STATIC SMILE a denki angst [BakuKami]

1-Have you ever drowned

Have you ever drowned?

Have you ever felt water burning in your throat like fire.

Have you ever looked around you and seen nothing but a fast darkness.

A hand pressing your head down, keeping you from coming up to catch air.

Have you?

Because I have. I do. Every day. Every second.

Like I'm slowly being dragged to my death. Yet I just won't die.

***

Now imagine a small house. Red rusty door. With nature taking over its walls. Weeds and wild flower at war with yellowing patches scattered around like paint. Barely able to identify itself as a building. Probably build ages ago, and most likely been through more dysfunctional families than one could imagine. And at least two or three murders. What ever it was.

It was home.

Gloomy interior. Two rooms. One living room. One kitchen. Both connected, or not connected, by a missing wall. One bathroom. One toilet. Two beds. Three people.

A foul stench, with a couch that seems to never fully dry. A father that sleeps through most afternoons, a kid who is barely old enough to pee alone and me.

A small house.

Home.

My home.

My eyes gazed over the room with a disturbing clarity until it settled on the window.

The rain had started sometime after midnight. Not the soft kind either. The violent kind. The kind that rattled old windows and made rusted pipes groan inside the walls like something dying slowly.

I hated it.

So I looked away, my eyes fixing on the cracked ceiling above me. I lay awake on the thin mattress shoved against the wall. Every time lightning flashed through the threadbare curtains, the room lit up for half a second in pale blue and white streaks.

Then darkness again.

Then thunder.

Then the sound of glass shattering downstairs.

I flinched. And beside me, a tiny body stirred beneath the blankets.

"...Denki?" His voice came out small and sleepy.

I tried to swallow the anxiety away and rolled over, forcing brightness into my face before the kid could properly look at me.

"Go back to sleep kiddo," I whispered softly. "Probably just the cat."

"We don't have a cat." He muttered.

I smiled. "Then we're being haunted. Go to sleep."

A tiny giggle.

Good.

That meant he wasn't scared yet.

Just as my beating heart had calmed down, another crash sounded downstairs, followed by heavy and uneven footsteps.

He's drunk.

My stomach twisted violently.

"Stay here," I whispered.

But tiny fingers grabbed the sleeve of my oversized shirt. His pale hands trembling slightly.

"Don't go." He begged.

I smiled again. I always smile. Even now. Especially now.

"I'll be back in a sec, okay? Promise."

I gently untangled his tiny fingers from the fabric and stood quietly from the mattress. The floorboards creaked beneath my bare feet as I crossed the small room.