4338.214.6 | Exposed

My head spun, a chaotic whirlpool of dread and confusion, as I fumbled with the front door. My fingers, numb and trembling, slipped over the cold metal of the lock, the simple act of turning the key suddenly an insurmountable task. When the door finally swung open, I stumbled inside, the familiar hallway yawning before me like a distorted funhouse, the shadows stretching and twisting into grotesque forms.

I clung to the walls, their cold, unyielding surface my only anchor in a sea of turmoil. Each step forward felt like trudging through quicksand, the weight of my fear dragging me down. The house, once a sanctuary, now felt foreign and menacing, every creak of the floorboards and rustle of the wind outside amplified into a deafening roar in my mind.

At the base of the stairs, I stopped, gasping for air as though I'd run a marathon. My chest heaved under the vice grip of fear, the memory of blood and black fur flashing in my mind like a macabre strobe light. Each vivid image punched through my defences, leaving me reeling and breathless.

The stairs loomed above me, an impossible ascent. Summoning what little strength I had left, I forced myself to take the first step, then the second, each one a Herculean effort. By the time I reached the third, my legs felt like jelly, and my vision swam with the effort. "One more," I whispered to myself, a mantra of desperation.

As I reached the fifth step, my foot slipped, and the world tilted dangerously. My body slammed into the wall, the impact jolting through me with a searing pain that radiated up my spine. The sharp sting forced a guttural cry from my lips, but I had no strength left to do more than slump against the wall.

A rancid burn clawed its way up my throat, the bile a cruel reminder of my body's rebellion against the night's horrors. Gagging, I clutched at my neck as though I could somehow expel the sensation, but it was futile. The first wave of vomit came violently, a hot, acidic eruption that splattered onto the stairs in front of me.

The smell—acrid and sour—clung to me like a shroud, curling around my senses and making me gag again. My shirt was soaked, the fabric plastered to my skin with the remnants of my humiliation. My body convulsed with each retch, a betrayal of my attempts to maintain control.

When the spasms finally subsided, leaving me weak and trembling, I wiped my face with the back of my hand. The sticky residue was a grim reminder of how far I’d fallen, both physically and emotionally. A wave of disgust surged through me as I felt the bile-soaked fabric against my skin. With a surge of revulsion, I yanked the shirt off, its clammy embrace replaced by the icy bite of the air against my bare skin. I flung it down the stairs, watching it tumble away as if I could cast off the terror and shame along with it.

"You have to keep moving," I whispered, my voice hoarse and trembling. The command was a fragile lifeline, a desperate attempt to push myself forward. Each step up was a war against my own failing strength, my limbs leaden and uncooperative. The distance to the top of the stairs, no more than a few feet, felt like miles.

When I finally reached the landing, I collapsed onto it, my body shaking with exhaustion. The air burned in my lungs, each breath a painful reminder of the events I had endured. I pressed my forehead against the cool surface of the floor, letting its solidity ground me for a moment.

But even as I lay there, my mind refused to quiet. The horror of the night, the blood, the growl, the man’s desperate plea—it all clawed at me, demanding to be acknowledged. I closed my eyes tightly, as if I could will the images away, but they were etched too deeply, branded onto my soul.

Somewhere deep within me, the flicker of resolve burned on. I had survived the house. I had made it back. But survival was not enough. I needed answers. I needed Nial. With a shaky inhale, I pushed myself up, my limbs protesting with every movement.

Dragging myself into the bedroom, the sanctuary I sought felt warped, its comforting familiarity twisted into something unrecognisable and unsettling. The bed, the wardrobe, the little trinkets that once held the warmth of routine now seemed stark and accusatory, as if they bore silent witness to the wreckage of my composure. My body betrayed me, trembling uncontrollably, a tremor coursing through my veins like an unrelenting current, eroding the fragile dam of self-control I had been clinging to.

My mind raced ahead, untethered, thoughts colliding and fracturing into chaotic shards that offered neither solace nor clarity. A desperate attempt to anchor myself—to still the frantic, pounding drumbeat of fear within—yielded nothing. Each breath I took seemed shallow and inadequate, as though the very air had become insubstantial, slipping through my lungs in cruel defiance.

With a frantic need to escape the weight pressing down on me, I began tearing at the clothes still clinging to my body. Each discarded garment felt like shedding a layer of dread, yet beneath the fabric, the clammy grip of fear remained. The chill of the room prickled my exposed skin, a sharp contrast to the feverish chaos swirling inside me.

I stumbled into the en suite, the glass door of the shower clicking shut behind me with a sound that felt too loud, too final. The moment the water began to cascade over me, warm and soothing, I let out a shuddering breath that I hadn't realised I'd been holding. The water wrapped around me, a small mercy against the raw edges of my turmoil, rinsing away the grime, the sweat, the sour remnants of my stomach's revolt. Yet, as it ran in rivulets down my body, it became painfully clear that no stream, however pure, could cleanse the deeper stains left by the night’s horrors.

I slid to my knees, the hard tiles of the shower floor meeting me with a cold, unyielding certainty that reverberated up my bones. My arms curled instinctively around my torso, as if the act could hold together the fracturing pieces of myself. It was there, in the solitude of the water’s embrace, that the tears finally came.

They spilled freely, mingling with the spray, indistinguishable to the eye but heavier in their purpose. Each sob that escaped me was raw and unrestrained, a torrent that matched the water pouring down from above. "I'm sorry," I whispered, the words choked and fragmented, carried on the breath of my despair. "So sorry, Nial."

His name was an anchor and a torment, a tether to a love that felt increasingly fragile in the face of the unknown. My voice cracked, dissolving into silence as I imagined him—his face, his voice, his presence that was so glaringly absent. My husband is missing. The words surfaced in my mind, stark and unvarnished, a truth that refused to be suppressed. Each repetition hammered the thought deeper into my consciousness, the reality of his absence sharpening with every beat of my heart.

The uncertainty was an insidious predator, its claws digging into the edges of my resolve. Was he safe? Was he hurt? Was he... gone? The questions swirled like a maelstrom, each possibility a blade that carved deeper into the raw ache of my heart. I gasped for air as the enormity of it all pressed down on me—the helplessness, the unyielding void where certainty should have been.

I thought of Sammy, his innocence a fragile thing I had promised to protect. How could I shield him from the storm when I was drowning in it myself? The weight of my failure felt suffocating, the guilt mingling with the grief and fear that churned within me.

The warm water continued, the passage of time marked only by the strengthening heat against my skin. Still, I remained where I was, my head bowed, the water drumming a relentless rhythm against my back. My sobs had quieted to a steady stream of tears, the pain no less profound but the storm within momentarily stilled.

I closed my eyes, clinging to the memory of Nial’s voice, his laugh, the way his arms had always felt like home. "I’ll find you," I whispered, the vow trembling on my lips like a fragile flame against the gale of my despair. "Whatever it takes, I’ll find you."

Faint footsteps entering the bathroom snapped my head up, a sudden jolt of alertness piercing through the fog of my despair. "Nial?" I dared to voice the hope, a fragile whisper carrying the weight of my longing and fear. It was a question, a plea, a prayer all rolled into one, sent out into the void with the last flicker of hope I harboured in my heart.

My eyes widened in terror as the reality before me unfolded, a stark contradiction to the reunion I had envisioned in my mind. My mouth moved to speak, an instinctive reaction to call out, to question, to demand explanations, but no words would form. My voice, like my hope, had deserted me, leaving me in a silent scream of confusion and dread.

Paralysed, I watched in bewilderment as the silky bathrobe slunk from Serena's body and fell to the bathroom floor with a soft whisper, a sound incongruously gentle in the maelstrom of my emotions. The fabric pooled at her feet, a discarded shell that seemed to mark the boundary between normality and the surreal scenario unfolding before me.

Wild shaking wracked my entire body, an uncontrollable tremor that echoed the chaos swirling within. It was as if the cold tiles beneath me had seeped into my bones, filling me with a chill that no warmth could dispel. The glass door squeaked open, a sound now eternally etched into the soundtrack of my nightmare, as Serena stepped into the shower. The intrusion of her presence into this last bastion of solitude shattered the fragile veneer of composure I had clung to.

Sinking to the floor beside me, Serena wrapped her arms around me. Her touch, meant to comfort, felt torturous and intrusive, a physical manifestation of the surreal turn my life had taken. "Everything will be okay," Serena whispered in my ear, her words a stark contrast to the maelstrom of panic and fear that raged within me. They were words meant to soothe, to reassure, but they landed like stones in the pit of my stomach, their assurance hollow in the face of my terror.

Sheer panic gripped me at the unfolding scene, a visceral reaction that seized my heart and squeezed until I thought it might burst. My throat was dry, a barren landscape where not even a whisper of comfort could take root. My heart thumped in my chest, a frenetic drumbeat that underscored my fear, each beat a reminder of the precarious thread by which my sanity hung. My head pounded, a relentless pressure that mirrored my tumultuous thoughts, a cacophony of fear, confusion, and disbelief that swirled in a dark dance.

My vision blurred as I gasped for the air that refused to oblige, each breath a battle in itself, fought in the shadow of the overwhelming presence that now shared this most intimate of spaces. The world seemed to contract to the point of suffocation, the walls of the shower a transparent barrier that nonetheless felt as impenetrable as steel, trapping me within this nightmare from which there was no awakening.