Xenophon Vos

The house was quieter than it should have been as Sara entered. Her roommate was supposedly upstairs in her bedroom, studying for a test. Sara had expected instrumentals playing loudly through the floor to bombard her as she approached the door, something indicative of Jane’s study process. Jane claimed, at least, that it helped drown out her thoughts that didn’t relate to the subject, and as long as Sara wasn’t trying to study as well, she didn’t tend to complain.

Today, however, Sara entered to complete silence. It felt off, but Sara quickly decided to focus on her own problems. She took out her phone and connected to the downstairs speaker, putting her playlist in the background as she heated up two slices of pizza in the oven. She perched on the counter and began to scroll Instagram as she waited. Beside her, she noticed a bottle of wine, corked but left on the counter. Sara wondered why Jane might have been drinking, and suddenly thought that she may be hungry.

She put her phone face-down on the counter and took the stairs two at a time. When she got to Jane’s room, she took a breath and thought about the silence. Especially if Sara wasn’t here, there was no reason she wouldn’t have her music on if she was studying. She knocked three times on her door and waited for a response.

After a few seconds of no response, Sara knocked again, this time accompanied by a quick shout. “If you don’t respond I’m gonna come in!” The silence continued, and as Sara slowly opened the door she noticed the lack of light leaking through the frame. Sara’s eyes fell first on the empty desk chair, and then on the cluttered desk.

Papers were strewn across the surface, notes she had clearly taken during class by the speed and inaccuracy of her handwriting. In front of where the chair would have sat, were it in use, was Jane’s closed laptop. The red case was coated in stickers, leaving only small parts of the barely-translucent red case visible. Behind the laptop was a half-filled wine glass, the yellowish liquid shining in the sunlight leaking past the curtains.

Sara turned and softly closed the door, turning down the hall to see a light creeping out from underneath the bathroom door. She walked down the hall to hear the quiet hum of Jane’s music breaking through the door. Sara knocked again to no response. She called into the crack of the door “Jane, I don’t wanna barge in on you but I’m making pizza and I wanna know if you want some,” and stepped back.

Sara got no response again. She knocked harder this time, wondering to herself if Jane was asleep. She could feel a slight dread creeping into her stomach, as if she knew that something bad lay on the other side of the door. She forced that feeling down as she tried the door handle. It gave quickly, and Sara called out as she opened the door “Jane, I’m opening the door now, make yourself-”

As her eyes fell on Jane, she screamed. She closed the door immediately, but the image of what she saw stuck in her mind. She fell hard to the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. In her mind, Jane’s open stomach filled her vision, a hole in its place leaking blood from the open sides onto the tub floor below. A choked sob escaped from her as she thought to Jane’s face. It was contorted in pain, motionless but so filled with emotion. As the image of her corpse invaded her mind, she pushed herself up.

Sara walked slowly down the stairs and back to the kitchen. As she reached the counter, she began to reach for her phone, but then noticed the bottle of wine. She opened a cabinet and grabbed a large wine glass, pouring the wine to almost the top. It bubbled slightly in the glass, and as soon as it settled, Sara tipped the glass back and swallowed the off-white liquid.

As it travelled down her throat, she could feel it burn slightly. She quickly poured herself another glass and downed it in a similar fashion. As it settled within her, she could feel her stomach begin to churn. She reached for her phone and placed it in her pocket, heading upstairs again.

Sara reached her room and began to feel herself sweat. She quickly undressed and headed downstairs again. Sara drank another glass of the wine and poured herself a fourth, which she carried back upstairs. She hesitated for a second before entering the bathroom, and as she snapped out of her haze, she wondered why she would have paused.

She went straight to the tub and began to run herself a bath. As the water filled up in the ceramic tub, Sara connected her phone to the speaker that sat on the edge of the counter. She clicked on a playlist of soft jazz and then placed a bath bomb into the tub. As the bubbles formed on the surface of the water, she slid into the hot liquid.

As Sara relaxed in the bath, she could feel herself heat up and her stomach churn more and more. A soft pain began to emanate from her abdomen and she reached forward to open the drain to free herself from the hot water.

As the water drained around Sara, she fell back. The churning in her stomach was becoming a more and more prevalent pain and Sara started to cringe. For a second, she opened her eyes and began to see the red-stained tub through the widening hole in her stomach. For a second, she thought to the wine she drank as the jazz played her to rest.

The house was quieter than it should have been as Jane entered. Her roommate should have just returned from home and would likely have been playing rock music throughout the house to get her mind off classes. Sara never went a day without a moment of this, which usually worked out well for Jane, who arrived home after her on most days. But as she closed the door behind her, the only sign that Sara was even home was the half-empty bottle of wine left on the kitchen counter.

This story was originally written to be submitted to the Young Georgia Authors writing competition but did not win, so I have decided to post it here because I think it’s very good. It was originally inspired by a story my partner told me which they had heard from an EMT who had found someone dead in a bathtub and their stomach had rotted through, which my friend who was also hearing the story assumed was caused by acid consumption. I was also really inspired to write things that were cyclical at the time, which is what led to the final paragraph.