There Can Only Be One
By Stone Temple Pilot
It was 8:47 P.M. on a Friday at young Sunset Shimmer’s house. Her mother out at a dinner party and wouldn’t be back until about 10.
Sunset headed to the upstairs bathroom to get ready for bed. When she got to the bathroom, she shut and locked the door behind her. She walked over to the shower, drew back the shower curtain, and turned the shower handle to the temperature she’s the most comfortable with. She took off her clothes and threw them next to the toilet before stepping into the shower.
After a little while, she took a nearby bottle of shampoo and squeezed some into her hand. She ran the shampoo with her hands through her sopping wet hair, gathering it all into a fine lather. Then, she heard a faint noise from outside her door. She turned off the water and listened for any other sound. Nothing. She then got out of the shower, still with shampoo in her hair, grabbed and wrapped herself in a towel from the towel rack, unlocked the door, opened it, and poked her head out to listen.
“Hello?” she called. “Mom? Dad?”
No answer.
Sunset stood there listening for another moment or two and drew her head back into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door.
She took off her towel and placed it back on the rack and got back into the shower. She turned the knob back on, leaned her head back into the stream and rinsed all the shampoo out of her hair. A little bit of shampoo ran down her face and into her right eye. Sunset drew her head forward and winced in pain, rubbing her eye.
She washed the rest of herself for about another six minutes with a bar of Dove soap from a small soap rack on the wall opposite of the curtain. After that, she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She took the same towel from the towel rack and wrapped herself in it. She took another towel and wrapped it around her head. She took her clothes from the side of the toilet and unlocked the door. She stepped out into the hallway, the air giving goosebumps considering the bathroom was about fifteen degrees warmer and a lot more humid from the steam.
She walked over to the door to her room and threw her clothes in the nearby laundry chute. She turned the door knob and entered her room. She reached over to the wall on her left and flipped on the nearby light switch, illuminating the whole room. Her desk was covered in old books and CDs. Her bed had the blanket fall off to the far side as well as her sheet coming off one corner, revealing the bedding beneath.
She shut the door behind her and walked over to her dresser. She took the towel that was wrapped around her head, unwrapped it, and vigorously rubbed it against her hair to dry her hair off. She dropped the towel from her head, and quickly dried off the rest of herself with the one that was wrapped around her body. She opened up the first drawer and pulled out clean underwear, and quickly put them on. She then opened the bottom drawer, which contained her pajama shirts and pants. After she put them on, she felt a great feeling of comfort at how the fleece fabric felt against her skin.
She took the towels, walked over to her door, and stepped back out into the hallway. She walked back to the bathroom and threw the towels into the laundry chute. She stepped into the bathroom, which now felt much cooler and less humid, and walked over to the sink. Seeing that the mirror was still fogged up, she wiped the moisture away with the palm of her hand. She opened the drawer on her right, pulled out a half empty tube of toothpaste, and grabbed her blue toothbrush from a blue plastic cup sitting in the far left corner of the sink. She unscrewed the cap, squeezed a bit of the minty green toothpaste onto the toothbrush, and began brushing her teeth.
After a few minutes, she spat the slurry of toothpaste and saliva into the sink. She turned on the faucet to let the slurry wash down into the drain. While the water was still running, she cupped her hands and placed them below the running water. Once they were filled up, she placed them to her lips, filling her mouth with the water, but didn’t swallow it. She tilted her head back and gargled a spat the water and what was left of the toothpaste in her mouth into the sink. She turned off the water, placed her toothbrush back in the cup, screwed the cap back onto the toothpaste tube, and put it back in the drawer.
She wiped her mouth and walked out into the hallway. She started back towards her room when suddenly, from behind her, she felt someone wrap a wire tightly around her neck. Sunset choked and thrashed, but the perpetrator kept a firm hold on her. Her hands grabbed the wire around her neck, but the it was wrapped too tightly around her neck for her to do anything. Right as she started to lose consciousness, she threw herself against the person behind her, knocking them both to the ground as well as freeing Sunset from the wire being wrapped around her throat.
Sunset gasped and coughed for a brief moment, got back up and ran passed the perp and for the stairs. She could hear the perp get up from behind her and start to chase after her as her heart pounded a million miles a second. She ran down the stairs as fast as she could, skipping every other step. However, as she ran down the stairs, the hem of her pant leg snagged onto a loose nail sticking out of one of the steps, causing her trip and roll down the rest of the way.
When she hit the bottom the stairs, she lay face up, absolutely disoriented. After a moment or two, she blinked and sat up, seeing that the perp is standing right above her. The house was too dark for her make out its face. She tried scrambling to her feet, but the perp jumped on top of her, wrapped its hands around her throat, and started strangling her. She struggled to grab for the perp’s hands to try to pull them away from her, but she was too weak from the fall down the stairs. Her face and lungs burned as she began to lose consciousness, but as the house was briefly illuminated by a strike of lightening from outside, she could barely make out the person’s face. It looked like… herself.
Then, nothing.
It was 10:03 P.M. when Sunset’s mother came up the driveway. She stepped out of her car and walked through the rain in her raincoat and umbrella up to the front door. She pulled out the keys from her purse, put them into the lock, and unlocked the door, allowing her to enter.
When she got inside, the first thing she was met with was a strong smell of Soft Scrub. Though she didn’t think much of it, she was still a bit curious. She then closed her umbrella, closed the door, and hung it up by its handle on the nearby coat rack, which she then took off and hung her drenched raincoat on the rack as well.
She walked up the stairs and started walking towards Sunset’s room at the end of the hall. She approached Sunset’s door and gently knocked on it.
“Sunset?” she spoke. “Are you still awake?”
No answer.
She knocked again, a little louder this time. “Sunset?”
No answer.
She turned the knob and opened the door. The room for the most part was engulfed in darkness with the exception of the light of the streetlamps passing through the window on the far wall, though she didn’t turn on the light switch on the wall next to her.
She poked her head inside and fixed her eyes in the direction of Sunset’s bed. There she saw the silhouette of Sunset lying down in it facing the opposite way with the covers drawn over her. Very faintly, she could hear the soft breathing of her daughter.
Sunset’s mother smiled softly, stepped back out into the hallway and shut the door.
4:36 A.M., Saturday. At this point, the raining had ceased. Sunset came up to a stone bridge suspended about fifty feet above a relatively deep river, wheeling a blue garbage bin behind her.
After another minute or two, she made it to the very middle of the bridge. She let go of the trash bin and peered over the side of the bridge for a few moments into the black, murky water below that seemed almost bottomless. Turned back towards the trash can and opened its lid. Inside were four individual trash bags, all tightly wrapped. She took out the smallest one first, which was the one on top. Despite its size, the bag was relatively heavy. She still lifted it out of the bin with little struggle. Her hands felt the sand and rocks as well as its… main contents through the plastic lining. With one swift motion, she heaved the bag over the side of the bridge. She heard a loud splash before peering over the side once more to see the bag and its contents disappear under the ripples of the black water below.
She reached back into the bin and pulled out a larger as well as heavier trash bag, this time with a bit more struggle. Like with the other bag, she threw it over the bridge and into the river. She did the same with the other two bags, letting them sink into the black water of the river.
She peered into the river below for a few more minute while a tiny smirk formed across her face.
“Sorry,” she said quietly, “but this world isn’t big enough for the two of us.”