I woke up on Christmas ravenous. I went to the kitchen and washed off an apple. I bit into it while I looked around for something more filling. Cereal did not appeal to me today. I rummaged around my kitchen looking for something that might satisfy, finally pulling out some hamburger to thaw for lunch. Then I accepted there was nothing to better to eat in the meantime and poured some cereal into a bowl with some milk and sat down to eat.
After I was finished I went back to my bedroom and lay down on the bed. I could feel my heart beating harder than it should have been. I did not sleep. I just lay there, trying to think of something pleasant to think about. There was nothing. It did not matter. I tried to think of something to do with my day. Nothing came to mind. I did not feel like I had energy to do anything anyway. I was so tired.
After enough time had passed, I hauled myself up and went and cooked the hamburger with some packaged hamburger spices and noodles. When it was finished, I sat on the floor by the coffee table I had picked up used for two dollars and began to eat.
The meat tasted delicious and raised my spirits considerably. So what if I was by myself at Christmas with nothing to do because my mother was distant and my father was a control freak? I was a strong independent woman; I would find something to do. Something like sit on the floor eating hamburger. Both my parents would have hated that; I smiled bitterly.
An echo from the past ran through my mind. "You're going to die."
"Shut up, Paul," I said out loud. My voice sounded annoyingly lonely to my ears. It was the very height of pathetic; sitting alone at Christmas and talking out loud to a character from a dream.
I had to go somewhere and do something, before I really did lose my mind. I went straight to the bathroom and showered. I got dressed and dried my hair. Then I went to the door and put on my jacket, mitts and hat, and then I grabbed my keys and wallet. I shut the door firmly behind me.
I did not have a planned destination. I just wandered around. There was not very much traffic. I assumed most people were staying home with their families. I shrugged and kept walking. Eventually I saw a couple of kids playing in the newly fallen snow. They reminded me of my sister and I did not want to think about her at all.
I kept walking for a long time, paying no attention to the time. I thought about work and I thought about school. I considered taking a full course load the next semester to keep myself more occupied. I must have too much free time if I could sleep and mope so much. I wished I had the foresight to buy my textbooks ahead of time, because then I could have spent the whole vacation reading them. At the very least I should have went to the library and borrowed something.
I was starting to feel weary, so I turned towards home. I noticed my heart was starting to beat frantically and I was glad I was not far from my apartment. The walk back went without incident, other than a near slip on the ice.
I unlocked my door. My head was starting to hurt again and my heart was still beating disturbingly hard. I was just tired.
Or maybe I really was going to die. Maybe it had all been real.
Maybe that creepy stranger really had put his blood on an open wound on my neck; maybe he had some awful disease. Maybe I should have gone and seen a doctor, because wanting a horrible incident to be a dream did not really stop it from being reality.
Yet there had been no wound. What doctor would believe me?
I felt like crying.
Instead I went to my bed and fell asleep.
I do not know what woke me up. Perhaps it was a sound. I only recall I was jerked roughly from my sleep.
"Merry Christmas," said a sardonic voice.
My mind flew backwards through the last stressful weeks to place the voice. It was the voice. It was my attacker. It was the stranger who had infected me with some disease. My heart beat frantically. I opened my eyes.
And I saw him. He was tall, and muscular, and irritatingly handsome, if I had been in the state to appreciate such things. He was standing by the window in my room.
For long moments I could not reconcile him with the picture I had formed in my mind of the bearer of the voice. In my mind he was a pale and horrible man whose appearance showed the very weight of his deeds; he had beady shrunken little eyes and thinning grey hair. He did not have messy, but healthy looking blond hair, nor did he have bright blue eyes that shone with a sardonic curiosity and a well shaped, clean shaven face. People who did things like what he had done to me did not look like this; I remember thinking stupidly, as if appearances could not be deceiving.
He smiled and I jerked up into a seated crouch. I wanted to run, or to say something, or ask one of the millions of thoughts shooting through my mind, but I found myself rendered completely mute. I was frozen. It was supposed to be fight or flight, not freeze in place until the predator eats you at his convenience.
He spoke again, "So, I see you're alive."
A sudden and furious rage flushed through me and swept away all my stupid thoughts. My anger loosened my tongue. "Who the hell are you?" I snapped.
"I'm Michael," he said simply.
The shock that he so easily told me his name muted my anger. I had expected him to refuse, or to change the subject. I wondered if it meant that he meant me no further harm or if it meant he was going to kill me so it no longer mattered if I knew. Had he no shame? He had done quite enough already. I could feel myself shaking.
Maybe Paul had been hinting that Michael would be coming back to finish me later when he had said that I would die. The thought made me want to run but he would probably catch me as easily as he had in the park. Especially if I considered the unfortunate fact that my body was foolishly refusing to move, unless one counted shaking with fear.
"And you are?" he asked.
"What?" I said stupidly. My mind was racing, trying to come up with some way to escape this situation.
"Your name is?" he rephrased.
My first thought was to tell him where he could stick it, but instead I answered slowly and stupidly, "Dylan."
"Dylan? There's a masculine name," he commented, looking at me carefully.
"It goes either way," I corrected frostily. His observation annoyed me. He made my father look sensitive in comparison.
"Pardon me," he said with a smile that still looked sardonic. I didn't answer, so he spoke again. "Well, I am glad you are alive."
"What, you weren't trying to kill me?" I asked acidly.
"No. Did you run into Paul?" he wondered out loud, completely ignoring my questions.
"That's none of your business," I said, barely managing to mask my anger.
He observed me for a few seconds then said, "I apologize for what happened first we met. It was unfair of me to do that without your permission." His words rang hollow.
I wanted to demand what it was exactly he had done to me, but then he continued, "No doubt you are feeling hostile towards me right now, but I would like to make it up to you. I shall make you a proposition."
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