Week 7 - “The Shower”
You had a miserable, long day at work. A stiff drink, some dinner, a hot shower, and you’d promptly crash. Except that’s when it perched on your vanity. You mistook the blur through your shower curtains for your cat at first, having snuck its way in.
How stupid you were. The thing unwound itself, standing and stretching to its full height. A mass watching you, swaying and following your motions.
Panic seared through you. You were quick to think; you could attempt to beat it to the door outright. You could tug down the shower curtain, throw it onto whatever it was, cause a long enough distraction to bolt. Maybe even thwart it with an object directly. What did you have; a razor, plastic bottles? Worthless.
None of it seemed to matter. It was far more clever than you were. It tsked admonishingly, sensing your attempts to escape, outsmart it. It pressed close, reaching a hand on the thin tarp dividing the two of you. Tormenting you.
That was many hours ago. Now, the water’s turn frigid, pelting you with pinpricks of ice. Your skin’s gone shriveled, and your muscles ache from how still you’ve held yourself, poised and trapped between ‘fight or flight’. Even so, those all seem like trivialities.
Because your terrible day pales in comparison to the way it leers at you through the vanity mirror. A flayed thing that may have once been ‘human’. Bared teeth, empty sockets. Challenging you, plotting its attack, taking glee in your poor circumstance; it betrays nothing. What’s certain is you fear what will happen if you pry your eyes away from it.
The only question left is: how long before you need to blink?
