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A Familiar Stranger

Wreathed in Mystery and Darkness

By Karissa E.L. CuffPublished 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
5

Dusk had arrived too soon, cradling my apartment building like a toxic lover. The bathroom light seemed too dim, even while it cast shadows beneath my eyes as I gently applied the mascara.

The vibrating of my phone broke through the silence like rain in a drought. You’re coming out tonight right? The returning silence distracted me from replying to my friend’s text.

The stillness was heavy. Foreboding. Eerie. The only sound was the ticking of my kitchen clock. It sounded too much like footsteps. Unless… unless it was footsteps.

Something was wrong. I could feel it in the air. The tick, tick, tick of the clock seemed to count down until…

He arrived.

I didn’t want to answer the relentless knocking on the door but something inside me steered my footsteps towards it, my breath catching when I caught sight of the gun in the intruder’s hand.

I froze.

He stepped forward.

The door clicked shut behind him.

His pistol pressed against my stomach, my gut sinking at the cold contact. I had the fleeting thought that I should fight back but I couldn’t move. I may as well have been paralysed. The adrenaline coursing through my veins was an unloaded gun – pointless but begging to be used.

“Call for help and I shoot,” he said, his voice a mixture of death and reincarnation.

Wordlessly, I tore my eyes from the gun and studied his face. I’d seen him before.

His face triggered memories of restrained wrists and duct tape covering my mouth. He brought back memories of cold sweats and a trembling body.

This time there was nothing covering my mouth as he tied my hands behind my back. Through the stillness of the night and the adrenaline still pounding uselessly through my body, only one question made it’s way through the swarm of them swirling around in my head.

“Why?” my voice was shaky and unsteady as I whispered it.

He shrugged. “You know what they say about misery,” he replied in that smooth deadly voice. “It loves company.”

I stared at him. “Why not abduct the other people in the apartment? Why me?”

He tilted his head with feline curiosity. “Is it really abduction if we never leave the apartment?”

I didn’t know if that was a threat or not. Last time he had left, and I had stayed. But he had come back. My throat closed up because I was so scared he always would.

“Why me?” I whispered again.

“You’re asking the wrong questions,” he said, only now pulling the curtains closed, “I don’t need to follow logic. It’s not in my nature.”

I knew from last time that that was true. Struggling against the rope around my wrists, a new question tumbled from my quivering lips. “Who are you?”

He turned to me then, his face wreathed in darkness despite the light shining down on him from the ceiling. “Didn’t they tell you?” His words seemed to echo. Didn’t they tell you didn’t they tell you didn’t they tell you? I couldn’t tell if the reverberations were filling the room or just my head.

“Who?”

“The doctors,” he replied. “Didn’t you go to them after the last time?”

I stared blankly. “Why would I go to the doctors and not the police?”

“For the injuries I left you with,” he replied. That’s when his fist made contact with my face. A searing pain shot through my head. Before I could recover I was on the ground and his boot had connected with my stomach. I coughed, flinching and cowering away from him. I couldn’t fight back. I didn’t know how.

“Why didn’t you go to the doctors?” he asked again, his voice growing quieter, like the ending of a song. “They could’ve told you the truth of who I am.”

Because who would believe me that an all too familiar stranger had broken into my apartment only to leave before morning arrived? Who would believe me when the wounds were never visible? I didn’t say the words out loud, but it didn’t matter. He knew my thoughts without hearing my voice.

He laughed then - the sound cruel and filled with taunting amusement. “You’re scared they’ll tell you it’s all in your head, aren’t you?” he mused. “Because what if they’re right? What if it is?”

I looked up at him from the ground as he continued to tower over me. My initial question still pounded through my head like poison coursing through my veins. Why? Why? Why? But I knew that even if he told me who he was, nobody would ever be able to answer the question of why he chose me.

“I’ll tell you who I am,” he said. “But you already know, don’t you?” I squeezed my eyes shut, rocking my body back and forth, hoping to wish it all away.

“No,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice almost gentle now, “you do. I don’t have a human name. But you already know why.”

Behind him, my phone vibrated on the kitchen counter. I made no move to go to it. Neither did he. He was staring at me like a predator eyeing its prey and I was staying still, as if playing dead might make him go away.

“Inhuman things don’t have human names,” he informed me and after I blinked he seemed more shadow than flesh. It was only then that I realised he’d never used the door to leave.

I struggled to my feet, but he was already fading away, the way darkness always does. Looking down at my hands, I noticed the rope had vanished, no bruises marked my skin. I turned back to where he’d been and only an empty room greeted me.

Stumbling to the window, I pulled back the curtains and, looking in the reflection I realised no bruises tainted my face, just dark circles beneath my eyes. In the glass, I saw him behind me. “I call myself the devil’s abettor,” he murmured against my skin.

I whirled around to face him, but he was nowhere. Only the memory of him haunted me and made oxygen hard to find. “And what does everyone else call you?” I breathed.

His next words changed everything and nothing.

“Social Anxiety.”

anxiety
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About the Creator

Karissa E.L. Cuff

I breathe in words and bleed in sentences. Writing is my love language.

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Reader insights

Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

Top insight

  1. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

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Comments (2)

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  • Angie the Archivist 📚🪶4 months ago

    Cleverly done… very accurate.

  • David Parham2 years ago

    Absolutely fantastic story.

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