Love?

Living the Dream

On the humid evening of June 7th, Mark sat alone on a park bench, staring listlessly at the ground. The air was thick with the scent of flowers and fresh-cut grass, but he felt none of it—just the weight of loneliness pressing down on him. The light was fading, and he was wrapped up in thoughts of another night spent alone, his life passing in a blur of routines and hollow silences.

That was when he saw her.

She glided past, her dress flowing behind her like a whisper on the breeze. The sight of her startled him awake from his daze, and he was struck by her beauty, her grace, the way she seemed almost out of place in this world. Compelled by something he couldn’t explain, he stood up, calling after her, and to his surprise, she turned with a soft smile.

They spoke for a few minutes, and her laughter warmed him from the inside out. Her name was Anna, and when he asked if she’d join him for dinner sometime, she nodded, saying she’d love to. From that moment on, Mark felt his life bloom like the flowers in the park around him.

Their romance blossomed quickly. Mark felt consumed, entranced. Days blurred into weeks, and weeks into months as he spent every moment with Anna. They shared dreams, whispered secrets in the dark, and filled each other’s lives with laughter and warmth. It wasn’t long before they were living together, and Mark felt like he’d finally found his purpose.

But then, strange things started to happen.

Sometimes, he would walk into a room and forget why he’d entered. He’d find objects out of place, doors he swore he’d locked left wide open. Shadows seemed to linger longer in the corners of his vision, and he’d feel a chill that didn’t match the warmth of their home. And Anna… she seemed distant, somehow, as though there were thoughts she didn’t want to share.

One evening, he walked into the bedroom to find her sitting on the floor, staring at the wall. When he called her name, she flinched, looking at him as though she barely recognized him. She murmured something he couldn’t quite make out, a question about “when this would end.” When he asked her to explain, she brushed it off, smiling and slipping back into the warmth he was used to. But Mark couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

The incidents grew worse. He would catch glimpses of people staring through the windows, only to blink and find them gone. Some nights, he’d wake up to the sound of muffled cries, and he’d stumble through the house, only to find Anna fast asleep. His anxiety grew into a gnawing sense of dread, a constant hum in his mind that wouldn’t let him rest.

Then, one night, it all fell apart.

Mark awoke to a piercing scream. In a panic, he ran to the basement, where the sound seemed to be coming from, though he had no memory of why he would go there. He threw open the door, and the sight before him shattered his world.

There, chained to the wall, was Anna—or a version of her, thin and pale, with haunted eyes. She looked at him with a mixture of fear and fury. Mark took a step back, his mind reeling. His Anna… his wife… was right upstairs. Wasn’t she?

“You kept me here,” she whispered, her voice a broken thing. “For five years. And you never let me go.”

It was like someone had torn a veil from his mind. Fragments of memories flooded back: the lonely walks in the park, the night he’d followed her home, the day he’d taken her against her will, and the months that followed, convincing himself of a love that had never been.

Mark stumbled back, horror filling him as the truth settled in. He looked around the dim basement, now seeing it for what it was—a prison he had created. The Anna he’d seen, the one he thought he’d loved, was a phantom born of his desperation, a figment that had kept him company as he slipped further from reality.

As the weight of it all crashed down on him, he fell to his knees, hands clutching his head, trapped in a prison of his own making. The woman chained to the wall looked on, her gaze hardening, as he began to scream.

Mark’s breath came in ragged gasps as he knelt on the cold, damp floor, his mind shattering piece by piece. Anna, the real Anna, looked down at him with a mix of fury and pain. Her voice was low, trembling, but filled with a strength he didn’t expect.

“Why?” she rasped, her eyes locking onto his. “Why did you do this to me?”

Mark’s mouth opened, but no words came out at first. His hands shook as he tried to form the impossible answer. “I... I thought I loved you. I was... I was so alone.”

“Love?” she spat, her voice a brittle edge of anger. “You don’t cage someone you love. You let them be free. You don’t lock them away.”

Her words struck him, each one landing like a hammer to his chest. A lifetime of loneliness, desperation, and twisted dreams flooded through him, suddenly as hollow as the echo of her voice in the basement. He felt the weight of his madness, the horror of what he’d done, pressing down on him like iron shackles around his mind.

Trembling, he reached for the key ring he kept on his belt, his hands unsteady as he held it out to her. “I’m... I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his voice broken. “I was wrong. I can’t take back the time I stole from you, but... I can give you your freedom.”

Her eyes flicked to the keys, wary and distrustful. After a long, tense moment, she reached forward, taking them from his hands. Mark watched as she unlocked her own chains, the sound of the cuffs falling to the floor echoing in the dark. She stood up slowly, wincing from the weight of long captivity, and fixed him with one last look—a look filled with anguish, fury, and something he could never repair.

Without another word, she turned and ascended the stairs, leaving him alone in the darkness. Mark remained on the basement floor, his empty heart and shattered mind haunted by her fading footsteps as she walked away.

As the sound of Anna's footsteps faded above him, Mark felt an emptiness he couldn't comprehend. The walls of the basement pressed in around him, thick with the silence she left behind. He was alone again, but this time, it wasn't a loneliness he could escape with fantasies or fractured illusions. This was the crushing weight of knowing- knowing the depths he had sunk to, the life he had stolen, the horrors he had inflicted.

He rose unsteadily, his body cold and heavy as if gravity itself had gained a fierce hold on him. His mind swam with fragments of memories-moments of her pleading, her voice raw and broken, memories he had buried deep to keep his delusions alive. Each one resurfaced like shards of glass, tearing through his thoughts and leaving him hollowed out.

Slowly, Mark moved to a corner of the basement, where an old rope hung on a hook. In the dim light, he stared at it, his heart pounding dully in his chest, the faint rhythm of a life no longer worth living. There was nothing left, no escape from the prison he had built for himself, and nowhere he could go to forget what he had done.

With trembling hands, he tied the rope, his mind eerily calm as he slipped it around his neck. He took a last, shuddering breath, the cold air filling his lungs one final time. A solitary tear traced down his cheek as he whispered into the silence, "I'm so sorry.”

Then, in the still darkness of the basement, he took his final step into oblivion, leaving behind only the remnants of a broken mind and the shadow of a life he had destroyed.