Eluding Memory

Chapter 8

TW: physical violence and sexual harassment

I could barely believe my eyes. There were five uniformed police officers right outside my door. I wondered if the lady had seen me use my powers and had called the cops on me. It wasn't illegal to have powers, was it? I hadn't used them to commit any crimes either. So why did I still feel like running from them? I looked back inside my house to make sure that I hadn't accidentally left something floating in the air. When I turned back outside, one of the officers spoke up to assure me that I would be okay. Sure, but what was happening?

The officers exchanged looks with each other. Two of them nodded and went past me to enter the house. I was very confused, so I kept asking them what happened. They wouldn't answer my question; they just kept telling me I would be okay. The lady gently but firmly pulled me out of the house. After a couple of minutes, the cops came back out. They asked me where he was. I asked them who 'he' was.

The lady reassured me and said I could tell them the truth; they would make sure he could never touch me again. I still didn't know who he was. For a second, I thought they were talking about the man in the restaurant. But I had no idea who he was or where he was either. I asked her again who the 'he' she was referring to was. The lady had a pitying look on her face. She went to the officers and whispered something to them. They asked me to come with them. The lady was right by my side while I went inside to grab my keys and my phone and lock up before I left.

They took me to the police station, where they told me I could tell them everything. I still had no idea what was happening and felt like I was in a prank show. When I wouldn't tell them (because I didn't know what they wanted me to tell them), they pulled out a stack of brochures. While one of them went through the stack, the other asked me again if I would like to speak. I told them I didn't understand what was going on, and I didn't know what they want me to tell them. The officer exchanged a glance with the strangely familiar lady, who exclaimed that the poor thing is so traumatised that she's forgotten all about it.

One of the officers walked up to me and put a hand on my arm while he was trying to get me to speak up. The sudden action startled me, and I jerked away. He immediately stepped back and lifted both his hands in the air. He may not have had bad intentions, but my mind immediately went back to the man in the restaurant. This man had already backed away but my brain had switched to fight-or-flee mode. I began to breathe in short rasps, and my chest felt heavy. I clutched at the top of my shirt and shut my eyes while trying to take deep breaths. After a few minutes, I had managed to calm myself down.

When I slowly opened my eyes, I saw that all the officers and the lady were looking at me with surprise writ large on their faces. I felt a little embarrassed that they had seen me lose it but remembered that I had to bring back my thoughts before I accidentally used my powers in front of them. I pretended to look unaffected as I looked at their faces and their peculiar expressions. Wait, I recognised that look. It was the same look my neighbours had when they first saw me use my powers.

I realised that they weren't looking at me, but at something behind me. I held my breath as I slowly turned around, my heart beating so fast that I felt it might break out of my rib cage. I expected to see something floating in the air or the lights flickering. However, that wasn't the case. There was only a man standing there. A man whose silhouette was all I could distinguish against the light behind him. The man was slowly walking towards us. I didn't know what was so surprising about this man that all of them had to react like that. And then I saw it, but it was far too late.

The man held a knife in his hand. By the time I noticed it, I didn't even have a second to run away. The man had me in a headlock; the knife pointed at me. The cops yelled at him to let me go, as I was only an innocent civilian. The man laughed as he tightened his hold around my neck. I gasped; something felt so familiar about that laugh. The edge of his moustache tickled my ear as he pulled me closer to him. Too close; he was right behind me. I began to panic as he pressed into my body. I tried to yell at him and push him away, but his grip was too strong. I couldn't even slide or slip out of his hold.

He was laughing maniacally and taunting me, asking what I would do now. He said I could ask the cops if they had glasses of water to throw at him, but it wouldn't stop him from punching me again. My eyes widened as I realised why he felt so familiar: this was the man from the restaurant! He wasn't screaming at the top of his lungs now, but he still sounded just as menacing. I managed to turn my head towards him to see that it was indeed him.

He laughed again when he saw my face turned towards him. He leaned in, and I quickly yanked my head to the side. He let go of the headlock and snaked his hand around my waist to pull me closer. I tried my best to hold my face away from his, trying my best to ignore his hand roaming all over my torso. He finally managed to make me face him a short while later. I could feel the sharp edge of the knife right below my rib cage. He smirked as he shoved the knife into my skin with all the force he could muster.

I braced for the pain, but I couldn't feel a thing. I wondered if he had damaged the nerves so quickly that I couldn't feel the pain. I felt like I was watching everything happen from outside my body. The fear suddenly transformed into anger. I was angry that this man had entered my life again. I was angry that he could have so much power on me that I couldn't breathe if my brain so much as even thought about him. If he was going to kill me at that moment, I had to do something to show him I was not scared of him. I wanted to haunt him the way his touch had haunted me since that day at the restaurant. I wanted him to feel scared and find it difficult to breathe every time something reminded him of me.

I decided I would look him right in the eye as I bled to death. I stared deep into his eyes with all the determination I could muster. He seemed quite unnerved that I made direct eye contact. He tried to look away, but my gaze never wavered. Every time he looked back, I was still staring at him. He tried to stab me again, but the knife didn't even make a dent in my mostly unbroken skin.

I looked down to realise that he hadn't stabbed me. Well, he had tried to, but the knife hadn't broken skin. There was only a small pink scratch from when he had touched the knife to my skin before stabbing me. The knife was flopping like a piece of cloth in his hand. The handle seemed intact in his palm, but the sharp edge of the knife had turned into a blunt and soft edge. Both of us stared at the knife in disbelief when he suddenly flipped it around and smacked the hard edge of the knife handle into the side of my head.

I hadn't anticipated it at all. A shooting pain spread through my forehead as I clutched my head in my hands. I barely had a few seconds to recover before his hands were on me again. I fought to push him away, and he shoved me to the ground. The impact knocked my breath out of me, and I struggled to push him away. The cops were trying to pull him away from me, but he had latched his legs around my waist, and his hands were strongly wrapped around my neck. I was feeling faint, but my resolve to stare into his eyes didn't waver. I stared into his eyes for as long as I could. Right as my eyes were about to shut, my flailing hands found the knife handle. I picked up the knife and shoved it into his stomach with what little force I had. I expected to knock him with the edge of the handle, but the sickening slash that was barely audible over everyone's shouts didn't sound anything like that.