I know it's short, bear with me it was a 500 word max one-shot.
A some point in a man's life, he becomes quite comfortable with a very consistent lifestyle. My wife, Florence (I call her Flora my flower), and I own a two story bed and breakfast. It's nothing much. We don't even get many visitors in this town. But, every once in a while we get guests.
Last time we had guests, I woke up in the dead of the night and saw Flora at the side of the bed, back pressed against the mattress and eyes staring out into space. A while back she had an experience with one really shook her. She hasn't been the same since. Sometimes I wonder what they took from her, that my wife can never be the same.
In her hands, she held a small mouse that was just so silent in her hands. If you've ever had mice. They squeal. And skitter. And scramble in the night. I didn't say anything as she got up from the floor and walked downstairs to the room down the hall. I didn't get up to see, but I knew there'd be a man there. A man I've never seen before. Probably with a wife. Maybe with kids a few doors down. All people I've never seen before. Flora likes to put mice under their pillows, so they know they are not welcome here.
Flora comes back soon enough and gets back under the covers to go to sleep. I don't let her know I'm awake.
I'm awake again a few hours later. This time there's bits of mice in her hands and she wipes they all over her pillow, then rubs her face in the pillow, and then back to wiping her hands. I stay quiet. This is the point where you really don't want to talk to her. When she's done, she takes the pillow and drops it on the bed. My eyes are open but I hope she won't notice. She doesn't have much awareness of her surroundings these days. Her eyes are bloodshot and scared. Pupils are squeezed into sharp empty pinpricks.
She sweeps her feet over the side of the bed and paces over the floor on her side of the bed. I can hear the slippery sounds of her steps. Their sticky and red, and you wouldn't think you could do anything but see a color, but I smell something deeply metallic and well, red. It's not all from the poor family of mice Flora has squeezed all over the floors, but also her lips are as red as a rose in its prime. She peels them. Ripping the soft flesh off her once soft, sweet lips and leaving the little petals of skin littered on the floor
