Bloody Footsteps

Frowning, she followed the blood-red footsteps to the nursery, where she found "Jingles", the shelf-elf, sitting by Mateo's toddler bed. A huge kitchen knife glinted sharp on his striped lap, and he wore the same fixed smile as always.

Blood drained from Sandy's face.

It was one thing when Karl had Jingles hanging himself from the tree with tinsel. That was in poor taste. But this was sick.

Her first instinct was to record this. Content. Everything is content.

She paused to apply the lightest touch of concealer around her eyes, and pull her hair up into a messy bun. Aiming to appear "just out of bed" and upset, without looking awful. She went live, and pretended she was seeing it for the first time.

Pyjamas slouching a little off one tanned shoulder, she flipped the camera, and broke her promise to Karl. Something he'd told her not to do when she started "this momfluencer stuff". Not to involve him, and certainly not by airing the mucky gusset of their marriage to her followers.

Well, screw him, he'd gone too far!

"You know," she confided to the unseen crowd, "I was so excited when he got into this elf thing. He's never wanted to be a part of any of this, never wanted you guys to know anything about him... He thought it was stupid. Then I was out-earning him, and he didn't cope well with that. Then he lost his job, and this was all that was keeping us going. Without you guys, we'd have lost the house..."

Sandy babbled on, keeping one eye on the "likes" and comments rolling up the screen.

>are you sure its carl?

>maybe it's one of the kids

>talk to him hun

>tbh that's metal af! fairplay to him lol

No, she decided, eyeing that comment. I'm not going to confront him about this. I'm going to document it, and see how far he's willing to go...

Sandy replaced the knife with red icing and a plate of cookies. Eyes dry, and a smile stapled in place, she woke the children and told them Jingles wanted to bring them cookies for breakfast.

She recorded the whole thing, of course.