"Damn," she thought as she rolled over in the sheets, listening to the unearthly scream of the alarm clock. It was that point in sleep where you haven't quite opened your eyes but are still horribly aware of the vulgar screech of the alarm pulsing away, deriding all that is good and holy in the morning time. Not that there is anything particularly good or holy about morning, she thought to herself. Those last few moments of blissful unawareness passed painfully quickly and the cloud of responsibilities that the day would bring loomed inches over her bed, waiting to crash down on her shoulders the instant a semblance of consciousness was regained. Reveling in her last few moments of ignorance, she savored the softness and warmpth of her pillow and idly entertained the possiblility that she may be able to sleep in today.
The alarm clock made sure that this was impossible, however. She sat up, immediately coming into painful contact with the cloud of her mental "to-do list" for the day, and groggily batted at the biggest button on the alarm clock. She could feel the bed pulling her back down, but she resisted today, seeing as she had given in to the warm softness too often before. Besides, today she needed a shower, and the will to smell good outweighed the will to attempt another two minutes of sleep. She'd just end up having to wake up all over again, and it really wasn't worth it. She slid out of bed and headed towards her door. Staggering enough to have to grab the door frame to keep from falling face first into the wall.
The bathroom was the same dingy white it had always been. It would have been painted by now...except that she never found the time to decide on the color she wanted. She felt blindly for the faucet; her eyes had not regained the ability to focus yet...almost, but not quite. She looked down into the sink and froze. It was there again. The deep red smear, bigger this time. Redder this time. She heard the blood rushing in her ears and she felt the quickened throb in her neck.
"Not again." She whipered. "No, it can't have come back."
She wanted to run, to scream, to faint, to suddenly be jolted awake again by the deafening blare of her alarm. It had to be a dream. It didn't really happen. No...no.
She quickly began wiping with the first dry cloth that she could reach. An old blue shirt of James' that he had left at her house weeks ago. She tried not to notice how much blood was seeping into the fabric as she continued her panicked smearing.
Turning, she froze. This time she did scream, though it was not a full scream. More like the sound one would make when one first feels the strong hands close around the throat. A high pitched exclaimation, cut short by the sudden constriction of the hands. There on the windowsill, was a crimson smear of blood...a five fingered smear. She lunged at the sill with the blue shirt, rubbing the erie smear beyond her initial recognition. Shaking violently, and breathing irradically, she kept frantically cleaning the scarlet stains off the sink and sill.
She spent the rest of the morning fighting the image of the ominously shaped smear on the sill, as it seemed to be the image that persisted in her mind.
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