four. the yellow wallpaper

four˚༺⋆♱⋆༻˚↳ the yellow wallpaper ↲

WHATEVER THIS PIECE OF GLASS REFLECTED, wasn't me. Last time I had taken a good look in the mirror, I was pure - innocent. My features were softer, instead of the frightening sharper edges now present of my facial structure. Now, my body was riddled in cuts, bruises, and burns. My dark hair was much longer, and my natural waves had turned into a mess of curls and knots. The only thing that remained of my past self was my darkened green eyes, and simple way that the light bounced off of them.

I foolishly tried to twist the knob on the sink, before realizing it was a stupid wish. I hadn't been able to get my hands on water in weeks, maybe even months.

I wanted so badly to wash away the sins of my skin; the blood that ran along my palms, sliding into each line embedded in my hand. The only thing that distracted me from this mess was the ring placed on my middle finger. It was a dove—a symbol meant to represent the third person of the trinity—the Holy Spirit. It was a reminder of the divine presence, one I no longer believed to exist amongst us.

But I couldn't remove it.

Even if it was no longer, or never, true.

I pushed myself off of the porcelain sink, making my way into the hallway, towards the chaotic room again. My hand momentarily rested on the doorknob as I listened to the sound of the boy entering the house again. I slightly grinned at the thought of what I had done—locking him on the roof—as I closed myself into the room. The yellow walls had began glowing due to the fading golden light from the sky.

It was not a beautiful glow. It was fading with the warm Georgian light, the repellant nature of the color causing repulsion within my hungered stomach.

Pulling the unmade covers back, I sat on the simple sheets, pulling my worn red boots from my calloused feet and tossing them near the wooden dresser. I looked to the achilles of my foot, running a finger over the many blisters I had gained from not owning a pair of socks. The dry, irritated skin burned to the touch, making me bring my foot back down to the ground as I reached for the boots again, slipping my feet into the small shoes.

These cowboy boots had been my protection, day and night. They left me feeling unexposed, and safe in more ways then one. The very soles I currently wore had carried me across gravel, dirt, blood, and pain.

It felt almost scary to take them off now.

I finally fell back onto the bed, staring at the empty walls as the remaining light slowly burnt away into a void of darkness, my eyes growing heavy as I studied each bump plastered into the ceiling. I attempted to fight off the hunger my body held for sleep, but it was one battle I could never win.

T H E N

"Mom?" My sister Allie's frightened voice questioned.

Her lip was quivering, eyes rimmed with glistening tears as she eyed our maker. Our mother had been bed ridden for days after a rusted nail had found itself lodged in her foot while on the run from the dead. The second it happened, the warmth had left her face. She explained she'd never been vaccinated as a child, and this small injury was extremely dangerous for her.

Days after, the painful muscle contractions began. Her face became stiff, and she experienced seizure-like spasms throughout her body. She had been in so much pain, and our father only turned a blind-eye to the matter, telling us she would be fine in a couple days after the infection passed. However, it was only seeming to become more intense as the hours went on.

That was—until now. She was standing on both feet as if none of it had ever occurred, turnt toward the bedroom window of the house we were forced to hold up in so that she could rest. A soft breathing emitted from her, and although she was turned away, she looked peaceful for the first time since the accident.

"Thank god, mom," I stepped forward, reaching out for her. "I thought—"

Our mother turned. Any ounce of hope I'd held onto, snuffed out like pinched fingers against the wick of a candle. She wasn't the same. Yes, she didn't look to be in pain anymore—but her face appeared incapable of emotion. Her skin was pale and lifeless, eyes drained of the color we'd both shared. Instead, orbs clouded over with milky-white stared back at me.

Before I could begin to process, she lurched forward. I forcefully shoved Allie away from her, twisting to get us both out of the room before she hurt us. I was successful in getting my little sister out of her reach, but I wasn't so lucky.

My mom. The woman who had brought me into this world, was trying with everything she had to take me out. As I struggled against her, I thought of my adolescence. Her soft, warm hands. The smile that only my sister and I witnessed—one that was hidden from my father. Her gentle voice, and her constant unfaltering regret of the man she'd married at such a young age.

The last thing she'd said to me as I was applying a wet cloth to her feverish head hours ago was, "My girl; you're better than I ever was. Stay that way. Don't give your love to someone who does not deserve it."

Although she was burning up and appeared to be experiencing delirium, I knew she spoke these words with her heart. She was typically quiet and closed off, unable to speak about hardships with her husband. In that bed, she was finally speaking about it for the first time, telling me to never make her same mistake—to never let a man do to me, what our father did to her and us.

Now, she was gone. Dead. There was nothing left of her but this terrible carcass.

"Mom, stop it!" Allie cried out.

Sobs harshly clawed at my throat as I fought against her tight grip. She had grabbed me close, my back against her stomach as she leaned her head down into the gap where my shoulder met my neck. She wanted to rip me apart.

"It's not mom, Allie." I hollered, managing to put a step between us despite her grip.

My baby sister's face was stained with gleaming sadness. Ones that made way down her neck, wetting her shirt. I wanted to hold her and tell her it would be okay, but it wouldn't. Nothing would ever be okay. It was only going to get worse.

"You know what you need to do!" I shouted, my voice raising. "It's not her, she's gone. Do it!"

Allie brought up my gun in her hands, adjusting it and squinting to aim just like I'd taught her. She was seven, and had never even hurt a fly. She was pure, too pure for this kind of world. The kind of child who became squeamish after learning their food came from an animal — and now she was pointing a weapon in my mother's face.

With a small amount of hesitation, her small finger wrapped around the trigger, shoulders rolling backward as a deafening boom rang through the house. The figure of our mother dropped with a thud behind me, finally setting me free.

The first thing I caught sight on when I turned around, was the blood. The ruby-colored liquidy DNA we also possessed was now coating the ground, slowly spreading outward.

It was silent for a good while, until the gun in Allie's hand slid against the sweat in her palms, and clattered to the floor. Her breaths became short and panicked, her legs giving out on her small body as she began sobbing painfully.

I knelt down to her level, my knees digging into the floor as my hands reached for the sides of her face. I lifted her gaze to mine, my thumbs caressing her damp skin and wiping away the tears.

"Breathe, Al. Breathe," I told her, exhaling out with force so that she would follow my lead.

Being an older sister meant fixing your younger siblings problems before addressing your own. That was the epitome of sisterhood. Holding gauze to their wounds while you bled out onto the floor. I had pushed her out of the way of our reanimated Mom in hopes that she would take me instead.

Allie couldn't calm herself down. Her breathing took minutes to even out, and when it did, she only cried harder.

I simply held her, sitting in front of the mess so that she wouldn't have to look at mom's lifeless figure.

When she fought to bring air out of her lungs, I said softly, "It's okay. You had to."

There were no words that could possibly make things better. She'd just shot down the woman who gave birth to us.

She nodded, eyes glistening over, before whispering, "What will happen when Dad gets back?"

I was left without a single word of comfort.

N O W

I woke from my nightmare almost as suddenly as I'd woken from Carls shouting last morning. Though, unlike then, the dream sat heavy on my chest now. I remembered this nightmare not because it had been fabricated in my mind, but because the events that took place in my sleep, truly did occur months and months ago.

Sometimes, when there was nothing scarier to dream about, my brain chose a memory. Tonight, it had decided making me relive my mother's death was good enough. It was cruel—not leaving out a single detail. It perfectly replicated the setting, smells, and exact internal feelings. Not even the color of her blood was altered. It was lucid and unchanging each time it plagued my sleep.

I sat up and tried to focus on the surroundings of the dark room. Squinting, I looked to the paintings, and decor. I missed the hideous yellow walls now. Desperately running my fingers through my knotted hair, I took many struggled breaths before leaving my bed and coming to a stand.

This was why I hated sleeping, despite the obvious reason of unrest. No dream of mine was ever good. When I closed my eyes each night, I either prepared for a terrible reenactment of the past, or a haunting false reality.

I blinked a few times, adjusting to the darkness as I left my room, quietly making my way downstairs. I immediately saw Carl hunched against the sofa, sitting next to his dad. He was asleep, peacefully relaxed in the moment. It was the first time I'd ever seen him looking so calm, and put together. He didn't look angry, or even remotely pissed off. It made me wonder what he would look like awake, so calm.

Asleep, that was, until I stepped onto an unusually squeaky floorboard.

His head jolted forward, looking straight to me.The two of us only exchanged a quick glance before he angrily away looked at the wall, and I took a seat in the kitchen, grabbing the box of dried cereal.

I could honestly understand why he might want to glare at me. I did lock him on a roof, forcing him to get down God knows how. Who knows if he was forced to re-hash it with the walker locked in the room with the only open window, or if he opted on taking a tumble off the roof somehow.

As I slowly crunched on the stale flakes, I brought my feet onto the chair, my knees coming to my chest. I was suddenly missing the windows at the other house, as it was dark now, and the kitchen laid scarcely quiet. I wasn't afraid of the dark, I was only scared of where my mind could take me in those late hours.

Right now, I was in a flurry of emotions, my hyperactive brain making me constantly relive the moments I had previously dreamed of. The sound of the gunshot, burning my eardrums. The way blood spread on the hardwood, leaving the whole house to smell like metal for days on end.

It broke me twice over, as my father had come back from a run, to this. The next thing I could remember from the traumatic blur, was sporting a black and blue throbbing shiner, and his words circling in my head, 'You don't get to cry. That was my wife.'

I hadn't been able to make tears since then. He'd always reiterated that sadness was only weakness proposed by the devil, and not an option for his children, 'if he had any say in the matter'. I never should have accepted these words, though. If I hadn't, perhaps I'd be able to cry at this table, and forget all about the sadness by the time the sun rose.

It was locked inside of me with no escape. I felt it everywhere, all at once. It drove me to the point of insanity. I wanted to tear myself open, collect it, and banish it from my body.

"Dad?" A voice sobbed.

My dark thoughts stopped, and I turned my head to look into the living room. Carl was sitting against an opposite facing couch from his Dad. A deep, constricted breathing was echoing from Rick's chest. His lungs almost seemed to rattle in the vibration of his breath. It was too dark to make him out, but I knew the reality of this situation.

He was dead, just like the rest.

Great. I had just been consumed by a terrible nightmare of my own mother's death, and now I was forced to watch a second parent die when I woke. It all seemed like one cosmic joke.

The stars were laughing, the moon was smiling.

I pushed off the chair, feeling for my knife. The metal blade let off a small screech as I unsheathed it. Rick's body was now limply sliding off the cushioned sofa, thudding as his frame made contact with the ground.

I thought the boy would put up a fight—but he did something of the opposite. He put his head down. He'd given up. He was admitting to his father, and to me, that he truly couldn't make it on his own. And despite what my father had told me for years on end. . . Carl didn't look weak. He just appeared broken. There was nothing fragile about it.

As his unraised gun shook in his hands, I hurried closer and heard the almost-silent sobs escaping his throat. Rick outstretched a hand toward his son, and I realized Carl wasn't going to do it.

Carl's face brought me back to my own sisters when she was pointing the barrel of my weapon at my Mom. The contemplation—the misery—and the premature mourning like he knew how much pain this would bring him.

"I cant." He finally spoke out, moving onto his feet so that he could put distance between him and this new version of his father.

Rick was crawling forward slow enough that I was able to reply, "It's okay. You have to."

"It's not okay!" He yelled, strands of sweaty hair clinging to his structured face. "They're all dead. Everyone I care about."

Moonlight poured through the half-closed curtains, casting dark shadows on his features. He'd looked so peaceful in his slumber. By now, all softness from his expression had been wiped clean. He was void of all light.

I walked closer to the shell of what used to be Rick, stepping between them. I brought the tip of my knife near his skull, my other hand forcing his weak head down.

I looked to Carl once more. "It should be you."

Something finally clicked in his head. It was either from my persistence, or the way he watched the tip of my blade hover over Rick. We connected eyes for only a second, then he finally raised his pistol.

He pointed it in a swift motion to Ricks head. He was deciding to cling to life. The slight tilt of his head as he eyed his father told me, 'I can live through this', and I knew it was the truth. With that, I backed away and watched his finger hover the trigger.

This sent my heart pounding, resulting me to close my eyes, and wait for the boom.

· • —– ٠ ✤ ٠ —– • ·2,907 words.

hey! introduce yourself here, if you'd like! (this is a newly edited a/n, hence the no comments), please enlighten me!!

edit: this original chapter was almost 2,500 words less and for some reason EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER thought that Allie had shot herself when she dropped the gun. . . i was so bad at making things clear.

sincerely yours,𝓜 ᥫ᭡.