Ghostly Echoes
Prologue
Bewildered and filled with dread, the boy opened his eyes and
slowly sat up. He put a hand to his brow – the agony had been
fleeting but surely, it must be bruised or cut. He pressed gently
over his eyes and across the smooth unbroken skin of his
forehead. How could that be...? Incredulity changed to relief
until his hand moved higher …and his fingers sank into a deep
cavity, matted with blood and hair.
Sickened with revulsion, he collapsed again, stunned into
insensibility.
In fleeting flashes of awareness, realising he was not in pain,
he felt calmer. The grass was cool beneath him and he could see
treetops laced against blue sky above, so surely things couldn’t
be as bad as he’d thought! Cautiously, he risked feeling his head
again, but it felt so shockingly unfamiliar that his stomach
lurched and he lapsed into a troubled dream, having no
conception of time as his mind drifted. Sometimes he shouted for
help but no one came.
Gradually gaining a small measure of coherent thought, he
tried to deal with the weird jigsaw of emotions – anxiety, fear
and fury – which consumed him. Although his head didn’t ache,
he could not bring himself to examine it again and was reluctant
to move from where he lay, supine on the soft ground. The
physical pain had been mercifully brief but an indefinable
anguish tormented him, as if he had done something bad.
He felt guilty ...but of what?
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