She criticised him for his lack of expertise and he slinked off like a dejected creature. He headed for the back room and hid his shame under an old rug that smelled of damp and rotting cabbages. He wasn't sure how long the carpet had been there, or where it had come from, but it was somehow comforting to know it could cover him.
From there he could hear her stomping around the house, clomp! clomp! clomp! her heavy boots she never seemed to take off punishing the tired wooden flooring. He could hear her muttering to herself, but he wasn't sure if she was looking for him, or if she had forgotten he had ever existed.
He knew she would never find him in here, under this rug. She never came into this room. It held too many memories, too many dark stories, some true some less so.
The cold and the damp began to eat into his bones, a kind of pain that reminded him he had once lived.
...
