Chapter 1: The Case of the Vanishing Evidence
Detective Elias Vance was no stranger to the macabre. His office walls, however, remained stubbornly bare of the usual crime-scene photos. This current case, filed under "The Silent Killings," was unique because of what was missing.
The first victim, Arthur Finch, was found in his locked study, dead from what the coroner definitively called an "impossible laceration." It was a clean, deep cut across the throat, precise enough to be surgical, yet the room was pristine. No forced entry, no defensive wounds, and most maddeningly, no biological residue. No fingerprints, no fibers, no stray hairs—nothing that pointed to a human, or even an animal, presence. Not a single blood droplet out of place, save for the pool directly beneath Finch. It was as if the air itself had decided to murder him.
"Vance, you've been staring at that file for three hours. Got any breakthroughs?" Captain Reyes leaned against the doorway, a furrow etched deep into his brow.
Elias sighed, running a hand over his tired eyes. "Captain, I've run the forensics through every database we have. I even sent the sample to the state lab. The result is the same: Zero evidence of a living perpetrator. The cut is too clean, the scene too sterile. If a person did this, they left no trace, which is a neat trick even for a ghost."
Reyes scoffed. "Ghosts, Vance? You're a rational man. Look harder. Maybe Finch had a strange hobby, a collectible weapon, a sudden illness that mimicked a cut..."
"We checked. The house was spotless, the security footage blanked out for precisely the five minutes the M.E. estimates as the time of death, and his medical history is clean," Elias countered. "I've interviewed his family, his enemies, his gardener. Nothing. I've even dusted for evidence a third time myself. There's nothing to dust for."
He pushed the file away. This was the kind of wall he'd never hit before—a wall built from the absence of information. Desperate times, he mused, called for desperate, perhaps even embarrassing, measures.
Chapter 2: A Medium's Vision
Two days later, Elias found himself sitting across from a woman named Seraphina, who smelled faintly of sandalwood and old paper. Her small apartment was cluttered with crystals and tarot cards, a sharp contrast to the antiseptic rigidity of his precinct.
"I need your help, Ms. Seraphina," Elias began, his voice flat with professional skepticism. "I'm working a murder case where the only thing weirder than the crime is the complete lack of evidence. People are beginning to joke about the supernatural, and frankly, I'm out of leads."
Seraphina didn't look at him; she was gazing past his shoulder, her eyes wide and unfocused. "It is not a joke, Detective. It is a presence... cold, and starving."
Elias leaned forward, his recorder already running. "Can you elaborate? Did you 'see' something?"
She closed her eyes, a shudder running through her thin frame. "I feel the void. It clings to the death. The man... Mr. Finch... he felt the air drop, the sudden weight of silence before the cold took him. It wasn't hatred. It was... harvesting. It leaves nothing because it has no substance to leave behind."
She opened her eyes, fixing him with an unnervingly clear stare. "It is not bound by physical laws, Detective. You are looking for a footprint on water."
Elias felt a cold dread settle in his stomach, far colder than the air conditioning. "Is it human? Can it be stopped?"
"It is a shadow of intent. A hunger. And yes," she paused, her voice dropping to a whisper, "it will feed again."
Chapter 3: The Second Harvest
Seraphina's chilling prediction materialized the following night. The second victim was a young librarian, Sarah Denton, found in her apartment, dead in the exact same impossible manner as Arthur Finch. The same surgically clean laceration, the same locked-door mystery, and the same terrifying, absolute void of evidence.
Elias stood in the center of the pristine bedroom, his mind reeling. Two victims, seemingly unconnected—an aging financier and a quiet librarian—both executed by a killer that left no trace. The press was having a field day, dubbing the phantom attacker "The Ghost Killer."
"Captain, look at this," Forensic Tech Miller said, his voice strained. "We ran the blood for trace elements again. Nothing. It's just... blood. No DNA contamination, no trace particulates, no fibers. The only anomaly is the security feed. Again, a five-minute blackout."
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. Seraphina's words echoed in his head: It is a shadow of intent. A hunger.
"It's paranormal," he whispered, the words sounding absurd even to himself. "Two impossible scenes. Nothing human or animal could do this twice without leaving a single trace. We're dealing with something outside the scope of our jurisdiction."
Captain Reyes looked utterly defeated. "Vance, I can't put 'Demonic Entity' on the wanted poster. But another body will break the city. You need to figure out what connects these two people. If it's feeding, what is it looking for?"
Elias looked from the peaceful, unnervingly clean scene to the file clutched in his hand. The reality of a killer who could walk through walls and leave no trace hit him with full force. He was a detective whose greatest tools—evidence and logic—were utterly useless. The next attack was inevitable.
"I need to talk to Seraphina again," Elias stated, realizing the only lead he had left was a leap of faith into the supernatural. "We need to find out what its pattern is before it harvests again."
Chapter 4: The Shared Echo
Elias sat with Seraphina in a borrowed conference room at the precinct—a highly unorthodox meeting that Elias had to plead for, citing the "unusual nature" of the evidence, or lack thereof. The room felt sterile and antagonistic to Seraphina’s earthy presence, but the severity of the situation trumped discomfort.
On the table lay the meager files of the two victims: Arthur Finch, 68, retired financier, lived in a sprawling estate. Sarah Denton, 29, librarian, lived in a modest city apartment.
"They're opposites," Elias muttered, sliding photos of the two people across the laminate surface. "Finch was wealthy and isolated. Denton was working-class, surrounded by books and people."
Seraphina gently picked up Sarah Denton's photo. "The surface details are noise, Detective. This entity hunts resonance. It does not care for age or wealth. It searches for a specific feeling, an echo."
Elias activated a map on the screen, showing the distance between the two crime scenes—miles apart. "No geographical link."
"Look deeper into their lives, Elias," Seraphina insisted. "Not their jobs or their hobbies. Their pain. Tell me about their grief, their fears, their regrets."
The Unspoken Grief
Elias consulted his notes. "Finch's wife died five years ago. He never recovered. Drank heavily, became a recluse. The family noted he spent his final years living in the past, consumed by loss."
He flipped the file. "Denton... younger. Seemed happy on the surface. Her mother passed a year ago after a long illness. She quit her grad program to be her mother's caregiver. She wrote in her journal about a 'hollow space' inside her, a feeling of being permanently incomplete."
Seraphina's eyes widened, her gaze flickering between the two photos. "There. The resonance. They were both living in the shadow of a profound, unresolved grief. A feeling of emptiness that never healed."
"So the killer targets people who are grieving?" Elias asked, skepticism fighting with the terrifying logic.
"No," Seraphina corrected, placing her finger on the word 'hollow' in Denton's journal. "It targets the vulnerability that grief creates. This entity... it feeds on the energy of unhealed sorrow. The greater the emotional vacancy, the easier the harvest."
Elias gripped the edge of the table. "If you're right, the third victim will be someone who has recently suffered a devastating, unrecoverable loss. And we have absolutely no way to trace them among the millions of grieving people in the city."
The Psychic Trace
Seraphina closed her eyes, placing her hands palms-down on the map. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "The entity... it doesn't move randomly. It is drawn to the intensity of the echo, like a beacon. The next victim... the feeling is stronger, newer. A fresh, blinding pain."
"Can you trace that beacon?" Elias urged, desperation creeping into his voice.
"I can try to feel the current, the pull. It’s moving now, drawn to a location saturated with that raw, powerful grief. Not a home, but a place where sorrow is formalized."
Elias quickly cycled through city locations: churches, hospitals, cemeteries.
"It's a large building," Seraphina said, her voice strained. "Marble, cold. And I hear... a sound of finality. A final, heartbreaking song."
Elias's blood ran cold. He slammed his hand down on the keyboard, pulling up a live feed of public events. A single, large venue stood out in his mind, often used for major memorial services.
"The Grand Civic Auditorium," he breathed. "There's a massive public memorial service happening there right now. A high-ranking judge just passed away. Thousands of people, all expressing that raw, unhealed grief..."
The entity wasn't stalking individuals; it was hunting a pool of sorrow.
"It is there, Detective. The shadow is gathering. You must hurry."
Chapter 5: The Gathering Shadow
Elias slammed the file shut, his police-issued sedan tearing through the evening traffic lights, siren wailing a useless protest against the supernatural forces at work. Beside him, Seraphina gripped the dashboard, her face pale but resolute.
"Describe the feeling again, Seraphina," Elias urged, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "How does the entity move?"
"It doesn't walk, Elias. It drifts," she whispered, her eyes closed, attempting to focus her awareness over the roar of the engine. "It is drawn to the heaviest concentration of unresolved sorrow. The auditorium is a feast. Thousands of exposed hearts—it's like a bonfire in the dark to this... shadow."
"How do I spot it? It leaves no trace!"
"It leaves no physical trace, but it creates a cold spot," she said, her voice strained. "A sudden, profound drop in temperature and an absolute, suffocating silence. Where the grief is densest, the air will feel empty."
They arrived at the Grand Civic Auditorium—a massive, neo-classical building draped in banners for the late Judge Thompson's memorial. The area was packed with mourners, a grim, solemn crowd filing out into the plaza, their faces etched with loss.
Elias flashed his badge and barreled through the security perimeter. The main hall was still half-full, the air thick with the scent of lilies and the quiet hum of sorrow. He and Seraphina moved toward the central cluster of mourners nearest the podium.
The Cold Anchor
As they pushed deeper, the ambient noise seemed to fade for Seraphina. She stopped abruptly, her breath catching. "Elias... it's here. I feel the anchor."
Elias felt it too—a physical shiver that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. The crowd around a cluster of elderly women stood too still. Their expressions weren't just sad; they were vacant, their energy seemingly draining away.
"There," Seraphina pointed a shaking finger at a well-dressed woman sobbing quietly into a handkerchief. The space immediately surrounding her shimmered faintly, a subtle distortion visible only if you were looking for the absence of light.
"It's on her," Elias breathed, reaching for the radio, uselessly. He couldn't scream "Paranormal entity preparing to harvest!" into the comms.
He saw the woman gasp. Her hand dropped, revealing a razor-thin red line already beginning to bloom across her neck. The cold intensified, silencing the soft sobs around her. The harvest had begun.
Elias lunged forward, not thinking about evidence, physics, or consequences. He didn't know how to fight a ghost, but he could break the connection. With a desperate shout, he shoved a heavy velvet rope barrier, swinging the brass post directly into the area where the woman stood.
The cold spot shattered. The distortion vanished, and a wave of regular, slightly stuffy air rushed back into the space. The woman, confused, looked up, touching her neck. The cut was there, but it wasn't deep—just a surface scratch. The full, lethal laceration had been interrupted.
Seraphina stumbled back, clutching her head. "It's angry! It retreated—it's fast, Elias! It's searching for the next concentration!"
Elias knew they'd bought seconds, not minutes. The Shadow Killer was still loose, and now it was spooked. They had to understand its weakness, and fast.
"Where now, Seraphina? Where is the next deepest hole?" Elias demanded, scanning the panicked, confused faces in the hall.
"Not a person," she managed, tears streaming from her eyes from the psychic shock. "A focus. A tangible symbol of loss. It's moving toward... the casket."
Chapter 6: The Psychic's Gambit
Elias didn't hesitate. As the panicked crowd surged away from the commotion near the podium, the wave of cold, heavy silence began to coalesce near the Judge's large, ornate mahogany casket. The entity, disturbed from its direct kill, was now drawing sustenance from the massive, physical symbol of death and the profound sorrow it represented.
"Seraphina, get out! It's too powerful here!" Elias yelled, drawing his sidearm, knowing a bullet would be useless.
"No, Elias! I can't let it strengthen!" Seraphina pushed him back toward the exit. "It was hunting the grief of the living. Now it's anchored to the object of grief. It is trying to make this whole building its feeding ground. I have to disrupt the anchor!"
Seraphina moved with a speed Elias didn't know she possessed. She rushed toward the growing cold spot near the casket, pulling a small, silver amulet from beneath her shirt. Chanting softly in a language Elias didn't recognize, she raised the amulet toward the invisible killer.
The effect was instantaneous and violent.
The air around the casket didn't just get cold; it froze. A visible sheen of frost raced across the mahogany surface. The invisible entity reacted with a furious, silent roar that only existed in Elias's mind—a deafening psychic shriek that momentarily paralyzed him.
A thick, dark vapor, vaguely humanoid, ripped itself away from the casket. It turned on Seraphina, two points of blazing, icy blue light appearing where eyes should be.
"GO!" Seraphina screamed, her voice cracking with the effort of holding her focus. The amulet pulsed with a sickly yellow light. "It's distracting itself trying to break my focus! Find the key, Elias! Find out what it fears! I can only hold this shadow for minutes!"
Elias knew he had a choice: protect Seraphina and risk the entity escaping to continue its killings, or follow her desperate order. He was a detective, not a mystic, and his only chance lay in rational evidence, no matter how insane the case.
He looked once more at the frozen tableau—Seraphina, braced against the psychic storm, holding a shadow at bay with a piece of silver—and he ran.
Chapter 7: The Historical Echo
Elias burst into the precinct, ignoring Captain Reyes's shout about the "riot at the memorial." He shoved his way into the archive room, already pulling up the cold case files. Seraphina’s sacrifice demanded he work faster than he ever had.
What does it fear? How do you kill a shadow?
He realized the answer must lie in patterns of silence. He searched decades of unsolved homicides, specifically looking for: Laceration deaths with no forced entry, no struggle, and zero evidence.
After thirty frantic minutes, cross-referencing forensics reports with local legends and old police logbooks, he found it.
Case File 1952: The Blackout Butcher. Three victims over two weeks. All found in locked rooms. Cause of death: "Unspecified catastrophic trauma to the neck, resembling a clean cut." Final notes in the coroner's file: Investigator noted profound atmospheric cold and inexplicable failure of all electrical equipment (lights, radio) in the vicinity of the bodies.
The electrical failure. The Blackout Butcher of 1952. The Ghost Killer of today. The method was identical, separated by seventy-three years.
He dug into the final, shelved box on the 1952 case. Most of it was useless police procedure, but he found a few loose, yellowed pages: private notes left by the lead investigator, Detective Harding, who had clearly gone off-book.
I spoke to the old women on the dock. They call it a 'Souleater'. Drawn by despair, repelled by 'living intent'. It feeds on the vacancy left by grief. It cannot sustain its form where there is genuine, intense, creative effort or life. It hates noise and light.
Elias read the final, cryptic line, underlined twice in faded ink:
It was driven back in '52 not by force, but by the combined sound of the shipyard workers' final shift horn and the town bell ringing at midnight. Pure, disruptive vibration and unholy noise.
The entity wasn't vulnerable to bullets or silver—it was vulnerable to vibration and energy. Seraphina’s pure focused intent had held it, but only noise and sustained energy could drive it away or destroy it.
Elias grabbed the files, racing toward the comms room. He had to mobilize the city's resources, not for a manhunt, but for a sonic defense. He had to create a wall of energy that a shadow could not absorb.
"I need every available unit to the Grand Civic Auditorium, and I need the city's Parks Department to light up every stadium, every street lamp, and start every emergency siren they have. I want the city to scream!"
Chapter 8: The City Screams
Elias didn't wait for permission. He bypassed the usual chain of command, his voice echoing with raw authority across the police band.
"Attention all units! This is Detective Vance, emergency priority one! Forget the crowds, forget the paperwork! I need immediate maximum output of light and sound concentrated on the Grand Civic Auditorium!"
He barked orders that sounded insane: "Contact Parks! Turn on every stadium floodlight, every decorative building beam—point them at the auditorium! Contact Sanitation, Fire, and EMS! Activate every siren, every bell, every horn! I want every emergency frequency ringing!"
Captain Reyes stormed into the comms room, his face a mask of fury and confusion. "Vance! What in God's name are you doing? You're paralyzing the entire city's response infrastructure!"
"I'm driving out a demon, Captain!" Elias shouted back, pointing to the aged file on the Souleater. "It feeds on quiet grief and the absence of light and energy! If we don't break its hold, it will take Seraphina and then gorge itself on every soul in that plaza! Noise and light are the only weapons!"
Reyes stared at the brittle, yellowed paper, then at the desperate conviction in Elias's eyes. The Captain swallowed hard, making the only decision possible: he leaned over the mic. "You heard the Detective. This is a city-wide mandate. Make noise, make light! Now!"
The Wall of Energy
Elias seized a cruiser and sped back toward the Auditorium. The city was transforming around him. The usual evening urban hum was replaced by a cacophony of screaming sirens, blaring horns, and ringing bells. Overhead, the stadium lights of the nearby baseball park flickered on, bathing the sky in an unnatural, harsh white glow.
When Elias arrived at the Auditorium plaza, the atmosphere was chaotic but energized. The initial quiet terror had been replaced by bewildered noise. The sudden, overwhelming sound and light were driving the crowds back, but it was also directly confronting the supernatural threat.
Elias sprinted inside. The main hall was a maelstrom. The air was no longer cold; it was vibrating, buzzing with the sheer output of sonic energy.
Seraphina was still standing near the casket, but she was fading. Her amulet was dark, and she was sweating profusely, shaking violently as if she were wrestling an invisible beast. The dark, cloudy entity was still there, but it was thinner, frayed around the edges. It was thrashing against the wall of sound that was physically repelling it.
"Elias! It's tearing at me!" Seraphina screamed, dropping to her knees. "The sound hurts it, but it's still anchored! I can't hold the focus!"
Elias looked around desperately. They needed one final, massive, continuous burst of kinetic and sonic energy to destroy the anchor and shatter the entity completely.
He spotted the immense, old pipe organ built into the auditorium wall, traditionally used for memorial services. It was the only source of pure, sustained acoustic power available.
"The organ, Seraphina! We need the organ!"
He ran to the console, throwing himself onto the bench. He had no idea how to play, but he understood physics. He slammed his fists down, hitting every key and pedal he could reach, yanking every stop lever into the 'on' position.
A deafening, guttural WAAANG erupted from the pipes—a discordant, agonizing shriek of sound that flooded the hall, merging with the cacophony outside.
The Shadow Killer reacted instantly. The frayed edges of the entity violently contracted, its icy eyes turning from Seraphina to Elias. This wasn't just noise; this was a direct, targeted assault on its very substance. The air around the entity warped and shimmered as the sound waves tore at its energy.
It lunged, a desperate, silent bolt of darkness aimed directly at the source of the painful vibration.
Excellent. Here is the penultimate chapter, focusing on the final, destructive confrontation.
Chapter 9: Finality
The wave of sound emanating from the antique pipe organ was immense, a crushing tide of vibration that made Elias’s bones ache. He kept his hands slammed on the keys and pedals, producing a continuous, agonizing chord of dissonance. The organ bucked and groaned under the strain, and dust rained down from the auditorium ceiling.
The Souleater, now visible as a vortex of black smoke with glowing blue voids for eyes, hurtled toward Elias. Its movement was not a rush, but a rapid, silent suction of air and heat.
Seraphina, though weakened, had managed to push herself up, drawing strength from the knowledge Elias had gained. She saw the entity's path was direct: attack the source of the painful energy.
"The anchor, Elias! It’s still connected to the grief!" she screamed, her voice barely audible over the organ’s roar.
Elias understood. The sound was pushing the entity back, but the raw, unspent sorrow trapped in the physical symbols—the casket, the memorial setup—was still providing an umbilical cord.
As the Souleater reached the edge of the organ console, the air around Elias dropped to absolute zero. Frost exploded outward, freezing the keys beneath his fingers. His hands were instantly numb, sticking to the iced ivory. The silent, psychic shriek intensified, driving slivers of pain behind his eyes.
Just as the Souleater prepared to strike, Seraphina lunged for the source of the anchor. She didn't have the strength for a spiritual attack, so she chose a physical one. With a guttural cry, she grabbed a large, heavy brass incense burner left on the podium and threw it with all her remaining force.
The burner struck the casket with a resounding, metallic GONG.
The impact didn't just dent the mahogany; it physically disrupted the focus of the grief.
The effect on the Souleater was catastrophic. The entity had been trying to shield its anchor while fighting the noise. Now, the anchor was broken by a kinetic shock.
The sonic force of the organ, already at maximum output, suddenly found no counter-balance. The combined energy of the sirens outside, the floodlights, and the pipe organ’s shriek converged on the unanchored entity.
The black vortex of smoke screamed—a sound that was not heard with the ears but felt in the chest, a sound of absolute terror and annihilation. The blue eyes widened into flares of icy light, and the entity began to implode.
Annihilation
The collapse was instantaneous. The vortex spun faster and faster, shrinking upon itself until it was a minuscule pinpoint of light and darkness. Then, with a flash that overloaded the auditorium lights and blew out several organ pipes with a deafening POP, it vanished completely.
Silence rushed in, heavy and absolute, replacing the thunderous noise. The city’s sirens, still wailing outside, now sounded distant and irrelevant. The organ was silent, the keys still frozen beneath Elias’s hands.
Elias slumped forward, gasping, his heart hammering against his ribs. He peeled his frostbitten hands from the keys and rushed to Seraphina.
She lay on the floor near the podium, weak but alive. The dark shadow had left her.
"It's... gone?" Elias managed, his voice hoarse.
Seraphina nodded, her eyes closed. "Shattered. The sheer, sustained output of human-made energy... it tore its essence apart. It has no physical substance, Elias. It couldn't withstand the vibration of life."
A moment later, paramedics and police officers—led by a stunned-looking Captain Reyes—streamed into the hall. They found the scene: a broken organ, a damaged casket, two exhausted people, and not a single shred of evidence of the conflict. The frost was already melting, and the blown pipes could be attributed to maintenance failure.
The body count was zero. The crisis was over. But Elias knew the greatest challenge lay ahead: convincing a rational world of the paranormal truth.
Chapter 10: The Quiet Report
The aftermath was a flurry of bewildered activity. Medics attended to Seraphina, treating her for severe exhaustion and minor frostbite. Elias refused medical treatment, instead facing Captain Reyes in the now-silent hall.
Reyes looked around at the damage—the shattered organ pipes, the scorch marks where the police floodlights had briefly focused through the windows, the frantic city lights still blazing outside, and the sirens beginning to wind down.
"Vance," Reyes began, his voice low and strained. "Give me the report that I can write down. The one that keeps us out of the psych ward and keeps the mayor from firing the entire force."
Elias knew the truth—the Souleater, the paranormal vulnerability to vibration, the gambit with Seraphina—could never be official.
"Sir, the situation was a targeted act of sabotage," Elias stated, adopting a monotone, professional voice. "We determined that the initial victims were linked by their frequent visits to the Civic Auditorium's music director, Arthur Finch being a donor and Sarah Denton a researcher for a historical project. The motive appeared to be disrupting the memorial."
Reyes raised an eyebrow. "Sabotage? That explains the surgically precise cuts?"
"The M.E. will report those were caused by a newly developed, highly unstable sonic weapon," Elias improvised, using the energy from the organ as his anchor. "A device designed to target the highly sensitive vocal cords and arteries, leaving minimal forensic trace. The perpetrator planted the device in the Auditorium, rigged to activate when the grief in the hall reached peak emotional energy."
Elias handed over the cleaned-up 1952 file, removing the mention of 'Souleaters.' "The suspect was tracked using historical records of similar sonic weapon incidents, dating back to 1952, linked to an extremist group obsessed with disrupting public mourning. We believe the sound and light deployed was successful in overloading and destroying the device."
Reyes took the file, understanding the mutual fiction they were creating. "The injuries to the young woman?"
"She intervened during the device's destruction. Heroic action. She deserves a commendation—and full privacy." Elias stressed the last part. Seraphina was released later that morning, with a confidential arrangement ensuring her safety and silence.
The Unofficial Conclusion
Later that week, Elias sat alone in his office. The case of the "Ghost Killer" was officially closed as a domestic terrorism attempt utilizing experimental technology. The media accepted the sensational, if thin, explanation.
Seraphina called him that evening.
"You risked everything, Elias. Your career, your sanity," her voice was weak but steady. "And you didn't even get the arrest."
"I got the result," Elias replied, looking at the city lights blazing outside his window—a new habit he'd developed. "The harvest is stopped. The victims found a type of justice that doesn't fit into a police report."
He paused, a weariness settling into his bones that went deeper than lack of sleep. "But I need to know, Seraphina. If it was so weak to sound and light, why did it leave no trace in the first place?"
"It never left a trace because it never truly was there," Seraphina explained softly. "It was an echo of ancient darkness drawn to a specific human vulnerability. You proved, Elias, that when people stop quietly suffering and start making noise—when they use their collective energy and intent—even a shadow can be defeated."
Elias knew he would never look at a locked room or an unexplained electrical failure the same way again. He was still a detective, driven by evidence and logic, but now he understood that some clues existed in the absence of things, and some truths required a psychic to find.
He closed the final file, labeling it simply: "Case Closed." But he left a clean, blank notepad on his desk, ready for the day the silence broke again.