HAUNTED PRINCE by DENIS DANIEL (children's ebooks free online txt) 📕

fair distance between us, and I totally understood. If it make things any better I was scared of myself. Because this body of mine didn’t feel like my body at all, not with all the changes I couldn’t explain. Too much was happening I didn’t know where to focus, the murder cases or my own body. On our ride home I acted as normal as I could get and Ashley asked about my day and I asked hers. And just like that our conversation died.

I was busy deciphering my puzzle of a life and Ashley was busy with something in her phone. I tried not to go off too much for Ashley to notice something was up with me.

We arrived home and I was nowhere near understanding what was happening to me. And by that time I was in the verge of going nuts. Have you ever had something so confusing and you needed someone to explain to you what was happening but you couldn’t find anyone? That is exactly what happened to me.

I had so many questions and such a big puzzle I needed to put together, but I couldn’t. And I had no clue who to ask. There was one person I thought I could tell about all this. The only one who could promise me that we would figure it out together. Her life however was going to be on a very tight string and I didn’t want to risk that. Besides I needed someone with solutions not faith.

I knew Ashley could do anything to help me anything she could be capable of. But who know if that thing was watching from somewhere and ready to strike whenever it found someone poking in my life. I wasn’t sure but I had to assume it was like that.

After dinner I went into my room and jumped in bed ready to find some peaceful sleep. But today was a bit harder than usual not only keeping nightmares away but also getting myself to sleep. I tossed and turned and moved the covers from every direction, but it just didn’t work. After couple hours Ashley came in and don’t ask how she always knew I couldn’t sleep. Because she always could and would come to keep me company so I could sleep. How grateful I was when she came. I couldn’t take the intensity of the fog I was seeing in my nightmare. She sat next to me and ran her hand through my hair and I woke up right away,

“Tough night I see.” She said,

“Yah, just a little bit,”

“You wanna talk about it.” She looked at me cautiously,

And I totally understood because we both knew I cut her out of my affairs all over sudden. My first instinct was to tell her everything. But this keeping her out of my mess act was growing on me. So I stayed quiet for a while and she didn’t say anything either until the silence got a little uncomfortable.

“I should go back to my room.” She said disappointed.

That wasn’t what that sentence meant though, it said so much more. She thought that I didn’t trust her anymore and that I didn’t want her that’s why I didn’t tell her anything anymore.

She got up from my bed slowly and started to head for the door. Other times were hard to keep quiet but today it was the hardest. The sad and heartbroken look on her face was unbearable.

“Ash, I…….” I called her,

“What is it, Steven?” she turned around and I could see her eyes were wet,

Seeing her that way punched a lump in my throat and I couldn’t speak for a second. I didn’t know not telling her anything hurt her that much.

“Are you crying?” it escaped my mouth before I could stop myself.

“It’s nothing, I should go.” She said with a shaky voice.

“No come here.”

Without hesitation she came back and sat beside me without saying a word or look at me.

“Ash, you know you are not supposed to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Cry because of me.”

“Because you make me.”

“What does that supposed to mean?” I asked a little shocked,

“Steven you know I can do anything for you, right? And that I’ll always be on your side or is it something I said or do without knowing?” she asked,

“Ashley, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then why are you doing this to me? Why are you closing me out now, haven’t I proved to be faithful to you? I know I haven’t been that helpful, but I promise you I will try harder.” I cut her short.

“That’s the thing.”

“You don’t want my help!” she was shocked like I just sliced her heart or something.

“Ashley I love you and I don’t know what I would do if I lost you too. I don’t want to see you hurt or even worse.”

“So you are saying, you are protecting me.”

“Yes,”

“Well, I don’t need your protection I can take care of myself.” Now she was angry.

She wanted to get up but I pulled her to a hug before she could. Because I didn’t want her to be mad at me, not this time, “I know that, it’s me I’m worried about. I don’t know if I can take care of myself and you might get hurt trying to take care of me.”

She sighed which meant her anger had gone, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t waiting for the truth. I wanted to make sure there was absolutely no way I could walk away, and that’s when I would tell her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 21;

 

“We have been through so much together I can’t let you go on by yourself now,” She said after pulling off and looked straight into my eyes.

“I’m not asking you to walk away forever just until I know how to handle this by myself. And during that time I would ask you one favor.”

“What is it?” she asked a little bit too excited.

“I want you to take care of yourself. Live a life people your age live, do things I would’ve done if my life wasn’t fucked. I want you to do it for me.”

She was quiet for a while. It seemed like she was letting what I told her sink in. I didn’t know what she was going to do next, so I kept waiting until she said something.

“Okay, under one condition.”

“Name it.”

“You won’t get yourself in trouble or worse.”

“Done.”

“One more thing, you tell me about your nightmares. It’ll help you sleep.”

“Okay,” I accepted, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give in to her wish.

“Well, this wasn’t like my other nightmares, it was different-ish. I was alone in the forest but it had a road, it looked like a highway. I walked on the road but it was endless and there was no a single house or a person. But after a while a fog came and covered the whole forest and the road. It was so heavy I couldn’t see a step forward. It wasn’t smoke it was a strange mist, dark-ish brown, then after a while of walking a girl with fiery hair appeared. It almost seemed like out of nowhere, right in the middle of the mist. And that’s when you came and wake me.”

“Did you see her face?” she asked curiously,

“I never saw her face and I don’t think I wanted either.”

“What do you mean you didn’t want to see her face?”

“What do you expect from a girl with fiery hair?”

“I don’t know, what do you think you would’ve seen?”

“Maybe a scary face with a snake tongue in her mouth and cat eyes, something like that.”

“That is scary.”

“I know.”

“But I bet she wouldn’t have to look like that, you just have terrible imagination.”

“I guess you are right.”

“Anyways, I should go to sleep.”

“Yah, it’s already past midnight. We wouldn’t want to be late for school because of staying up too late.”

“Yah, goodnight.” She kissed my forehead and left.

“Ashley,” I called when she got at the door.

“Yes,” she stopped and turned.

“Thank you, for everything.”

“You are welcome, get some sleep.” Then she left.

I pulled my cover ready for round two of my attempt to sleep. Usually I would fall asleep soon after Ashley has left the room, but not today. My mind was all over the place and I couldn’t get my eyes heavy enough to fall asleep. I was unsettled and uncomfortable in my own bed. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t sleep. Then a thought crossed my mind, and even though it was totally wrong I was sure in my heart it was the right thing to do. The only question left was whether I should do it or not.

Logically it was madness but emotionally nothing felt more exciting. My muscles were aching for it, and these strange emotions were new reckoning. Considering the pile of all the things that had happened in my life this was not surprising. The only problem was to take action.

I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling since there was no point closing them. I ran the calculations in my head; the possibility that I was probably going nuts it was close to the truth. Because only a crazy person would leave a warm bed and go sleep in a bathtub filled with water. Since that was what I was dying to do and what I was fighting so hard not to do.

I had no idea where this crazy idea came from just like many other things that had happened. One thing for sure, it was hard as hell to resist it. The pull was strong almost like a drug or something very intoxicating like other addicting stuffs. I really wanted to sleep in it, but that would bring me close to being crazy. And I didn’t want to lose my sanity, not yet.

But I should’ve known better than to resist. After couple minutes my body was on fire and so was the bed. Only the fire was from inside my body, burning me from inside out. I sweat and sweat just like when I was in school.

It took me a couple seconds to rush out of the bed and to the bathroom filled the tub with water and then jump in. The feeling was exhilarating, it was too comforting to be true and if this meant I was a lost course it was totally worth it. Yes, the water was cold and normally I would’ve jumped just by putting my hand in it. But this was not a normal situation, but then again nothing about my life was exactly normal and every day the normal life I used to know was drifting away from my reach.

It didn’t take me long to get lost in a peaceful sleep. There was no a single dream or nightmare. Strangely this was the solution I’d been looking for with my nightmares problems. I didn’t know what a therapist would’ve said about this. There was so many ways to cope with sleeping problems but I never heard about sleeping in a bathtub. It was supposed to be easy accepting that I was sleeping in it now. But it was harder than I expected and telling someone would’ve been a little bit helpful. Telling Ashley however, wouldn’t be a good idea because she would definitely give me psychotherapy.