Lotus Blood

Lotus Blood Part 1

Chapter One

 "Oh you stupid, stupid cow! What have you done?" screamed my inner bitch, her gloating voice knifing through my skull.

I was down on my knees, on the tiles of my bedroom floor, clutching the smashed pieces of my brand new, state-of –the-art smart phone. Yesterday, it had been my perfect birthday present and I'd spent the morning downloading and listening to death metal, then all afternoon Skyping my best friends back in England. Finally, finally I had a lifeline out of rotten hot Thailand.

Oh yeah, that had been yesterday. This morning, I was knelt there, staring down at the SIM card, battery and cracked back-casing held in my shaking hands. I really didn't remember hurling my phone at the wall; I never did when I totally lost it, but a patch of sun picked out a tell-tale, smart phone shaped dent in the plaster, right next to my Marilyn Manson poster.

A tiny screw had rolled up against the wall. I picked it up on my finger and dropped it into the casing.

"There's got to be more bits. Find them, now!" ordered my inner bitch voice.

As I tore through the piles of T shirts and knickers strewn across the floor, a low rumbling, like distant thunder, rippled the humid morning air. I lay down flat and scrabbled around under my bed, picking through the dead cockroaches and dust, till my sweaty fingers closed around a spiky shard of plastic. It was some kind of circuit board and it looked okay. I blew the dust off, pushed it into the casing and held it down with the battery.

"Do not hyperventilate. It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. It's ..."

The rumbling grew, filling the air then my swimming medals, hung over the heavy gilt mirror, started swinging and crashing together. The bare bulb hanging from the ceiling flailed around like a crazed dog's tail and the tiny screw jiggled around in the phone casing, jumped out and rolled away. As I reached for it, thick black dust burst out at me from the walls.

"Crap, this dump's finally falling apart!"

I thrashed around, trying to wave the dust away, but it just kept coming and then my teeth were chattering, vibrations throbbing up through the floor, turning my stomach to jelly.

I dropped my pieces of phone and tried to stand, but my legs were made of rubber, my eyes going, everything blurring. The metal frame of my bed smashed against the wall, beating at it again and again.

"Get out. Move your arse, you stupid cow!"

I set off crawling towards the door, but the picture of donkeys playing chess fell off the wall and shattered on the floor, right in front of me. Shrieking erupted from the rusty sprinkler head on the ceiling and putrid water burst out, spraying everywhere. The swinging light bulb smacked the ceiling and exploded. I covered my face with my hands and screamed my head off as slivers of glass rained down.

The door crashed open and Junior, my twin brother, staggered in.

"Siiiiiss!" he shouted, skidded on the wet floor and crashed on top of me, squashing me face down.

The bed smacked the wall one last time and stopped still. I lay there fighting to breathe, trying to push Junior off, but he's huge and I'm tiny.

"Can't .. breathe .. move!"

Finally he rolled off and I sat up, gasping for breath. Clouds of dust hung in the thick air and brown water was still dribbling out of the sprinkler head. I was covered in glass and my Marilyn Manson poster was a sorry, sodden mass, peeling off the wall