Emperor of Mayhem

t h i r t y - e i g h t

// T  H  E   B  U  R  I  E  D  T  R  U  T  H  \\

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There were a million dark thoughts running through my head all at once, so uncensored, it felt like my brain would soon shut down trying to analyze the situation.

For what felt like hours I stood under the shower that was gushing out sizzling hot water, scrubbing and scrubbing— I was scrubbing with so much violence I could feel my skin searing with pain. And I wouldn't even be too shocked if it began to peel off. 

But the more I washed off though, the more I could still feel the man's warm blood splashing on my face and body, the more his last agonizing cry would still ring in my ears, and the more I could still see his dead and empty eyes looking directly at me, as if even in death, he was accusing me. 

Yet I still found it all too hard to believe that indeed, I just witnessed a murder. One moment I was having fun exploring an app and the next thing, I was watching someone's life being taken like it meant nothing. 

And knowing I had been living with the man that committed such a heinous crime, scared me too. Made me feel so much overwhelming guilt that I couldn't explain.

I wanted to run—far. 

I wanted to disappear.

But how? And even if I did make it out of here alive, where would I go? Who did I know? He was all I had at the moment. All I could turn to still. I was nobody without him. And that reality made me even more sick.

I was afraid of who he turned out to be.

A monster.

But there was no time to start doubting all he ever said to me and all the good things he ever did for me. There was no room for that. Because the more I wondered if he was ever honest with me, the more I would get scared, and the more I would want to run.

The more I would be heavy-ladened. The more the bitterness would come to sit in my gut. Because I wouldn't be able to run away from him.

"Come on, baby that's enough." I heard his frustrated voice through the running shower.

He was just behind the glass entrance of the shower. He had been standing there since I ran out of the room after gathering my sanity and jumping straight into the shower, thinking a good scrub would rid me of not just the blood, but the memories too.

"You're gonna catch a cold at this rate, love." I heard him sigh tiredly, "Please come outside, will you?"

I didn't answer. His voice was annoying me even more. So I only continued scouring, quite angrily if I must confess, hot tears mixing with the water cascading down my face. And I didn't know if the salty taste on my tongue was the tears that got into my mouth or the lather from the bathing soap that was washing down my face.

But I didn't care.

I just wanted to disappear.

Then suddenly, I heard the glass door slide open quite violently but I didn't make any attempt to acknowledge the unwanted intruder as I continued washing up. The heat from the shower aside, I felt the one from his body the most when he stepped over the water pooling around the floor to reach for me.