You were bleeding.

It wasn't so bad, considering the mood She had been in; and honestly, you might not have ever noticed the blood had it not begun to drip into your eyes. This had less to do with you being unobservant, because you were actually really observant when you could stand to be, and more to do with the fact that you were crying ugly, heaving, angry sobs into your bed. You hated your ugly, stupid mother. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated, hated Her. You wished She would go away forever, and you could have a different mom. One who wouldn't hit you with a stapler for "asking stupid questions" or yell at you for getting bleach on your clothes. A different mom. Or no mom at all. Just a different school, a different house, and a different life. That was all you wanted to have. You told Her this once, when you were really upset. She said you couldn't have any of that though, because no one else would take you. She said to look at yourself. No one else would want you.

That made you so mad.

Mad and angry and furious and, and- something else you couldn't describe with words. It made your insides hurt and your eyes sting and your lips bleed as you bit down as hard as you could. It made you want to scream, and it made you want to destroy things.

You wanted to tear the paper from the walls and pull apart the floorboards and shred the curtains and flood the bathrooms and curl up in your bed until it was all gone, until everything was gone. You had a dream once, that you did that. You got mad and instead of tearing up yourself or someone's paper or their toy you tore up the walls and the floors, but then you were afraid that She would come home and see, so you turned on all the faucets in the house. You ran to the kitchen and sent water gushing through the tap, then did the same in the tiny guest bathroom, and then in the single one upstairs. You turned the bathtub faucets on all the way too, and watched as sloshing liquid filled the murky tub. You stood there and watched as water spilled over the lip, and you didn't even flinch when it hit your red sneakers. They turned dark and cold in the water, or at least, you thought they must be cold. You couldn't feel it.

You could hear a sound downstairs though, and so you decided to follow the water as it left the bathroom and went tumbling rumbling falling down the wood stairs like it was running to get somewhere. You followed it down into the front room and suddenly you were in up to your waist in water. The kitchen and the tiny bathroom had flooded the bottom of the old house, and for a moment you couldn't help but notice that the dark house looked almost like a sunken pirate ship stuck in shallow water. Bits of torn wallpaper floated through the water like fish, and their faded colors somehow seemed bright as they were playfully carried by the waves. None of the furniture had moved, aside from a few items like the couch, which had begun to float, though it was all below the still rising water. Distantly, you worried what She would say when she returned home, but at the time you were too distracted by something bobbing around the corner from the kitchen. You couldn't believe your eyes for a moment, but there it was, clear as day. Your old bathtub sailboat toy. It looked exactly the way you remembered it, with its shiny white plastic and two navy blue stripes around the hull, and the skinny little mast with the thin plastic sails...It hadn't changed at all, except...it was a lot bigger than you remembered.

Big enough for you to sail away in.

That was the thought that clamored for attention in your mind as the sailboat drifted closer and closer. Finally, when it was within reach, you grabbed onto the boat and leapt, managing just barely to swing one leg over its side. You heaved yourself onto the sailboat, and watched as the ceiling passed by slowly overhead. You looked over and saw one of the white paddles lying on the floor next to you, and lifted it into your hands. Despite its sudden increase in size, it weighed almost nothing. Experimentally, you sat up and tried lowering the paddle into the water and steering. You were on the far side of the front room now, and you had an idea. The first time the paddles seemed to do little at all, but you kept trying and shortly after that the boat began to turn, and you paddled towards the staircase you had come from.

The water was rising faster now, and by the time you reached the stairs you had to duck your head so as not to hit it on the ceiling. The tides almost seemed to know where you wanted to go now, and they gently shoved your boat up the stairs as the downstairs rooms were lost to the depths. You sailed your boat to the top of the staircase, and then down the hall to your room. Somehow you knew this was where you needed to go.

You heard a jingling noise.

The waves became choppier as you got to your room, and you felt a slow chill move down your spine. You looked around uneasily, but saw nothing in the water, which had somehow gotten much darker. You continued sailing, and then...you heard it. The front door was yanked open, and there was a terrible silence.

She was home.

You paddled quickly towards your doorway, but the water level was falling as it drained, and it wanted to pull you down, down, down the staircase and towards the front door. Right to where She was waiting. You could feel her presence in the house, even from here. You paddled more frantically now, and somehow, you managed to make it into your room. The water from the bathtub had still been flowing when you'd paddled past it, and you hoped it would be enough to keep Her from coming up the stairs. You weren't sure what to do now, so you paddled towards the only other exit in your room, the window. You abandoned the paddle on the bottom of the boat floor as the space became too narrow to navigate with it, and instead pushed against the wall to make your way to the windowsill.

You heard footsteps sloshing through water.

You lunged for the window ledge as the footsteps got louder, and paused only for a moment when you looked out the window. All of the water from the house had poured outside, and had transformed the field behind the house into an ocean. The couch was bobbing above the waves along with much of the other furniture, and you smiled at the sight of it before turning and grabbing the paddle out of the boat behind you.

Then you realized the footsteps had stopped.

"Where do you think you're going?"

You froze.

But only for a moment, before darting back around and lifting yourself on unsteady feet to balance on the thin ledge outside your window.

Stupid child! Get back here, RIGHT NOW.

But you didn't go back. You looked down once, saw the couch floating by, and jumped. You thought she shouted your name, but you couldn't be sure.

You were already gone, sailing away across the ocean waves.

...

Your breaths calm as you remember your old dream, and you clutch your pillow a little tighter. One day.

One day you'll sail away.

And you'll never come back.

AN: See "Web Building and Other Tricks of the Heart" for the rest of Vriska's story.