. It means that you can do things you can’t do in a physical body, but it also makes you easier to detect, and you don’t get the same protections that you would in the physical world.”

Although this didn’t pertain to the monster, Frederick wrote it down. He didn’t stop even when Lian Hai’s presence hovered over his shoulder.

“Anyways, I said a lot just now. If you need me to repeat anything, I can.” She paused, then said, “Wow. You got it all. You type quickly.”

“Thanks,” Frederick said with a smile. “I got practice.”

“Anyways, I can tell you have questions.” She must’ve detected his additional confusion, for she added, “It’s from your expression and energy, not to mention the question marks in your notes. Talking will only explain so much. Can you astral project now? I can give you a brief tour.”

Although the idea tempted Frederick, he said, “Not now. I have work. I can do it again tonight.”

“That sounds good.” Lian Hai paused, then said, “Though if you’re worried about a repeat attack, we should meet somewhere else. Based on how last night went, there’s always a chance the chaos might’ve attracted the attention of other interdimensional monsters.”

Frederick wouldn’t have considered that, but it made sense. They couldn’t visit the lake, and he didn’t want monsters finding his home. Based on how they’d only interacted in places either he or Lian Hai knew, he suspected they had to choose a familiar spot. Additionally, he didn’t want to risk any spectral monsters interfering with their meetings, not just the monster from last time.

With those criteria in mind, a certain location he visited at least once a week sprang to mind.

“I have an idea,” Frederick said.