be alive.
Abel was remanded in a mental hospital for three months before he was declared fit to go stand trial for killing his wife. He missed his wife so much and felt so guilty; he told the judge that he didn’t care if they gave him the death penalty for he deserved it. His wife’s parents spoke up for him at the trial, saying they knew it was a tragic accident and since they knew that their daughter had been madly in love with Abel, they wouldn’t want to see him punished.
They further said that they had come to terms with losing their daughter and they had forgiven Abel completely. The case was judged as manslaughter and Abel was sentenced to fifteen years at Lancaster State Prison.
Abel’s gift had started to manifest at the mental hospital. He found he could hear people’s thoughts and he could read the minds of the doctors and nurses. Most of them spoke kind words to each other but Abel could hear their thoughts and so knew they didn’t mean what they were saying.
He had learnt he could visit people in their dreams purely by accident. He had been lying in bed thinking about one of the nurses when he suddenly had a vision of her looking into a mirror combing her hair. Shocked by the vivid image, he opened his eyes and she was gone.
He closed his eyes again, thought about the nurse again and there she was again. He kept his eyes closed and found he could see what she could see. He also knew what she was thinking as she was getting ready to go bed, and by the time she fell asleep, he knew what she was dreaming about. With a little further exploration, he found out he could actively participate in her dream while he was still awake in his bed.
At first the whole thing had scared the life out him for he wasn’t sure what was happening to him. He thought he was going crazy, especially when he heard voices in his head. It didn’t help when he realized that the voices were people’s thoughts and that they weren’t talking to him. He never told anyone about his new-found experience; he surely didn’t want to be locked in the hospital for eternity. Who would believe him anyway?
So instead of seeking help, Abel experimented on the nurse. At first, he visited her every night, and watched as she admired herself in the mirror. He entered her dreams while she slept and he found he could talk to her rather easily. The nurse thought of him as simply a part of her dream and would always talk back to him. He would ask her questions and she would answer truthfully, as if she was hypnotized and under his spell. He had her get up from her bed, put on the light and strip naked in front of the mirror for him, where he could look at her through her eyes. It was almost as if he was in the room with her and he enjoyed it. It freaked him out to think that he had such power over her but he didn’t stop; he lusted for more, telling himself that the power was a gift to him from his near-death experience and he had no choice but to use it.
By the time they sent him to prison, Abel was getting the hang of using his new gift and it came in very handy in handling his prison mates. Abel wasn’t a big bloke and he didn’t like fighting. He knew that if he didn’t use his gift on these prisoners, then he was going to be one of their bitches, his biggest dread. Abel tried to keep to himself, and as he met the prisoners one by one he said “Hi”, got into their minds, then into their dreams and told them all to keep their hands off him. He brainwashed them completely off him, keeping all potential suitors at bay.
His strategy worked very well. In the seven years he spent at Lancaster, he never got into any fight or unwanted encounter. All the guards felt sorry for him and treated him with respect and this was all as a result of the thoughts Abel had planted in their minds. One of the guards who worked at Lancaster was John Timberlake and Abel had discovered Alice by wandering round his mind.
Abel was eventually released for good