1 PROLOGUE

In my sleep, I was being haunted by someone I do not recognize. I see myself running deep in the woods, even deeper that it frightened me to my bones.

I gasped for air..

I heard my Dad calling out to me and my mom too, but I can see nobody but me. My confusion grew along with the dreary darkness..

"Nyctophobic!"

I screeched.

The voices I soon heard jolted me out of my sleep, bursting my lids wide open.

At the start, I began to hear my heart pounding beneath my chest, beating so raggedly like the loud banging of a drum with multiple drumsticks in a Drum off contest. Where did all the air go?

I forced my eyes shut and dropped my mouth wide open. At least I could hear.

''Bill.."

That soft feminine voice resonated in the fat bedroom space, "get a panic bag," she motioned, sounding so nervous.

"Baby.. Baby.." My dad's voice filtered into my ears but my eyes would not look at him. " look at me," he began to say, "look at mummy." Saying so, he placed the paper bag close enough to my face. Grabbing onto it with both hands, I was prepared to relieve my nerves.

"That's it.." I could not deny how healing his voice was, "breathe, baby," he said, tapping gently on my thighs which stayed glued together.

I obeyed, and relieved myself to the point that my heartbeat became normal again.

"Thank you." I said, watching him mount up the bed to sit next to me. He held me tightly and began planting kisses on my head while he caressed my hair.

His arms always felt safe and warm. I just wanted to be here for a long, long time..

''Let me go get some water'' Mom said and hurried out of the room. She soon returned. Holding up the glass of water to my mouth, I struggled to gulp down much of it . I guess they felt more at ease to talk afterwards.

''I thought the attacks were over, she hasn't had one in a very long time.''

''Helen.. She had a nightmare." Dad told her calmly as he was always known to be. He was one to always give a look that said ''Hey! No need to complicate things, alright? Life is too great for that.."

_

''You feeling better now, princess?'' He whispered in my ear as he planted kisses on my left cheek.

"Yes dad." I responded, attempting to sit up from his snuggling embrace. ''I am fine now. Sorry for the scare."

"It's ok, pumpkin." Mom cut in. She had the most beautiful smile. Her big blue eyes glowed whenever she did. They stayed a while before they retired to their room. Guess they believed I was asleep, I had to make it seem so, I just really loved an alone time. It was a quiet night. You could actually hear a pin drop and so I heard them..

"We have to postpone.."

Dad's words echoed in my ears.

He wasn't referring to that talk right now, was he?

I leaped closer to my bedroom door to listen in on their talk.

"No. We dont!" Mom asserted.

'' I shouldn't convince you on this, Helen.. There will be other times to do this. But, now we need to be sure that when we are not near, Josie will be ok. You saw what happened in there, and we both know the reason why.. She suffers from Guilt. She has the same dream every!'' He paused. I guess he realized his pitch . "Every damn time.." He continued in a lower tone. I perceived composure in that phrase and it was almost as though there was silence in there or they just suddenly lost their voices .

I knew something was up with those two but whatever it was, they looked fine, I was the one on the verge of losing it.

I got up from the bed and walked towards my window , pushing it open with both hands and my eyes met with the moon . Been a while since I saw a full moon. The stars were ever so lovely but the sky looked different. I felt the cool wind blow at me and my hair swayed along as it pulled some loose strands to sleep on my face.

Shutting my eyes, I took in the peaceful calm of the night. I looked down realising how far up my room was in the mansion. I guess if I ever thought of being suicidal, I just had to fall.

'A straight up trip to hell'. I mused.

I miss Eddy... I miss him so much.. I just hope wherever he was, he could someday forgive me.. The sleepless nights I'd had to endure have been tormenting me, my aching heart seeming as though incurable.

As the thoughts of Eddy hit me, I found myself going down Memory lane. I have never talked about it. Only my parents knew about it. They tell me to let go but how could I? Everywhere around me I see him, I feel him. Dr Rene said if I kept on wallowing in guilt, I could become delusional, that I would begin to see things, more like hallucinations.

Also hear things that aren't really there. But how? How could I get this off my conscience? It is heavy. It is hard. It breaks me everytime. I took a long sigh as I freed my lips to mutter these words I never thought I would ever come to say..

"I clearly need a major distraction.."

++++

"Yup, uh-huh.. I told you so, but because you would rather live a boring life , you just won't listen . Either way I am glad you changed your mind , and you my beloved have come to the perfect person for the job."

That was Mae, my crazy bestie. I was currently with her in her hotel room. I often wondered why she still remained single but when I remembered who she was, I smile away the thought because she is one crazy bitch to handle. Well, Mary was around for a while, so I thought perhaps now I would feel much better.

It was Friday Morning and right there in her hotel room I sat on her king-sized bed. She seemed so excited having me around. I really hoped I made the right choice. She pretty much likened me to being a "walking dead." Maybe she was right or maybe she was just exaggerating but in a bid to reply to her enthusiastic comment, I got distracted by the sight of something that stuck out of her wardrobe.

"Is that a dildo hanging out of your wardrobe?" I replied. She suddenly dashed from the bed to tuck it in its place, quickly too. Leaning her back against the wardrobe, she pushed her purple dyed hair with her nervous fingers to the back of her ears.

Granted, she was definitely faking her jitteriness because she just flaunted a mischievous grin my way.

"Ah, ah.. I guess you forgot you also have no pantie on" I added in a "not surprised" expression, doing my best to suppress the urge to giggle.

She realized where my eyes went and then made an effort to cover down there with both hands. I sighed in frustration.

"You are one silly lunatic." She hopped back to the bed and as she sat, she pulled up the duvet to her waist.

"Whatever! Just try unseeing it ok? " She said.

I rolled my eyes at her. "Listen," she began in a scolding tone, "you have no right to judge me hm? None of this is about me anyway.. but you, babygirl. You haven't lived ever since Eddy passed and you sure can't continue like that. You just keep shutting yourself out, refusing to socialize with the rest of the world. Girrrlfrienddd, you need to mingle.. Not always staying locked up in your daddy's mansion with your lovey dovey mummy. Gosh! You don't even have a boyfriend , I could bet a thousand dollars that your vagina looks like a wall with no holes right now , do you still have one?"

"Could you seriously just stop talking about my vagina? You sound like a pervert." I replied to her with blinking eyes .

"You see , you're doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That!"

"What?"

"That thing you're doing right now, blinking your eyes, like that , it's cause you feel guilty. But it's ok. All of that is gonna change, because tonight , you my pretty ass friend are getting laiiiiid !" She stressed.

"I really don't know if that is a great idea." I told her.

"And why?" She asked, giving the look like I was gonna preach .

"I dunno.. What if I am right there , doing it with a guy and then I just see Eddy, staring at me , you know? with vengeful eyes and then i scare the shit out of the dude with my screech." I replied to her. She slapped her face with her hand and slowly dragged it down till I could see her eyes looking at me like 'she couldn't do this anymore'.

"You really need to stop doing this to yourself Josie, you are going to be just ok. You need to open up your mind, your heart and your legs girl. I came all the way here for you, Dad is away in China, you left me no choice than to put Doris in charge. Do you know Doris? No.. No you can't know Doris, that girl has got annoyance in her DNA , she is always all over my Dad for a promotion she thinks she deserves! Yes ,She has the potential for a leader but she lacks something , I still am yet to figure out what exactly but she lacks something and that my friend, is an error! You can't afford to lack anything if you wanna be at the top!"

"Ok...." I gave her an awkward look as to how she just said all of that in one breath and didn't still make any sense. Anyways after much persuasion and In order to be free of her madness, I agreed to accompany her to a birthday party a friend of hers had invited her to. It kicked off at 7. P.M. The craziness was top notch, it was somewhat fun. Mae was sure having a good time. She had a loud laugh, which showed off her nice dentition. Oh how I love her. She had always been there for me, always got into fights with me since 5th grade, took the blame for me quite a couple of times and this girl even assisted in making principal Loli's office a state for Mice when she called me a brat. And ...here we were, all grown up and trying to make sense out of living. I found myself taking a walk away from the party's insanity towards the quiet space among the trees. I sat at the foot of a perfect one. The grass felt nice, It gave me a soothing sensation.

"You like it quiet too don't you?"

I saw the image of a man walking towards me with his hands in his pockets. It was dark, I couldn't quite see his face but that voice was like that of a gentleman from a Royal fairytale. As he got to where I sat, he stood in front of me. He was in shorts , He had nice legs for sure , they were slightly curved. I lifted my eyes up, but they caught sight of his third leg . Mae was right, even a dick is a new discovery to my eyes now but I controlled myself well enough.

"The dark is no place for a lady." He added.

This time I could catch it in his accent. He was British. He stretched down a hand to help me up. I took it.

It was almost as though at that instant the sky paved way for the moon as her light shone directly on us and I could see his face.

'What beauty! In the form of a man!'

His skin tone was perfect, a long face with neatly carved beards, his eyes were thin and grey, a pointy nose, had a butt chin and those soft pink lips that stared at mine or mine stared at his, his hair was dark but on a low cut, he was tall with a nice built.

'Could Eddy have sent him to me for vengeance from the Other side? Who was he ? Why is he so perfect?'

Lost in time as everything froze , I stood there but soon perfectly snapped out of the illusion.

"Should I think you to be sexist?" I voiced turning away as I tried hard to be my Dad's daughter .

'Composure'

"Do not. It's always been my sister and I so I could tell why a lady would want to be in the dark."

"And what do you think?" I asked him rather pissed as I turned my face back to his, I looked him straight in the eye to let him know I am no fragile being.

"I think I see a young woman lost in herself." He responded. I must confess, he is pretty good with the eye contact thingy because I blinked. I was nervous.

'Could he really see through me?'

"You don't know me!" I fired back as I turned to walk away. He grabbed me by the hand.

"I meant no disrespect," he voiced.

I felt all my anger disappear. 'Who was this man?'

I asked myself. Why does my heart beat this fast ? Why do I shake? Why does my body feel this way? I could not continue to stand there with him. I took my hand back and ran off to find Mae and then I felt a strong magnetic force wanting me to look back at him, just one last time , never have I felt something so powerful, so strong, but I had to ignore and I just kept running because whatever this was, it was too much for my mind to comprehend..