introspective isolation! ;tanner fic;

one

.;.

Spaghetti, butter, and black pepper.

That's what you had for dinner.

It wasn't half-bad, if you were to be honest. If anything, it could've even been considered delicious.

After washing your plate in the sink, after drying it and placing back in the cupboard above, you stared at the empty kitchen, the kitchen that was filled with little stupid porcelain objects and fake fruit you couldn't bring yourself to throw away.

Picking up the pot of leftovers, you opened your largely empty fridge and placed it inside, not bothering to switch out the pot for tupperware to make space. It's about time you went grocery shopping. Next to the fridge, on the tiny windowsill of the kitchen window, there was a shrimp with a chef's hat winking at you completely motionless. You winked back at it without much thought or care, and your eyes slowly refocused on your reflection on the glass. Even though it wasn't crystal clear, you could still tell you looked terrible.

You walked away from the kitchen, your eyes barely scanning over the many letters and cards scattered onto the dining table, ones filled with apologizes and condolences, and turned on the television in the living room.

"-olice are still on the hunt for the killer of Kate Morris, a twenty-three year old college student who was found dead last week in-"

You switched the channel and threw the remote on to the couch.

Slowly, you made your way upstairs past the master bedroom and into your own. The walls half-bare from when you left for university seven years ago, and cardboard boxes that expressed your return were left open and mostly unattended. You closed your curtains, moving on to the small bathroom and turned on the water, undressing as it warmed.

Just as the kitchen window reflected, you did look pretty terrible. If it wasn't the dark circles that gave it away, it was your hair that looked as if it hadn't been cared for in weeks. You took out the hair tie that kept it all in place and hopped in the shower.

The water was soothing, so you took your time to wash your hair and lather your body with the extra fancy bath soap you touched on rare occasions. Your brain started drifting to two different places, luckily bringing it back to one before you made yourself cry again.

Tomorrow, you'll finally leave the house in what seemed like forever. You'll go out and get some sunlight, buy groceries, and maybe even tend to the flowers that had been getting out of hand in the front lawn. Your days inside this house, alone and quiet as they were, had you almost convinced that you were in a separate dimension or even some type of liminal space.

Maybe your brain had gone to mush from being inside for so long.

When you stepped outside the shower, taking the crispy white towel from the rack to dry yourself and wrapping it around your body, you wiped the foggy mirror, seeing your wet hair and soft face. You didn't look too bad, and a good night's rest does tend to go far. A thought passed through your mind in those exact words, and just like that you were sad again. However, instead of crying, this time, you just grinned and sighed.

You sat on your bed, looking around your room as you thought of the years you spent in this room and how you thought you'd never come back to this house. Not to live in, at least.

You forgot you left the lights and TV on downstairs and quickly made your way down in your towel. There was a show about paranormal occurrences on and despite your slight interest you turned the television off, opting for sleep instead.

With the lights off behind you, you turned to the staircase, before hearing something hit the floor upstairs. And like flies flocking to a corpse, or a strawberry dropped in bubbly champagne, anxiety began to fill inside of you.