[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/vDGxjcd.png[/img][/center]

Savannah was, after a fashion, entirely normal. But she didn’t want to tell people that she was afraid of showering today. She was ashamed of it, to be honest, because she had never been a dirty person. Really, it was the opposite, she had always been very clean and tidy, kept good care of her room, did her dishes as soon as she done was them, and she’d even taken her showers on the long side. In excess of twenty minutes. Very thorough. 

But she thought of the last time, and all the blood and the panic, and she didn’t want to do it again.

She’d skipped the last couple of days and felt greasy, especially in her hair, and just wrong all over. She’d been using powder shampoo and washing her hair in the sink, but it just wasn’t the same. But today was the first day of school and she was laying in bed and she knew she had to do it. There was no choice. She rolled over in her bed, and there was a half-yip because she’d woken up Simba, who was sleeping on her chest. Which he insisted was merely a tactic to better blend in as the [i]creature[/i] which he was disguised as, and he always said that word ‘creature’ with that venomous emphasis. And her train of thought was interrupted when he said, [color=DECC9C]“My name is not Simba. It is Nemeos.”[/color] 

[color=c8a2c8]“Okay, fine, I just want to sleep,”[/color] she said. She didn’t sound happy, didn’t sound awake, it was more of a grumble than a statement. 

[color=DECC9C]“You’ll have to get up eventually.”[/color] 

[color=c8a2c8]“And what if I just don’t?”[/color]

[color=DECC9C]“You’ll atrophy away and I’ll be left without a human host. So, get up. That is an order.”[/color]

She sighed. Deeply, heavily. He was right. And besides, if she wasted away she wouldn’t be able to tell her parents that she just slipped and split her head open anymore because they’d know something was wrong. They already did, really, she knew that they looked at her and just saw something wrong. So she sat up. 

Her room was exceedingly plain. She kept no paintings, had no trophies, mementos, collectibles, or anything like that. Her parents had tried, in the past, to give her gifts and things to put in there but they didn’t really interest her. All she thought she needed was a bed, a desk with her computer, and the sofa that she laid on for a lot of days reading. The rest could exist outside of her space. This was how she was comfortable. In fact, she didn’t detest any of the things her parents gave her, they merely found other places in the house to occupy where she was quite happy with them. 

There was one other thing in her room, though. One poster. It was of Van Gogh’s [i]The Starry Night[/i]. She’d always been a little ashamed of liking it so much because it was just a little too pop, but she still felt good when she saw it. In fact, when she saw it she thought her and Vincent might not have been so different. Because there was this window in Savannah’s room, and she spent a lot of time viewing the world from it. The second-floor view wasn’t so bad. She lived deep in the suburbs, buried there in the houses and neat lawns where children played outside a lot like she used to, people waked dogs, ice cream trucks passed by playing that jingle, but today none of that was happening because it was the first day of school and it was cloudy all over which is how she liked it to be. She liked it when it rained, too, and she wished it was snowing already. She had her own secret names for all the people she saw on the street every day. 

She took another deep breath and got up just a few seconds before her alarm would ring, because she hated that noise. She turned it off and went right away to the bathroom, Nemeos following shortly behind. He said, [color=DECC9C]“You know, I can’t imagine being afraid of water. It’s just water.”[/color]

[color=c8a2c8]“It’s less the water and more the memories. Seems like I always think about things in the shower.”[/color]

He didn’t say anything to that. He just sat in the corner of the bathroom, curled up and she thought it was funny because for all his insistence that he wasn’t a dog he acted just like one and wouldn’t stop following her. Reminded her of the clingy old pug she had that would whine if you locked him out of the bathroom. 

The bathroom was quiet and clean, the porcelain and tile polished, the light bright and white. It felt like a horrible place to her then, a horrible horrible place. She undressed and turned the shower on hot and her head felt dizzy just hearing the rush of the water and seeing the first wisps of hot steam, and it was so inviting and nice but she just felt all wrong for it. But then again, if she couldn’t do this what could she do? 
 
She stepped in and she was breathing fast. She went through the motions quickly, feeling like she was floating away; shampoo, then condition, and soap, then she turned it off and left and grabbed a towel and started frantically drying herself. Very quickly. She was breathing fast. She almost didn’t know what she was doing anymore because her vision was spotty and she was going to fall over, so instead she just collapsed against the wall and let herself sit down and she tried to focus on her breath just like she read online. One two three four five. There. One two three four five. Nemeos was looking up from the corner, and he came over and sat against her, but didn’t say anything and she wondered if a spirit just wasn’t equipped for such a pointless personal and human struggle. 

This was going to be a normal thing now, she supposed. She was having panic attacks in the shower and had absolutely no idea why. They weren’t her first, but this was the first time they’d been reoccurring so regularly. 

She sat there for maybe twenty minutes just trying to breath before she knew that she had to get up because she’d timed getting up early, just in case this had happened, but soon her parents would be stirring and she’d have to get ready for school. So, she stood up and still felt like she was floating in nothing. She walked back to her room and put on the clothes she had set aside for today. And then she looked at her poster before going downstairs and getting a bowl of cereal. 

Her parents would get up later and wish her a good first day, and she’d just nod.