March 17, 2017 ( Evening )

"Ezra? Ezra! Wake up! Damn it wake up!"

"Stella?" His voice breathed lightly my name as my face towered over his ready for mouth to mouth when his eyes open and I realized their subtle green and I couldn't look away.

"We're going to the hospital now," I finally blinked rationalizing the situation. "I'm not spending one more minute alone with you in this house."

"Why? What... did I do?" He said as I got up looking for my car keys.

"You mean besides almost dying? We gotta go. If you die here guess who looks like an ax murderer?"

"Uh okay, okay just wait," he got up from the couch and began to walk in a straight line, "look, I'm fine."

"But..."

"On one leg." He put one of his legs up and balanced perfectly just to tease me. "And that over there is the Macbeth book you've read a thousand times because it always messes with you the power Lady Macbeth possesses over the stories of those around her."

"How... Never mind I don't wanna know."

"Just let go of your car keys Stella, I promise to be feeling much better now." He took the keys from my hand like he was about to hug me and I let him. 

The way he moved and talked was on unaltered rhythm of his own, nothing fast, just evenly spread out, and Ezra's way of being appeased my mind.

"But to be sure." I got the thermometer and waited for it to beep, Ezra's body temperature was a perfect 98.7 with no post op signs of any damage, how could it be?

"Happy?"

"I should buy another one, I think this thing is crazy," I threw the thermometer away.

"Always a skeptic," he joked but I had to make sense of things or someone did.

"Um okay well you should get out of those clothes, take a warm shower." I noticed his wet shirt glued to his lean well toned upper body.

"I'll get out of these right away." 

Ezra walked over to the bathroom knowing where it was and didn't even ask on how to work the shower head. So I picked up his clothes and put it to wash then dry and told him to use the second towel that was neatly folded in the bathroom rail. The one I didn't use.

Ezra's shower finished before his clothes were done so I gave him a robe to walk around in my house, yes there was a strange man walking around my home in my bathrobe.

"Ezra?" I asked and he looked back at me, "who are you?" I jumped in with the question.

"Ezra Presley. It used to be Priestly back in the day but I guess one ought to move with the times."

"Okay you see the only Ezra Presley I've ever encountered was in a dream. So I'm either still sleeping and all of this is a dream or..."

"None of it is a dream and this is reality?"

"But you see this can't be reality, reality are the things I can touch, smell, prove."

"Touch my hand, smell the winter air, isn't that proof?"

"No, no!"

"I understand, you don't remember, a trick of your half-sister, Sybil."

"Sybil? This can't be happening."

"You remember her?"

"So none of it was a dream?"

"No."

"Why don't I remember anything? This is insane. How do you?"

"Sybil locked away your memories to keep you safe from the coven. If you can't remember certain things then they can't have access either."

"Access to what?"

"To dangerous things you know."

"Including the ones with you in it?"

"No those will come back slowly. I'm an old friend of your family." He said and I looked at him inspecting his face which I found myself abnormally acquainted with.

"So how did we meet?" I continued to approach his face marked by time in subtle lines of his skin in a trance. I inspected Ezra's hair propelled to touch his cheeks covered by stubble unlike the smoothness of the scientist and then his smile drew a sudden sun into the living room.

"In a garden you visited every day as a girl."

"You've no idea how much I've missed you Stella." Ezra reciprocated the touch and his hand guided my neck into a kiss.

"No!" I was about to push him away memories of us came pouring down my mind like a cup being filled.

We knew each other since forever, wherever I was he was always there and he was everything I'd ever needed. He was also the only man in my life since I could remember. Then a quick flashback to our wedding day where Sybil and many other faces I couldn't remember were present. The house in Athens belonged to us, I was Ezra's wife. The dream was real and I was Jane Presley even if it was beyond reasonable.

"Ezra." I put my head on his chest relieved to be in his arms again I was coming home to my refuge. "You're here."

"I'm here." 

The machine beeped letting us know his clothes were dry and I let go.

"Oh that's your clothes."

"Not technically, I got them on the way here," he got up to go pick them up.

"Wait, what?" 

I asked but he went inside the bathroom to and put them back on then came out and went straight into my bedroom.

"Uh what are you doing?" I watched him open the closet doors and push open up a fake wall on the side to take out a black bag hidden inside it.

"Here it is," he smiled and took a big wooden cross from the bag.

"Wait how did you know that was there?"

"I didn't get my memory locked away like you Stella." I looked at him place the cross on a nail on top of my bed.

"And what are you doing with that?"

"It's to keep you safe."

"Okay so how did you find me?"

"I'm not sure, it's kind of a mystery why or how I escaped."

"Escaped? You mean you were being held somewhere against your will?"

"Yes, I was buried."

"Alive?"

"Um hm."

"For how long?"

"Some time."

"Some time? Like how long?"

"What year is it?"

"2015."

"Um so give or take fifty years?" Ezra said and I almost choked.

"But you look so young, does this mean you're older than sixty?"

"Yes," he laughed and I asked again curious to hear the real number.

"How old are we talking about? 109?"

"That is such a specific number but no," he didn't get the reference.

"So you're younger or older?"

"Uh older."

"How much older?"

"I'm sure museums would like to have me on display," he joked.

"Okay enough, this is all a big joke right? Cameras will come out and say I'm getting pranked because there is no freaking way..." I went from going along with it to freaking out because I was so afraid that everything he was saying was true.

"Hey Stella, calm down, everything's fine, you know what? You're right, I'm crazy, I should get committed." 

He put my face between his hands and I tried to stop the stupid tears from coming out even though Ezra was saying what I wanted to hear I knew it wasn't true because the truth was insane.

"It can't be I'm just a nurse. I'm only a nurse Ezra," my voice disappeared choking on reality.

"Yes you're a nurse." 

Ezra kissed my cheek and although I could silence him I pushed through the pain of the truth.

"How did you know to leave this bag here?" I wiped my tears trying to keep a grasp on reality.

"Stella let's talk about it tomorrow, you should rest."

"How did you know you'd be coming here Ezra?"

"Because... it was my idea, this is your safe house Stella."

"Okay," I took a big breath and exhaled it then a memory of the dream that had never been a dream at all came to my knowledge again. "There's something else Sybil told me in the dream, or not dream."

"What?"

"She said not to trust my boss."

"Your boss?"

"I work at a hospital not too far from here, with a neurosurgeon, Dr. Herzberg, ring a bell?"

"Uh not really."

"Okay then maybe there's nothing to worry about, he's just a scientist what harm can they do?"

"A or the scientist?" A light came on in Ezra's head.

"Uh the scientist."

"You mean Stephen?"

"Right, exactly," I was confused remembering how I called him Stephen without knowing.

"How did he... where is he now?" 

Ezra's mood completely shifted almost into a panic.

"Um probably home, he gave me the day off."

"Do you know where he lives? How far he is from here?"

"No, I don't know anything about his life other than I guess he has a wife," I remembered Megan.

"So you two have been working together for how long?"

"Uh..."

"It's no wonder he broke through so quickly, I'm surprised you didn't."

"Broke through what?"

"Sybil got close enough to him one day to try to sever his memories tied to you and it worked, and for a while he didn't even know who he was."

"What? Why would she do that to him? That's..."

"A mercy I wouldn't have afforded him."

"What are you saying? Why are you talking about him like..."

"He's a monster? Because he is Stella..."

Although this should have been a surprise something had long been telling my mind the scientist was dangerous but just how much of a danger he was I was about to find out.

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No part, character, names, plot, setting, conflict or resolution, point of view, theme or symbolism of this story may be replicated.

Copyright: All Rights Reserved to A. Sena Gomes.