​Steam

It had been weeks since the sun had kissed Victoria’s skin, weeks since she had felt up to do anything other than wither and rot away. If you had met her for the first time now, nothing could be distinguished between her and a corpse a killer had a sick obsession with, besides the occasional rising of her chest as she breathed. Her phone remained silent, it had died hours ago but she never got around to plugging it in like she said she would. She instead lied on her couch, just the butt of her blunt left hanging in her fingers and empty pill bottles opened on the table in front of her. Her mind was empty, not even a thought or idea wanted anything to do with her right now as she slowly stood up from her trance. ‘Fuck… I gotta get my prescriptions today.’ She walked to the door, grabbing her keys before taking a sniff of her shirt.

‘Oh fuck no, I smell horrid. I gotta at least shower before I do anything’. She walked into the bathroom and started to strip down, running her shower as she did. Victoria picked up her brush and started trying to untangle her unkempt hair, refusing to look at the mirror as she did. She didn’t wish to see what she looked like right now. She never did. Yet despite her own objections, she stole a look. Hideous as usual. An ugly stain on an imperfect world. A design that no matter what she did she never felt right, never looked right, never sounded right. Tears started to swell in Victoria as she took her razor from the drawer, the blades tempting to draw beautiful lines across her arm, beckoning her to continue working on her canvas. Minutes passed of the bathroom steaming up before she finally could do anything, not listening to her mind despite its plea and stepping into the shower, letting the water run over her body.

The shower was the perfect spot for Victoria, at least as long as she didn’t look at herself at all. For now, however, she could simply sit and let the water flow, both from the shower and herself. All she could do was cry tears as ugly as she saw herself. She knew she was regressing back to how she was months and years back, she’d been distant to friends and left her partner so they wouldn’t see Victoria like this. What would her friends think if they saw her like this? Victoria dreaded the thought of her friends knowing how she really was. As she sat and thought and wept, each of her close friends appeared in her mind, each having their own thoughts about this new her.

Cris appeared first, their frame slowly apparating from the steam in the room, looking down on the disheveled Victoria on the ground. Cris was supposed to be her best friend, someone who would always support her, but in this moment, in this scenario there seemed to be nothing but contempt and anger. Cris’ body language alone was enough to give away the fact Victoria had done something. Then the screaming came. Multiple layers of Cris’ voice, all yelling at her for all the stupid decisions and thoughts she had. No one voice able to be understood, whilst at the same time, all understood too clearly.

In the midst of Cris’ rampage, Elias walked up next to them, calm and collected as he began to talk. He stood above Victoria, looking down on her as his voice remained just his own, speaking of the ramifications and consequences Victoria is going to experience because of her poor life decisions. The excessive drinking, the drug abuse, the vaping, the very way she walked and breathed and blinked, all lectures Elias would continue to spill onto her. And would continue to spill onto her. And continue to spill onto her. And continue again until Victoria would question her own intellect and sanity and question her very existence.

Victoria wouldn’t have long to do that, as Michael jogged up next to the other two, laughing and pointing at the freak sitting in the shower. Similar to Cris, his voice filled the room, but worse than just his voice was the laughter. The contagious and overwhelming laughter. Laughter that spread to a new layer of the other two already laying into Victoria, and a sad and pathetic laughter of Victoria being thrown into the mix too, just not originating from her. Over all of the laughing was his jokes, the degrading and ridiculing jokes at Victoria’s expense, mocking her bad luck and the situations she had gotten in.

May slowly walked from the side, not grouped up like the others were. She just stayed to the side and watched Victoria, silently staring and judging Victoria. Watching her as all around in the steam more and more eyes began to appear, all watching Victoria as well, some looking like May’s eyes and some being only slightly familiar or completely foreign to her. Despite all the different gazes her way, they all held the same expression. Pity. Pity in the way one looks upon a dying dog that can’t be helped anymore. A lost cause, not worth the effort it would take to do anything to prolong its fleeting life by a few more days.

And finally Kieran appeared in the center of them all, saying nothing but everything at the same time, disappointment apparent on his face. Disappointment that Victoria could let any of this happen, disappointment in the way her life had turned, in the way she spoke, the way she looked, everything. Despite all the effort she put in to not disappoint him, it’s all she could do, it seemed to be all she was good at doing. And so he stood, his eyes an arrow shooting straight through her as he looked at the others and shook his head. All in a moment, everything stopped. No more eyes, laughter, lectures or anger, and all at once, all five of Victoria’s closest friends left her to rot, the way she imagined herself to deserve.

Finally cold water washing over her snapped her out of her head. An hour had probably passed since she had stepped into the shower, no more hot water in the apartment for now as she finished her shower in somber silence, finally washing up and shaving her face as she finally dried off and looked in the mirror. ‘It’s better than before… still not great though’ she thought to herself as she examined herself in the mirror. Victoria grabbed her towel and quickly dried off her body enough to throw on sweatpants and a hoodie as she grabbed her phone, wallet, and vape and prepared to walk towards the bus stop nearby to wait for her ride to the closest she could get to normal functions.

As she reached to open the door, 5 shadow-like hands reached out and pulled her back, preventing her attempts of leaving. She turned to face them, all standing in a semi-circle around her before completely surrounding her. Each spoke their truths. ‘You forgot to fill them up to begin with, suffer the consequences’ ‘Those medicines repress who you really are. That can’t be healthy’ ‘You need medicine to be fine? What a joke!’ ‘Maybe just a nap will make you feel better instead?’ ‘That won’t fix what you’re already done.’ The voices rang loud, making Victoria grab her head and reach for the doorknob, before finally throwing open the door and running through, slamming it shut behind her as she finally opened her eyes.

Her bedroom. She made it to the bedroom instead. She began to slowly and softly weep again as she fell into her bed, the blankets matching the arms before as she slowly became enveloped in their embrace, crying as she thought one last thought before going to bed. ‘please… just don’t let me wake up this time…’