“What could’ve happened,” murmured the anxious police officer, clearly distraught from seeing the deceased woman that lies on the floor in front of him. I looked from the mirror upstairs, and since then life hasn’t been the same. I saw this when I was three.
“Why did you have to do that?” The woman screams in my dreams. I lay on my bed, sweating, thinking about that woman. Every night, she comes into my dreams looking for a ray of hope, trying to find someone that will help. Those nights never fade. She follows me everywhere. I am never alone in this world: she is not gone from this world.
Finally, after I turned 8 years old, I decide that I should find out who this woman is and what she wants.
I walk out of my house, searching for a sign. I look left and right, up and down, but there is nothing, until I hear a faint scream. It sounds like a woman crying for help, I say to myself, as I race towards the scream. The scream gradually gets louder as I run, but then it stops. I listen closely, but all I could hear was the sound of the wind whistling.
The next day, I come home and set out on a quest. This woman comes in my dreams, not letting me have a moment of peace. There must be a reason. I walk out of my house, listening, but there is nothing. The clock strikes midnight, and I head out. I hear the roar of a man. He is speaking to a woman and as loud as his words may have been, the only words I hear are: Thomas and death.
Those two words circle in my brain all night. I lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling and begin to wonder. Why was my name and death in the same sentence. I began to think about what I have done in my life, and suddenly it came to me. The deceased woman I saw eight years ago was asking for my help. She wanted me to help her. It was at that moment I decided to only live to accomplish this task.
I went to the police station the next day, and I began to ask questions. I asked the police officer if I could see the case file and as shocking as it was, he said no. I became a jackal and went to the back and began reading, and what caught my eye was that the husband was never distraught. The police never looked into possibly the most obvious lead ever. The husband enjoyed life while his wife died. He had no respect for her and based on all the evidence, the murder mystery was about to be solved.
Time for action, I said to myself as I got out of bed and headed for the husband's house. I geared up and I walked towards the husband’s house with a goal to solve the murder. I walked into the house. I continued walking, and I heard a scream, but this time it wasn’t faint. It was the same scream I had heard the other day. The scream was from a couple feet away. I dashed out of the house, and I saw it: the woman’s body lying there. The ghost, or spirit, was hovering above it screaming as she saw her body. This was the same woman that came in my dreams and this was the same woman that followed me everywhere I went. I slowly walked towards her, and she immediately looked at me, and ran away. I began to run and call for her, and for some strange reason she stopped and we stood there in dead silence.
When she turned around she shielded her eyes. I took it as an insult and began to question her. I told her that, “I broke into a house and looked at a classified police file only for you to shield your eyes!” She said sorry, but what followed that statement made me faint in shock. She told me that I looked like her husband. I stared at her thinking about the possibility. It then struck me, I was her illegitimate son. She began to talk to me about how her husband always underappreciated her, and one day he cheated on her. She found out and threatened to turn him in, but he killed her before she could.
I stood there listening with my eyes raging in fury wondering how I could destroy this unfaithful man. I wondered and I found out. It all made sense to me, since I was her “son,” my dad made her accept me, and eventually she was killed. I set out for the husband and took him by surprise to an abandoned area. I tortured him, and for each time his wife smiled, I hit him five more times. He had now paid for his sins, and now his wife’s spirit can stop screaming at night and rest in peace. She is now free to live in this world.