Promise from the heart

Chapter 24

Charlie's eyes snapped open. He was standing at the foot of the bed, watching himself sit by the bed, eyes closed and still holding comatose Carl's hand. He gulped and turned to where the voice had come from. There in front of him stood Carl, in the same hospital gown, same cuts and bruises, but without the tubes.

"H-How? What?" he managed.

"You seem to be have many abilities, Charlie. I'm glad I found you. Right now, you have what is called an out of body experience. Astral projection is another name for it. Your spirit self is now outside of your body and on the plane where I am right now."

"I see." Charlie whispered, trying to wrap his arms around himself to stay grounded.

"Ever dreamed you were flying or visiting different places and dimensions in your dreams?" Charlie nodded.

"You were really visiting those places. Your spirit self, that is."

Charlie was quiet for a moment as he let that sink in. "And in the library?"

"That really was unfortunate." Carl grimaced apologetically.

Charlie frowned. "What do you mean?"

"There's always some risk when you reach out to someone. Both from my plane and from yours. I reached out to you, and when you noticed, you opened yourself up. But something else noticed our attempt to communicate, and tried to reach out to you also."

"The knocking?"

Carl nodded.

Charlie tilted his head to the side as he thought. "Then... what part of it was you?"

"The book. I was going to communicate with you through it. But then the other entity came through and you dropped it. I managed to close the connection, but not before the other entity got close enough that you passed out. When you were passed out, I sort of took the liberty to reach in and show you my memories that way. I hope you don't mind."

Charlie frowned. What did he expect him to say? No, please help yourself to my mind?

"I don't know how long I can keep this up, so tell me what happened to you, please. Jordan doesn't think you simply fell down and neither do I."

"Fell down?" Carl scoffed. "And somehow hit most parts of my body all at once. Please." he gave him a droll stare before leaning against the wall. 

Charlie smiled amused. His sass reminded him of Ariel.

"So what happened?"

"That's why I showed you those memories from earlier."

"What do you mean? Was it a hate crime?"

"Yes and no. It was definitely done out of hate, but not the kind of hate crime you're thinking of."

Charlie chewed on his lip as he thought. That could only mean one thing. 

"Was it Jordan's father?"

"He wasn't there in person, but the men who attacked me said some things. A few days before it happened, I had spoken to Jordan and he had told me how miserable his home life was. I knew first hand how vile my brother can be, so I had started looking into adopting him. I have a partner and he agreed that we should try to get Jordan out of that house. The day before, was when I had sent a request to social services. I assume Jordan's father was notified sometime after that. Then I get attacked. It's too much to be a coincidence."

Charlie bit his lip as he thought. "What about your partner? Jordan didn't mention him.

"Jordan doesn't know. I didn't want his father to find out about him yet, because I didn't want to put neither Jordan nor my partner, James, in danger. Well, I say partner but... He's actually my husband." Carl said a bit sheepishly, a light blush covering his cheeks.