Everybody called him Mega. He was a 400-level student of Economics and I just got admitted into the same department. One day, I was on my way to make some payment at the faculty of social science and I didn’t know how to get there. I had walked past a particular block several times when someone walked up to me and asked where I was going, I told him that I was looking for the faculty of social science and he offered to help me out with the rest of my registration. I thought this was just a friendly gesture from a kind guy but I was wrong.
Mega was all over me and I didn’t know how to get rid of him. Things got out of hand when he imposed himself on me as my boyfriend. He monitored my every move and made my life on campus miserable. He belonged to a cult and that even scared me more. I couldn’t be myself because I was constantly watched. A lot of people didn’t want to be friends with me because they didn’t want to get into trouble with Mega. Everyone knew that Mega had a knack for majoring in minors…he would blow little things out of proportion just to instigate trouble.
The mantra in school was that “the fear of Mega is the beginning of wisdom”. Everyone avoided him like a plague because he was very petty and didn’t let things go easily. He could get physical just because someone bumped into him accidentally.
My relief came when he graduated from school but the relief was short-lived when I found out that he left strict instructions with his “watch dogs” to keep an eye on me. If I thought Mega was bad, then I was wrong because his “dogs” were worse.
I was tired of they way my every move was being monitored and how I no longer felt safe in school so I opened up to my parents about everything and they didn’t waste time to move me to another school as a transfer student. My new school was a private university that had zero cult activities so it was a safe haven for me. That was how the chapter with Mega ended or so I thought.
Fast forward to seven years later. I had packed up my degree in Economics and joined my mother’s thriving catering business. We were handling the Annual General Meeting of a particular brand and I had gone for consultation with them. Imagine my shock when I saw Mega as one of the company directors. He had cleaned up real good and I must say I was impressed. We exchanged phone numbers and stayed in touch after that. Time had done a lot of good to Mega because he looked and acted like a totally different person. He even had a diploma from Harvard business school and a certification from the Stanford Executive program. I was beyond pressed and smitten too.
Read also: Bold and unapologetic – a treatise on being fully woman
We had lunch a couple of times, saw movies together and enjoyed each other’s company as much as we could. Mega would stop by at my work place or we’d meet at one restaurant or another, he dropped me off at my house a few times but he never came inside even when I invited. He never invited me over to his place so I concluded that he was just being a gentleman. I secretly wished that he would ask me out but he didn’t. We just maintained a good relationship. I remember telling my parents about him but I skipped the part that he was “the Mega”.
So one evening when he invited me over to his house for the very first time, I was really ecstatic. When I arrived his house, I did something that my best friend and I did all the time, I texted her the address of where I was. Texting our location to each other was a conscious habit we formed after watching a lot of missing persons stories on investigation channel. Not that we expected anything to ever go wrong but we have been doing it over time until it became a part of us.
It was a lovely evening. Mega and I had a good time, cooking together, clearing up and gisting. Then the conversation tilted to him wanting to know why I left the federal university for a private one. I laughed it off and told him that it didn’t matter anymore. Then he asked why I dumped and made a ridicule of him? I didn’t see that coming at all. I reminded him that it was all in the past and should not be an issue. We have the present and the rest of our lives to make up for lost time and right any wrong.
What happened next was like a scene from a horror movie. In one swift move, Mega covered the space between the two of us and grabbed my neck. I kicked and scratched but I couldn’t match his strength. I felt my life sipping out of me as he held my neck. He whispered in my ears that no woman had the right to dump him. Because I broke his heart years ago, he was going to put a mark on me for every pain he felt when I left him. He continued to say it was an insult for any girl to dump him. “I do the dumping” he screamed.
He released his grip on my neck and I began to struggle for breath. Then the rain of punches began to pour on my body. The pain was seeping through every fiber of my being, I couldn’t tell when one punch started or when the next one ended. It was non stop battering until I fainted.
I don’t know how long I was out for but when I regained consciousness, it looked as if Mega had just returned from work judging from what he was wearing.
I was in pains. I was covered in blood from head to toe, then I realized that I could only see with one eye. I could also taste the blood on my tongue and it seemed as if I also lost a tooth or two. I tried to say something, to plead with him to let me go but I didn’t even recognize my own voice, it was as if the blows had ruptured my vocal cords.
I thought of my parents. What will happen to them if they loose their only child? I thought of Joy my bestie, didn’t she get my location? These thoughts were having a field day in my tired head.
Just when I thought I was going to pass out again, Mega showed up and emptied a bucket of very cold water on me. From the corner of my blood shot eye, I could see a silver metal in his hand, as he walked towards me, the light from the bulb shone on the sharp edge and the metal glittered. It was a knife. This was the beginning of my ordeal.
To be continued.
