Bisola was in serious trouble.
There was a naked man in her room. He lay insensible on her bed in her grandmother's house.
AND - as a final mind blowing touch - he wielded in his loosened grasp what she sincerely hoped was not a dirty battle axe.
Bisola twitched.
She didn't know the man from Adam. So naturally her mind went first to the most irrational conclusion it could possibly reach - just to establish the parameters of her ability to deal with this event.
He's dead and I did this somehow.
Thankfully, the thought was just insane enough to jump start her logic processes.
Obviously she couldn't have done this, she was just getting in from work. Plus she was sure she would remember killing someone.
She relaxed a bit from her position backed up against the framework of her doorway, her office satchel clutched against her chest like a shield. Her mind, as if to prove it was up and running now, dryly noted what little effect said shield would've had against the monstrous battle axe she could see was actually leaving a stain in her sheets.
Lucky he was dead.
Bisola frowned.
He was dead right? She'd never really seen a dead body before so it was hard to tell.
She crept forward before her extreme desire to live pulled her up short.
What if - he wasn't dead? This could be his whole thing. A serial killer whose methodology was exactly this, lying naked in your bed with an axe pretending to be dead? How dumb would she feel in the afterlife trying to explain how she fell for that? It wasn't even that far fetched, if you watched the Crime and Investigation channel, and Bisola did, her sleepy serial killer was even a bit on the tame side really.
Bisola peered at him more closely.
Good God he really was naked... and to be perfectly honest, he was kinda... glorious? All big, gleaming, intricately cut muscle and literally flawless, dusky, brown skin. The face wasn't bad either. Sharp, dominant nose, unapologetically full lips and deep set eyes under long, poetic eyebrows finely set in a lean, heavily bearded yet distinctly firm jawed face. The face - if you read a lot of high fantasy, and Bisola did - of a King.
Bisola's eyes travelled down the armor like sculptings of his broad chest and abdominal muscles, past defined pelvic bones and then widened at his crotch - clearly she'd been mistaken in thinking the battle axe was the only weapon he was packing. She choked on her own spit and coughed then fell back against the doorway again when the body stirred.
Bisola trembled, breath held as her serial killer's eye lids trembled then slowly rose to reveal unexpectedly light brown eyes. Light shot cognac.
For a seemingly endless moment his eyes stayed open, staring up at her modest ceiling and blinking very slowly in a dazed fashion. But he didn't move.
Bisola didn't move either. Her mind was doing all the moving; racing about and making now useless observations like how she was about to die because she was ogling an unconscious killer like a creep instead of calling the police. She trembled when the man's brows suddenly descended and, as if finally sensing her presence, he turned his head to face her.
Bisola couldn't help noticing how displeased he seemed to see her.
Or how his big hand tightened around the heavy shaft of his axe.
He slowly sat up and - lord Jesus - he was huge. How had she not realised how large he was? He was just sitting up and he was already her height.
She knew she'd fallen when she felt her bedroom rug scratching against her knees.
The huge naked man stared at her as if this was perfectly normal. How many victims must he have seen fall to this very pose before he beheaded them, Bisola wondered?
Lost to abject fear, Bisola's logic processes abandoned her once again leaving her to fall back on her automatic response to all things traumatic. Unstoppable rambling.
"Please, serial killer sir!" she heard herself say, "It took me years to convince my Mom to let me move into this place on my own! I haven't even been here for one month! If I die like this she'll follow me to Heaven and make eternity unbearable for me because she always told me this would happen! Please, sir, please, is there any way I can convince you not to murder me here and prove her right?"
Her case made, Bisola closed her eyes and waited for what seemed unfortunately like certain death.
His voice when he finally spoke was deep but quiet and noticeably clipped.
Just one word but to Bisola who had expected the wind of a descending axe, the word was life itself.
"Paracetamol." He said.