Chapter Thirty-Two: Thursday Night — Sweet Dreams, Rotting Flowers
467 Words
The house creaked around her, swollen with heat and the stink of old sickness.
Leia lay curled on the couch, a thin sheet tangled around her bare legs.
The TV flickered silently in the corner, forgotten.
The walls pulsed in and out of focus.
Shadows moved where there were no people.
Whispers threaded through the air vents, laughing.
She tried to sit up — tried to call out — but her voice cracked and died in her throat.
The room swam.
The walls breathed.
The floor flexed like a living thing.
---
She squeezed her eyes shut, trembling.
When she opened them again —
there was someone standing at the end of the hallway.
A tall, dark figure.
No face.
No features.
Just watching her.
Waiting.
Leia whimpered, dragging herself farther back into the couch cushions, but the figure didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
Just stood there.
---
She must have blacked out.
Because the next thing she knew — the front door slammed.
Owen’s heavy footsteps thudded through the house, sharp and jarring.
Leia blinked up at him, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
"Owen," she rasped, reaching a trembling hand toward him.
He didn’t come to her.
Didn’t even look worried.
Just disappeared out the back door without a word.
---
She drifted in and out of fever dreams.
At one point she was sure the house was sinking into the ground.
Another time she saw Chloe sitting at the edge of the couch, crying silently.
But when she reached for her, there was only empty air.
And then —
flowers.
Bright, vivid purple flowers.
Piled around her feet.
Tucked into her hair.
Stuffed into her mouth, choking her.
She woke gasping, clutching at her throat.
There was nothing there.
Nothing but her own cracked breathing.
---
Sometime later, Owen came back inside.
He was humming to himself.
A low, tuneless sound that scraped against her raw nerves.
She watched through heavy-lidded eyes as he moved around the kitchen.
Something crinkled.
Something clattered.
And then he appeared at her side — smirking like he’d just done something noble.
---
In his hands:
A sloppy, uneven bouquet.
Purple flowers.
Lots of them.
Big, sagging blooms mixed with snapped stems and crushed leaves.
It looked like something a kid would shove into a Dixie cup for a kindergarten Mother's Day.
Owen plopped the sad little mess into a glass vase.
Set it on the nightstand beside her bed.
---
"There," he said lightly, ruffling her damp hair like she was a dog.
"Thought you’d like something pretty."
Leia blinked up at him, too weak to speak.
Too far gone to scream.
The flowers leaned drunkenly in the vase — already wilting under the heat.
Already rotting.
Owen kissed her forehead absently.
Turned off the main light.
- Writer
