Matchbox

XIII. Mother's Cut

Thirteen. Mother's Cut

           This is a Mother's Cut.

   Its the drowning. This is near death taste. Cut limbs. Sliced heart. Heavy breathing. Filled lungs. Spurs of coughs. She's flying down the stairs, nearly missing the last two steps. She almost sprains an ankle. The yells and slams of glass echo the house, Vera shakes as she reaches the first floor. Hands to her ears as she yells, she cries.

   What does she do now?

  She's soaked. Clothes stuck to skin. Hair plastered like wet paint. It paints her, entirely. She still can't fucking breathe. The yells get louder. Diane gets angrier. Diane is coming to get her. There is a cut on her hairline. She runs, she runs out the house into the street. She leaves the front door open. She still doesn't know where to go.

Now, Vera doesn't remember where she went the night her mother tried to drown her in the tub nearly two years ago because she was that drunk. And Vera looks too much like Blue Stonem. What Vera does know is that throwing herself into Poseidon's home and following after a teenage boy does trigger her mind and those locked memories. She nearly locks up as she slips through the barrier of normal to insane.

It's gross. Skin coated in a gooey substance and mixed with the tears and death of Lovers Lake.

  She's coughing religiously. It won't stop. Her vision is blurry and she feels sick to the first layer of her bones. "S-Steve!" It doesn't come out as loud as she'd want it too. The floor under her is grey and ashy, it burns her knees from the drop. A hand claws at her chest, leaving red welts and she pushes herself up, wobbling a little. "Steve!"

   She has to squint to look around. It's like ear singling in on one noise only, because suddenly she can hear the noises that echo the shady area. The yells of a boy you love, makes you choke on black ichor.

  From behind her she hears a gasp that emerges into the insane, Nancy.

  Vera's eyes single in on an boat oar, it's aged but her hands grab and she runs. She can spot Steve's form, and he looks like he's a gods dinner. A bunch of power hungry gods bearing down on a boy who is scared to open his eyes most mornings of the week.