when you were my father

once before

Once the water running down me becomes only clear, I pull the handle right to turn the water off and step out of the standing shower. I quickly dry off and change into the clothes I've scrambled together (DJ's sister is a lot taller than me, so I've ended up with a pair of her really old shorts and a large shirt of his) which surprisingly turns out to be a really nice vintage-y outfit.

After shaking my hair dry in the towel I've been given, I walk, well sadly limp, out of the bathroom and into his basement-bedroom where everyone else waits. They're still sitting on various pieces of furniture, silently staring at different things around the large room.

"Fell better?" Micah asks and I nod, sitting down on a large brown chair in front of me. "Good, who's next?

Isla got the first shower, being the one completely covered from head to toe in blood, then it was my turn but the rest of them are all kind of in the same level of dirtiness. Except for maybe Brian and DJ, who seem like they've showered earlier this same day. "You can go," Valentina tells Micah who stands up and walks into the bathroom, holding the clothes DJ grabbed from his older brother's room tightly.

After he closes the door, a beat of awkward silence ness passes. Another beat. The water turns on and the sound of it hitting a tile wall is heard. A second later, it stops.

High pitched screams, that I know could only belong to Micah erupt from the doors.

"Micah? Are you okay?" I call, leaning towards the door. No answer comes but the walls start fading. I turn to look at the others, noticing Isla fall back onto DJ's bed. Her eyes are shut tightly and her shoulders are rolling around.

The walls and decor fade quickly, as the room transforms into a very different bedroom.

It has light blue walls and fairy lights tracing the top of each wall, squaring the room. It's dark and the lights are off. I can make out a tween girl, laying on the bed with pink and black sheets. She stares up at the ceiling and twiddles her thumbs.

Everything in front of me is familiar and I know exactly why. This is my room and the girl in the bed, well she's me.

*********

Everyone disappears and I'm left alone. I'm suddenly laying in the bed, everything seems like it just happened yesterday.

Wind blows through my bedroom windows and I turn to look at the curtains, which are lightly moving in a breeze. 'Isla was kind of weird today, right?' I think, along with many other thoughts that are unclear.

A half whistling, half crunching sound bursts out from my closet. It calls me, for reasons I can't explain, but all I want to do is get closer to it.

I get out of my bed, quietly, to go see what it might be. My bare feet hit the carpet silently, while I take exactly five steps to the closet.

There's a small crack between the doors, which I choose to close all the way. Like it's dangerous to leave open. I reach out to push it closed and barely touch it lightly lightly with my middle and pointer fingers.

The noise disappears. It's silent and I glance out, wondering what's happened.

The closet door opens and I can see what makes the noise. Yet, it doesn't make sense.

My current celebrity crush (who he was/is, is not important) sits on my dresser, stiff as rock and as still as a letter on a paper.

crack

Green liquid drips down the sides of his head, burning all the skin it touches. The burnt skin doesn't turn pink or red, like a normal burn, instead it cracks and falls off his body.

Quickly his whole body is coated in it, the skin all cracking away. Pieces of burnt, dead skin fall all around my closet, but I don't move. Scared as I am, I want to see what's going on.

The green liquid stops and all of the skin falls down to the floor. Where the man used to be, DJ sits.

His head jerkily moves, left and right as if some invisible person's punching him. Blood and bruises appear on his face, I want to cover my eyes but I can't. Once all of his facial bones must be broken or worse, the punching stops. He remains as silent as ever while I hear cracking and watch his body bend in ways un-humanly.

I breathe his name in fear, but no recognizable sound comes out. His skin disappears, leaving all the organs, muscles and broken bones that no one should ever want to see in front of me.

I scream as loud as I can. Nobody comes, though everyone's home.

His insides, bloody and terribly bruised, stand up and start inching closer to me. I scream louder, knowing I should run away. But I can't, it's impossible to even move an inch.

In the blink of an eye, everything turns black. Glancing around, everything blurs and nothing is visible.