possessum | a memory.

cw: attempted child murder. attempted immolation / death (including murder and suicide) by fire. involuntary actions / sleepwalking. themes of mercy killing involved.

The memory begins with the sound of a match being struck.

Suddenly, the darkness is illuminated by a small orange flame. A bedroom is revealed, still and quiet.

Two bodies sleep side by side in a single bed. A young boy (fourteen, dark-haired), and a younger girl (eleven, hair strawberry blonde, just like the woman).

The woman stands next to the boy's side of the bed. She is completely still, and her eyes are staring straight ahead. In one hand, a box of matches. In the other, the single, lit stick.

The sound of it wakes the boy, and his eyes open — at first confused, glossy with the haze of sleep, then abruptly widening. They lock onto the match and he's quickly sitting up in bed. Confusion turns to horror. Horror turns to fear. Every nerve in his body tightens, locks; it's painful for seconds, then it's numb.

There's a smell in the room. An odd smell, pungent. Chemical.

The woman is covered in something wet, slick. It shines in her hair, plasters it to her head. It glistens over her face. It's on her lips and neck, and her night clothes are soaked through with it. Down, down, where a pool of the fluid collects beneath the soles of her feet.

The young boy is covered in wet, too. And beside him, the sleeping little girl's hair shines with the same wetness.

The boy begins to scream. The sound tears out of his throat, cracks wide open with a cry; his fear sounds more animal than human.

He knows what the chemical smell is. Mom uses it in her work. Mom, it's Mom. Mom is standing right next to the bed. He and Charlie are soaking wet, and the smell's so strong it hurts, and Mom is holding a match in her hand—

The woman wakes as soon as the boy starts screaming; she blinks widely, stunned, confused. Then horrified — she's putting out the match with trembling hands, dropping the box of them; they hit the empty can of paint thinner that sits near her feet. The boy is looking up at her like she's a monster. Her hands are flying to her wet face, sticky against her mouth; she's moaning. She, too, sounds like an animal.

But for a moment, she looks afraid of him. For a moment, something slips through; her eyes are wild in her fear towards her son. The boy and the woman exist as a mirror of each other. They've never been more afraid of anything than what they're both seeing.

(Is she more afraid of what she's almost done, or more afraid that she didn't finish it?)

Peter, oh, Peter no— I didn't mean— I was sleepwalking! I was asleep!

The boy is screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming.

The memory abruptly ends, with the sharp smell of paint thinner and the lingering sulfur of a quickly-snuffed match.