Use The Soap

Luca staggered into the bathroom barely managing to take off his clothes. His chest contracted painfully, making him gasp for air. He turned the shower on and the cold water hit him all over.

The events of the night replayed in a loop, his hands on the tiled walls for support and his head lowered beneath the stream of water.

It was supposed to be a simple task. Raid their rival's stash house, load the boxes of ammunition into the van and leave. According to the intel, the building was empty.

Then Mario screamed as a bullet tore through his arm out of nowhere. Luca dropped down quickly, his eyes scanning the warehouse. The shooter hid between two big barrels, a shotgun pressed against his shoulder, his eyes narrowed and searching for him.

He stayed out of sight, crawling behind crates and barrels until he emerged behind the shooter. The sight of Mario on the floor, blood pooling around him turned something off in him. Mario was like a brother to him, the person who stood up for him when a deal went wrong would have cost him his life.

He quietly raised his pistol without a thought just as the shooter turned, his eyes wide and in a blink, brain matter splattered across the floor and wall.

He rushed outside and doubled over, expelling the content of his stomach on the ground. He'd been with the mafia for a year and this was his first kill.

An sickening heaviness settled on him as his vision blurred for a moment. He remembered their underboss, Pascal, had once said after a few too many drinks. “You get used to it. First, though, use the soap and wash away the evil.”

He scrubbed harder with the soap and loofa until his skin burned but the heaviness remained. No amount of soap and scrubbing could erase the wide, startled eyes of the shooter.

His only comfort was that Mario was alive and receiving treatment at their medical wing.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "use the soap".

Thank you for visiting my blog.

^{_{Image created by AI using NightCafe Studio}}