Shower

Today, I needed to take a shower. I hadn't for quite a few days and my frail excuse for a body had begun to reek. I stepped into the faded yellow luminescence of my apartment with the dread of knowing that I had to shower. It was something that had to be done, yet I felt uneasy every time I had to wash myself.
        I sluggishly stumbled down the hallway and opened the grimy door of my bathroom. I quickly flicked the lights on. Looking into the shower, my breathing grew shallow and sharp. I could not do this. That shower is nothing but a vessel for anxiety. The yellow stained porcelain seemed to taunt me as I backed out of the bathroom. The carpet in the hall cushioned my sudden collapse. I lay there for a while, trembling in fear and frustration that I was afraid. I began to sob. My sobbing seemed to bring myself more fury than it did sorrow. Why must I tremble in terror of what is a necessity to me?
After I could handle my sobbing and stench no more, I dragged my pathetic self from the ground. I forced each of my feet forward as I made my quiet march into the  bathroom once more. I felt a bit more sure of myself this time, sniffling my faint tears back into their beady origins.
I solemnly shivered my clothing off, revealing the pathetic and bony creature that I call myself. I made the mistake of glancing in a mirror. My cold back slammed onto the much colder wall of the bathroom with a sudden and shrill cry. I had thought that what I witnessed in the mirror was some demon coming to punish and torment me for so much as existing. I was a cowardly being, and so I would deserve it. To my relief but also to my disappointment, all that could be seen was the disgusting reflection of my likeness. I shook my head a bit, allowing myself a soft chuckle at my cowardice.
My thin bony hand reached out shakily as I grabbed the knob of the shower with my fingertips. I slowly turned it to the right, making a small squeaking noise. Water began to rush out of the rusty shower head. The water suddenly hit the walls of the shower, making a loud rumbling noise, which sent me a foot in the air with surprise. Calming myself once more, I dipped my toes into the shower. It was cold and slimy in there, but I had to clean myself.
Forcing my husk of a body into the shower, I let out a small yelp. The water was a startling sensation as it ran down my body. It slithered through the small valleys between my nearly exposed bones just to drip down onto the cold shower basin. I readied myself and reached out for the bar of green soap. I rubbed it along the expanse of my form. Small white bubbling froth began to coat my body as I scrubbed. The cold water cascaded down still, only to rinse that which the soap had formed along me. My body had been properly cleansed, yet the hardest part was yet to be completed.
My thin greasy hair remained an unsettling presence, still very grimy and caked with dirt of all kinds. My breathing began to grow very fast as I squeezed a small drop of shampoo onto my outreached hand. I gathered myself for a moment, assuring myself that this was necessary. I darted my bloodshot eyes around the yellow room, looking for something that I feared but could not identify. I allowed myself to close my eyes when I was as sure as possible of my safety. I ran the soapy hand through my hair, feeling the grease dissolve into the falling water. That relief did little to lessen my feeling of pure anxiety.
As my eyes remained closed, I began to hear strange sounds. I believe it was a faint scrape against the wall. Perhaps I was simply being paranoid. My heart grew faster in beating, but my eyes had to remain closed. I continued in my trembling process of cleansing. More noises began to reach my sensitive ears. I heard what seemed to be a whisper. I shuddered and began to cry. My delusion and fear must be deceiving me. Allowing my tears to mix with the water of the shower; I kept my eyes closed shut. It was only until my hair was clean after all. I was almost finished as I heard something wet slither into the bathroom. I snapped. I could no longer endure it. My eyes slammed open, leaving myself vulnerable to the burning shampoo that would come to my eyes, even though I deeply feared that burning sensation. I quickly disregarded that fear; there was something in the bathroom that shouldn't have been.
I gazed upon its pure uncanny nature. It was something no living being was ever intended to see. I stood frozen in the cold of my shower, trembling in pure horror and awe. I could not understand what I was seeing; it was something I cannot comprehend. It excreted an unidentifiable substance and had bubbling eyeballs that coated its figure, but its shape and what I thought were limbs were something no person can possibly wrap their mind around. It completely broke down my brain as I collapsed in the shower. I let out a whispering and hoarse scream that nobody could hear. My brain had been folded upon itself so many times by the pure impossibility of what stood outside the shower, gazing upon me. It gazed upon my body. Perhaps this is the punishment I desired. I descended the stairs of insanity as all that I had known faded to oblivion. I forgot even how to breathe, which perhaps was my one grace. I could die before the true madness took over my entire mind. My shrimpy body grew limp as the creature manifested from my paranoia faded away at the same time my heart stopped beating. The tub I lay in became my vessel as I was carried to eternal peace.