I did not kill that man. How could I kill someone who doesn't exist?

I knocked on the dragon's door. "Damnit! Don't you know what time it is?" I didn't. I'd stopped sleeping. How could I, with questions of such profoundity gnawing on my brain? I wanted to know about the Gnostics, about the divine spark trapped in flesh. I wanted to know about the archons and the demiurge.

He wasn't a dragon, not anymore. He had chosen to become human, to live among us. Crazy. But he knew many secrets and he shared them all with me. Eventually.

A lipstick-red, six-cylinder bullet streaks through the Nevada desert. Wind rips through the driver’s hair as she dances in her seat, oblivious to the baleful sun. Her left hand beats the wheel like a drum; her gloved right hand sits lifelessly at her side. A needle on the dashboard climbs slowly into the red as steam begins to seep from the convertible’s hood.

“Damn.”

I’m sure you are all familiar with H. G. Wells classic SF novel The War of the Worlds. You may also be aware that it has spawned a small industry of adaptations and related stories by other authors.