YOU WRITE THE STORY ... CHAPTER SIX

I am the father of Mark and Kai. Last night I had a car accident in the snow. It was a really bad accident, so bad that I could have died... I easily could have died.... easily..... But I was rescued.

Mark and Kai, my brave children, found Sarah (my wife) and I in the wrecked car. We were unconscious, but we slowly came round when they climbed into the car with us. Mark called an ambulance and we were saved - the doctors say we were extraordinarily lucky to survive the accident and the terribly cold night.

But lucky's not really it. It was a lot more than luck, a lot more.....

I'm going to share a secret with you, because I need your help and advice. I think maybe you won't believe me, but I swear it's true. Well, I know it's true and one day maybe the whole world will know it to be true. I don't know.

Sit down please. It's a big secret.........

I died in the car. I actually died.

So, how can I be talking to you? Well, when I died I went to a strange white place. I had heard stories about a white place when you die, and I thought that maybe I was going to heaven. But it was somewhere else, a dangerous place, and I was full of dread.

What happened then I cannot explain, I cannot describe it. It seemed to be more in my head than real. I turned to one side and there was a huge Snow Leopard, somehow making the white seem insignificant - maybe the grown up cub we rescued once, I don't know. It towered over me and stared at me with its eyes so penetrating that I was desperate to look away, but I couldn't move, nor even shut my eyes.

Then it spoke. It didn't use its mouth, it used its mind:

"Daniel, you were killed in the accident. You are dead." My thoughts froze. I was like a mirror.

"But you do not have to die, you have a choice. I can give you back your life but in return you must agree to do my bidding - WHATEVER it is that I ask you to do. Do you understand?"

I didn't need to speak, the Leopard sucked the thoughts from my mind.

"It's your choice. You have to trust me. I hope I will never ask you to do something you think is wrong - but there's a chance I will have to. I have a mission Daniel, and I need your help, your human help. If you accept you must agree never to tell anyone in your family what you have agreed to - they must never ever know. Do you accept?"

I didn't want to die but I didn't want to agree either. I was paralysed ....... but the will to live is so strong that life will assert itself over anything else so..... so ........ something in me agreed... I struck the bargain with the creature, and I am here as a result.

Now I need your help. I have not told my family, but how can I keep this secret from them? How can I? And yet, if I do tell them, what will happen then? What will the Leopard do to me? What might it do to them?

What should I do? Do you think I should do what is proposed? Tell me what I should do......