The Fog Comes Heavy

As I lay there with my eyes closed in pure darkness, left alone with nothing but my thoughts. I started hearing a faint beeping sound, something like one of the monitors in hospitals, like the ones I see on those drama-filled doctor's tv shows. I'm thinking to myself, “What is that noise? Did my tv get left on when I went to bed last night?” Laying there still, left with what felt like my eyes closed I started to hear panic. It sounded like my father and other unfamiliar voices started to shout “She’s awake! I need a doctor, please! My daughter is waking up.”

“What? What am I waking up from? Why can’t I open my eyes.” I'm starting to panic now, I can’t move and I feel like I'm in some sort of state of paralysis. Eventually, my eyes started to open I’m in an unfamiliar place but where am I? As the blurred image of what I see when I open my eyes starts to become clear, I see nurses and doctors crowding around me. One of the nurses stood out the most, with the sweetest smile I had ever seen, she had brown hair and blue eyes. Once they start to clear out, I see my dad walk in. He runs over to me and hugs me as tight as he can, and all I could say was “Ow, that hurts” but I couldn't tell what was hurting. I asked my dad what had happened and he told me that I was attacked, but no one knew who did it, or when it happened.

I don’t even remember anything. “How long have I been out?” I asked my dad.  

He replied, “A couple of days, luckily the police found your wallet in your jacket pocket and it had your ID, so they called me to come and I came as soon as I heard you were here.”

All that was going through my mind was pain and confusion. What the hell had happened to me? What did he mean I was attacked, I seriously can’t remember anything but what had happened before I was supposedly attacked, I was just leaving the student library after a study session that me and a couple of other classmates had. I walked home with my friend Alan, but he dropped me off and went home afterward. Walking home I looked down and realized that my phone had died, so I had no way of contacting anyone until I got home and charged it, but I’d be fine right? 

Anyways, I walked up to my floor and went to get my key out of my bag but soon realized that I had loaned it to my roommate earlier that week because she had lost hers, and usually she’d be home to let me in when I didn't have the key, I looked down at my phone to call her but I forgot that it had died. “Come on. What next?” I thought to myself. My roommate, Alexis, had told me that she was going to be at her boyfriend's house but wouldn't be long. Well that was a lie, it's already 11:30 and she's not home yet. I figured that I’d just walk to his house since it's not that far away, I decided to take my heels off and try and use them as some sort of protection just in case. I didn't really think I’d need it, silly me.

As I sit here, I’m starting to remember a little bit of the attack. I started walking to my destination but it was really dark, I couldn't see much since some of the streetlights were out. I had a slower-paced walk at first, but as I looked around it started to fog and it was getting really cold. 

Starting to think I wasn’t alone, I started to up my pace, as I looked around I didn’t really see anyone, but in the path in front of me I saw a faint figure that looked like a tall, hunched-over man, then I started to worry. I didn't think much of it because I have always been a little paranoid so I started to calm myself down and decide to cut through a small alley that was on the street. I was still seeing the man at that point. Once I turned the corner of the alley and was halfway through, I realized that it was a dead-end, so I had to turn around. Once I turned back to the main road, I looked for the man but was no longer able to see him. Then I started to freak out a little more. I started fast walking towards the next road as I heard what sounded like a trash can fall over, when I heard that I curiously turned around and saw that it was just a crow, knocking over the trash. “It’s fine Allysa, just a crow, nothing to worry about,” I thought to myself before I was suddenly cut off by the sound of a man yelling. I looked forward and saw that same hunched-over man looking at me, now walking towards me. 

Now I’m really freaking out, I started to run in the opposite direction just to be safe, and the man started after me. I was terrified, running for my life attempting to get away from this man. I turned down the same dead end of an alley that I had previously turned down, ran behind a garbage can, and tried to hide. Clearly, my spot wasn’t good enough, because I started to hear the man’s creepy voice darting at me, “Allysa, why are you running? You know me. It's your old friend.”

I thought to myself, “Who is this? How does he know my name and why is he chasing after me?” 

As soon as I heard that, I made an attempt to get up and run, but the man caught up to me, I remembered that I had taken my heels off previously so I took one of them and hit the man in the head. It didn't do much but break the heel of the shoe and make the man angry.

 “You shouldn't have done that Allysa,” the man said, startling my entire body all over.

After that, the man tried to grab my arm but I ripped his hand off and hit him as hard as I could. That’s all I can really remember because I'm pretty sure after that the man kicked me down and that's when he attacked me.

Wow. That really happened? I try to blame it on myself but soon realized the man had a clear intention of attacking me. Maybe it was planned? He knew my name, which really freaked me out.

“Two broken ribs, a concussion, a fractured leg, and a broken ankle,” The doctor said as I gritted my teeth together and closed my eyes. All I could taste was the jello the nurses had brought to me. Gross.

Looking back on that day all I can think about and still wonder was how the man knew my name, I may never figure it out, but I will always remember his voice, and wonder what would have happened if I got away.