Welcome to Gaia! ::

I stood outside the door much longer than I had intended, but the thought of stepping into the kitchen, knowing what I was going to find even though there was really no way that I should know. But I did. When it came to things like this, I always did.

I swallowed hard and slowly nudged the door open, and nearly reeled backwards in disgust, shock, anger, all of the above. The once cheery yellow wallpapers had become tinged with a coating of blood. Everywhere. It was ******** everywhere. Where the blood came from, I didn’t want to know, and there was no way I was ever going to attempt to figure it out. That was something that I would let lie forever if I was able. What I did want to know, however, was where she had wandered off to after painting the kitchen in blood.

I moved further into the kitchen, holding my hand over my mouth and nose. I sure as hell didn’t want to breathe in this…this…carnage.

I scanned the room, noting with revulsion what had become of the table, the counters, the refrigerator, the stove, the sink -- my god, the sink. It was literally filled with blood, the heady-scented liquid, spilling over the edges and onto the floor where it pooled generously on the tiles.

I closed my eyes, wincing at the state of everything and knowing, despite my best efforts to ignore it, that all this blood had come from something. There was also the possibility that it was human blood, but that thought was far too much for me to handle.

Opening my eyes, I stepped around the island counter and found her. She had her back to the counter, her knees drawn up tightly to her chest, her hands lying limply beside her. She didn’t look at me as I knelt in front of her. Really, she wasn’t looking at anything. I could tell that she wasn’t aware of a single thing going on around her at the moment.

I touched her arm and slowly, ever so slowly, her gaze shifted to me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, just looked at me, her eyes contrasted against the splashes of blood on her face.

“Are you okay?” I asked again.

She looked down at her knees, and then at the red-stained walls, the blood filled sink, the thickening pool on the floor. She closed her eyes for a moment, holding a hand to her chest. When she looked at me again, the confusion and uncertainty was gone, and in her eyes I saw mockery and derision.

She smiled at me. “Of course, I’m okay. Never better.”

She stood up and without a second glance at the destruction that had befallen the kitchen, she left the room. I rose, and unlike her, cast a final look around the place, knowing that soon, the blood would be all cleaned up and the kitchen would be back to looking like its cheery self and no one would be the wiser.