The Shackles of My Mother

Chapter 6

The candle on the shelf portrays a magnificent light to the ambiance of the bathroom. I rest my head onto the back of the bath tub, up to my neck in richly scented bubbles and soothingly hot water, as my tight skin loosens like a bolt being slowly unscrewed after years of security.

My eyes are closed, but I lift my hand and let the small droplets fall onto my chest and down my stomach. The warm, oddly thick liquid drips along my collar bone and round the back of my neck. As Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata lulls me in the background, I feel as though I am free of my troubles. This hot water has melted the metal shackles from my ankles.

With my eyes still closed, I cup the water in my hands and bring it to my face. A rich, metallic taste suddenly soaks the air, almost as if I'm surrounded in it. My tongue drowns in the same, oddly vile flavor, and my eyes burn with merely the attempt to open them. What is in this water?

The feel of it tracing down my arms like fingers, nasty and repulsive, leave goosebumps in their wake. Each drop that sinks closer into my pale skin feels like it's taunting me, the heaviness of it, the thickness. Thickness. The water's so thick.

I reach down to the floor beside me in search of a towel, my now elevated breathes and panicked state, albeit stupor also, emboldening my pace. But as my shaking fingers trace along the cool tile, I feel nothing but a sticky liquid, the same liquid that is dripping from said fingers. And then my fingers trace along something even my mind will not calculate, will not fathom, because for the life of me, I know it cannot be possible.

Suddenly Beethoven's sonata is no longer peaceful, but an eerie embrace into what lies beside me.

I sit up in a rush, my bath splattering up and around the sides of the large tub.

It's too thick and heavy. I rub at my eyes. It's not water.

I open them slowly. It's not water.

My hands are covered in red. My body, red, the water... It's not water. It's red, everything is red. I'm bathing in blood; it covers my body, my neck, my legs, my hands. I lift them in front of my face, a wracked sob scratching free of my chest.

Oh god, no.

Not now.

And then I'm standing on the other side of the tub. Still, covered in his blood, I fall to my knees in front of him. "What did you do?" I cry. "What the fuck did you do?"