PLOT SHOP

Hereditary

*A man who's slowly losing his mind, or is it*

Tense... my body couldn't escape the feeling, the way it crept, lurked, in search of my soul, burrowing itself next to the sporadic beatings of my chest. The consistent banging yet without it the silence would be deafening, which would leave me with my thoughts, dangerous thoughts.

"Sir, do try to pay attention"

Startled by my forgotten company, my muscles clenched and my weary eyes were forced open. Shaken by who was sitting a mere foot from my bed,

I spat, "Why are you here? go away, I don't want to see you, I don't need to, not yet". Confusion spread through his features

"You know why I'm here now please do try to pay attention, I won't be leaving until I get the answers that are required" as he spoke I saw his eyes drift to his disorganized notes and as his spiny fingers went to rearrange them, a force within myself cried forward

"Why don't you trust me?, you need to trust me, I couldn't have done it, not me, no time, I couldn't have"

My fists clenched, he could see my veins pulsed with fury, "Sir, I need you to calm down that's no way to treat a person who's trying to help you"

The unsolicited intruder spoke with a voice so still it could calm a raging storm but after countless attempts, I had become desensitized to the soothing waves of comfort. I began to thrash around in my restraints

"Let me go, I'm innocent! Innocent I tell you, I didn't take anything if you want to help me take me away from this wretched place" whaling like a madman I tried to pull up from my unwanted confinement.

"Please do not disrespect the land sir, when you've lived as long as I have, in this area I mean, you grow... attached to it"

Those tranquil words once again set out to prolong my drifting sanity. He placed aside the file and leant across me, forcing my body to lay flat on my bed. He adjusted the metal buckles to the tightest sector, perhaps afraid of what happened last time when they were too loose, the faint lines that covered his arms were evidence of that.

"I will ask you again Sir, what happened to that little girl? Martha? What happened to her all those years ago?"

As soon as those deafening words struck my battered ears, something changed, something shifted.

My once whirling thoughts were static. The ticks' of the grandfather clock soothed me and as I gazed up upon the eldered mechanism, I retraced the days, hours all the way to the minute, to calculate the length of my entrapment. How dare they keep me captive in this poor excuse of an establishment, I am not unstable, I'm not... am I?

As my thoughts preoccupied my stabilised conscious my psychiatrist requested the question a second and a third time. Finally, my eyes latched onto him, stilling his body and gaze.

"I am helping her"

The words dripped out of my dried mouth with an unfamiliar tone. Lead scratching piles of paper filled my ears, the scratching echoes my mind, voices clawing around my subconscious.

"Don't try to fool me, Sir, we have evidence that states otherwise"

He spoke as he ran calloused fingers through the grease and knots, clearly defeated in my answer. His sudden distance angered me, to the point of seeing only in red.

"Why won't you people believe me! I wouldn't be capable of such a thing, she is my daughter!"

My arms pulled against the restraints once more, I felt the slipping of the tension through my limitations, with a surge of accomplishment I kept my features neutral. I needed him to be closer. The constant bickering between us spiked and he stood up, perfect.

My shackles hardly holding me back I kept eye contact with my therapist and ripped free. An uncontrollable force took over me that day, I didn't even realise what had happened. I swear it wasn't meant to end like this. No one told me how the stench of blood stains your clothes, no matter how hard you scrub the coppery smell of death has never left me.

The heavyweight of guilt surrounded my spirit the moment I escaped that castle, it was like I was now living my whole life in a shadow of grief and despair. Each mirror showed the reflection of a monster.

I've written a journal of my misdeeds and with the painful reopening of these wounds it has occurred to me my will to live has slowly decayed, this has been my final entry. I no longer want to feel... tense.

She sat back in her seat, her dainty fingers tearing at the frayed ends.

"Sweetie, supper is ready" a shrill voice travelled up the stairs of the withered house

"Just finishing up mother" she dryly replied, placed the dusty book back onto the shelf and shook her head at its nonsense.

How any person could be capable of such preposterous acts was beyond her. Putting away stray thoughts she joined her mother for supper.

"Sorry I took so long mother," she said as she sat across from her only parent.

"Hun, I.. I need to tell you something" a wired voice strung upon and captured silence as an answer.

"It concerns your father"

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