Your Fall

Blood Ties

"I know you have it." You swallow quietly and quickly finish placing the small and now nearly empty bottle of oil in with your parents' socks, stuffing it within a pair.

"I am not sure what you are talking abo- sir are you okay? Should I bring you to medical?" Your father's voice is calm but the apprehension from the other room has the hairs on your skin on edge.

"Nono no NO! You will listen to me and you will bring me that jar."

"Please sir, we are not sure wha-"

"STOP LYING!" Your breathing comes in shallow breaths as your mother's voice cracks. You can hear her shuffling in the other room. The crackled gravelly voice seems to echo and shake the small two rooms of the living area.

A high pitched scream fills your ears and without thinking you reopen the closet and slip in as quietly as you can before closing the door.

"Stop! You are hurting he-" Your eyes close as you hear your father's yell turn to a grunt.

"I know that you have it here, I saw one of your workers take it from one of the medical shelves." You squeeze your eyes until a ring plays in your ears almost drowning out the sound of a thud from the other room and someone sounding like they are choking on water. You open your eyes to darkness shaking your head to get the visions that follow the sounds out of your head.

"Since you will not help me, I will look for it myself." Heavy breathing is now the only thing that can be heard from the other room soon followed by the thud of uneven footsteps that seem to travel for a millennia.

The echoed thuds begin to storm louder and louder until you can see the shadow of his feet beneath the small crack of the closet. You nuzzle your head deep into the laundry that surrounds you. The labored breathing comes and goes, but you don't dare breathe.

After several minutes it seems as though the breathing has stopped and the steps have left, but just as you think it may be safe the creaking of the closet door echoes against your eardrums. A small amount of light enters from behind your eyelids as you squeeze your eyes and scrunch your muscles hoping that you would wake from this disgusting nightmare.

You feel a shifting with the clothes that surround you and nearly choke on your anxiety as you feel the weight of other clothes falling down on top of you, burying you in shifting darkness. The monster with the gravelly voice huffs and puffs after momentarily pausing its search to groan in pain. It coughs and shakes the clanking metal of the closet before taking a few stunted steps away from its search.

Moments pass that seem to take decades to finish before you hear the creaking of the old closet and a familiar blackness seeps into your vision.

~

You wake up to weight on your back and quickly push up on the shifting surface beneath you.

With a final push, you feel slightly cooler air on your face and a dim light coming from the slightly ajar door of the closet. Once you catch your breath, the thud of footsteps crashes and echoes bloodily in your eardrum reminding you of what happened before everything went black.

Pushing the door open fully with your heel, you let the uneven pile of laundry help you clumsily slide onto the floor of your parents' room.

"It must have been a bad dream," you shakily stand up and look around the dimly lit bedroom before quickly turning around and pushing through the pile of clothes that are now unorganized and partially dirty, as it is seemingly covered in your sweat, until you find the nearly empty jar of EP oil.

Seeing that the jar isn't part of the dream, you feel the blood drain from your face. Without thinking you throw the bottle back into the sock pair before failing at shutting the closet door and nearly tripping on the clothes that block the old metal closet door from closing. Your feet seem to move on their own accord through the dim small bedroom to the barely lit living area.

Your knees go weak. Your feet seem to be turned to stone stuck firmly in the doorway into the bedroom. Your breath hitches in your throat and within moments you fall to the ground on your knees unsure if you are suffocating or about to throw up. You push your hands that barely seem attached to you into the floor and close your eyes immediately regretting it as the putrid warmth of blood fills your nostrils and seems to choke you from within your throat.

You open your eyes and your head goes light as the blood sickly glows in the lack of light. You try to breathe but your throat convulses and suddenly the taste of bile and acid and the lunch you had had earlier that day after class with Cayen fills your senses.

Your breath comes out in clattered gasps. You try to move forward to hold your mother and see the sparkle of your father's eyes but your limbs no longer belong to you.

Dots fill your vision but you try your best to stay conscious. You feel the blood drain from your face again and your throat convulses ending with the feeling of chunks clogging your nostrils and drying out your tongue.

Slowly. You climb to your feet, ignoring the sore sting of your muscles as you force what doesn't belong to you to stand.

With uneven steps, you shift numbly to the back of the well-used couch.

You slip in the warm liquid, feeling it slip between your toes as you lean heavily on a lopsided table by the door not caring that your folder holding your essay for history and your research for mechanics fall to the floor.

Your shaking hand malfunctions and strains to turn the handle of the door.

With a last breath, you push your estranged body against the door. As you feel your legs numbly slip from beneath you the door opens to the colder air of the hallway as you fall to your knees, acid stinging your eyes.

"Help... please..." you fall on your stomach, not even sure if the words uttered came out or were in your head.

"Please..." you see feet or a shadow or maybe just a malfunctioning light seeming to move closer to you. Thick drool chokes and falls from your parted lips.

"Help..."

Your papers soak in your bloodlines.