Written by Mr. Mouseburger 1st Apr 2006

Kindly submitted by Pyro

As Katharine "Katie" Burke and Detective Wade Handler (whom she has gradually become romantically involved with and planned to join on a vacation to New Hampshire) follow the tracks of Katie's missing boyfriend, Embry, into an abandoned playhouse she had seen him run off to. It would appear they have lost him. Then, for a brief moment, Katie catches sight of Embry watching them nearby, but he suddenly disappears down a hall before Wade sees him, resulting in Wade and Katie going after him. Finally, the two find their way into a dilapidated basement area, and Katie suddenly begins to stare at something Wade does not see...

We flash back to two years ago, on the date of his disappearance soon after the conclusion of a highly successful stage adaptation of Dante's Inferno that Embry had composed, wrote, and directed. Embry declares to his actors and audience that he would sooner be dead than mediocre, which is the cause behind his planned relocation to Europe. As he departs, Katie, whom he was dating at the time, goes after him. At first, Katie thought it was just a speech to impress the audience, but Embry, acting much colder towards her then she'd ever remembered him being, dismissively states that he wasn't acting, and turns to leave through a back entrance where his limo is waiting before telling Katie to go back to studying finances.

Katie, no doubt a little confused by his odd behaviour, and she reminds him that he'd promised he was taking her with him, but Embry just shows even more of his real nature when he sarcastically tells her he'd never take her with him to Europe, feeling that she'd just embarrass him. This understandably upsets her and she grabs him, demanding an explanation, reminding Embry that they had even made love and that surely meant something, though it clearly meant a lot more to Katie then it ever did to Embry. This angers Katie even more, and she attacks him, but Embry's ready for her and he calmly pushes her back, telling Katie she has "no grace" and very harshly dumps her right on the spot and turns to leave, ignoring her pleas for an explanation, and it suddenly dawns on her that he'd just used her from the beginning.

Wade, meanwhile, has been watching Katie verbally re-enacting the entire scene right in front of him, her mind completely in another time and place and fully unaware of him; making it extremely clear that she is mentally insane. All of her previous encounters with Embry had been imaginary and his actions have unknowingly been committed by Katie herself. Knowing that Katie belongs in a mental hospital and not with him in New Hampshire, Wade attempts to explain to her that she needs help. Katie takes this the wrong way, though, seeing it as Wade abandoning her like Embry had years before, rather than him being an honest cop simply trying to do what was right. Katie suddenly breaks down into yet another delusional state of mind; that of the heartbroken, frightened child she was when her father had left her, begging him not to leave her.

At that moment, Wade's flashlight reveals something in a water-filled hole nearby. When Wade briefly turns his back on Katie to investigate, Katie suddenly slips back to 2 years ago... at the precise moment of when she murdered Embry! Grabbing a nearby piece of debris, the same one she'd used those two years ago on Embry after he'd dumped her, Katie approaches Wade from behind and smashes it repeatedly over his head, and pushes him into the hole, watching with a cold indifference as his body sinks to the bottom, next to Embry's own remains.