Bryant Oliver had always thought of death as a door—one that could swing open with the right knock, the right chant, the right… payment. As a spiritual medium, he’d made a fortune exploiting that simple truth. People wanted to believe. They needed to. And Bryant, with his silver tongue and charm, was more than happy to oblige. He’d built an empire from desperation, guiding the grieving through the veil to whisper to their lost loved ones. Death was a business, and business was good. Until it wasn’t. A stray shot, nothing personal, nothing aimed. Just bad luck. When he finally clawed his way out of the coma, nearly two months later, something else crawled out with him. It started as a feeling—a presence that hovered just outside his vision, like a shadow you could never quite catch. But it wasn’t just a shadow. It had a shape. A face. And worst of all, it had eyes buried in the face of a red unicorn, whispering things he couldn’t understand. It was in his dreams at first, but soon it bled into his waking life. A phantom he couldn’t escape. Watching. Waiting. Bryant tried to tell himself it was just his mind playing tricks, the aftermath of trauma both physical and emotional. But deep down, he knew better. He’d spent his life calling to the dead, tugging at the threads between worlds. Maybe this was payback. Maybe he’d opened a door that was never meant to be opened, and now something had followed him back through. But Bryant wasn’t the only one haunted. There was another. A murderer who moved through the shadows, unseen but always present. This person wasn’t interested in talking to the dead. No, his obsession was with the living—specifically, with the last gasping moment between life and death. That fragile, fleeting instant when the soul took its final breath and all its secrets, all its sins, hovered in the air. The murderer craved it, hunted it. And this killer had a mission: to make sure the dead stayed dead. No second chances, no messages from the other side. The dead should stay silent. As Bryant spiraled deeper into madness, his life became a twisted labyrinth of visions and nightmares. But were they nightmares, or were they glimpses of something real? Something dark. Time was running out, but Bryant wasn’t sure what he was running from—or toward. Fate, or something darker, was pulling the strings, and every step he took brought him closer to a chilling revelation. In the end, Bryant would learn that death wasn’t the enemy. The real terror came from within—the sound of your own last breath, echoing back to you from the darkness. And sometimes, just sometimes, it wasn’t your breath at all but your own screaming you should fear, for death is just the beginning.