Stillness In Red
A five-year-old girl woke to the sharp, choking reek of copper. It burned her nose and coated the back of her throat, so strong she thought she might be sick. Sliding out of bed, she padded silently to her door and nudged it open a sliver. The hallway light flickered in uneven pulses, painting the walls in shuddering shadows.
Her eyes fell to the carpet. It was soaked through, black-red in places, with chunks of something—skin, meat—strewn as if the house itself had been torn apart. Her stomach knotted, but she couldn’t look away.
The staircase yawned to her left, a mouth of darkness swallowing the lower floor. Straight ahead, the bathroom door stood between her and parents’ room and hers, its light glowing faintly beneath the frame. To her right, the storage room loomed closed, silent, as though it was holding its breath along with her.
She eased her door open, clutching her teddy bear so tightly it dug into her ribs. Her other hand rested in her mouth, sucking her finger as if it could keep her safe. Step by step, she crept toward her parents’ room.
The hallway walls stared back at her—family photos streaked and splattered with blood. She froze when she reached her baby picture. A chunk of flesh clung to the glass, sliding down in slow motion until it dropped onto the carpet by her toes.
Her breath caught. She turned her eyes toward her parents’ door. Dark. Silent. No soft rumble of her father’s snoring, no comfort of familiar sounds. Just stillness.
She pushed the door open.
Inside, her parents lay twisted on the bed, their torsos torn wide open. Their faces—drained of life—seemed locked in silent screams. Her mother’s bulging eyes stared toward the ceiling, while her father’s mouth was a gaping hole, his tongue and teeth ripped away.
She felt nothing. Her face stayed still, empty. The teddy slipped from her arms, dangling by its paw as she dragged it across the floor. She started down the stairs.
Her older brother’s body lay crumpled near the bottom, one hand clawing upward as if frozen mid-climb. She stepped around him without hesitation, eyes steady, feet careful.
In the kitchen, she pulled the stool across the tiles with a soft scrape, climbed up, and took a cup. When she turned toward the fridge, she had to step over pieces of her sister—just two years older—strewn across the linoleum in small, wet fragments.
She filled the cup with water, slow and deliberate, as if listening to the silence breathe around her.
When she was done, she carried it back upstairs, slipped beneath her blankets, and curled up with the teddy beside her. She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She only stared at the ceiling for a long time, sipping her water. And then, without a word, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
