The Floods

We had a huge flood in my state a few months ago, and this is what I came up with. I struggle with depression, and this is kinda a mash up of that and time warp.

It's raining, hasn't stopped for days. Sitting here, waiting for the bus, another hour and a half with only music and one last cigarette to keep my sanity from drowning in this flood. Everything is cold, from my soaked converse to my dripping black hair. I can't stop shivering and my whole body has broken out in goose-flesh. A car speeds by and a wave of water cascades down on me, putting out my cigarette. With a sigh, I flick it onto the road and watch it float down the flooded pavement. I sit down, since I'm soaked anyways I might as well, and wait for the bus to come. It's past midnight, so needless to say it's an hour late.

I might as well have brought shampoo and saved time taking a shower, I think as the bus finally arrives. The driver is a chubby man with a desperate need for a shave. He takes my soggy money and closes the doors. The brakes are squeaky and pound my headache farther forward into my head. It takes a long time to get to my apartment duplex, and by the time I'm home it's two o'clock. Since I'm on the top floor, the roof is leaking. Trying to step around the buckets I placed five days ago when the rain started, I misstep trying to flip the light switch on and go tumbling onto the floor, spilling water everywhere. I don't really care though, because everything else is wet as well. I don't get up but I take my wet clothes off and wrap myself in a towel and fall asleep.

I wake up around ten o'clock the next day, and get up to look out the window. The sky is grey and the clouds going over the city are endless. The roads are rivers and the news show that it's a statewide sick day. No one can get to work and no one would want to anyways. Walking to my bedroom, I mind the buckets better and open my large dresser. Everything inside are either men's XL sweat pants or skinny jeans, with the choice of a band shirt or a tank top. I decide to put on a black tank and sweats and look at myself in the mirror to see the results. Black eyes starring at me, with horrible curves and scars lining my arms. The result of a lonely childhood results in a very lonely adulthood when no one wants to talk to you because people classify you as "unstable". My mood ring on my fingers are black, showing it's cold inside. Looking down at them, I wonder why they're black when it doesn't feel cold in here. My phone's lying on the floor, and I tap the home button with my big toe. Big surprise, no one has called me. Mother pretty much disowned me when I dropped out of high school and moved in with my boyfriend. It's been four years and I haven't heard of anything from her since Christmas two years ago. No one from my past remembers a girl with scars, because no one gave a s**t. All the kids cared about was being pretty, and popular. Looking at myself in the mirror, I've never really thought of myself as ugly, but never really pretty either. Just, sort of, there. Any friends I ever tried to keep contact with stopped calling me and quit stopping by a few years ago. I don't mind though, less to worry about I suppose. I used to have a cat, but when my last apartment got broken into, it got out and never came back. When Zane, my boyfriend, died in the motorcycle accident all of his friends stopped talking to me. They blamed me for the accident, saying I should've kept my scars a secret better so he wouldn't have gotten angry and went on a ride. A fast, but short ride.

There is a knock on the door and I jump and end up tipping another bucket over onto a pile of dirty clothes. Sighing deeply, I open it, and am not pleased.

"You're past due on rent, miss." He reaches out and hands me a notice paper. He reeks of alcohol and cheap aftershave. Closing the door quickly, I deadbolt it and turn the lock on the door handle. You'd think after having my apartment broken into three times in the last year, I wouldn't forget to lock the door. I quickly empty out the water from the buckets into the sink and replace the two I knocked over. 

I sit down and turn on the television, hoping my channels don't get messed up from the storm. I switch through to whole twelve channels I have and settle for the only one that isn't glitching every twenty seconds. Not surprised, the only story they're covering is the flood. We've made national news, with rivers taking out people's houses and rain making almost every roof in town leak. Five days it's been raining, and not simple drizzle, hard, fast rain. In the corner of my eye I notice a shadow and swing around. Nothing is behind me and I figure the draft from the heater moved something. I try to get the window up but it;s stuck. There's some black stuff between the window sill and the frame. I poke it test if it's hard or not and it burns me. I whip my hand back and stick it in my mouth to dull the pain but realize there's more of the black stuff on the wall. I don't remember it being on the wall this morning and try to keep myself calm. That immediately fails when black tentacle like vines start creeping over my hand that was resting on the wall. I shriek and try to get it off but it continues to burn me and sticks on my hand very well. I start to shake and watch as my hand absorbs the black goo. I scratch at is as hard as I can but it doesn't help. I run to the kitchen to get a knife, thinking I can shave it off my arm. I start to get some of it off until it creeps into my scars and before I know it my eyes go black and I pass out.

When the owner of the apartments found my body the next day, they found my phone in my hand with my sister's phone number dialed, the automated voice telling me that the number was changed and I should try again, repeating over and over.

"I was just stopping by to tell her that she was behind on rent and she was just laying there.

There's blood everywhere, in between the window sill and frame, in a bunch of buckets lying on the floor, and continuously flowing out of my arm.

Author's Note

This was written my freshman year of high school for a assignment and I know it's not perfect. Just wanted to share ^^

Reviews

[Not Your Typical New Yo..]

I cannot imagine what going through a flood feels like in real life. I've had seen many videos of floods and saw what damage they could. I can relate to the depression side, since I've been struggling with it about four years. Anyway, this was a great read.

[Meagan Reynolds]

It's definitely not fun, it makes things a lot more difficult. I'm sorry you struggle with it as well, I hope it improves. But thank you, it was written a short time ago and I figured I should share it.

[Not Your Typical New Yorker]

There is a story I published recently tells why I'm depressed ("The Cabin on Irish Hill Road") but it was a good story.