Read Consequences for Free Online Page B

was dying of brain cancer. I lost him
within a week of the move, but during that week something unseen
held me together. A sweet voice in the back of my mind … soft
touches on my skin, and just a small glimpse in my peripheral
vision … were leaving me walking in a waking dream. I thought I was
hallucinating, even before she revealed herself to me.” Still
looking through me, he smiles at the memory.
    “Let me guess … Ellie?” I am not sure what he
means by ‘before she revealed herself to me’, but I do recognize
the look in his eyes … it is love. Watching his expression change
from affirmation to confusion, I start wondering what he is
thinking.
    “I tell you that she is unseen, and before
she presented herself she might as well have been voices in my
head, crazy hallucinations … and no questions? I finally tell you
the truth … well, the surface of the truth; and the only thing that
sticks out is that I’m talking about Ellie? Michael, I know the
questions have passed through your mind … I’ve heard them … Who do
I talk to? What am I hiding from? Where did I get these scars?" He
almost looks exacerbated to the point of yelling at me.
    “Christopher, you are a very private person …
for that matter, so am I. I was giving you space to tell me what
you want … when you want. I can’t read your mind, I can only read
your body language, and you let everyone know that you don’t want
to let anyone in. So if you know my questions, then answer them,
without me asking. I think we’ll both be happier. I’ll tell you
this one without you poking around in my head, I want to know the
truth, tell me the truth.”
    “The truth is, even when I look back at my
memories of Ellie, I still don’t know if they are real. My life was
unfolding like a bad dream, before I knew she existed; and I was
desperate for release from the nightmare before it broke me. The
nightmare’s name was James. Ironically, his presence helped to
entice Ellie to my side, bringing about my means of escape; even
though she didn’t know why I was special to her at the time. Ellie
showed herself to me in a dream, and then let me know she was real
by touching me and talking to me while I was awake. She explained
her idea of what she was … a creature alive in the ethereal mist.
She found purpose in helping others, like a muse of sorts. She was
human once, but after her death, she moved to a place of lost
potential … where special people lost before their time, still
survive. She didn’t realize that ‘lost potential’ could include
inhumanely powerful capability for good, or evil. Hell, she didn’t
even realize there were others like her … out there in the mist.”
His expression reflects bitterness again, but I can still hear the
love in his words.
    “So you’re telling me that Ellie died?” Well,
that would explain the ghostly presence.
    “Yes and no. She was lost from our world in
1940, during the London Blitz … but she saw that as a passing over
to a different life, not ceasing to exist like we normally think of
death. She broke after World War Two, slid into an emotionally
paralyzing fugue state … a state of mind that she said she couldn't
awake from, until she found me. She would say things like, ‘I love
you. I give you everything that I am, and I don’t want to make the
mistake of not telling you how I feel. Sharing feelings, even if
they might be a mistake, should never be regretted. Life is too
short, to not be honest with yourself.’ Her purity made me feel so
small, and the fact that she chose me to give it to … well, her
selflessness overwhelmed my senses. I fell fast and hard; there was
no way I could avoid falling in love with her.”
    “She sounds like a remarkable girl.” I am
dumbfounded by his description; her self-sacrifice seems more
fictional than her existence. “Tell me, have you seen the
mist?”
    “Not for myself, no … but there are other
ways to know something exists without seeing. The