Eliza Haque is just another ordinary girl. She has a loving family, and even more loving friends. Recently having just graduated out of Imperial with her Criminal Psychology degree, she finds herself unemployed. What could be more frustrating than n...
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Reluctantly, I arrived inside of the eerie Botanic gardens, where the lush tropical plants now casted dark shadows making it almost impossible to see. How could people possibly enjoy coming here? Surrounded by plants which spend 99.9% coincidentally hitting your face. Ouch - I managed to walk straight into a long branch. How did I manage not to see that? Moving it to the side aggressively, then ducking to avoid getting hit again by the branch swinging right back, I realise how dark is truly is. All the leaves coloured as if they were black. And with that, panic starts to slowly creep in.
"Where are you?" I call for him, it's obvious he would be the only one here at this absurd time.
I hear a ruffle sound before an unidentifiable man appears, dressed completely in black with a hoodie covering all his face as he had his head tilted towards the floor. As he slowly approaches me, dragging his right foot behind him, he slightly tilts his face to the side so that he can see my face, but I am still unable to see his. Fear over washes me, and a tempting feeling to take off his hoodie to uncover the face behind it.
"Eliza," he gasps, his voice wavering. I frown.
"Who are you?" I ask him, starting to become impatient. He lifts his left arm and uncovers the hood, revealing his face.
I stare at his face blankly. I'd never seen him before, never in my life. He can't be the culprit; he's clearly not Sabir, George or Dave. I shiver, internally. Could he be the same guy that me and Maya were spying on when we followed Dave to the rundown alleyway.
"Don't you recognise me?" He says, confusion masking his face whilst his voice betrays him; filling with raw pain.
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"I- I don't know you," I say, taking a step away from this stranger. He starts to clench his fist, the right previously contained a cup which he has now strangled to death, and then carelessly uses it to litter the floor. My eyes stay glued to it, recognising the familiar blue and yellow strips. It's none other than a ShakeAway cup, but the words written on it were too crumbled to read from afar.
"Look into my eyes, Eliza."
Nervously I obey him, looking into the dark orbs, my heart starting to beat faster as fear keeps creeping in. As my eyes lock with his, the only thing I could pay attention to is my erratic heart and the familiarity of his dark chocolate eyes.
"You've changed," he whispers, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. He kicks the ShakeAway cup in anger, "damn damn, damn. Why Eliza? Why are you covering your beautiful eyes with that crappy contact lenses?"
I can't form words, the fear inside me has made me become tongue tied. He had a ShakeAway cup, he's wearing all black, he's near one of the suspects, and he knows my true identity. He could easily be the murderer himself, and he'd be able to kill me and get away with it.
Ever heard if the fight or flight response? Yeah well, it doesn't exist in this moment. I'm too shell shocked to react.
"Oh Eliza, when will you finally recognise me?" He sighs, all anger disappearing and his tone softens as he looks at me again. He takes a step forward, snapping me back into functioning properly again.
"W-who are you?" I try to sound brave, but in reality I didn't like the fact that he knew me, whereas I couldn't even put a name to his face let alone recognition. He takes his right hand and puts it into his back jeans pocket, then grabs something white out, and hands it over to me.
Frowning, I stutter, "I don't need a tissue." I'm pretty sure my eyes weren't leaking.
"Just open it," he says, not looking at my face anymore. Hesitantly I take the tissue from his hand and open it, finding a sketch of a girl. A girl who looked very much like me. My hair let loose with me sporting a smile and a coffee in my hand. A date was written down the bottom; only a few days after Mahira had been killed.
I look back into his eyes and all fear ebbs away. "I remember those eyes." His lock into mine again.
"You remember?"
"Yes," I say, slowly being able to piece together that day. I had gone into my favourite cafe to get my usual drink, a mocha with three sugars. As I had turned around, striking brown eyes met with mine, and I had looked down to notice a napkin and his hand holding a pen. As I slowly approach I noticed a sketch on it. "You were at the cafe."
"I was," he says, taking a step closer to me. "Can you remember anything else?" I close my eyes to think, but a pain starts to overtake my brain. I touch my temple with my hand and wince. "Eliza? Eliza, are you okay?" I feel his hand cup my cheeks.
"I-I can't remember anything." My mind goes black as the pain starts to increase, the feeling of his touch starting to feel distant.
"Sh*t, Eliza, love, it's okay if you don't remember. Here, come here, let's sit you down." He lifts me up, and carries me outside where the cold air surrounds us. "Love, you need to take deep breaths. In and out." I follow his orders, breathing and slowly the darkness dissolves from my eyes and I find his looking down at me with fear.
Before we could say another words, I heard footsteps and a loud voice screaming, "move away from her right now." He doesn't move, but continues to caress my checks. I turn my face slightly to see Walid angrily approaching us. "It's your fault that this is happening."
"I-I didn't know it was this bad," the guy whisper shouts. Walid pushes him away, and quickly replaces my head onto his lap.
"Eliza, are you okay?" I nod at him, feeling tired. "I told you to stay away from her Uzayr."
"You never let me explain!" Uzayr shouts.
"Uzayr Saleh," Walid raises his tone of voice, causing his to become quiet. "Don't you understand why we haven't?" We? What are these two talking about?
"Eliza, I told you not to go out and you still did? Don't you understand I'm trying to keep you safe?" Anger starts to boil inside me, I push him away and stand up.
"I can take care of myself, what do you think I am?"
"Yeah well I could clearly see that, as you were in his arms nearly fainting again! You are not taking care of yourself well enough," he frowns. "Saleh, I will have a chat with you later." Uzayr, aka my mysterious and unknown texter, nods before slowly backing away.
