little things

four

Mara knew she had only seconds until they burst into her room and found her dead body lying in the middle of the carpet. Technically it wasn't her dead body but the body of her impersonator. The one who had spent the past two weeks living with Mara's family, living Mara's life, while the real Mara suffered under the hands of brutal captors. Captors whom she'd had yet to discover the identity of.

In fact, the only thing that Mara knew was that she had just bashed in the brains of someone who seemed to look, talk, and act exactly like her. And now she had to get rid of the body. And quickly.

With the voices of her family sounding from outside her door, she lifted the edge of the rug now stained with blood and started rolling it into a log, the body laying inside like a human burrito. Luckily, the bottom of the rug was a rubber-like material and the stain wasn't showing on the other side.

Although she was rolling 150 pounds of meat inside a stiff carpet, her adrenaline helped her to make quick work of the task. By the time her mother spun the knob and pushed the door open, Mara had shoved the human burrito all the way to the wall and was standing in the middle of her now bare, hardwood floor.

Her mother looked from Mara, to the floor, to the rug against the wall, back to Mara again, "doing some cleaning?" she asked.

"Uh yeah, I just figured it was time for a vacuum," Mara tried to smile.

"Well that's new. Since when did you ever care about the state of your room?"

Mara pinched her arm behind her back to focus her thoughts on the conversation at hand instead of on whether all her bruises were covered or whether her mother would notice the heavy scent of blood that seemed to lie stagnant in the air. Damnit she should have opened the window, but she had barely had the time to roll up the body.

I don't know," she laughed weakly, bringing herself back to the converation, "I figure at 17, it's probably about time, you know?"

Her mother smiled, "I thought this day would never come." she said teasingly.

Suddenly her face scrunched up into something that resembled subtle revulsion, her hand coming up to her nose. "What is that horrific smell?" she asked.

"I told you it was time to clean, Mom" Mara laughed sheepishly as if that smell could ever come from the leftover dinner plates and dirty laundry that cluttered her room.

Her mother frowned not seeming to have heard Mara, "it almost smells like-"

"Okay Mom, let me get to it" she shoved her mom back through the doorway, "byeee," she said closing the door.

"Oh, okay, well I just wanted to tell you that lunch is almost ready." Her voice came muffled from the other side of the door.

"Right, great, thanks Mom!" Mara called loudly, praying she would leave.

It was another couple seconds before she finally heard her mother's retreating footsteps. A long sigh left Mara, relief making her knees weak as she slowly slid to the floor.

And now, what to do with the body...?