“Nooooooooo!” he screams. A flash emanates from his hand, shooting towards his enemy. His enemy falls. “He’s dead,” the sheriff tells him. “He’s dead.” “He’s dead.” He’s dead.” The statement echoes throughout his mind.

“No!” Michael jerks awake. The tangled sheets on his bed lay sopping wet, a testament to the nightmare that haunts him. Slowly, he pads to the kitchen, opens the fridge and grabs a carton of milk. It tastes sour but he drinks it, the bitter liquid falling swiftly down his throat.

He shuts his eyes tightly, running twin fingers over them, trying to get the image of Pierce’s prone, lifeless body on the floor out of his head.

Restlessly, he prowls his one bedroom apartment, trying to work off the remnants of his dream. He eyes the couch. No way he was going to get back into bed and have that dream again.

He sits on the couch, trying to avoid replaying the scene at UFO Center over and over again. What the hell happened there?

One minute, he, Max and the sheriff were just walking through the room and the next minute he had reduced Pierce into a daisy-pusher. Michael shakes his head. “Don’t think about it!” he orders himself. “Think about something else!”

“Maria!” He latches onto that thought. But as soon as an image of Maria forms into his mind, it is quickly replaced by Pierce’s dead form again.

“Shit!” Michael gets up from the couch. He contemplates taking another midnight trip to Max’s house. Then sighs in frustration. A trip to Max’s house was out of the question. Max would never understand how he felt. Max who healed. Max who saved lives. Not ended them. He stares blankly at the walls.