Reason was never a strength of mine, and I found that during my recovery it remained a weakness, for I could not figure any reason at all for my present predicament

Reason was never a strength of mine, and I found that during my recovery it remained a weakness, for I could not figure any reason at all for my present predicament. Dreams still haunted me at night, but this time thy consisted not just of the girl's haunted face, but also Thomas's words. Day or night, I could not get them out of my head, and they soon began to take over my thoughts much like the nightmares had.

I could tell the difference from the first night after she left. At first I worried that she would return, that Thomas's idea was merely a temporary solution. And upon first opening my dream eyes (for by now I could clearly tell when I was dreaming, unlike the confused fantasy-reality that most believe in while they sleep) I thought my fears had come true. The landscapes of my dream were unusual as dreams go, and everywhere I turned the image of that girl's face kept appearing as a ghostly apparition upon the hillsides. And echoing around me were her cries for help.

Although the girl had left me, she continued to haunt me. I now knew that Thomas's theory had some truth to it; as if my awakening from the sleep of death were not already enough to convince me. Time and time again I went over his theory in my head, trying to find some alternate explanation, but try as I might to convince myself the dreams were mere illusions, in my heart I knew she was no figment of my imagination. The sorrow was too painful and the fear too potent to be a dream. Somehow she was real, but how, I could not reason or even attempt to understand.

But yes, the nightmares were gone now. Month after painful month of recovery passed. My days were full of bed rest and physicians, and my nights left without the haunted girl slipping in and out of my dreams as though she were simply strolling through rooms in a house.

Yet she was still there. I could not get the girl off my mind. Who was she? Where did she come from? Was she dead, or was she really asleep somewhere, lost in dreams, as Thomas had first hypothesized? What troubled me the most, however, was why she had found her way to my dreams, infiltrating my mind. But I had no answer to these questions. All I knew was that it was so, and this dream-haunt could not find peace. And I also knew that I could never have peace until she did.

-

These thoughts occupied my mind during the months of my recovery. My body had wasted away during the time of the nightmares, and it took some time to recover my strength. The physicians seemed to consider my escape from death some sort of a miracle, and as a result there was always at least one nearby during the day. In fact, some of them seemed to consider my survival a fluke and seemed to expect me to drop dead at any moment.

But I knew better. Physically, there had never been anything wrong with me. In fact, I considered my condition to be self-inflicted. It was my own fear of the dream girl that had caused me to lose control of myself so drastically. I had become a cowering shell in the girl's presence, and after the fact I felt I should have been stronger. I was a prince, for goodness sake! Royal blood, dating back eight generations flowed through my veins. I was fearless in battle, respected honored, even sung about throughout my kingdom, although I was only a second son! And to think, one girl could bring me to my knees. I was humiliated. Each grueling hour I spent learning how to walk again, I would question myself, wondering how on earth I had been so weak. Thomas was often at my side, and he assured me that my poor health was not a sign of my weakness; that the mind is a complex and powerful thing, and in the presence of such forces cannot help but collapse. But he was wrong; there were some things that Thomas did not understand.

At night the dreams would come. The images flowed one after another, into each other, mixing and combining; the girl's face; her cry for help; the forest of death; Thomas's theory. Then I would wake, and recall Thomas's words of reassurance, the words that only angered me. I would remember my weakness, and I would remember the girl. And I knew that I must help her. I knew that while her mind was trapped, mine would forever dwell on it.

Then in the mornings I would once again see my shrunken body; it nearly made me sick to look at it sometimes. My skin hung of me like beggars rags. My muscles had withered; each day it was a trial to simply lift myself out of bed to start the daily circuit of the room. My eyes too, were not what they used to be. Nothing was clear anymore, and when I examined myself in a mirror, I looked so blurry I wasn't even sure if I was there or not. Once more, I would grow angry with myself for my inability to banish the girl from my thoughts once and for all.

I believe it was during these times that I made up my mind once and for all that I would find that girl and save her, if not for her sake alone, then for mine as well.