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The house was quiet, save for the sounds of things landing in boxes and your own laboured breathing.

You never realized how much stuff you had collected over the course of your life until you were made to clean your room out. Layers of stuff was unearthed, each from a different time in your life. There were seemingly metric tons of nostalgic junk that cluttered your room and gathered dust in forgotten crevices.

Jenny stood at the door to your room, waiting patiently with her arms crossed as you cussed up a storm while tossing things into the half dozen grey plastic bins you had bought explicitly to move. Interestingly, they were measured in the number of gallons they could hold. Did people really use them to store liquid?

You stood up straight and sighed in frustration, wiping sweat from your forehead. Even with a fan on and the window open, it was warm in there from your frantic movements.

"Are you sure you want to move everything out today?" Jenny asked for the third time.

"Yes!" you snapped, distracted. Then you turned and gave her a sheepish look.

"Sorry." you said, softer.

"Yes, its all important. Is it because it won't fit in your truck?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, no, there's plenty of room for everything. You're just... Pretty stressed out."

You let out an amused sound at that, rolling your shoulders. They crackled a little bit as knots in the muscle made themselves known.

"Definitely. But if I stop now, then I'll have to come back for all the other stuff at some point and that's just- that seems like that would be more stressful. And I don't want to waste your time."

Jenny rolled her eyes, giving you a smile at the same time.

"Well, you aren't, so you can at least slow down some. Your mom hasn't said anything anyway."

"Good." You responded, looking at your bookshelf and frowning. How many of these did you want to take? Would it be smarter to just take pictures or write the titles down, and buy new copies later?

You didn't know. At the same time, you were also going over a few mental inventories and agonizing over how full your bins were getting as the items dwindled.

The past week had been nigh unbearable. You'd prefer stabbing yourself to navigating the new house politics. It wasn't cold or full of tension, it was just... empty. Like all the air had been sucked out of the rooms. You hardly caught a glance of your mother; she left even earlier than usual and got home late. Leftovers appeared and were eaten, mostly from fast food places.

She was avoiding the situation altogether. And although you had wanted this, had played your cards to get this, it hurt. It hurt more than the coldness, more than the arguments, more than her ignoring you.

The house felt abandoned. Devoid of life. Moving around felt unsettling, like you were disturbing the quiet. It was like living in a stranger's house, left unbalanced and lost.

You weren't sure if she talked to your dad. You hadn't received a message from him about it, and you doubted he would say anything to you anyway. As much as your mother would probably like his support, this likely didn't count as good enough of an emergency to take time off work and fly back.

Today, the day you said you would move, was the day she stayed. She parked herself in the kitchen and watched, silent as a ghost as Jenny arrived and helped you move one plastic bin after another to the front door. When you were done, it would make transport easier to the vehicle outside.

Delirium (Creepypasta x reader)Where stories live. Discover now