3
(Narrator) "Whew" (sigh), a gesticulation put in place to express how relieved Mike was to finally be in his 4th year of school after having to spend a whole 2 years being labelled as a rapist and left with not so many friends.
Even with this occurrence, he wasn't totally alone; he still had his roommate Kelvin, who was his best friend—sorry, to be honest, his only friend.
Mike was totally a nut job nowadays; he had back-to-back classes and was always working and practically out all the time. All these were the words of his roommate Kelvin. A description to...? Grotesque, if I may say so.
"Mike" ,The following week, just as Kelvin said, I was working late at night, and on my way walking home, I was hearing screams and loud noises, which sparked my curiosity.
"Compelled by the restless echoes, I pursued the sounds into the shadows, only to collide with a revelation that would haunt my soul until the cruel dawn of tomorrow."
I saw a man harassing a lady, and in the moment of dire emergency, to protect the lady, I stepped forward and held the man.
seeking to withdraw her hand from his possessive touch , but as the man on the road also held my hand, I was seized by a sudden shock, because that touch was so familiar, as if the man on the floor was someone I once knew.
"Then came the quiet thunder of understanding, settling into his soul. At once, everything aligned with painful precision." that this was the man who molested me when I was in year 1.
"It was then that the shadowed truth clawed its way into my mind, merciless and unrelenting. In that breathless moment, revelation struck me like a wound I could never heal from."
I immediately picked up his bag and ran earnestly, leaving the poor innocent lady all alone there with that monster all because "I was still afraid of the monsters that were under my bed."
As the following morning approached and I had time to process what happened, the first thing I did was to go back to the place where the whole incident had happened, being hopeful that I may be able to get there to help the lady before anyone would have seen her, but behind such a virtuous gesture, I believed the main purpose I went back was to see if the lady could help me identify how the guy looked because the one thing I was sure of was that the man went to my school.
As "the bag I had taken up was not my own, but evidently that of a student of this school, its logo standing as proof."
And if I were able to get a good description of his face, I would easily be able to track my attacker.
So I went back to the site to find out that the lady was on the floor unconscious and highly dehydrated. After I gave her proper treatment, she recovered enough to talk.
Before I could begin questioning, the lady immediately began to thank me.
"which struck me with a cruel surprise, for the memory within me held no such deed.
All I could recall was the pounding of my heart, my legs carrying me in desperate flight.
Fear was my only companion, and running my only act."
She said, "Because of what I did last night, that strange man didn't do anything to her."
"Mike" startled at the moment, I still asked the lady, "Did you see the man's face?" And the lady told me that he ran away before she could see his face, which was a true bombshell at the moment because all this was for nothing.
All this stress was in vain.
and that vile man is still out there, "Set Free!"".
But in that moment of despair, "At last, the chains of my other half loosened their cruel grip.
granting me a fleeting freedom, sharp as a blade in the dark, to finish the story that he had stopped me from completing during my first year.
which made me realize that I may have been the "mind," and my other half was the "body" who was controlling everything I was doing.
And that "My eyes were cursed to witness, my mind condemned to remember, yet I remained a prisoner within myself.
Every moment unfolded before me in merciless clarity, but my flesh would not obey.
I was a ghost inside my own body, screaming silently from behind the bars of my skin."
You see, the one unforeseen fact at hand that I never realized was that I didn't need to see the man's face; all I needed to do was meet the man because while I didn't see the man's face, I could spot his face in any crowd. After all, it is etched in my memory.
In the subsequent weeks, I did several searches around the school campus, hoping I might meet the mysterious man again, and once again my wish got answered.
Another night while walking with a friend, once again I heard the screams of someone who was in distress, and I bolted with all my energy to go and help the owner of the voice but also hoping it was the same mystery man as that dreadful day.
Sadly, as I got to the location, all I saw were "two lovers, entwined in each other's arms, lost in a fervent embrace that echoed in whispers and sighs."
"Out beneath the unguarded night, where eyes could witness, ears could drink in every sound, and the air itself seemed to pulse with the heat of their entanglement."
As I turned back, thinking this trip was just a complete waste of time, mistakenly and unexpectedly,
I bumped into an old friend of mine, Carlos, and waved while also saying sorry, but one thing that I found suspicious was when Carlos refused to look at me, much less even reciprocate my apology.
"He hurried away, as though I were a stranger he couldn't recognize."
And I thought, "Why would Carlos just dash off as if he never knew me?" but I was too disturbed and tired to see the clue that was right in front of me, to see that my wish was finally answered.
So I just went on with my day and went back to my hostel like nothing had happened.
Eventually the fire in me that was burning for the truth slowly extinguished, and I stopped the constant searches around the campus and had given up all hope of ever finding the mystery man.