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== [[Comics]] ==
* The issue of ''Saga of the [[Swamp Thing]]'' that resulted in the title no longer carrying the Comic Code Authority seal features a truly [[Nightmare Fuel]] instance of this trope, after Abby [[Go Mad From the Revelation|realizes]] the [[Awful Truth]] behind why her husband [[Deal with the Devil|has]] [[Demonic Possession|been]] [[Creepy Uncle|acting]] [[Rape as Drama|differently]]:
{{quote| She ripped all of her clothes off, tearing them up. They were dirty. They'd touched her skin. She tried to burn them, but her hands were shaking and the matches kept going out. In truth, she was a little crazy by this time. It was the smell. She couldn't get rid of the smell. In the shower she used up all of the soap, the shampoo, the bubblebath, the perfume... the smell was still there. Have you ever burned an insect with a magnifying glass? Just once, long ago, when you were a kid and didn't know any better? There. You know it. You know the smell. When the soap wouldn't get rid of it, she went to the kitchen and fetched the wire brush that she used for scraping the potatoes... twenty minutes later she passed out. Twenty whole minutes. Even then she could still smell it. She could smell it in her dreams.}}
* In ''[[The Sandman]]'' {{spoiler|after mercy killing his son Orpheus (who has spent millennia as a disembodied head)}} Morpheus is seen washing the blood from his hands in a bowl of water looking sadder than he ever has in the series.
 
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** A good example comes at the end of "Thankless Job" - when the song ends, it [http://i47.tinypic.com/30cu9dw.jpg hits Nathan] about what he's doing ''while his arm is still in the corpse'', and he ends up spraying down his uniform and tools.
* As [[Akira Kurosawa]]'s ''[[Throne of Blood]]'' is ''Macbeth'' [[Recycled in Space|in feudal Japan]], it is unsurprising that Asaji freaks out over blood only she can see.
* Similarly, in ''~[[Scotland, PA~]]'' (which is ''Macbeth'' in a rural 70's Pennsylvania fast-food joint), Pat McBeth gets a small burn from frying oil when Duncan dies. As she sinks into madness, she becomes convinced that the burn is getting worse, even though it completely healed in reality. In the end, {{spoiler|she's driven to cut off her hand with a kitchen knife, then promptly faints and bleeds to death}}.
* ''[[Chicago]]'' has a bit at the beginning with a character having a hard time scrubbing the blood off her hands in the dressing room before being called up on stage.
** Subverted, in that the character carries no guilt at all about the murder.
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* In the novel ''Stormland'' by the icelandic author Hallgrí­mur Helgason, {{spoiler|the protagonist Bøddi begins seeing black flies crawling on himself, objects and the faces of everyone he talks to after shooting his brother through the eye and seeing the flies crawl around in his wound. The visions get more intense as his mental breakdown worsens.}}
* The Hungarian ''Ballad of Agnes'' tells the story of a woman who has her lover stab her husband in his sleep, and afterward she spends day after day at the river, trying to wash the (imaginary) bloodstain out of the sheet, though said sheet has already been reduced to a handful of ragged cloth from all the scrubbing. Even when she's taken to court, she just keeps saying she has to go back to her washing; the judges take pity on her and decide her own guilt is punishment enough.
{{quote| ''Mistress Agnes in the streamlet''<br />
''Washeth still her ragged sheet;''<br />
''Downward are the cover’s remnants''<br />
''Carried by the current fleet.'' }}
* Robert Harris' ''[[Fatherland (novel)|Fatherland]]'' has a disturbingly understandable version. The protagonist, a U-Boat captain, finds out that {{spoiler|[[Nausea Fuel|the socks he was issued for 10 years]] [[But It Really Happened!|are manufactured from]] [[Moral Event Horizon|the hair of executed Jews.]]}} He describes not feeling clean after bathing repeatedly for days; more justified than most given the close physical contact involved...
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* ''[[Kamen Rider Faiz]]'': This is the reason that Masato Kusaka obsessively cleans his hands. He wasn't the murderer but he ''did'' witness the massacre of his classmates and was killed himself. [[Back From the Dead|They got better]]. Still, this could partially account for why he's such a [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulative]] [[Jerkass]].
* Referenced in ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'': While watching a short film about Ross, an animal wrangler who captures wildlife for zoos, Joel's and the bots' commentary makes Ross out to be a villain on par with those from ''[[Captain Planet]]''. Then, there's a brief shot of Ross wiping his face off with a towel, at which point Servo quips:
{{quote| '''Tom Servo:''' Ross tries to towel away the evil, but nothing doing.}}
* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'': Drew has cybersex with Mimi and doesn't realize it until the deed is done, whereupon we cut to a fully-clothed Drew sobbing in a hot shower.
* ''[[Ace Ventura]] Pet Detective'', wherein the title character burns his clothes after he finds out that {{spoiler|[[Dropped a Bridget On Him|Finkel is Einhorn]]}}. And then at the end, {{spoiler|[[Really Gets Around|the entire police force starts puking]] upon that revelation}}.
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* ''[[Macbeth]]'', the original. Lady Macbeth, long after she had washed her hands dripping with Duncan's blood, continued to be preoccupied by hand-washing. So great was her sense of guilt that no amount of water and the [[Madness Mantra|ritual incantation]] of "Out, damned spot! Out, I say" could restore her peace of mind or ability to sleep.
* Inverted, interestingly, in the [[William Shakespeare|poet's]] ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', in which Brutus suggests:
{{quote| ''...Stoope Romans, stoope,''<br />
''And let vs bathe our hands in ''Cæsars'' blood''<br />
''Vp to the Elbowes, and besmeare our Swords:''<br />
''Then walke we forth, euen to the Market place,''<br />
''And wauing our red Weapons o're our heads,''<br />
''Let's all cry Peace, Freedome, and Liberty.'' }}
* In ''[[Woyzeck]]'', the title character murders his unfaithful girlfriend, and obsesses over fear that someone will find the murder weapon. His determination to hide it in the river and wash off the blood gets him drowned. [[Author Existence Failure|Probably.]]
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* ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' is essentially the protagonist's guilt over {{spoiler|the murder of his wife}} manifest as a variety of physical monsters.
* In the early FPS ''[[Blood]]'', this trope is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] then [[Subverted Trope|outright subverted]] in the first episode. Within the first map, the protagonist (Caleb, an [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|undead, wisecracking cowboy]] with [[Complete Monster|a sadistic streak as big as Texas]]) comes across a sink, to which he replies:
{{quote| '''Caleb''': "OUT! OUT! Damned spot!"}}
::When he finds another sink, deep within a kitchen area, he goes on to comment:
{{quote| '''Caleb''': "But I like my hands bloody..."}}
* In ''[[Dragon Quest VI]]'', there's a town that thrives due to their rejuvenating water, which, shortly after you arrive, turns blood red. Investigation reveals that a woman is trying to clean the blood off her sword at the water's source, consumed with guilt because she believes she killed her lover. You have to find him [[Not Quite Dead]], but she'll be cleaning her sword until you do.
* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', [[The Dragon]], Conrad Marburg, wears black gloves at all times. At their first meeting, if the protagonist has accumulated enough of Marburg's dossier, he can accuse him of wearing them as a feeble psychological crutch to avoid feeling that he has blood on his hands.
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