The Drowning Room

Marcus stood at the kitchen counter, the morning light filtering through dust motes that danced in the stale air. He placed two vitamin supplements next to Elena's coffee mug—Vitamin D for the days she never saw sunlight, B-complex for the energy she no longer had.

She appeared like clockwork at 6:45 AM, eyes glazed, movements mechanical. The corporate restructuring had turned his vibrant wife into something that moved and spoke but didn't quite seem alive anymore. A zombie in a pantsuit, shuffling between Zoom calls and quarterly reports while their marriage slowly dissolved around her.

"Did you take your vitamins?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Elena stared blankly at the orange pills. "I'll take them later."

She never did. Marcus found them in the trash can at the end of every week, tiny witnesses to her surrender.

That evening, he found her sitting in the bathtub, fully clothed, water rising to her chin. The bathroom mirror was fogged with steam, condensation weeping down the glass like tears she couldn't cry anymore.

"Elena?"

She turned slowly, water sloshing against the porcelain. "I feel like I'm underwater all the time now. Like I'm moving through something thick and cold and I can never quite reach the surface."

Marcus sat on the edge of the tub, rolling up his sleeves, and reached into the water. He took her pruned hands in his.

"Let me help you," he said. "Not with vitamins or productivity hacks or whatever bullshit they're selling this quarter. Just... let me help you."

Elena looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in months. The zombie mask cracked.

"I don't know if I can be fixed, Marcus."

"We don't fix you," he said, squeezing her cold fingers. "We drain the water."

She nodded once, a small movement that sent ripples across the surface. The vitamins sat on the counter, orange and useless, while somewhere beyond the bathroom walls, the corporate machine churned on, consuming everything in its path.