‘DRIVE. ME. mad’ by Sitara S
Drinking the blood was always my favourite part.
Water never had the same effect- it was tasteless, empty. But this…this was intoxicating. They liked it too, and it was the quickest way to remove the excess. I took the knife against my eyes, looked up at the ceiling, and braced myself as I eagerly looked at the stained clock in the corner. Today would be perfect.
I felt an overwhelming sense of glee when I saw him then-my hero, my idol, my father, my darling. Louis Kirby.
He didn’t look like how he looked in the films. Up close, his skin was much softer. It was less pristine than I had envisioned. He sat in the chair I’d chosen for him- the velvet one. He looked smaller than last time as well, stripped of the movie lights and adoring camera angles. Mabel was beside him, trembling, her wedding ring tapping against the chair arm like a metronome of fear.
I leaned over them and shook their ropes gently, waking them. Louis stirred first, a low grunt escaping him. Mabel stupidly pressed herself closer to him, her perfume fighting the damp.
“What…what is this?” she whispered.
I knelt beside them, smiling. “Time to see,” I murmured to Louis, and carefully lifted the blindfolds from their eyes.
The room was dim, lit by a single flickering bulb. This didn’t stop both of their eyes from glancing around, taking in the scratches and damp patches on the floor. His eyes then locked onto mine viciously and I saw the beautiful sight of hopelessness in his glassy blue orbs.
“‘I remember the first time you loved me.’” I said to him, reaching out for his face, but he looked away, tears welling up in his eyes. He grunted again, his brows raised.
“You need to let us go.” He said, his mouth trembling.
“Oh, darling,” I said softly, “you know I can’t.”
“Please,” Mabel whimpered, her voice too high-pitched for my liking, “we don’t want any trouble.”
I smiled. “Trouble is such a small word for what’s coming.”
Mabel’s eyes filled with fear. “Please,” she whispered, “he’s an actor. You don’t even know him.”
Louis still sat, the ropes fraying his torn earthy jacket. His voice was low, broken now. “Please. Whatever you think this is, whatever you think I did… you have the wrong person.”
I smiled. “I never have the wrong person.”
I allowed them to stand up, before walking backwards into the outside of the room.
“It’s so simple Louis. You have your ten minutes just like I promised you. Do you feel it? Can you hear it? Tick…tick…tick…tick…tick.”
Louis- as if struck by a bolt of rationality-rose, shaking off his paralysis. His hands shook as he pressed against the door and winced like a puppy as he recoiled at the splinters in his palm. The handle wouldn’t budge. He yanked at it, rattling the lock, the wood groaning under his grip. Mabel pressed herself against a different wall, tracing the cracks in the plaster with trembling fingers. The poor lamb ran her fingers aimlessly yet rapidly as if she could pry a secret passage open. I think the metallic scent was making her stomach twist.
Louis froze. Every instinct told him to run, but his mind was beginning to struggle against the impossible geometry of my room. Windows that should have opened refused, the door remained unyielding.
Mabel’s eyes were spiralling now, I saw, darting from corner to corner. Her breath was ragged, her neck was graven with sweat. Her head twisted and turned, until it stopped. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Louis…look. Look, oh my God, look at the walls. Oh my God.”
It was maddeningly repetitive, but it made me twirl outside of the room.
My blood-smeared messages glistened in the low light, each one a love letter for him written across the walls. They whispered back at me when I wrote them, soft as lullabies.
I KEEP THE LIGHTS ON UNTIL YOU COME HOME
Her voice was a frantic whisper. “Louis…it’s…everywhere!”
Mabel’s scream tore itself from her throat, ragged and wet. I let it hang in the room, deliciously, like music. Her hands shook so violently I could hear them scrape against the plaster. Her breath was in quick, shallow bursts, her chest rising and falling like a trapped bird. Louis pressed himself against her, but the tremor in his hands betrayed him. His eyes were bleeding with tears.
“We… we just… we need to find a way,” he said, jaw tight, voice hoarse. “There has to be… something. A window… a door…”
There wasn’t. Every surface pressed back. Every shadow moved.
“I can’t,” Mabel sobbed. “I can’t… it’s too much… the walls… the words… they’re… they’re alive!”
The rusty tang in the air grew stronger, thickening with their panic. Louis pressed his forehead against the wall, trying to steady himself. “Listen… listen to me, Mabel. There has to be a way. There has to…”
A soft creak echoed. A shadow flickered in the corner. She jumped, knocking into him.
“I… I can’t see anything. She’s… she’s everywhere!” Mabel gasped.
“You have to calm down,” he whispered, though even he did not believe the words. “We’ll… we’ll find something… some… some exit…”
I could hear him moving. Quick frantic. He tried the windows again; he tried the door again. Feet scuffing the floor. His desperation had a rhythm.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
They always sounded so lovely when they’re scared. Five, four, three, two, one.
I stepped into the room to the scene of Louis and Mabel embracing, viscerally crying, before Louis walked to try and calm his paranoia. She saw me, then.
“Wh-why, what-no…please…let us go,” she cried out.
“It’s not his fault,” I said, “every time he forgets. Each time I help him remember. That’s what love is-persistence. Devotion through centuries.”
Louis’s voice shook, his face burning red, and so beautifully hopeless. “Please…just…don’t”.
Then he saw it. Letters fresh, and glistening on the wall:
YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE.
DIE, MY LOVE.
His body froze. His mouth opened. Silence swallowed the room.
Mabel’s hands slipped from his shoulder.
“No…No!” he screamed, staggering, clutching her, shaking her. His mind shattered. I saw it in his face.
I stepped closer, slow, deliberate. He didn’t notice at first, suffocating under his grief.
“Shhh,” I murmured, cradling him. “It’s over now. You remember me, don’t you?”
The sun rose over the hill, rays of warmth spilling in. Its light touched the walls. It touched us. I pressed my cheek to his soaked hair, tasting the terror in the air, and smelling the ash on his forehead. The clock ticked quietly. His breathing was animalistic and painful.
And still, I smiled.
His face blushed bright beneath my kiss when I leaned into him. I smiled at the darkness as I ran the blade against his neck. The clock ticked quietly, and I remembered to reset it this time. I looked down at my masterpiece and brought my sopping, crimson hand to my face.
Drinking the blood was my favourite part.