Through Glass(26)

Not only did I stink, but water was just as vital to life as food.

I waited for the bell to stop before I continued my quest up the stairs. The loud banging and hissing echoing through the house as water began to fill the pipes.

I walked as quickly as I could into my bedroom and grabbed the two small laundry baskets I kept by the door; one full of dirty clothes, the other full of empty water bottles. I grabbed them firmly by the filthy rims and turned right around to drag them to the musty bathroom at the top of the stairs.

I left the door to the bathroom open, hoping to let some light into the already dark space, even though there wasn’t any light to filter in. It didn’t matter, I had become so used to the dark I could practically see through it now anyway. I was like those fish that lived in caves. For all I knew, my skin had turned translucent as well.

I pulled the laundry baskets into the bathroom before turning on the water all the way. The old, mildewed shower head groaned and gasped as the water made its way up the pipes. The clatter jolted through me and I jumped; it was the loudest sound I had heard in a while and it sounded like a firecracker in my ears.

My heart struck wildly in my chest at the noise, my pulse quickening in fear. I knew they wouldn’t come, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I waited, wasting precious minutes with the water, until I knew I was safe.

I stripped down to my underwear quickly and threw my clothes into the bathtub, flinging the ones in the laundry basket in after them before I stepped in, my hands moving to unweave the dirty braid I always kept my red hair in. Even though, thanks to the dark and the gross soap, I don’t think my hair was red anymore; more like a dark auburn. Anne Shirley would be proud. Of course, she didn’t have to live in post-apocalyptic hell for hers to darken.

I cringed as the water hit my bare back, hating the frigid temperature, though loving the feel of water against my skin and the clean that would come after. When I first started having to bathe this way, it always made me think of that “Forefathers” stuff they throw at you in school.

Pioneers trekking across plains, paying for water, hunting, wars over liberty and freedom. That’s what I thought it would be at first. Wars until everything got better. People standing up to the monsters.

Yet, even when people had stood up against them, they were squashed down quickly. I had listened to the first battle in the dark and for almost a year after that I would watch from my window as others would try again.

Old men, lonely and crazed, would rush out of their house while wielding handmade weapons and screaming for freedom. Depressed mothers, trying to get their children to a safety that no one knew existed. Small armies wandering through the streets only to be picked off one by one as the car they traveled in was torn to shreds.

I still held out hope that someone was still trying, somewhere, but with only primitive weapons and instant death waiting, there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t dumb enough to run out into the street and expect to defeat them. At the very least, I would like a little hot water, however.

I grabbed the bright yellow bar of soap and ran it over my skin and through my hair as I jumped and hissed at the ice water that ran over me. One quick run over with soap and I moved to my clothes lathering and squeezing and wringing in an attempt to get them at least partially clean.

I wasn’t sure I had gotten them all, but it was better than nothing. The water continued to hit my skin as I grabbed the water bottles, filling them one after another before the water could shut off. It had already been at least ten minutes, most of that wasted waiting for a screech and I didn’t have much time. The water would shut off any minute and then I wouldn’t have enough water for drinking.

I had learned that lesson the hard way. Taking a twenty minute cold shower wasn’t the best idea and having no water was even sillier. Filling water bottle was now a priority. I hadn’t gotten to the point of filling water bottles at first the way Cohen did; I wanted to feel clean at least a little bit. Even if I was eating mold I still wanted a shower and clean clothes, probably more so after the mold thing.

I reached for the last three bottles and began filling them, my pace increasing as I heard the bell in the distance. My time was gone. Even though I had more than ten filled, I would need every last one. I set two down and focused on the bottle in my hand, my pulse increasing as I moved faster with my desperation to get the last of them before the water would shut off.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I hissed and shook the water bottle underneath the shower of water, as if the movement would help them to fill faster.

The last bottle was almost full when the strength in my hand gave out and the water bottle slipped from my grasp, shooting itself through the air and toward the toilet. I flailed as it sped away from me; my arm shooting out to grab it, swinging through the air. I had almost caught the bottle when my feet got tangled in the clothes piled at my feet. They held me in place and I lost my balance, falling sideways out of the shower as gravity pulled me down.

I kept the screech of fear locked in my chest as I fell, my hands fumbling through the air in an attempt to stop me as I searched for something to grab onto. I reached for the porcelain of the toilet, my hands clawing at the slick surface in a frantic search for friction, but found nothing. My already wet hands slipped against the saturated surface and I continued down, the edge of my eye ramming right into the hard corner of the sink.

The scream was out before I could stop it. The pain in my head too deep for me to be able to restrain it. My hands reached toward my head as the searing pain radiated, burning through my eye and right to the back of my skull. I tried to put pressure on it to take the agony away, but it only grew the harder I pressed into my head. The pain surged into a throb of fire that shot through me. My teeth clamped against my tongue, my lips pursing in a desperate attempt to cover my mouth enough to keep the scream inside. It didn’t work. Pain continued to pulse through me and everything kept coming.