A Strange Encounter

Previously in A Strange Encounter - chapter 6:

“Help me? Unless you can fix my hands you are of no use to me.” he said as he pulled his arm away and turned away from you.

You didn’t know what to say, but at this point you were fed up with his attitude and the way he was acting. “Okay now this is the part where you apologize.”

“No, this is the part where you leave.” he said, still not looking at you, instead looking out the window.

“fine, but if I walk out that door I am never coming back” you really hoped that the threat would work, but you knew it wouldn’t change his mind.

Stephen looked over to you with pain and hatred. “Go”

And with that you turned on your heels and walked out the door, head held high to give the illusion of being okay, holding back the swell of tears that you would explode into after you closed the door.

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You ran down the stairs as fast as you could. You felt completely, well you didn’t know how to describe how you felt, but it wasn’t good. You burst through the front door of the complex gasping for breath. You didn’t know what to do or where to go, but you couldn’t be in the city any longer. You pulled out your phone with shaking hands about to call your parents, but you hesitated. You calmly put your phone back into your pocket and took a deep breath. You were not about to run home away from your problems, ruining your career and life just because of a stupid man. So you hailed a cab and went home to be comforted by bianca and her large quantities of ice cream.

“You know what, screw him, you don’t need him, if he can’t see he how amazing you are he’s a waste of time.” you giggled at Bianca’s statement as you wiped away a tear and took another bite of (your favorite ice cream flavor).

“I know, but it just hurts so much. This isn’t like my other breakups, I really liked this guy… and I thought he really liked me… but I guess not.” You took another big bite of ice cream, somehow feeling better with every bite.

“Look I think you just need to go out with me, we’ll get some drinks, meet some boys and we can get you a rebound, what do you say?” she was getting really excited about going out with you again. It had been a while since just the two of you got to hang out with Stephen taking up a lot of your free time.

“Yeah I don’t know about that whole getting out there so soon, like we just had a fight, he could still call and things could be okay”

“I know but I just don’t want to see you waiting around for him.”

“I’ll be okay trust me, I’m sure he will call after he gets over it.” Bianca gave you a sympathetic smile as if to tell you not to get your hopes up. But you didn’t listen, you waited, and he never called.

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It took longer than you thought to get over what Steven had said to you, and with him not calling you, you decided to take the fight to him. You had gone back to the hospital a few times to have lunch with Bianca, or rather to see of Stephen had been in lately. You thought that maybe if you ran into him the two of you could talk and work things out, but the meeting never happened. You were holding out hope that maybe he knew you were there and was avoiding you, but you gave up when you overheard two nurses talking about how he had left the country.

“You know I heard from Alice up in Peds. that he left from embarrassment.”

“I heard that too, but also Nick in Neuro said that he left for some experimental treatments.”

“Well either way, he’s gone, and I don’t think he’s coming back any time soon. Could you imagine showing your face here again after your career is ruined? I could never.”

You got up from the table with Bianca and walked away, you couldn’t believe what you had just heard, and you definitely couldn’t listen to those girls talk anymore. You left the hospital and went back to your couch, setting up to spend the rest of your day there to continue your routine of endless movies and icecream.

You eventually got over the heartbreak, it wasn’t easy but just a few months later and you went back to into your daily routine, the one before you met Stephen. At first everything was weird and felt out of place, but eventually it felt normal again. You went back to throwing yourself into work and tried your hardest to keep your mind off of Stephen. Everything was perfect again, at least that’s what you kept telling yourself. You still had the job of your dreams and great friends to support you. You felt happy again for the first time in a long time, but you couldn’t help but still feel a little off. This time it wasn’t because of the emotions though, you felt like you had eyes on you at all times and you didn’t like it. It was like someone was stalking you.

You felt like you were being watched all the time, and not just in public like at the diner or in rehearsals, causing you to be more alert wherever you went. The feeling followed you home too, even with all the blinds closed you still felt like someone, or something, was watching you. You tried to shake the feeling but it was useless, you even tried to talk to Bianca but she told you were being paranoid. You wanted to believe her but you couldn’t.

It was a few days after the uneasiness started that you saw a dark figure in the alleyway right next to the diner on your walk to work. You saw it for a split second out of the corner of your eye but when you turned back it was gone. You wanted to leave it alone but you couldn’t help yourself and went down the alley. As you went deeper into the alley, you realised how dumb your idea was, it was dark and as soon as you started walking down you started regretting it. You went to turn around and go back when you saw the dark figure, but this one looked different. It slowly came toward you and you began to back away. Suddenly you stopped, but not because you wanted to, you had hit something. You turned around to see a man in a skee mask looming over you. The other figure came over to you and you saw it was another man.

“Well what’s a pretty lady like you doing all alone.” You froze at the comment, the sound of his voice making your skin crawl.

You felt one of the men put his hands on your arms and you tensed up.

“Please, just let me go, I don’t have any money on me I don’t even have a purse-” one of the men cut you off by putting his hand on your mouth while the other grabbed your hand.

“Well that’s one pretty bracelet you got there.” you looked down at the bracelet that Stephen had given you.

“Please-” you managed to scream out. The men grabbed you as you struggled to break free. You wanted to scream but they had gagged your mouth at this point and began tying your hands back. This was your worst nightmare, it was impossible to believe this was happening, you wanted anything but to be there. You were about to give up on fighting them when you saw a strange orange light, or was it a spark? All of a sudden the men were off of you and were being attacked by the orange light and whoever was wielding it. You couldn’t believe your eyes as you saw the two men run off. You looked back to where the light was coming from but it was gone. You looked around one more time before running past the diner and to the police station.

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“So you’re saying that two men attacked you, but they ran off when they were beat up by a man with lightsaber?” The policeman sounded very uninterested in your statement and was starting to show it with his condescending tone.

“No it’s not a lightsaber, there was this weird orange light and this man was using to-” you were trying to explain further when he rudely cut you off.

“Look lady I don’t have time for these games, I got better things to do than listen to whatever it is happened to you.”

“I was attacked okay! Are you going to help me or not!” you were starting to get annoyed with the officer in front of you.

“Did they take anything?” you looked down at your wrist and saw the bracelet was gone. Your heart sank.

“Yes, They took my Tiffany bracelet, it was priceless” you could feel tears welling up in your eyes.

“Alright and can you tell me what they looked like.” you tried to rack your brain but you couldn’t make out any of their facial features.

“They were wearing masks I couldn’t see their faces, and I was in too much of a panic to remember anything about them.”

“Well then there’s nothing I can do for you then, may I advise you next time not to go down dark allies alone?” The officer gave you a condescending smile before returning to his computer screen.

You looked at him in shock before turning on your heels and walking out the door.

You were paranoid the whole walk back to the diner. Not only had you just been attacked but you still felt like you were being watched. You sheepishly went up to your boss after clocking in to explain to her why you had been 30 minutes late. Surprisingly she pulled you into a hug and comforted you, telling you to take the night off and get some food and rest in the breakroom, telling you she would get one of the guys on shift to escort you home. You felt so relieved by this and made your way to the breakroom. You went to go change into you extra clothes that you kept in case of work spills, you felt so uncomfortable in the ones you were wearing now. When you opened up your locker you stood there stunned, reaching in and pulling out the bracelet that Stephen had given you. Underneath it was a note, ‘Try to keep out of danger darling - S.S.’

You just stood there not knowing what to do, you couldn’t make sense of it, all you could manage to do was murmur one word. “Stephen?”