The Nymph's Saviour

5. The Being in My Home

5. The Being in My Home

Louis

I drift in and out of sleep. I know that when I stay awake, I don’t stay dry from my tears for long. Then finally, I wake up and all I am is dry. No more tears left to wring out of me, which worries me a bit that I’m dehydrated. But the worry is quickly gone.

Something wafted through my room. The smell of food and the sound of someone cooking inside my kitchen. I wouldn’t come out in any other circumstance, but I hear my own stomach growl in protest. My throat parched and I have grown tired of being sad.

It’s hard to be tired of being sad when that’s all you are. The heavy weight in my chest that feels like a bottomless pit doesn’t just fade away, but food might fill it, endorphins from eating might help me right now. I’m not sure it would work but I do it anyway. I slide to my feet and shuffle outside my door.

The guy I saved is still in my house, not my home, cooking something in my kitchen. My usually empty and bare kitchen. His back is turned to me, so he doesn’t see me yet, but I see him and the box of groceries still on the counter. The intoxicating smell of food made me lick my lips.

Then my stomach growls louder than before.

“a few more minutes” He chuckles. Not looking at me yet. “You’ll get what you want. Don’t worry”

I wish that was true

I quietly sit by the couch. I look around my own house. Something is amiss in this place, and I don’t know what it is. It’s just like any other living room albeit a small one. I don’t own a TV anymore, so there’s only the couch and a wooden coffee table in front of it, facing the empty wall that used to have a TV.

Then it hits me.

It’s clean, the room is spotless and organized. The couch even feels like it was beaten from dust and fresh. A new scent flitters through the room as well.

“You cleaned my house” I don’t hide my shock. “Why did you clean my house?”

“All of your questions are always like that” He turns off the stove and turns towards the counters. “’why are you here?’, ‘why did you clean my house?’ why why why. You have an obsession like my cousin to get a bottom of things and you just don’t let things be as it is for a moment, huh?” he carries a plate over to me and it’s filled to the brim. He also places a glass of water beside my plate on the coffee table. “Just let things be and figure out first if you like it or not before asking me again”

I suspiciously look at him. “When did I ask you why you’re here? it’s a good question but I don’t remember asking that”

The smile he has now is different. It’s sadder. “Depression makes you forget a lot of things.”

“I’m not depressed” I take the fork beside the plate and begin eating what looks like a chicken enchilada.

“Still in denial”

“I can’t deny something that isn’t really there” I take large bites and chew them a few times before swallowing. The pit inside of me doesn’t feel filled, but it’s something to do.

“Don’t worry. I’m not here to fix you or even try to help you” He sits beside me and crosses his legs. “I have my own problems”

I pause. “Right…the prostitution thing” I flinch. My words were too blunt. I quickly regret what I said.

“It’s not a prostitution thing”

“I’m sorry”

“Don’t be sorry for something that isn’t really there” he smiles.

I feel my lip twitch.  “So, I asked you why you’re here before and I don’t remember that conversation because I was drunk. Did you answer me?”

“Yes, drunk. Well, I didn’t answer because I found that question very unethical”

I raise my brows. “Unethical?”

He shrugs. In a way that means he does know but chooses to not say because he’s a tease. I had a feeling that he was a tease the moment that I met him, he does have that playful air about him, the charming kind that flirts and teases in small doses just to get his way.

Too bad for him. I’m not the kind to fall for teasing. “Okay” I deadpan as I finish my plate and put it on the sink. “I don’t know why you’re here and I care because this is my house, but if you’re staying then I won’t apologize for the things that would happen in this place”

He stands and follows me to the kitchen where he leans his waist on the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. His muscly chest. He’s not built large but lean and muscled that somehow reminds me of a snake. “What things?” the flirtatious smirk already ready to try and dazzle, with his eyes blatantly sizing me up. “I hope it’s something exciting”

“For your sake, you should lower your expectations” I wash my hands and took a bottle of water from the fridge. “Baseline low”

“Didn’t work, huh? I was seriously going high on that one! Sure, it was a sorry attempt, and I could have done it better, but I truly tried to pack that punch!”

I stare at him, having no idea what he’s talking about.  

“My charming powers! All nymphs have them! It doesn’t work on you! In normal people, you would have been begging for me to have s*x with you but no.” his jaw drops. Awe filled eyes yet I notice the hunger in them. “Okay, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I am a nymph! You got to believe me”

“Then why is this ‘power’ of yours not working on me? I’m like any other human.” I look away to clean my plate and the pan he used to cook me breakfast since the least that I could do is clean after him after cooking for me. Now that I’m cleaning, I realized he didn’t eat anything “I’m the most normal human there is and why didn’t you eat with me or before? You, okay?”

He smiles slightly before it’s replaced by a confident smirk. “I told you, I’m a nymph. We feed off of people differently”

I raise my brows. “This again? are you sure you’re not just a juvenile hunter of some sorts and you’re having an identity crisis”

“So, you know about hunters?!” he perks up. I don’t know why he’s so cheery that I know about something about his world. “How come you know about them than nymphs?”

“You’re insulted and honestly I’m sorry, but I haven’t heard of nymphs before other than Greek mythology. And I know about hunters because my aunt used to tell R—me about them when I was a kid”

“She sounds knowledgeable. Where is she?”

“She lives in a hundred-acre farm”

“She sounds very interesting. She’s not human, is she?”

I purse my lips. “No, she’s a witch”

Realization dawns on him. “Oh, she’s the one you mentioned. Then she could tell you about nymphs then! Go call her! she’ll tell you that I exist”

I furrow my brows. “Why are you so pressed for me to believe you?”

“Because that’s who I am!”

“No, this feels like there is something more. What are you truly planning?”

“Nothing! Although it feels like you have latent witch blood in you”

“No, there isn’t, and she checked. She’s the only one that is really a witch and I’m normal. You might not know this, but hybrids don’t ex—”

“I know one true hybrid”

I pause. “What? Really?”

He nods. “She’s my cousin. Half wolf and vampire”

A part of me is intrigued by the idea, but I don’t want him to get the upper hand. I quickly put the plates on the drying rack and made my escape back to my bedroom. Thankfully, he doesn’t follow.

“She’s nice!” he shouts after me as I slam the door behind me.

I wake up not remembering that I ever slept, to begin with. I don’t know how I was on my bed but I’m here with the sky had turned dark enough to barely see. The moonlight barely lights up my room, but enough for me to see my hand in front of me.

I lay there for a few minutes. My eyes looked at the ceiling and not much else. I feel heavy and sore even though I barely did anything today. I wouldn’t be surprised if I gained weight not that I care about that.

There are so many thoughts firing in my head and none of them lands. Just free-floating thoughts that don’t stick. I consider drinking more of my medication to go to sleep again but I remember that someone threw it away. THAT I remember

Then I hear the front door closing. I froze. Someone is in the house. A burglar or a thief. Someone is going to kill me, but I don’t move, not even a bit of me is scared. If there is someone in my apartment, then I have been waiting for them for the longest time.

Strangely there was no sound coming towards my room or of someone trashing my house to look for anything valuable. There is only the silence of the night. It was dark like this when I rescued that man. The charming and beautiful being in my home that says he’s a nymph. Whatever a modern nymph is, I don’t want to believe that he is one.

Who says a nymph feeds on energy? Aren’t they just nymphs? Wives of Cronus. The trees and water into beings. Long-lived but not really immortal. Those nymphs. I should know this since it is what I graduated in.

Still, there was no sound. Just the quiet that the night offers. I don’t know for how long I laid there and listened. But the door opened again, and I hear the lock set into place. confused, I find the will in me to stand and peek out of my door.

The hallway is dark, but I could see the couch where I am. I see his feet sticking out of the side of the couch. Usually, I take my shoes off at the door and I have noticed that he does it too, but this time, he’s wearing his shoes on the couch. He moves his legs and turns on his stomach. I didn’t realize that he’s really sleeping on my couch even though he’s the tallest being I know next to Sal.

I don’t hear snoring or rather he’s too far for me to hear that, but he stills and there is no movement anymore. His shoes still on him. I don’t know what got into, because in the next second I find myself exiting my room and heading towards him.

I take his shoes off and neatly placed them by the front door. Then went back to my room.