BrigitsFlame, September - Week 1
Here we go again! :) Original fic forbrigits_flame.
Title: Parasite (yeah, not much for originality this time)
Prompt: Parasite
Word Count: 1098
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes, it's only a matter of...time.
Author's Notes: Ehhh, not sure what I think about this one. Cookie if you guess what the "parasite" is? :D?
As she swung the bathroom door open, the musty scent of mildew rushed at her blank face-usually enough to make her flinch violently in disgust, but today…her senses were blocked, the world muffled. Standing in the doorway for a moment, she took in the cream-white, cracked-here-or-there tiled floor glowing softly in the mid-morning sunlight leaking in from the small, pointless window most bathrooms seem to have for one reason or another. She didn’t bother to switch on the lights. Instead, she mechanically reached for her drawer, sliding it open and taking out her toothbrush and toothpaste. Squeezing the nearly depleted, crumpled tube, she managed to get a dollop of mint-fresh on the bristles. She began to brush her teeth.
She’d bit her tongue earlier this morning, and the sharp, brackish taste in her mouth remained. She didn’t like it. It needed to go.
Needed to disappear.
Still brushing, slow and in circular motions how the dentist always said to, she made her way over to the tub. With a jerk to the left, the faucet roared to life and the water thumped down loudly against yellowed-by-age plastic. She put the drain plug in with her hand that wasn’t brushing, and watched water slap against more water gathering in the tub. Steam began to rise. The run of the water echoed overwhelmingly loud throughout the empty silence of the house. She didn’t like it, being so loud and obvious-but she didn’t like the quiet more. It needed to go.
Needed to disappear.
Sulking back over to the sink, she spit mint-fresh onto the drain. It dripped down the shiny metal sides in tiny drupelets, spit mingling with foam. She resisted the urge to glance up at her reflection in the mirror; she usually liked to do that, and make her eyes all wild so it looked like she was some beast frothing at the mouth and ready for the kill. It gave her some silly satisfaction, knowing she could look that lividly insane and ready to care of all that threatened her. But today…a piece of dry, crackling leaf fell from her windswept hair and landed in the middle of the spit-foam. She could still feel the dried, caking streaks of maroon-brown on her face from when she’d slipped. She turned on the sink tap, watching the leaf crumble immediately as the water slapped it, dispersing the froth and sending it all down the drain.
Now, at this instant, she was sure she looked more like the insane beast she’d imagined herself to be than ever before.
She rinsed out her mouth and put her toothbrush down, forgetting the sink was still running. Turning towards the bathroom door, she watched the shadows in the hallway for a moment. For no particular reason. She smacked her lips and tasted mint-fresh. Then she went to the side-toilet room and took a crap. Pulling up her pants and flushing, she went back over to the tub. It was almost full. She wondered if she should’ve put bubbles in it. She fingered the hole in her thigh pocket, worrying loose threads. She didn’t like holes. They made you lose things. Precious things. She hated holes. They were wide and gaping, with black inside. Like those eyes and open mouths that watched her in terror and disbelief. They needed to disappear. NEEDED TO DISAPPER.
Everything needed to disappear!
She put one foot in the tub, followed after the other. The water was hot, and burned her ankles while her shoelaces floated up, as if suddenly magical and not of this world. The bottoms of her pants buoyed up, too, dirt and muck working loose from the worn edges and causing wispy tracks of magical, not-of-this-world dirt and muck. She smiled thinly. Then she was sitting and her calves and butt itched because the water was scolding hot, but she kept leaning back and now her sweater was damp not just from sweat but dragging her down as the hot water enveloped her shoulders and now her ears and her face was burning but she kept going, smiling-
When she was completely submerged, she closed her eyes and listened. Listened to the faint sounds of another world that did not concern her any longer. Her hair licked the side of her face gently, dancing and swirling without weight. Everything was a distant roar, and her smile grew wider.
Then she heard it. Loud, pounding. Pulsating. That sound that she heard when her mother screamed at her and when her father bumped into furniture at night and when her sister cut food into little pieces at the dinner table! In her ears and in her head and impossible to escape-!
Her mouth stretched open cruelly, eyes squinting and furious, wisps of mud and blood circling the bubbles that flew upwards from her silent scream.
She breathed sharply in.
As she lay there, suffocating amidst mint-fresh and weightlessness and hot, paramedics worked with grim faces to race to the hospital five critically-wounded fellow students she’d shot with a .33 Colt twenty-two minutes earlier. There was already one body-bag sipped up tight in the front of the school surrounded by fire trucks and squad cars as curious, frightened faces peered out of locked windows inside locked classrooms. One officer was on the radio with the leader of the squad headed over to the third house on the first street in the subdivision behind the high school, since reports had come in saying the suspect had run through the woods back to her house before being apprehended. Another officer was on the phone with a verbally-abusive mother who couldn’t fucking believe what these bastards were trying to tell her about her fucking daughter, she’d never do that! Can’t be serious! You can’t be serious! The on-call police detective was trying to contact an alcoholic father who wouldn’t admit he ever had problems because he was the man of the house who was supporting the family and the only problem he’d ever have was a midlife crisis that he was not going through! And the principal had a comforting hand on the shoulder of an almost-anorexic sister, probably more because he thought she might faint from all the commotion since she looked so stupid and ugly and pathetic than actually feeling sorry for her because her sister was a homicidal freak-
A bloody gun glinted in the midmorning sunlight outside the bathroom door as a body floated face-down in the tub, bobbing up and down as scalding water roaring out of the faucet smacked repeatedly against it.
Title: Parasite (yeah, not much for originality this time)
Prompt: Parasite
Word Count: 1098
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes, it's only a matter of...time.
Author's Notes: Ehhh, not sure what I think about this one. Cookie if you guess what the "parasite" is? :D?
As she swung the bathroom door open, the musty scent of mildew rushed at her blank face-usually enough to make her flinch violently in disgust, but today…her senses were blocked, the world muffled. Standing in the doorway for a moment, she took in the cream-white, cracked-here-or-there tiled floor glowing softly in the mid-morning sunlight leaking in from the small, pointless window most bathrooms seem to have for one reason or another. She didn’t bother to switch on the lights. Instead, she mechanically reached for her drawer, sliding it open and taking out her toothbrush and toothpaste. Squeezing the nearly depleted, crumpled tube, she managed to get a dollop of mint-fresh on the bristles. She began to brush her teeth.
She’d bit her tongue earlier this morning, and the sharp, brackish taste in her mouth remained. She didn’t like it. It needed to go.
Needed to disappear.
Still brushing, slow and in circular motions how the dentist always said to, she made her way over to the tub. With a jerk to the left, the faucet roared to life and the water thumped down loudly against yellowed-by-age plastic. She put the drain plug in with her hand that wasn’t brushing, and watched water slap against more water gathering in the tub. Steam began to rise. The run of the water echoed overwhelmingly loud throughout the empty silence of the house. She didn’t like it, being so loud and obvious-but she didn’t like the quiet more. It needed to go.
Needed to disappear.
Sulking back over to the sink, she spit mint-fresh onto the drain. It dripped down the shiny metal sides in tiny drupelets, spit mingling with foam. She resisted the urge to glance up at her reflection in the mirror; she usually liked to do that, and make her eyes all wild so it looked like she was some beast frothing at the mouth and ready for the kill. It gave her some silly satisfaction, knowing she could look that lividly insane and ready to care of all that threatened her. But today…a piece of dry, crackling leaf fell from her windswept hair and landed in the middle of the spit-foam. She could still feel the dried, caking streaks of maroon-brown on her face from when she’d slipped. She turned on the sink tap, watching the leaf crumble immediately as the water slapped it, dispersing the froth and sending it all down the drain.
Now, at this instant, she was sure she looked more like the insane beast she’d imagined herself to be than ever before.
She rinsed out her mouth and put her toothbrush down, forgetting the sink was still running. Turning towards the bathroom door, she watched the shadows in the hallway for a moment. For no particular reason. She smacked her lips and tasted mint-fresh. Then she went to the side-toilet room and took a crap. Pulling up her pants and flushing, she went back over to the tub. It was almost full. She wondered if she should’ve put bubbles in it. She fingered the hole in her thigh pocket, worrying loose threads. She didn’t like holes. They made you lose things. Precious things. She hated holes. They were wide and gaping, with black inside. Like those eyes and open mouths that watched her in terror and disbelief. They needed to disappear. NEEDED TO DISAPPER.
Everything needed to disappear!
She put one foot in the tub, followed after the other. The water was hot, and burned her ankles while her shoelaces floated up, as if suddenly magical and not of this world. The bottoms of her pants buoyed up, too, dirt and muck working loose from the worn edges and causing wispy tracks of magical, not-of-this-world dirt and muck. She smiled thinly. Then she was sitting and her calves and butt itched because the water was scolding hot, but she kept leaning back and now her sweater was damp not just from sweat but dragging her down as the hot water enveloped her shoulders and now her ears and her face was burning but she kept going, smiling-
When she was completely submerged, she closed her eyes and listened. Listened to the faint sounds of another world that did not concern her any longer. Her hair licked the side of her face gently, dancing and swirling without weight. Everything was a distant roar, and her smile grew wider.
Then she heard it. Loud, pounding. Pulsating. That sound that she heard when her mother screamed at her and when her father bumped into furniture at night and when her sister cut food into little pieces at the dinner table! In her ears and in her head and impossible to escape-!
Her mouth stretched open cruelly, eyes squinting and furious, wisps of mud and blood circling the bubbles that flew upwards from her silent scream.
She breathed sharply in.
As she lay there, suffocating amidst mint-fresh and weightlessness and hot, paramedics worked with grim faces to race to the hospital five critically-wounded fellow students she’d shot with a .33 Colt twenty-two minutes earlier. There was already one body-bag sipped up tight in the front of the school surrounded by fire trucks and squad cars as curious, frightened faces peered out of locked windows inside locked classrooms. One officer was on the radio with the leader of the squad headed over to the third house on the first street in the subdivision behind the high school, since reports had come in saying the suspect had run through the woods back to her house before being apprehended. Another officer was on the phone with a verbally-abusive mother who couldn’t fucking believe what these bastards were trying to tell her about her fucking daughter, she’d never do that! Can’t be serious! You can’t be serious! The on-call police detective was trying to contact an alcoholic father who wouldn’t admit he ever had problems because he was the man of the house who was supporting the family and the only problem he’d ever have was a midlife crisis that he was not going through! And the principal had a comforting hand on the shoulder of an almost-anorexic sister, probably more because he thought she might faint from all the commotion since she looked so stupid and ugly and pathetic than actually feeling sorry for her because her sister was a homicidal freak-
A bloody gun glinted in the midmorning sunlight outside the bathroom door as a body floated face-down in the tub, bobbing up and down as scalding water roaring out of the faucet smacked repeatedly against it.