It had been two months since Quinn had last heard of Karl. During that time, he had finished reading his journal (with gloves on.) The rest of it talked about nothing but Darcy. It did so in such disturbing ways, either describing her as a test subject, or as a sexual object, or as both at the same time. Darcy, as Quinn himself knew her, was nowhere along the lines of Karl’s diary. Only her shell was there, the idea of Darcy, never just Darcy. The more Quinn read of his friend’s image of the girl he had fallen for, the more convinced he grew that Karl should be kept away from her if he was ever found. Indeed, a very big part of the reason he thought so was, simply, because of his possessiveness towards Darcy. This quality, too, he had tried to bury along with his feelings for her under the heavy dirt of alcohol, sex, and drugs. But just like his love for Darcy, his desire to monopolize her always managed to emerge from the grave like the starving undead. After the decisive phone call they had, Quinn altogether gave up: He gave up on his feelings, but he also gave up on forgetting them. Being with Darcy was as hopeless as trying to forget about her, and so he would forfeit trying for either. He had decided to surrender himself to the pain.
But the second and much more important reason why Quinn wanted to keep Karl apart from her was because Karl was evidently some kind of a sociopath. Knowing his friend, he realized that Karl had made some kind of image of Darcy: this erotic strange being, a fetish, almost, that he wanted to explore. Once he did get the chance to talk to her, Quinn was sure, Karl would be disillusioned. Darcy and his image of Darcy were irreconcilably different. How Karl would react towards this shock is what frightened Quinn to think about. Seeing this undeniable obsession of her written on every page in all kinds of ways, Quinn had to assume that Karl might very likely hurt himself, or even worse, her.
He had considered letting her see for herself so she would try to avoid Karl if ever he came back. However he decided not to for two reasons. The first was that Darcy said she never wanted to see him again, and he had done his best to fulfill her desire, not only for her sake but also for his. The second reason was that he would again be the one to hurt Darcy. By allowing her to read how the person she had tried so hard to find was talking about her, he would be giving her away to the prickly pain of reality. She would be heartbroken, he was sure. She already had low self-esteem as it was; Karl’s journal would annihilate whatever was left of it. As a result, Quinn came to the conclusion that the ideal thing to happen was for Karl to be alive somewhere starting a new life there without any desire to return.
Life, however, always had its ways of doing the exact opposite of what one would desire. When Quinn and Darcy were trying to find Karl, Karl was nowhere. His books told them that he would never be anywhere. Now that they gave up on him, Karl’s presence was as prominent as ever. On a very eventful Monday, Joe had phoned Darcy, telling her that Karl had been found locked up in a storage room. He would be taken to a hospital for immediate care. Darcy, who had almost completely forgotten about Karl, was quite shocked to hear the news. She texted them to Quinn, then shut down her phone to avoid paying attention to whether or not he replied.
Quinn, before receiving this fateful text, had been attending one of his morning lectures with a headache. He hadn’t been sleeping well because of the frequent nightmares that plagued him. He had been typing down information on his computer when his phone buzzed. Seeing Darcy’s name on the screen sent all of his body into disarray. He somehow knew, before reading the text, that if Darcy ever contacted him, it would have to be related to Karl. As he unlocked his phone, he unconsciously hoped that Karl was found dead.
“Karl is alive. He was found locked in a storage house not too far from here. They took him to be hospitalized.” Sent: 10:32
Quinn stared at the words in disbelief. Karl, his Karl was back. That Karl was back. Quinn was conflicted between being relieved and being frightened. With trembling fingers, he typed a reply.
“I see. Thank u again, Darcy.” Sent 10:33. Then, feeling more audacious, he added:
“I hope ure doing well.” Sent 10:33.
The final wave of a furious storm crashed onto the shores, leaving the shattered waters of the ocean exhaustedly peaceful, until the next eventful wind would arrive to stir them again. Darcy and Quinn resumed their peaceful lives for a while. Darcy had finally written her antagonist. An old man she had named Joseph. A radically religious man who believed that the end of the world was nigh. The protagonist was a woman, the first for Darcy. She had always written male protagonists as per the detective tradition. With E.G.G, she felt that the hero could only be a heroine. As she did not want to meet Quinn in the campus by accident, she took to writing behind the campus, where she had run the first day they met. It wasn’t that pretty of a spot, since the tall buildings hid a lot of the naturalscape. It was quiet and lonely though; and Darcy grew to appreciate that.
She was writing important plot-lines when she heard her phone ringing. Surprisingly, Quinn was calling her. She watched it ring with a mixture of contempt and curiosity. It soon switched to voice mail. Hearing her own voice speaking made her flinch. She hated hearing her recorded voice, but her parents had insisted on her having the voice mail option, since she barely picked up calls from them. She heard her little sister’s chuckle and remembered how she was laughing at how ridiculously mechanical Darcy sounded trying to record herself. This thought made her feel a little warm inside. She wondered how her sister was faring in her school. Maybe she would call her, as soon as Quinn stopped bugging her, that is. Her voice stopped talking and there was some kind of silence at first.
“Darcy.”
She hadn’t heard his voice in so long, and hearing him say her name so gravely made her jump.
“Hi. I am sorry for calling you. You’re probably hearing this while wishing I would just hang up, but I have something urgent to tell you. Karl was released today. He contacted me this morning. He... well, he will probably want to see you. If possible, could you refuse to meet him?”
Darcy frowned. Why not? Why would Quinn request something like that?
“You’re probably wondering why I am saying this... but, Karl is, not as much of a good person as you might think. You saw how he was stalking you and all, right? He’s creepy and might have gotten worse because of his abduction. I heard from the cops that he was tortured. “
Tortured? Darcy, who had written about torture and kidnapping so casually in her novels, only felt the weight of such words at that moment. A college kid, being tortured by an old man. How can a world like this be allowed to exist?
“If you insist on seeing him, just keep your distance okay? Besides... I’ll probably be with him the whole time, and I know you don’t want to see...me anymore, so...” The more Quinn spoke the weaker his voice got. “Anyway, I’ll try my best to keep him away from you. I am sure you just want to live your life normally. But if he got through to you anyway, please be careful.”
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