So I know I pulled the whole disappearing act here lately.  I got wrapped up in some things and then I had a bunch of school to focus on.  Hopefully the craziness will end soon.  In the meantime, here's a little story to keep you entertained:

  Jake Taylor walked up the steps to his downtown apartment in a foul mood.  Everything just kept going wrong.  Not only had he screwed up the job and infuriated the boss, but now the cops where onto him as well.  If he didn’t leave town soon, he know he wouldn’t be leaving town at all.  He’d had several nasty encounters with both the cops and the boss’ thugs.  In fact, he had just come from a third assassination attempt.  All this because of one little mistake.  He sighed wearily as he reached the third floor and made his way down to room number 33.

  Instead of unlocking his door, he walked right through it as had become his habit of late.  There, before him, resting on his couch sat a strange looking man if that thing could be called a man at all.  While he could see the being quite clearly, it was like seeing something on a foggy morning before the sun has burned away the mist.  Its form definitely resembled that of a man, but Jake couldn’t make out many of its features other than its glowing, dull red eyes which turned to him as he enter the room.  Jake simmering rage exploded at a stranger breaking into his apartment and relaxing on his couch as if nothing where wrong.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped.

  “The real question is how did you do that”, said the being rising from the couch and gesturing at the door Jake had just walked through.  It stopped and fixed him with a strange glare as if he had just realized something.  “How can you see me?” he growled in a voice that seemed to shake the room like an earthquake.

  “I can see you because you are in my apartment”, said Jake as he closed the distance between them, “and I repeat, what the hell are you doing here?’’

  “You might want to be more careful how you use that word”, sneered the stranger.  “It’s best not to talk about places you don’t know anything about.  Now, how can a mere mortal like you see me?  Did you make a deal with Them too?”

  Jake lost all patience with the intruder.  “Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re going to get out now or I will kill you!”

  The stranger before him smiled insolently.  “That would not be wise.  I might kill you instead.”

  “For your information”, glowered Jake, as he rushed the intruder, “I just happen to be invincible.  I have been shot three times in the last two days and I don’t have a scratch on me.”

  The shadowy grey form of the stranger sidestepped Jake’s attack and threw him almost effortlessly across the room.  He crashed onto a coffee table that shattered and sent splinters into his arm.  He looked in wonder from the blood trickling down his arm to the misty apparition that stood across the room.

  “Thought you were immortal?” mocked the being, his eyes glowing brightly now.  “Men might not be able to kill you with their puny weapons, but as you’ve probably figured out, I’m not exactly human.  And believe me, I most certainly can kill you.”

  “Now”, said the stranger, sidestepping a pillow lying on the floor, “why don’t you tell me all about how you got your little powers.”  He didn’t phrase it as a question.

  As he came closer and closer, Jake tried to stand up so he could defend himself against his otherworldly opponent, but he found that his muscles wouldn’t respond to his commands.  Panic set in as the stranger towered over him.  “As you can see, I can perform a lot more tricks than you can.  The deeper you dwell in our world the more you can do.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jake, trying to buy time.  “I’m not in any other world.”

  “Oh, but you are”, smiled the stranger coldly.  “The fact that you can see me and walk through physical objects tells me that, to some degree, you are in our world.  The question is how did you get here?”

  “I… I don’t know”, Jake lied.  He had stolen the necklace a little over a week ago and everything had started to go wrong after he put it on.  He had never been one to believe in legends or myths, but first-hand experience had proved that the choker he wore was no ordinary Aztec artifact.  He was trying to figure out how to distract the being from seeing that he now wore the ancient artifact around his neck, when there was a knock at the door.

  The fiend in front of him stopped and looked at the door and seemed to shudder as if he saw who was on the other side.  He swung around and glowered at Jake with such an intensity that chilled him to the bone.  “I’ll be back”, he whispered, “and you’d better have a good explanation ready when I return.”

  The being turned at walked over to the window on the far side of the room as the knocking on the door continued.  He proceeded to walk through the window and the wall and, halfway though he turned around and snarled, “Don’t think you can hide from me.  You are in our world now and we will be able to find you no matter where you go.”