16.

Light can and often does force darkness into submission but how can you force anything into submission when you are unable to find its hiding places?

In his sleep, Oliver tosses and turns. What it is that he protects, is about to draw him in yet again. It briefly did at the hospital and now it has come to his home to pay him a visit. It has something to show him for Oliver cannot know what darkness has done unless he gets to see it for himself. He sees a darkness follow Judy and another girl. They seem to be close with one another, they look happy, but he can feel the anger within the on-looking darkness.

There is a familiarity about this darkness, a familiarity Oliver can't quite place.

What he sees are more than images, and it's not a dream. It is a reality, he feels it, he understands it, not just the darkness but everything else too. He sees what occurs as if no explanation is needed. It may be hitting him like a nightmare, and even though he is sleeping, he surely knows all he is witnessing is real. He can also sense that the darkness is being held back somewhat as it follows the two friends. It is as if it can't quite get what it wants.

The restriction on the darkness is somewhat lifted once the girls move indoors, they ae safe, no one else will be, and the darkness is free to wreak havoc and that is exactly what it begins to do. Oliver wakes at the moment he witnesses the cheerleader being taken out.

In a cold sweat he moves to a seated position. 'This is my fault' he says to himself, 'this is all my fault.'

***

Back then I was still learning and to a point I still am learning now. I knew so little. As I say, this did not come with any kind of manual. If only it did. I needed to figure it out by myself. It was not something I could learn in school even though it began there. There was no class to take for it and I had no idea who I could turn to for advice. Initially I thought that way. There was one person though. He saw something in me. This was why he put me in the library.

I should have gone to him sooner. What took me so long I don't know? Mister Kennedy, the geography teacher. Sure, he put me in the library and he must have had a reason to have done so. He had to have known of the power that came with this position. Nothing had been explained to me prior to the first time I went in there. I had been figuring things out for myself as I went along.

Maybe the power had to select me. I don't know, I had and have no idea as to how exactly it works. I did seek out Mister Kennedy and he did make time for me. Odd, he may have come to me on my first day within this school though when I went to him, he looked as if he had aged ten years in the time since we last met. And it hadn't been much more than a year that had passed by this particular time. Had the power been with him before it had come to me? Had it taken some sort of toll on him? Or maybe time itself or something else had its way with him.

Whatever was going on, all I could do was speculate.

I had not been a student of his so I would not have cause to notice how he had aged over that year or so. Yeah, at the beginning he was my geography teacher but for some reason I did not take much notice ... or think all so much or it when another geography teacher stepped in half way through the school year. Mister Kennedy did stay with the school, and this is why I was able to find him when such a time came for me to seek him out.

He was happy to see me, and he was glad that the power sought me out. Other than that, he had no information for me. I don't know if he was purposely holding back or as to if he simply had nothing to offer me. This meeting at least aided my sanity. I didn't just believe something was going on, I at this point knew for sure that it is all real. The power, whatever exactly it was or is, had it really sought me out?

He had nothing to offer me, so he said, how was I to move on from here? One thing I would have liked to have done was go tell Judy's mum that Judy is fine, tell her that as Judy sleeps in a hospital bed she is also living within another world, another realm and oh by the way there is a darkness in the form of a bully turned killer stalking her and her friend. Well, if I were to say something then I would possibly leave that part out. And to top all that, I had a part to play in how Judy and this bully got to where they are. I can't tell of any of this, I definitely could not tell Judy's mum any of it. For one thing, she'd think me crazy, maybe I am, no, sure if I needed confirmation then I already got that.

To make things all the worse, if that were possible, it would appear that this Abe fellow has mastered his power to some degree. Having to some degree appeared in the hospital and in Judy's other world I could assume he can move between worlds and have his way more or less at will. That would be confirmed when next I'd sleep. The power or whatever it is came to me once again. It had something else to show me.

Just like I had been able to see Judy in her new surroundings, in this second dream like moment I could see her out bowling. The information was there, I needed no explanation. I knew what I was seeing was a real moment prior to her accident. I saw how she was treated, and I felt her pain. From there I was taken to the moment in the run up to her accident and to the sight of two girls from that bowling experience.

The darkness that Abe has mastered, is it playing games? Is it just having its way? For it, he also had a moment of stalking those two girls who had confronted and followed Judy. He stalked these two girls together at first and then individually. Just as he did with the cheerleader, he rushed and pounced upon them both, one at a time, ending each their lives.

So as it is at this point, three lives had been ended, decimated through darkness. Before assuming that the first murder is one of a fictional character, it is worth considering the thought, is Judy a fictional character? Is the world she has gone to fictional? Remember too that this darkness has stalked both Judy an Ellie. Does it, does he plan on taking their lives? I cannot let that happen but how could I stop such a thing from happening? As it had come to stalk Judy and Ellie, something indeed was holding it back. Was it I who had something to do with that?