Page 104 of Chains of Obsession

“Mum!” Louder. Still no answer.

I pull out my phone and send her a text asking where she is because her car is in the drive.

I slip off my wet shoes and hang my drenched blazer on a coat hanger by the front door. I’ll have to remind Mum to wash it for me later.

Trudging into the kitchen, ‘Happy Birthday’ banners and balloons are spread around, half of them hung up and half still waiting to be blown up. I walk over to the kitchen island, where there’s a cake with half-finished ‘Happy Birthday Ca’ written in frosting.

“Was there an emergency I didn't know about?” I ask out loud, annoyed now that everyone seems to have abandoned me on my birthday.

Heading upstairs, I walk into my room and put my phone on charge. My little post-school routine. I stretch out my limbs from sitting on chairs all day and start walking towards the bathroom. As I pass Mum’s room, a dark spot catches my eye. I stop in my tracks and walk backwards to her open doorway.

“Mum?” I say, quieter this time.

Focusing my attention on the dark spot I noticed, I see a pair of feet sticking out from the corner of her bed.

What the hell?

“Mum?”

I creep towards the pair of feet, noticing that her dark purple carpet has an even darker stain on it. I hold my breath, my limbs beginning to tremble. Gulping down oxygen, I reach the pair of legs. I close my eyes as I lean over the bed, mentally preparing myself for what I’m about to see.

I open them.

The room blurs out.

There’s a ringing in my ears.

Sick gathers in my stomach as I stare at my mum’s lifeless eyes, surrounded in a puddle of her own blood leaking out of her neck.

“MUMMY!” I cry, holding my shaking hand over my mouth. “Mummy?”

Nothing makes sense. Her face is mottled, her eyes stare vacantly at the ceiling, there’s a slit in her neck with fresh blood trickling out. Bile burns in my throat as I will my body to move towards my phone. I stumble through the doorway, into the corridor, into my room, taking my phone off charge, dialling 999.

“Hello, what’s the address of your emergency?”

I think I give them our address. I can’t be sure.

I stumble back into her room, dropping beside her and throwing my arm around her, my phone forgotten on her bed. I can hear the call handler still asking questions. But the words fade to a blur. I can’t see anything but my mum and the way her chest isn’t moving.