Young Writers Society

Melody

The scream tore from my throat as I bolted upright. I don't remember how I made it back to my house, but I must have because I definitely wasn't outside anymore. The woman from my dream still haunted my vision and I closed my eyes hoping to erase her from my mind. Everything was so confusing right now. It felt so surreal, and it made me sick to my stomach. My brain was so foggy at the moment it scared me. I think I must have passed out last night somewhere in the woods and hit my head because nothing was making sense. I mean, someone must have found me last night which is bad because I know I will not hear the end of it from my parents when I finally make my way downstairs later but at least I wasn’t left to freeze.

I opened my eyes again, this time allowing myself to fully take in my surroundings. Another strangled scream tore from my throat when I realized that I in fact was not back in my bedroom but rather lying somewhere in a stranger's bed. Holy shit I was really screwed now wasn’t I. What happened last night that ended me up here, wherever here was. I was so so dead. My parents must know at this point that I had left my room during the party last night and never came home. They were so going to lock me up for the rest of my life, hell they may even kill me. I wouldn’t put it past them at this point. I was in so much trouble.

Suddenly the door to the room I was in burst open with a loud bang. In the blink of an eye a large burly man pushed his way into the bedroom with a sudden ferocity that set my insides on fire. The second that he pushed himself into the room it was like all time had stopped and he took the air with him. I had forgotten why I was screaming in the first place.

His face looked incredibly pissed too. Like somehow he was peeved off to even be here, as if I was a bothersome nuisance. Like I even asked to be here in the first place douchbag. He was just like my parents, great. His face at this exact moment reminded me of them so much that I recoiled in disgust. I have always hated being the reason they looked at me like that and now to have this complete stranger look at me like this made me want to scream. Why was I so much of a burden in the first place? To have this man look at me the way my family looked at me made me want to crawl into my own personal hell hole and die. I sank further into the bed than I thought possible and tried to pretend that I wasn’t even there. Maybe if I disappeared he would go back to wherever he was in the first place and I could go back to figuring out where I was.

“What happened, is everything ok?”

The man looked around the room like he was addressing someone else. Which was odd in my opinion because I was pretty sure that I was the only one here. I followed his eyes trying to see if I could figure out who he was talking to. However, just like I assumed in the first place there was no one else in the room besides me.

“Is everything ok?” He asked again, this time looking directly at where I cowered under the covers.

I stopped, confused. Wait, was he actually directing his questions to me? I guess it made sense but why? Why did he look so concerned all of a sudden when he entered the room looking at me the way he had. I could sense a shift in his tone when he took another step into the room. Something about him seemed protective. As if my first assessment of him was wrong. But that didn’t make sense. I had learned to live my life off of my intuition because of the family I grew up in, there was no way I had gotten him so incredibly wrong. Yet here he was, standing before me now looking so intently at my cowardice with such protectiveness it startled me.

“My love,” he said softly this time, as he walked over to the end of the bed. His shoulders relaxed a little as he sat himself down near my feet. “Are you ok? What’s wrong, I heard screaming.” He reached over and placed a hand on my lower leg, giving it a little bit of a squeeze in the process.

I looked at him confused as all hell now. Why was he calling me his love, what the fuck did he mean by that. Was this man absolutely batshit crazy? I didn’t even know him, how the hell did he think calling me his love was ok. I mean hell, I just woke up from what I can only classify as a nightmare now into a strange room and now I have some random man calling me his love. If this wasn’t ‘season 6 of the bachelor crazy’ as Elizabeth would put it, then I don’t know what is. I moved my leg out from under his touch, curling myself into a tighter ball in an attempt to give him the hint that I didn’t want to be touched by him again.

“What?” was all I could get out.

The man looked at me like I was the crazy one this time. His eyes roamed my body as if he was looking for something wrong with me. It was like he was shocked that I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. Well newsflash buddy I have absolutely no Idea what the hell you are talking about.

“Melody, is everything ok?”

O.M.G. How in the godfuck did this man know my name? What happened to me last night. There was no way in hell that he could even know who the hell I was. Back home I was a nobody. Veronica made sure that I was a nobody. The only reasonable explanation was that I had somehow teleported into some alternate dimension. That or my parents got so pissed when they realized that I had left during the party that they like sold me off to some random man in the hopes that I would be erased from their family. Yeah no, scratch the alternate dimension shit, this was probably the most likely of scenarios. The man probably thought he was getting some mail ordered bride or something gross like that. Just another sicko perving off teenage girls, of course my parents would find something as disgusting as this to do to me. I really had to get out of here.

“Melody?” He asked again. This time leaving the rest of the question up in the air for interpretation as he got up. He stood at the end of the bed staring down at me. His brow furrowed and creased in the middle. As much as the whole situation made me want to vomit I couldn’t deny the fact that right now he did look rather attractive in that pose. Oh hell, what was happening to me. It couldn’t be Stockholm syndrome yet right? Like there was no way that shit happened this quickly did it.

I looked back up at the man who now stood before me with his hands on his hips as if he disapproved of my silence. I was trying to find a way to distract my stupid brain from memorizing the glorious details of his beautiful face but there seemed to be something awfully familiar about him that I couldn’t quite place. My stomach started to twist itself into knots again, heat raising its way into my core until I could no longer breath properly. He continued to look at me like he was expecting an answer any minute now but I couldn’t find the proper words to say to him. Hell I don’t think I could even say anything at all even if I wanted to at the moment. It was like my brain had decided to stop processing the moment I acknowledged his presence. Why did he seem so familiar?

I looked at him again, this time trying to fully take him in. He was big, definitely bigger than any man I had seen back in Falkirk which solidified my earlier suspicions of not being home. This also meant that there was probably no way I could just get out of this place, if I had no idea where I was then I certainly would have no way of finding my way back home. Which actually didn’t sound so bad, not that I would rather be locked up in a room with a weirdo. He was also very attractive. That definitely was an understatement but in this given situation I didn’t quite care. I trailed my eyes up and down his body, the familiarity growing.

As if summoned from somewhere deep in the crevice of my mind a shadowy figure started to materialize in my memory. My vision blurred and I couldn’t regain focus for the life of me. Suddenly I was transported back into the forest, the dark cold of the night before trapping me. Before me stood a handsome man with a sculpted body that looked like it came out of chippendale magazine. And those eyes. I remember those eyes, a hauntingly beautiful green that burned into my soul. The sweet aroma of chocolate and pine made my mouth water. I gasped. It couldn’t be. I had made it all up. Last night I was tired and lost and seeing things, there was no way he was real.

The bedroom came back into focus and this time when I looked up at the man, who was looking at me with much more concern than I initially gave him credit for, I saw those same green eyes looking back at me. So I wasn’t crazy. He did exist. But that still didn’t explain how I got here, or why he knew my name and was calling me his love. I uncurled myself a little. Something was telling me that everything was going to be alright and that I could trust him. Sitting up a little bit straighter I tried to find the right words to say. I must look pretty stupid at this moment and for some reason that irritated me. I never wanted to look stupid in front of this man again.

“I-I’m sorry but who are you?” I asked, biting my tongue after the words left my mouth. “How did I get here?”

The man let his arms fall to his side as he sat on the bed again. He sighed deeply, the disapproval and worry shifting into mild frustration. “Of course. How could I be so dense? You have no idea who I am.” He said aloud, almost like he was talking to himself.

“I mean look at you, you’ve been asleep for three days and then you wake up here in the house without any knowledge of me bringing you here, of course you would scream. It must be pretty confusing and scary to wake up in a different place. But I couldn’t just leave you out there in the woods to freeze to death. I would never do that to my Luna. I bet you have a million questions…”

The man continued to ramble on, but I stopped breathing altogether. I was trying so hard to process what he had just said. I was sleeping for three days. But how and what did he mean by ‘his Luna.’ Panic bubbled inside me as I listened to him continue on. I needed to get out. I had to get out of here. In as quick of a movement as I could I threw the blankets off of me and scrambled out of the bed trying to make my way to the door. I must have gotten my leg tangled in the sheets however because as soon as my feet hit the floor so did the rest of me. Throwing my hands out in front of me in an attempt to break my fall I choked back a scream as a shooting pain engulfed my wrist. Fuck. I forgot I sprained it back on the night of my birthday. It hurt all over again.

Within seconds the man was besides me cradling me in his arms as he lifted me off the floor and back on the bed. His voice cooing soft shh’s as he kept me cradled against his chest, being careful not to put too much pressure against my injured arm. Tears fell down my cheeks as I tried to breath through the pain.

“What were you thinking, you clumsy girl,” he whispered into my hair.

“I’m sorry.” Was all I could get out before I passed out again. Look at me, such a damn damsel in distress. Elizabeth would be proud.