She’d shut and locked the door at the top of the stairs, but thinking now, it was a good thing this basement had been basically set up as a bomb shelter in the 50s, because locking the goddamned door wouldn’t do much good alone. Celia then started to walk downstairs, and put a chair in the center of the room and walked around it a few times, taking in the basement, in all its glory.

God, the things that had happened in this basement, a perfect example of the age old sentiment “if walls could talk”, because damn, the stories they would tell. Memories flooded her mind instantly, which made her smile at the irony of the euphemism. There was the time she and her older sister had hidden down here from their father after her older sister had hit the bumper of his car with her bike, and they were afraid he’d be mad, but in the end, he was just happy they were okay and told them to come to him and never be afraid. Her mind turned to the time she and Ashley Mossica got together and played a bunch of low fi cassette tapes in the basement at max volume because they had the house to themselves…god that weekend. The taste of her strawberry lipstick, how she had to hide the stains left behind by the kisses on her neck with a scarf, which thankfully worked considering it was snowing outside, and nobody questioned her clothing choices. The way that, the night of high school graduation, while her sister went to dinner with their parents, she and Ashley decided to stay in the basement and lay on the couch together, discussing plans for the future. None of which ever came true.

Now though…what had once been an escapist dream was now just an old, ratty basement in a home that could no longer sustain it. She’d since dropped out of college and been unable to afford her medications, and since her parents had discovered that she’d been seeing a woman from her support group. So much for parents loving you no matter what. Her parents hadn’t kept the basement up to snuff, and it had fallen into a state of disrepair, but now….now it’d be more than just that. She’d see to that. Sure, the rest of the house would remain fine, but this room would always and forever be Celia Armak’s. She sighed, grabbed an axe and started cutting into the old rusted pipes in the basement walls, which started to flood the room. Celia then sat down in the chair, strapped her legs to the chair legs with rope and cuffed her hands with an old pair of handcuffs after she’d put a blindfold on. She smiled, listening to the water as it began to fill the room and soak her shoes and socks, and climbing ever higher every second.

This basement, the games with her sister, the derby car projects with her father, the dance lessons with her mother, the first kisses, the loss of virginity, the first suicide attempt before college…yes, this room was her entire history, her entire life. The water quickly rose to her neck, and she craned her head back to give herself a few more seconds of breath, thinking about Ashley, thinking of all the promises they’d made to one another, all the things she’d planned to do with her life; go to college and become a famous clothing designer, maybe eventually do costume work for films…but not now. No. The water overtook her, and the chair was floating, as was she, still strapped to it. Her head was getting lighter, her thoughts foggier, her breathing tighter, and soon she was thrashing violently, and before she knew it, she was at peace, and soon Celia wasn’t thinking anything at all anymore.

“You can have the house,” she’d thought as she’d set this up, “But the fucking basement is mine.”