The times I met him

The first time I met him, I didn’t notice him.

It was my first time going by train, only six years old, and I wasn’t scared at all. Who would be? We were going up to London, and all I could think about was the fun day out we were going to have. After all, it wasn’t like anything was going to happen, right?

Right?

I was in the middle of ranting about how excited I was for the London Zoo, when it happened. One minute, everything was normal, the next it was like a scene from a nightmare. Later I found out the train had gone off the tracks and crashed, but I couldn’t process anything except pain, blinding and white, and broken glass, and screaming, and blood, so much blood, and reaching for my mum but her neck was at the wrong angle and why wasn’t she waking up? Mummy, wake up, please!

A kindly woman pulled me off with tears in her eyes, and tried to explain what had happened. No-one noticed the tall man in a dark suit go over to my mum’s body, and put his hand bony on her shoulder.

The second time I met him, he saved me.

Over the past seven years, my dad had been super protective of me. Understandably, but it meant I couldn’t do much. It had taken a week straight of begging him to let me have a sleepover at my best friend’s house. Well, ex-best friend.

Jess knew full well how much I hated crowds of people yelling, so when she didn’t tell me that it was going to be a party instead, I was more than a bit pissed.

“What the hell? I thought this was just a sleepover, and now you tell me it’s a party? Why? You know exactly why I hate them!” I was standing on the doorstep, watching Jess try and stand up straight and bursting into giggles when she failed. I thought she knew how bad it was, but, I mused while gazing around at the sheer amount of drunk, half-naked people all over the property, clearly not.

I was afraid she hadn’t heard me, with how loud the music was, but she just said “you need to loosen up, have some fun!” She tried to grab my hands to pull me inside, but I didn’t let her.

How dare she? After all of the hours spent crying into her arms about what had happened seven years ago, all of the times she reassured me, and now she thinks I need to ‘loosen up’? My fists clenched on the handles of my bags, and tears blurred my vision.

Before I knew what was going on, I was yelling “you know what? Fuck you!” I couldn’t stop my voice breaking, but I didn’t let the tears fall until the house was out of sight.

Even after then, I kept running. I couldn’t see where I was going through the tears, but I didn’t care much either way. It was only once I was out of breath that I stopped.

Where was I? At some point, I had apparently gone down a back alleyway, but I wasn’t sure where I was, or how to get home. Just as I was about to move, a group of men turned into the alleyway.

These men were obviously drunk. They weren’t quite shouting, but it was close. There were five of them, all much bigger than I was, and I knew they meant danger.

I started panicking. I was only thirteen, there was no way I could get out of this.

I tried to hide, but it was no use; they’d seen me. They started leering, blocking off any exits and started closing in.

Before they could do anything else, someone else walked in. It was another man, but that was where the similarities ended. The new figure was tall and slim, wearing a black suit. His skin was so pale it seemed to glow white, and his eyes were dark and sunken in. He didn’t try to be loud, like the others, but he carried with him a sense of power that was impossible not to feel. He seemed strangely familiar, but I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before.

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

I wasn’t sure what was more shocking; that he spoke to them, or that they stopped because of him. He gave me a small, almost unnoticeable nod, and that was all I needed to run away.

No-one followed.

And if the news showed the unexplained deaths of five men, it was none of my business.

The third time I met him, I didn’t know what to think.

It was my dad’s funeral. I had known the day was coming for months, but it was one thing to know in theory, and another thing completely in practice.

I was only twenty, but I was so tired. If I had to hear another person say that they’re sorry that I lost both parents before I’d finished Uni, I thought I might have screamed. All I wanted was to collapse away from everyone and just cry, but I couldn’t. What kind of a daughter would I be if I missed my own dad’s funeral?

Just then, a familiar figure caught my eye. What was the guy from the alley doing here? He didn’t know my dad, did he?

For a moment, I considered the possibility that this was someone else, but no. There was no mistaking that face, even if it had been seven years since I’d seen him.

He sat at the back during the sermon, and disappeared afterwards.

The last time I met him, I understood.

I always thought that if I lay bleeding out in my own home because of my boyfriend, I’d be panicking, but a strange calm washed over me. I knew I was dying. How could I not be, with the amount of blood staining the carpet?

I blinked, and he was there. I wondered if I was hallucinating. That happens when you lose enough blood, right? Except, I knew he was really there.

Was this what mum had seen, moments before she let go? What dad had seen, in those last minutes?

I had spent the last seven years since the funeral wondering about his identity, and now I knew. With the last of my strength, I croaked out “death.”

He didn’t verbalise a response, just bowed his head and held out a skeletal hand.

I thought back to when he saved me, fourteen years ago. I thought to my parents, the child I was and the adult I grew into.

I took his hand.