1:46 AM

You fumble along the bedside table for your phone to check the time, blinding yourself with the painful brightness in the soothing dark. 1:46 AM.

The new mail notification is lit, an obvious explanation for your sudden wakefulness. You forgot to turn the sound off before bed, as usual.

You click open the mail program and clench in sudden chill.

You feel your breath come faster and your vision tunnels. You focus on the subject line until it blurs.

Don't sleep

Two words that bring the sudden taste of copper to the back of your mouth and make the air sing in your ears.

There is no ‘from’ address. There is no date or time. When you hesitantly open the message, there is no text in the body.

Shakily, you click to delete the message. 

Obvious spam, you think. After a few deep breaths, you put your phone on silent mode and drop it to the bed beside you. When you finally find sleep again, it feels more like falling backwards into dark water.

Your dreams are chaotic, awash with color and sound and jagged edges. You awake muzzy-headed and tense, on edge. You only dimly remember waking in the night.

The warm water does nothing to wake you. It stings your eyes and makes your throat slightly raw with heavier-than-usual chlorination. Your limbs are stiff and tired and a dull pressure at your temples gets more insistent as you inhale the steam..

By the time you turn the water to cold and then off entirely, the pain in your head has turned into a steady throb behind your eyes. 

The rough towel strokes away the moisture beading your skin, but fails to invigorate. The familiar meditative motions of making tea and toast do nothing to bring you from the wavering cocoon of unreality that clings to you. You find yourself drifting as you sit, your eyes unfocused.

The ticking of the clock brings you back. Each tick louder and louder until it echoes in your head, pulsing until all of creation is vibrating with each staccato beat. You tense in expectation of each new blow as it echoes in your blood, your bones. 

Your eyes vibrate with each strike, blurring your vision. The sound echoes in your sinuses, making your molars buzz with the music of it. The clock grows with each second, you can feel it. 

It bulges outward, the edges pulling away from the wall. The slick, gelid sound holds you. You can’t move. You can’t breathe. You feel someone behind you. They’re going to touch you, oh god, no, that cold, wet skin on the back of your neck - not again. Please no, not again.

You bolt upright, knocking the cold tea into the saucer where your toast sits untouched, the butter clotted and waxy. The kitchen looks back at you innocently. The clock is quietly ticking away, marking time in the measured units of science and sanity.

Unable to deny your fear, knowing that it’s irrational, but so, so necessary, you pull the clock from the wall and tear the single battery free from the back. You drop both in the waste can, putting the top back on firmly. You take the heavy glass jar of rice from the counter and place it on the cover, as though trying to keep an unruly pet from digging out something dangerous. 

Something poisonous.

After a long hesitation, you put the jar back and gingerly draw out the bag. You tie it firmly and walk it to the garbage, leaving the door open behind you until you return. With a deep reluctance to touch it, you put in a new bag and shut the bin. Your eyes dart from there to the wall as you retreat deeper and sit in front of the television.

The phone ring is shrill in the dark and curtained living room. You blink and mute the TV before pawing to find the phone and answer, more to make the piercing sound stop than out of any desire to talk.

“Yeah?” you say, not looking to see who was calling. That doesn’t really matter anyway.

Your sister’s voice replies.

“Hey - I’m worried about you. Is everything okay? I mean, after...” She doesn’t finish her sentence. 

Here, she says, you say the hard part. That way you can’t be mad at me, but I get all the credit. 

“Yeah.” you say again. “No worries.” 

“Are you sure? It can’t be healthy to spend all this time alone. You can come and stay with us. Please?”

The word rebounds oddly in your ear, reminding you of the last time you heard it - please, please no - somewhere. Somewhere dark and wet and cold. Your skin prickles as your hair stands up along your arms, your neck.

“I’m fine.” 

“You don’t sound fine.” You can hear the frown in her voice.

“Yeah, well.” You leave it at that and let her talk about nothing for a few more minutes before ending the call with the usual platitudes.

You fall asleep on the couch, drifting like a water weed pulled by the current. The sound of laughter keeps you company, even as you know it has nothing to do with you. None of this is about you.

The kitchen is smirking this morning, radiating smug satisfaction.

You pause in the doorway, watching, listening. Frozen like a small animal scenting the air. You tense as you hear a faucet drip, then a trembling pause. 

Drip. Pause. Drip.

The sound causes a rise of primal fear and you can’t make yourself go into the kitchen. Your knees lock, your fingertips are numb and clumsy. 

The smell of wet clay clings to everything.

Even in the living room, on the couch with your legs up - there’s nothing on the floor, don’t be silly, it’s just more comfortable here, with a blanket over me - it smells of earth and water and must.

The noise of the TV covers the sound of the drips, but you slowly start to wonder if it could be concealing other noises, things creeping closer, the soft slide of a foot on the - wetly - polished floor. The sound of something from the kitchen. The sound of the door by the refrigerator opening. The sound of breathing.

Your hand clenches hard around the remote control and the sound mutes, revealing only silence beneath. Silence and drip.

The air feels sticky with suspended moisture, hard to draw into your lungs and even harder to push it out. Your heart thumps louder than the dripping. 

Louder than the dripping, but not louder than the creak of the step, the gritty chunk of the lock. And not louder than the sound of the rusted hinges as the door slowly opens back behind you, near the refrigerator. You can even hear the exquisitely small grains of rust pattering to the floor.

The air is still wet, but so cold. A new stir draws a slight breeze across your skin.

Your breath hitches in your chest, as painful as hiccups, and you hear the first wet footfall.

You gasp in a lungful of air to cry out, but it catches in your throat as cold skin slides over your cheek and a wrinkled hand suctions wetly over your open mouth and nose. All becomes the smell of wet clay, chlorine and decay.

Behind you, without a sound, the kitchen laughs.