On mornings during the week, he always took the second shower, and he was glad for that. His wife teased him about using gallantry as an excuse to sleep in for a few more minutes, and he did not deny it. But there were other reasons – she needed to be in earlier, he liked to linger under the hot water, and so on. By all accounts, it was an eminently workable arrangement.

 

It was working on a Tuesday at a quarter after eight. He was in the shower, half-covered in lather; she was already dressed and rushing around performing last-minute preparations for her day. It was no surprise when she burst into the bathroom and grabbed some items off the counter: lip gloss, a piece of jewelry, and a hair clip. He watched her with amusement; this was not an uncommon sight.

 

She caught him watching her and smiled. “Not going to be home until after nine, hon,” she said. “Client’s in from Hartford, and we have to take him out to dinner.”

 

“Not a problem,” he said. “Knock ‘em dead, honey. I’ll see you tonight.”

 

She walked over to the shower stall, the custom glass box an over designed mistake they’d paid far too much to have installed. “Thank you, hon.”

 

She kissed the outside of the glass shower door. He leaned in and pressed his lips briefly to the other side, the imprint of the kiss quickly vanishing in the steam.

 

“Love you,” she said, and turned to go.

 

“Love you too,” he said, and watched her. The door to the bathroom didn’t quite close behind her, but he could hear her footsteps over the hiss of the water until they faded, and he was alone.

 

He waited a moment after that to be sure she wasn’t coming back and then raised a single finger to the glass. With it, hurriedly, he wrote three words: Kill me now. They hung there for a moment, then he wiped them away. It wouldn’t do for the wife to suddenly come back and see them. Wouldn’t do for even faint traces in the condensation to remain to be deciphered. She might see. She might know.

 

Another swipe, and finally, he was satisfied. The words, the damning words, were gone as if they’d never been written. He blew on the glass and watched the condensation fog thicken, then started scribbling again. I hate myself, this time, scribed and wiped away in a heartbeat. One after another, they followed. Get me out of here.

 

I want to die.

 

Please kill me.

 

He did not understand why he did this. He had a good job. He had a good life. He loved his wife and considered himself almost unfathomably lucky. But every morning, when he was alone, the words came, and he could not help but write them.

 

Downstairs, a door slammed. That was his wife, leaving for work. He needed to get rolling as well. He lifted his hand to eradicate those last three words, and hesitated. What if she knew? Would she understand? Would she demand that he seek help, that he try to understand the why of it? Or would she just give up on him as damaged goods?

 

He’d make sure that she would never know. And by extension, never would he.

 

Satisfied, he pushed the shower door open and took his first steps toward facing the day.

 

It was an hour and a half later when his wife came back home, having had a travel mug’s worth of coffee spilled on her blouse by a clumsy coworker. Muttering to herself, she shrugged out of her top and headed for the walk-in closet at the end of the master bath.

 

She took two steps into the bathroom, stopped, and turned.

 

The last of the steam from the morning’s showers had long since faded away. But there were letters there on the shower door, she could see that now, traces left by the drying of the steam and the traces of evaporated water left behind, the evidence of fingertips meeting glass.

 

She saw a “p”. She saw the “l” that followed it, and the “e”, and while the next few were gone, she thought she could read the whole thing.

 

Please kill me, it said, in her husband’s handwriting.

 

The mere fact of it hit like a punch to the gut. It made no sense. Their life together was good. He loved her. She loved him. They were happy. Why would he say this?

 

But there were those words, the damning words in handwriting she knew to be his.

 

She looked more closely at the shower stall now, finding more traces here and there. She saw I Want To Die and I Hate Myself, and a half-dozen others besides. And she saw the trace of the kiss, and the shape of hearts wiped away, and more besides.

 

Nothing, though, was as bold as, or as clear as, the first thing she had seen. Please kill me.

 

Three words. Three words that she could not understand, the how, the why, or the where they came from. But she saw them, heard them as clearly as if her husband had spoken them, and felt them, felt the power of them.

 

And helpless to stop herself, she opened the door and pressed her finger to the glass. There was still enough moisture to wet her finger, enough to let her leave a mark.

 

One word she wrote there and one word only:

 

Soon.

​

Widely regarded as a leading expert on video game writing and narrative, Richard Dansky has spent over 25 years working on franchises like The Division, Far Cry, and many more. He has published 8 novels and 2 short story collections, and was a key contributor to White Wolf’s classic RPG setting The World of Darkness.