The cold water poured over me in relentless sheets, biting into my skin, numbing my thoughts. I stood there beneath the spray, letting it freeze me, letting it punish. Each drop felt like ice, scratching through my burning flesh, washing away the remnants of everything that had happened just hours before.
I had woken up alone in the dark, naked and disoriented. My head spun, the room tilting, my stomach threatening to empty itself. Somehow, I still managed to stumble into the bathroom, clutching the sink for balance before I collapsed in front of the toilet and vomited out the blood I've consumed so far.
When the retching finally stopped, I just knelt there, on the cold hard ground, shaking. The taste of iron still clinging to my tongue, bitter and wrong. My body felt heavy, sluggish, as if something had been drained out of me.
