The Man in the Basement

/ ABBY /

I struggled to get back on my feet as the mysterious man tried to lay his hands all over my body. He was going to rape me, I was so sure of it. This was definitely the end of me.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” I kept screaming and pushing him back.

But he was too strong. “Greya, Greya…please…. I’m not going to hurt you. We don’t have much time. We need to go now.”

I absolutely had no idea what he was talking about. “Let me go!” I kept shouting. I summoned the last amount of my strength to push him from me and then I stood up and started running.

“My love, wait!” he yelled.

I looked back and realized he was chasing after me. This was a huge mistake. I shouldn’t have gone for a walk in these woods. I should have stayed in my room.

I ran in full speed, jumping over fallen logs and wading through thick bushes. I lost the track and just decided to run in any direction as long as it’s away from him. But he was too fast and it didn’t take him long to catch up with me.

“Greya, can you please stop running!” he yelled at me, he was so close.

Why was he calling me Greya? Who the fuck was he?

“How come you don’t remember me? You’re my mate! We love each other!”

A mad man. I was chased by a mad man. Probably a psychopath too.

“My love please! If I can’t return tonight, there might not be another chance!”

I ignored him and turned into what seemed to be a thick vegetation with bushes and plants that reached up to my shoulders. I could lose him here. But the moon was too bright tonight, he could still see me.

But then, I remembered this part of the woods. There was a stream right ahead, its banks were high enough to fall and obscured with a lot of plants. If one was not careful enough, they wouldn’t even notice it and fall directly downhill. I knew what I had to do.

I ran to that direction, making sure he followed after me. When I was close enough, I stopped and turned around. The stream was behind me now but he couldn’t see it.

He was coming to my direction and I started running again, but this time I turned sideways and he went directly ahead, not knowing the trap.

“Oh shit!” he cursed before he rolled downstream, out of my sight.

My instinct told me to run and leave him there, but I was curious enough to check what happened. The fall could have killed him. There were sharp rocks down there and the water was too shallow to suppress the fall.

As I looked, my eyes landed on his body lying inches from the water. He was unconscious and looked like his arms were broken.

Suddenly, it hit me. “Did I just killed him?!” I asked myself, panic rushing in my blood. “No… it was an accident. He fell!”

I was debating with myself whether I should just leave him there and get away with murder, but worried that someone might found his body in the morning and traced me as the murderer. So I went down there, sliding through sharp rocks and loose soil, to check his body.

“Oh thank God!” I exclaimed, when I realized he was still breathing. The weird black robe he was wearing was torn everywhere with a mix of dirt and blood. I worried he might die any second if I don’t help him. But I still didn’t trust him.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” I uttered in exasperation. In this state, I didn’t think he could kill me. So I picked his body and dragged him uphill and spent all amount of energy left to bring him to my house. My parents were away for vacation so no one would wonder who I was bringing.

I dragged the unconscious man to the basement, he was too heavy but I managed to lay him on a makeshift bed. I was surprise to find his features so unlikely, he was handsome in all kinds of ways which made me doubt if he was ever a rapist or a serial killer. I stripped off the upper part of his robe, and damn, I was greeted by a six-pack thing on his stomach.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked even though I know he wouldn’t answer. There was a mysterious tattoo on his chest that resembled a moon. It caught my interest because I had a tattoo on my chest as well. Although mine was a different design, it still resembled a moon.

I had some questions to ask him, but the answers could wait. So I treated his wounds. Then I tied his hands and feet to the bed, worried that he might do something to me once he woke up.

When I was done, I left him there and went back to my room to sleep. I had classes tomorrow, I couldn’t be late.

****

Morning came and I failed to wake up early so I had to get ready for school in a hurry. I didn’t check the basement to catch a glimpse of the man if he was already awake because my phone had been buzzing since and I didn’t have much time.

My friends at school were calling. I hadn’t been doing well in school because there were still things I couldn’t understand due to my memory gap but I didn’t tell anyone about that, not even my friends. They knew me as Abby and I had to keep that name as long as I need to. For the past four years, I had tried to socialize more often to live a normal life, it was hard at first but I learned it along the way.

Because I had no memory of who I really was, I had to keep pretending every time.

I got in class really late and one of my friends, Adam, helped me sneaked in while our professor wasn’t watching.

“You’re a mess, Abby,” he said.

“I know, don’t remind me. I haven’t sleep well last night,” I replied, and pretend to take notes.

I was studying art history, because my parents thought the real Abby would have loved it if she was only alive. The real Abby died five years ago, a year before they found me on the street. Her death was the reason why they decided to move to a new place to start all over again, and I was just lucky enough to be able to live with them. But anyways, I didn’t have any interest about art or their history for that matter. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think I was ever an artist or art lover before. What strike up my fancy the most are forests and woodlands and the different creatures that lived there, I know it’s weird but I love it and I was pretty sure I could have been an environmentalist if only I didn’t lost my memories.

And speaking of forests and woodlands, I suddenly remembered the unconscious stranger I left in my basement.

“Oh shit,” I muttered and started packing my stuffs.

“Where are you going?” Adam asked.

“Home,” I replied.

“But the class just started.”

“It’s an emergency!” I told him and slipped out of my class. Luckily, my professor didn’t notice and I didn’t care.

I ran to the streets and took the bus home in a hurry. I was worried the man could already be dead by now since I forgot to check on him this morning but when I got to the basement, he was there, laying on the makeshift bed I made him, staring blankly into the ceiling. He didn’t seem surprise to see me.

“My love, I don’t know what has gotten into you, but I’m not your enemy,” he spoke. “So if you could please untie me, I will explain everything to you. I won’t hurt you, I promise. I will forgive you and never speak of this again.”

He seemed honest so I went over to him and untie his hands and feet. I was expecting he would escape or strangle me, but he didn’t. He sat up on the bed and looked at me. He looked so fine as hell, even with all the wounds on his skin, his features were captivating.

“We should have been home by now,” he said, his voice was deep and sad at the same time. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry.

“Who are you? Where did you come from and what was that smoke in the woods last night?”

He tried to stand but winced in pain. He didn’t have the strength yet.

“You sure you don’t really remember me, Greya?”

“My name’s Abby, not Greya.”

“No, your name is Greya. And you’re a werewolf.”