The Ghost's Diary 👻 ✓

33. The Other Devil

My family?

I scoff.
"Like you would ever want any good for my family."

"I have been living in the mortal world for almost a hundred and fifty years, one hundred and five-and- fourty to be exact. I know certain things...

"Think about it. You only have five minutes." She lazily flicks her fingers and a sand clock appears in mid air.

Meredith starts walking backwards into the deeper side of the forest-- leaving doubt to linger about.

I... can protect my family...
Maybe, even give them back the life, life that was taken from them...
A family that loves me...

You have your brother, Ms Bragge and your friends.
No being on earth can bring them back.

The voice inside my head says. This voice doesn't seem mine. The voice inside my head is usually sarcastic.
This voice seems mature and old....

Henry....?

Yes, it is me.

He's literally in my head?

What are you doing in my head?

Guiding you, that is all. I told you to accept your past but you let your inner demons and sorrow consume you....
That is how Meredith was able to lure you here.

I'm just a teenager, okay? I snap back at him.

You and I both know that you are wiser beyond your years.

I almost want to laugh at the wiser part.

There is no time for jesting, Lindsey. You only have now three minutes left till she comes back.

How did you even come inside of my head, anyway? Are you possesing me or something?

Of course, not.
This is your dream, it may be manipulated but it is yours, which is why I am able to communicate like this.
Only evil beings can posses an entire human. I am merely a ghost.

That kind of explains it, I guess?

So... I'll just temporise her then.

Yes.

"Time's up!"
I see two eyes glimmer from the darker side of the forrest.
Meredith comes out and lifts her head up.

She glides across the short distance between us and stands beside me.

"What have you decided? Do you want Isabelle's fate or a fate like mine?" she says.

"What?" I arch my eyebrows up.

"Do you want your fate to end like Isabelle: unsuccessful and dead, or like mine: successful and alive?"

"I...
How are you even standing in front of me? You killed Isabelle?" I ask.

She smirks.
"A rose can not be enjoyed wholly till all of its thorns are wrenched out.
I don't expect mere mortals to understand my cause."

"All this talk about roses... I might as well make rose sherbet out of it," I say sarcastically.

I feel blood rushing through my head as if I've been hanging upside down and I feel my legs weakened and wobbly.