Who are you? [ZhanYi FF]✔️

-1- Nightmares

-1- Nightmares

On a sultry night with cloudy skies, the 23-year-old Wang Yibo once again wandered lost in his thoughts along the tracks. When he moved here, he did it perhaps once a month, but since his nightmares have returned, he does it almost every night. He often walks along the narrow long path until he reaches the nearby forest.

Then he wandered aimlessly through the forest until he reached the old overgrown park and rested at a seemingly long-forgotten monument and soon after he went home again.

Recently, he prefers to walk this route at night. Whenever he wakes up from his nightmare and can't fall asleep anymore, and it doesn't help to just watch TV for a while, he gets dressed, grabs a flashlight and walks the long narrow path to the forest, through the forest and to the park.

And this night was no exception. Like almost every night for the past four months, Yibo woke up again tonight. He sat down in front of the TV, but he just didn't get tired anymore and the torturing memories of his dream just wouldn't let go of him. So he got dressed, took his flashlight, plugged in some spare batteries and then set off.

As he slowly walked along the tracks, he thought about his nightmare again. Sometimes he remembered the dream, like tonight, but often he forgot it as soon as he woke up. But he didn't have to remember at all to know, that it was always the same nightmare.

Again and again he came home from school in his dream, riding his bicycle. As soon as he turned into the street and was able to look at his house, he noticed that something was wrong. Because unlike usual, there was no light on in the house. And that was unusual because his mother suffered from agoraphobia. Her anxiety disorder forbade her to leave the house.

She never stepped over the threshold. Stepping, however, was the wrong word. Because after an accident in her childhood, his mother was in a wheelchair. And when Yibo was about seven years old, she developed this anxiety disorder. Right after a man attacked her on the street.

The anxiety disorder not only affected her, but the entire family. That's why Yibo's father, although he still loved his wife very much, couldn't stand it at home anymore and left his wife and also Yibo. Every month he sent money, but that was all that came from him.

So when Yibo came home that afternoon, there was no light in the house, he knew something must have happened. He rushed to the house in panic, dropped his bike carelessly on the far too long lawn in front of the house and ran to the front door.

His heart fluttered with fear as he pressed the door button and the door jumped open effortlessly. He knew that his mother always locked the front door. He opened the door wide enough to see that there was a trail of blood on the floor of the hallway. He turned on the light and saw that the trail of blood reached down to the kitchen.

Although he would have liked to leave the house immediately, the concern for his mother had been so great that he went on anyway. He avoided stepping in the blood and walked slowly, step by step, until he reached the kitchen door. It too was wide open.

Yibo stepped into the kitchen and saw two feet on the floor behind the kitchenette. He knew immediately that they were his mother's feet, because she always wore those colorful toe socks that she loved so much.

There were bloodstains all over the kitchen floor. The dishes from breakfast were also scattered on the floor. Carefully Yibo stepped further into the kitchen, he jumped over several bloodstains and finally reached the kitchenette. But before he was ready to see behind it, he took a deep breath. But this only made him sick, because the blood smelled horrible.

He walked around the kitchenette and screamed in horror when he saw his mother lying there in her own blood with a shocked look. Her eyes were empty and wide open, just like her mouth. She had a large wound at the back of her head. Her hands were clenched in fists and lay beside her head.

Yibo crouched beside her motionless body, shaking her and almost freezing when he touched her cold, rigid body. He screamed for her to wake up, but she didn't wake up. In panic, Yibo called the ambulance, who passed him on to the police, who advised him to leave the house immediately.

But Yibo did not want to leave his mother. How was he supposed to understand what was going on with his 13 years of age?

When he suddenly heard a noise behind him, he wanted to turn around suddenly, but only felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and everything around him turned black.

Without knowing how long he was unconscious, Yibo woke up bound and gagged on a chair in the attic. In panic, he tried to break free, but had no chance. The murderer of his mother sat in front of him with a large kitchen knife in his hand and whispered: "One more sound and I will slit your throat." Then he laughed and showed Yibo his weapon as well.

Outside, police sirens could be heard and it didn't take long before the alternating red and blue light was everywhere.

The killer looked out the window and laughed again. "As if they could do anything now. Your old one is dead since hours. As usual, they are way too late."

Yibo's eyes were tearing and he could hardly breathe. In the house downstairs, noises rang out, calls for him could be heard. But Yibo could not answer them. And he knew that without knowing this house, no one would find access to the attic so easily. Because it is hidden in a wall closet and well hidden.

The killer listened at the door and giggled: "I don't think they'll find us here. Well, maybe they'll find your rotting body someday, if the stench of your rotting body is so strong that they just have to find the entrance."

Yibo began to cry. What had he and his mother done to this man? Why had he killed his mother and why did he want to kill him now? Was there really no one who could save him?

The man went back to the window to watch the goings-on in front of the house. Yibo looked around in panic in the attic. Even if he would find a hiding place here, he knew that he would not be able to get there after all. Because he would have to be able to free himself first.

Suddenly Yibo saw something emerging from the shadows, very slowly and completely silently. The figure came closer and closer and Yibo saw that it was a man. Mouth and nose covered by a mask and a baseball cap pulled deep into the face. Nevertheless Yibo saw this man smiling. He pointed with his index finger to the spot where his mouth is behind the mask and Yibo nodded.

The man kept stepping towards the killer and what happened next happened so fast that Yibo couldn't really grasp it. The man grabbed the killer by the throat from behind, pulled his head around and threw him to the ground. The killer drew his gun and fired a single shot. And although Yibo could see exactly that the man was hit, the man did not even flinch and immediately attacked the killer again. He pulled him back on his feet, pulled his head around and then suddenly there was a loud crack and the killer collapsed.

Then the man crouched down in front of Yibo, freed him from his bonds and the gag, lifted him onto his arms and carried him gently down. No one seemed to notice him and the man. The man simply walked with him past all the people in the house, left the house and put Yibo in an ambulance. Then the man took Yibo's hand, lifted his mask a bit, kissed Yibo's hand and whispered, "Don't be afraid, he can never hurt you again."

Then Yibo heard his father calling, he turned in the direction his father came from, turned back and the man was gone.

As they carried his mother's body out of the house, one of the men stumbled, the coffin she was lying in, fell to the ground and her body was lying in the dirt for everyone to see. Yibo screamed at the sight of her slashed stomach and that is always the moment when he wakes up from his nightmare.

He had to go to therapy for almost six years to process this and at some point his nightmares were gone. But four months ago he started having nightmares again.

Even then he had tried to find the man who saved his life. But nobody believed him. Because nobody except Yibo, had ever seen this man. The policemen assumed that the murderer stumbled and broke his neck. Yibo, they said, that his fantasy was playing tricks on him to help him cope with what he had experienced.

But Yibo knows, then as now, that this man really exists. He does not know who he is and where he can find him, but he does not give up the search for him. Something in him, drives him to continue looking for the man. He just has to find him. For himself, but also to prove to others that he did not just imagine this man.

A/N: I already wanted to give you the first chapter. Any opinion on it?🧐