At first, I didn't notice.

My days went by dull and simple, colorless, gray.

So to be fair, there was nothing to notice.

Everyday was the same. Wake up, pull myself out of a creaky bed, box spring mattress worn down from age, blankets rough, pillows nearly flat. Trudge to a dimly lit, almost depressing bathroom, where my black rimmed glasses waited for me, obscenely thick, no doubt eight testimony to my lifetime.

I'd use a numb, shaky hand to wrestle with the rusted faucet, only for it to spurts out and muddy mixture of cold liquid. Yet I'd splash it on my deeply wrinkled face anyways.

I'd reach into the medicine cabinet above my ever balding head, purposefully avoiding the mirror, my enemy. Push past useless containers of hardened styling gel, half full bottles of ibuprofen, and mouthwash probably hailing from 10 years ago, until my swollen fingers found purchase on a prescription bottle, the only thing I kept up to date with. Mostly because it kept me in this state of mind.

Dull.
Boring.

I'd make quick work of opening the safety lid on the bottle, pouring three baby blue pills into my hand, bringing them up to chapped, cracked lips, and then dry swallowing them simultaneously.

Then it would be time to make my way to the small living room I called home, and hum.

I'd home until dawn turned to dusk and dusk to darkness.

And that's how I liked it.
Dull.
Boring.

Or did I?

Because sometimes I really wished, have hoped, half dreaded, a change, a surprise, something would come and liven up my cramped living room, anything.

I suppose that was my first mistake. Because a week later, as I sat in the living room on my dark mahogany, pin cushioned chair, I noticed something.

It was minuscule, blink and you'd miss it. But I noticed nonetheless.

A small blip of movement.
Under the rug.

The meaningless, dirty brown, wool rug that lay over the entirety of the floor, covering scratches and stains left neglected for years, possibly even decades.

But, for however long I've owned that stupid rug, there was never any movement.

So I stood quietly from my chair, turned off the living room lamp, one that always seem lopsided, and forced myself to bed, even with the sun still shining outside my dust laden window.

I stayed up that night wondering how that movement could've happened.

Nothing new ever haunted my dreary home, everything was planned and precise, a ritual, a schedule.

Until now.

Two weeks passed and it happened again.

I had just begun to get over it. To move on with my life,  resume my normality.

I had set myself back down in my chair after straightening three old photographs that made a home on the wall above the lopsided lamp, some of the only tidying I had ever done.

I was about to start my daily hum, the one that lasted all day, when once again my eyes flitted to the movement.

Under the rug.

I stayed in my chair, watching intently, waiting for it to happen again. My eyes strained against dark glasses, feet planted firmly on the rug.

Or at least they were, because within what felt like a second, I was on the ground and my chair was on its side, the blip now a bump, sitting right where I had been seconds prior.

The only thing I could think to do was grab the legs of my mahogany chair, pull its full weight over my head, and scream.

With each scream I managed, the bump grew bigger, from a bump to a lump, lump to a blob, blob to a ball. It grew larger and larger, gaining mass beneath my dull mocha rug, pushing against wool fibers left alone for years, until finally, those wool fibers began to tear.

My rug became a large rip, unraveling from the middle, threads continuing to chase each other around, forming a web of brown and cream, leaving cracks in fabric that were never meant to be.

They ran after each other, dancing circles around my feet, hiding underneath my shoe covered toes, all while the lump, bump, ball grew, a tumor beneath carpet skin.

My chair was my only weapon, and I thought to just ditch the thing and run, but this was my house, my dull and dreary home, and no monster under the rug was going to change that.

So, with another overwhelmed yell, I smashed the chair onto the bump in my rug, hoping for it to disappear or die in front of me. I pulled the chair back up, screaming as it once again flew down and struck the bump, wooden splinters and cushion flying throughout, my dusty glasses shielding my eyes from unwanted damage.

I repeated this over and over again, my new ritual, schedule. Smashing that dark mahogany chair, or what was left of it, into the intruder under spindled fibers, letting out ghastly shrieks as I did so, my breath never running out.

I hit that rug as many times as I possibly could, until my deep brown chair was nothing but two legs and fragmented wood and my throat was red and swollen with broken fear.

And when it finally came to an end, I bent down to my shredded dirty brown rug, a single chair leg still in my hands, expecting to see the blip of movement.

But it never came.

The only thing that did come was a realization. One that suddenly filled in missing pieces and solved a mystery I had been so adamant on solving.

Yet, the answer came bittersweet, leaving me broken and cracked, much like the area surrounding my shaking being.

I hadn't taken my pills in three weeks.