Off Stage : Mayhem

1 - The Unknown Man (1)

Her closed eyes sensed the light, feeling the brightness is hurting her eyes. On instinct, Aaby closed her eyes more tightly.

"Are you awake?" A voice of a man made her body twitching.

The voice, it sounded so familiar.

She could feel someone touching her hand, making her hand, which was touched, shivering. The hand retreated quickly, like someone testing the temperature of some milk for a baby.

"Can you... feel it?"

Her whole body was shaking, unused to everything she sensed and felt right now. Too many information entering her brain, too many to focus only to one thing.

She could feel the air around her somewhat warm and her body seemed to be wet and sticky.

There was an unknown smell, which was too much for her nose, lingering with other fainter smells, which were also too much for her nose.

Warm wind irritating her whole body--no, something heavier than wind but she had no idea what it was.

There was slight pressure on her skin, a weird sensation.

Something wrapped her body, it felt itchy that she tried to remove it.

"Hey! Hey! What are you doing!"

A hand stopped her, it sent the coldness to her own hand. Instinctively, she pulled her hand from it.

"Can you at least open your eyes? It's creepy, don't you know?"

She tried to, or not.

"Too bright."

Her voice sounded more hoarse than she could remember, it sounded weird.

"Oh wait."

She could feel her surrounding vibrated as the man walked. Then, darkness warped her.

"Can you now?"

He worded slowly, as he would do when dealing a child. The man walked closer again when she slowly opened her eyes.

There's only a little light to see some silhouettes, not enough to see the expression on the man's face who only two feet away.

Even though she could not see it, she already knew who he was since the the man first talked.

She whispered, "So you are real."

The man laughed as he dragged a chair closer to the bed where she lying.

She watched him getting closer. Even though she was not showing it, she was bewildered in the head.

"Gera? What happen? Why is this man here?"

But no one answered her question in her mind. She could guess roughly, the eyesine which should be with her lost the connection.

It must be there was something wrong with the transmission.

While her brain worked hard thinking, the man sat on the chair and offered a glass of water--who knew where it comes from--to her as he said.

"Drink. It will hurt your throat if you talked while it dried."

He helped her holding the drink, but she seemed in daze.

No, she was not in daze. She was just distracted, or rather, overwhelmed that she could not help but cursing in her mind.

"This damn crappy body..."

The feeling of her fingers touching the glass was overwhelming. The frictions, movement, everything was too unreal nor did the cold from the glass in her hand.

"Drink, Aaby." The man said again.

This time, he helped her putting the glass between her lips as he slowly pulled it up and the water poured into her mouth.

Again, the feeling of water moved down her throat made her gulped the water slowly.

She looked at the man, her eyes somewhat adapted with the darkness. Seeing a bright smile on his face, it looked so stinky and annoying.

"What happened to me?"

The man took the glass from her and placed it at the table, not leaving his light green eyes from her.

His face, she could now see it vaguely. A typical handsome man with profound gaze, sharp jawline. It was still rather blurry to find his other face's figure except his light green eyes that lit brightly even in the dim room, and that particular big smile there.

He shrugged his shoulder slightly when she silently watched him, waiting his answer.

"I took you here. It's a shame to let you die just like that. I mean, I watched you over seven years, don't I?"

"You say... what?"

Of course, she didn't show her entangled mind. There was an important thing she needed to know first rather than the fact she was taken away by the man.

"Not that," she sighed. "What happened to my body. It seemed my nerve system processing too many information that my head is aching."

"I think you will be glad if you could have what you don't have before. Why, you don't like it?"

She cursed inside saying that the man was a madman.

"I don't know." She answered as she acted confusedly. With a small voice almost like a whisper, she whined. "It's just... so weird and overwhelming. I'm not used with all of this feeling."

He patted her stiff head, "I know. That's why I'm here."

"... The fuck?"

She really thought the man was really mad. Everything he does saying that he was indeed a madman. After following her for years like a stalker, now he even stole her soul away.

The question was how?

She looked down, observing her hand outside and thinking hard inside.

But she just had some seconds and could not find the answer, as a stager, she adapted immediately.

"I died, didn't I?"

Her body, it was small. Her fingers too, slimmer and shorter than her previous body. The light-colored sleepwear, different from her floral pajamas she last used.

Ah, she just realized the disheveled hair to her chest was lighter in color and straight, not her darker, or brown, and wavy hair she had.

She looked up again, met his light green eyes. She saw an adoration in it but simply ignored, she knew that man was mad even when she was still in Earth.

But not to this extent.

She gritted her teeth in her mind and showed a calm look on her face.

"So I did."

The man smiled faintly, still patting her head. He kindly tidied her hair and helped her out from the bed, whispered to her ear that she felt ticklish.

"Let's eat first. I will tell you after."

She really wanted to punch him in the head. It was just that her body was hopeless, a crap. What kind of idiot putting her into a sensitive body when she was specially born as numb.

For goddamn sake, he followed her for years of course he knew her condition.

Damn, she knew he did it on purpose.

......

She felt suspicious but not sure whether the man knew or not about her being a stager so she acted that she truly committed suicide. (#not_so_important_fact)

Love from me,

aoillies.