Day 757

At some point people stopped needing to make houses from the surrounding woods and around that time the woods began to make houses from themselves instead. Their trunks became widespread with large leaf-filled gaps in place of windows, doors and their branches twined together to make a roof.

The nearby forests are filled with trees like this and with no rules in place around them realtors have begun placing value on the entire area. They butchered most of the area to install running water and plumbing first. While they waited for the trees to heal up again they named and numbered the newly grown streets and placed adverts for occupants. Just a trial run at first, a few hundred families to see how the space works, if it needs watering like a regular plant, is it sustainable and profitable, etcetera.

It was bad right from the start. No amount of pruning, weed killer or glass stopped the leaves from growing back over the window and doors meaning that anyone wanting to leave had to hack their way out every morning and night. The more vulnerable community members were trapped frequently and pulled out of the trial before the end of the first week.

Those that hung around for longer discovered yet more problems. The interior of the trees was surprisingly delicate, the slightest brush too hard and the soft bark would tear, attracting swarms of insects in a matter of minutes. It made wallpapering, hanging photos and most furniture utterly impossible without welcoming infestation.

Another oddity of these new homes was that local wildlife seemed to be able to come in and out of them freely. former residents claimed that they just passed through the leaf doors like they were nothing while the people there had to struggle against every inch of plant-growth.

What pushed the last few residents to leave wasn't the insects, wasn't waking up to wild deer leaning over their prone forms and wasn't the leaves. It was the utter silence that came when everybody else had left. No birdsong, no wind, not even the echo of their own footsteps. Everything sounded muffled except the cracking of tree branches.

It would always start from far away and draw closer, culminating in what sounded like a raging bonfire only to fade away again. From what the reports said, it happened in a circular pattern that moved from one resident to another like something was patrolling the area. They never saw anything unusual though some claimed that the houses around them had rotated or switched entirely.

The project shut down two months after it began and the forest was left to its own devices once more. New houses keep appearing and the older ones continue to grow, gradually becoming living mansions that nobody can stand to live in. The cracking sounds haven't stopped either, they still roam about the area and have started to be heard approaching the nearby neighbourhoods.

Day 756

They called it the cure to cancer and for sixty five years we used it, only knowing that it cured us and nothing more. Scientists of all sorts were so eager to vouch for it and declare it a modern miracle backed up with countless jargon and other nonsense.

The odd case of someone with terminal or malicious cancer taking too much of the drug came to light, their bodies found smothered under thick slabs of their own flesh, distorted in colour by the sheer rate that it had grown in so little time.

One case that was well noticed by the public involved a nameless Jane Doe who had been seen by multiple cameras, behaving perfectly normally, for all that could be gathered from this and the few people who claimed to have spoken to her. Her body was discovered the following morning when her downstairs neighbour heard a series of loud thuds and screams coming from her apartment. Much like other cases her body was a disfigured mass of flesh that had crushed the rest of her in a matter of minutes.

Since the panic that this caused more and more cases are coming up. The drug producing companies of course are claiming that these people are using the medication wrong and this is their own fault rather than it being any kind of side effect that we hadn't been warned about before or had developed as the body's natural response to a new series of chemicals suddenly being introduced.

It's getting to the point where people who haven't been taking the drug at all are being found dead under their own suddenly-gained mass, always with some kind of flesh wound (usually a scratch or sore) buried beneath their mounds of skin.

As of yet nobody has successfully been treated for Rapid Onset Skin Expansion (ROSE for short) though the first few cases are being monitored in strict lab conditions, albeit not on purpose at first. From the footage released by an unknown whistle-blower, a technician with stage 2 ovarian cancer was seen to collapse while cleaning equipment and within three hours quadruple in size, her original skin underneath bruising and rupturing as the skin cells replicated at near impossible speeds.

This footage was hardly the first of its kind, countless people have filmed strangers or loved ones succumbing to ROSE, helpless to do anything else. The only difference with this footage was that its conditions allowed for it to be studied closer, from multiple camera angles and even from the small sensors dotted about the lab itself.

There is no cure for this, at least not one they're telling the public. There have been no news conferences, no new drug releases and no official response from the companies in question. Even the government has been "at conference" for three months now, safely locked away from us all or possibly ROSE-dead. They've left the country in the dark, metaphorically and physically.

Day 755

At first it didn't seem like the mountainside was inhabited at all, let alone home to small hotel. They'd found it by pure chance while trying to find a campsite just outside of the city for a quiet week away from everything before university started up again.

Finding it in person happened by just as much random circumstance as the online search as someone walking three greyhounds trotted up to them looking concerned. After an obligatory reassurance that they meant to be in the area, confusing directions were passed before it was mutually decided that the dog walker - who gave the name of Mindy - would escort them - who gave a fake name of Sybil - to the hotel which turned out to be half way up the mountain, near the entrance to a natural cave.

It seemed that the hotel's name "Last Chance Spa and Secret Getaway" was well founded as the front was covered in what appeared to be natural rock that allowed it to blend perfectly with its surroundings. To the sides it was panelled with roughly cut wood to give it the kind of homely, rustic aesthetic that only worked during the day. At night it just looked like a pile of splinters with jagged window-eyes peering out into the seemingly never-ending decline of the mountain.

Sybil felt on edge before they even walked in, something about the starch-white, minimalistic interior was too contrasting to the outside. It was like a hospital hidden in a cabin, not what they expected at all and not what they wanted either, hoping for an utterly rustic and cosy vacation full of books and quiet chairs by a fireplace.

The receptionist was an older man dressed in a pale grey uniform that they saw buttoned down one side as he stood up to greet them with a smile that looked painfully stiff. At this point the thought of leaving against the cost of booking the week wasn't quite enough to make them want to leave and they told themself they would stay the night, just in case they were having nervous kind of day.

Their room was just as sparse as the reception area with one grey sheeted bed, a navy blue wardrobe and matching single bedside table standing out against the barely pastel blue walls. At the time Sybil was thankful that their room was at the top of the hotel with a gorgeous view of the mountainside by day that faded to a sheer drop and faint flickers of light against the cave entrance by night.

That first night was one they wouldn't forget in a hurry and one they wouldn't mention again to friends who asked how their week off had been and if they'd gone anywhere fun. No, they wouldn't mention the sounds of water falling onto rock at night or the free cave tour that allegedly led to natural hotsprings but instead led to a large pool of pitch black water reflected no light.

Nor would they talk about Mindy the dog walker who they saw being devoured by her little greyhounds as she lay half tangled in their leashes at the doorway to her own room in the hotel. Over the two days they managed to stay at "Last Chance Spa and Secret Getaway" they witnessed almost eight deaths, some of which they felt personally responsible for.

They felt responsible for the young boy who'd asked them to play tennis with him only to trip over and fall head first onto a nail that had come loose from a floorboard in the recreational area. Sybil convinced themself that they'd seen the loose nail the second they'd come in and they never said a word. The boys parents didn't look at them once throughout the whole ordeal.

They felt responsible for the elderly woman who asked for them to help her walk down the mountain so she could walk around the woods, only to head off before Sybil had the chance to put their boots on. Her broken body was found near the base, her face a caricature of surprise. If they had moved sooner then she might still be alive.

There were six other times, six other people Sybil felt they could have helped and over the next few months they let this consume them until they got an email from the hotel offering them a free week's stay as compensation for the "unfortunate and tragic circumstances" of their last stay. Sybil understood now. They were being offered one last chance to right their mistakes, to notice more, to move faster, to use the right fire signals and prevent more deaths by their own hands.

Day 753

I should probably preface this by saying that my town is on the edge of rural and urban, surrounded by large patches of forest and great farmer's fields while still having most mainstream shops and luxuries at the centre.

Now in the woods by my house there's the ruins of an old 12th century monastery. This kind of crumbling brickwork is fairly common around the town and fairly ignored by both locals and tourists to some extent. The ruins nearer to the town centre are used mostly for teen meet-ups and the occasional small music festival.

In all my years of wandering about the old monastery I've only ever seen three other people around on the regular, one of which I'm fairly certain died recently and had her obituary in the papers for reaching the grand old age 102. Not once had I approached these people or done much past a faint smile and frantic change of direction in case they're one of the local weirdos yet somehow I knew their names.

Mrs McKeenie might have died in her sleep on the 14th of the month but I see her regular as clockwork sitting on the bench by the ruins with her flask of tea and a crossword book. Come to think of it she's been wearing the same clothes for well over three months now. It's entirely possible that she died a fair while before anyone found her, the community around here is scattered and avoidant at the best of times.

There's also the ex army doctor, now known to most people as just Hathersby. He still walks like he's on duty, just like the rest of the soldiers in the neighbouring garrison. Apparently he carries an army issued gun with him at all times but I've only seen him with it once. He was aiming at the back of Mrs McKeenie's head. He stayed frozen in that half-crouched-ready-to-fire position for what felt like hours before he chose to sit beside her instead. I didn't stick around to see what happened next. Guns are hard to come by in England and we're not taught what to do with them outside of army training.

The only other person I've seen by the ruins is definitely dead - she was on the local news and everything. They found her head by the old monastery and the rest of her body in the lake nearby. Her killer was never found but she keeps coming back to where her head was found, at least her body does. Sometimes I can see her fumbling about on all fours by the base of the old stairs, other times I can only hear where she's walking about nearby. I've never seen her head properly yet, occasionally an eye will be peeping out from the autumnal leaves but she never makes a full appearance.

Day 753

The sound of dozens of children weeping carries along the late winter breeze, along the path that hasn't been used for nearly thirty years. Weeds and common flowers have cracked through the walkway, thick moss covers the rest giving the riverside a fairytale atmosphere.

Willow trees crowd around the bank, their limbs brushing through the water with the wind, carrying the crying noise as far as the houses at the edge of the surrounding fields. Occasionally a dog walker will pause in the fields,tilting their head at the trees before leashing their dog and walking swiftly in the opposite direction.

The trees were supposed to sleep in winter but as they still called out it was clear they had never slept at all. Bloated corpses lay just beneath their tangled branches, ensnared with terror still frozen on their decaying faces. The river around the trees was always bogged with entrails of some sort or other. Dried bodies dangle high up in the boughs, all the moisture sucked out weeks ago as they gradually turn to flaky bones and tattered fabric.

The weeping willows call out to humans in the only way they know.

Everything needs to eat.

Day 752

There had been odd noises coming from the classroom pipes for as long as the staff could remember.  No matter how many times they were disassembled these noises persisted, even when the entire water system was replaced with a brand new everything. It was described most commonly as a cross between scuttling, flushing liquid and garbled attempts at speech.

The staff played it off as a recording in the popes put there as a practical joke that they'd never been able to fish out. Students fell for it for about half of their first year before realising the sounds were too clear to be any kind of recording. It was only made worse when a couple of older students decided to knock on the pipes, not expecting a reply.

From then on there would be knocks coming from inside the pipes, in every classroom but especially room 008A. It was a fairly small classroom used mainly for exams and the closest to the boiler room where the sounds could be heard clearest and if you stayed long enough you'd hear something metal being unscrewed from no apparent source.

Day 751

They were called "Secrets" because they laid their eggs in between windpipe and vocal chords, they were shaped in such a way that for some reason as they grew they made it harder for the host to say certain words. Commonly this lead to shortness of breath and paralysis of the voice altogether from some secreted enzyme that was only produced during the hatching process.

From there is was a matter of weeks before the Secrets would grow, consuming each other at first before they began to move further down the host's neck, their head remaining at the throat while their torso and limbs filled the chest. They'd use their circular jaw to cut a hole in the oesophagus after,of course, using their prehensile tongue to move the oesophagus beside the windpipe instead of its usual place behind.

A fully grown Secret is about three feet tall and weighs between 40-55lbs. Despite many attempts to remove them prematurely, their grip on the host's internal organs leads to multiple ruptures and (in 98% of cases) fatality. They have two main ways of extracting themselves, both resulting in the death of the host.

The first method involves them using a mixture of saliva and the host's oesophageal mucus to plug the hole that they fed from before rotating their body and cutting their way out through the stomach region of the torso, crouching under the ribs and always leaving them intact. If the host doesn't die from blood loss, the faecal matter left behind by the Secret during its gestation would have caused multiple internal infections.

The second method is lesser used but far more brutal. It seems the Secrets are capable of producing an anaesthetic with strong hallucinogenic side effects resulting in paranoia, hysteria and rapid mood swings at best. In the worst case found the young man had killed himself and the Secret, using a butter knife to hack away at himself and, according to the autopsied contents of his mouth and stomach, eaten as much of both as possible before passing away.

We still don't know how the Secrets breed. Their eggs just seem to develop, often being mistaken for cancer before the appropriate scan is done to show the minute embryos developing, eggs latched onto nearby veins like a placenta.

Anyone could have a Secret, after all they're so easy to mistake for a sore throat or persistent cough.

Day 750

The lower deck of the bus was crammed, the windows were steamed up with fat droplets of water slowly working their way down in the humid air that barely circulated. A heat haze surrounded everyone, the air vibrated  and thrummed in time with the engine as they travelled down roads that didn't exist on any map and past impossible buildings.

The doors were sealed until each stop, bolted and unbolted by the driver every time a new passenger was due to board. Through trial and error the company found this was the best way to reduce casualties and ensure the majority of passengers arrived to the Safe Zone.

Nobody complained, at least they didn't out loud. The last one to voice a protest (just a simple "I wish they'd open a window - it's too warm in here") had been pushed out in some unnamed No Man's Land between stops, beside an oak tree that grimaced as the bus pulled to a stop. Nobody looked back.

The staircase to the upper deck was sealed in the same way the doors were, an eight inch thick steel plate bolted down each side. The occupants of the deck weren't anything like the ones below. For starters they were human, or at least mostly human while the lower decks were creatures that human minds aren't quite capable of processing. Too many limbs in too little space, voices like thunder that cause eardrums to utterly rupture - that sort of thing.

The decks never mixed, in fact there was a separate driver for the upper deck altogether. He had no wheel to steer by, only a ramp and a drill to unbolt the doors to allow new human passengers to board just as safely as the ones below.

Together, yet apart, the mixed group of beings travelled towards the rumoured Safe Zone, carrying nothing with them but fear of what they'd left behind and the impossible sights they saw along the road ahead.

Day 749

We as a species have explored the surface of our territories, consuming every inch and spitting out cities, wars and forgetting where we put either of them. Comparatively we've hardly touched the depths that the ground affords us, the more accessible chasms that we can't get to in our oceans.

The air underground is stale but bearable, tinged with the scent of your own sweat and something like an old potted plant in an attic. We find this air today in the basement of an old pencil manufacturing plant that shut down as we found better ways to make everything. It was left to rust and forgetfulness, nobody being sure which would remove it from the world first and nobody realising that the world wasn't nearly done with it yet.

Deep under the basement gears were turning - literally. Made from flint and held in place by the already existing structures that had been pulled down and remade in some kind of mirror image. When urban explorers came across the gaping hole in the depths of the old pencil factory they thought it a sinkhole until one of them shone their torch onto a wide set of iron stairs.

The flaking paint matched the remnants of everything on the upper floors, the ground floor was utterly devoid of the machinery that had definitely been left there to rust. Even the floor grates were gone in most places, a small patch of them stood at the far end of the factory floor and nothing else. You among the others head down, equal parts fearing the unknown and excited at the thought of finding a hidden place, perhaps a new base for the group.

The stairs weren't too steep, almost a ramp rather than a steps in all honesty but they still took the group a fair way down beneath the factory's alleged lowest point. It branched out eventually into a wide platform, the iron grid illuminated from below by small lights. The filaments looked to be the same as those they'd seen near the basement door, old halogen shining up at them and the strange machinery that surrounded them.

As a bright light suddenly filled the room you all turned at once to face a fan that must have been fifty feet across. It spun lazily, casting the entire room in a brief halogen-bright haze and showing just how deep the room was, deceptively so from the first glance. Everyone was so distracted by the unexpected sight that it took them a while to hear the faint sound of metal grating on metal.

The fan's blade blocked the light once more and their torch beams dimly showed what looked to be dirt encrusted cables dragging metal grates down the stairs and to the far edge of the platform, stretching and expanding it until it fit neatly into a large space over a gaping chasm that their torch beams couldn't see the end of.

Nobody noticed the same kind if cable snaking their way from beneath the platform, heading for the unsuspecting ankles of humans who went where the underground was creating its own world. As the cables snapped their ankles, their necks snapped soon after from she sheer force of the impact, jarred to breaking as they hit the edges of the iron floor with a loud cracking thud.

They didn't die for nothing though, just like everything else that came from the factory floor they were put to good use. Their skins were so much more useful than the rabbits and birds that the underground had found wandering about before. Their bodily fluids mingling with the water to cool down machines whose purpose was unknown even to its creator as it moved downward and forward to perfect production.

Day 748

The abandoned cinema was supposed to be two floors of nothing but pigeon crap, dust and the remnants of film posters from fifty years ago. The two teens got exactly that at first, breathing the musty, possibly asbestos-tainted air through their cheap filter masks and making fun of the graffiti from people like them who'd come before to mark what was left of their first forays into moving pictures.

They headed to the upper floor first, feeling a little worried by the sheer darkness of the lower area and its boarded up windows, seeking that slightly fresher air right from the start.  Of course they didn't bother to test the stairs before they headed straight up and onto the old upper foyer, the place where their older friends despaired at never having been allowed to see as the bar there only served alcohol. Now the bar was little more than an outline on the floor and a few glass shards in a corner, piled up neatly like somebody had once done the sweeping and been too distracted to finish it off.

The rooms around there were the toilets(broken and used, the source of most of the scent that permeated that half of the floor), the staff room (door too broken to use but totally empty from what they could see) and the upper floor of the only cinema room there. The balcony they'd always wanted to sit on when they were younger but the seats had always been to costly. Now they sat on the metal bars what were the last pieces of furniture around and pretended to be watching an old-timey flick, shining their torch beams around like beacons.

They almost forgot the lower floor even existed until they heard laughter that wasn't theirs coming from the darkness below them. The urge to immediately bail was stifled only by thought that it might be their friend who'd said he'd meet them there in a bit. He may have sent that five hours ago, judging by their phones, but still he could be there. Time had flown by so quickly but they soon forgot about that when the sound of dozens of feet came thundering up the stairs.

They panicked, heading to a door furthest from the one they entered, squeezing through the slim gap and hiding together under the remains of a cardboard box that someone had clearly slept in a long time ago. The footsteps pounded onto the balcony and low voices whispered about the still-on torches the two teens had left behind in their mad rush to hide away.

Two torch beams darted about the room they'd run into and what sounded like eight voices speaking in unison spoke to them. "They ran in here they did. We know that. Yesss they always hide in here somewhere but why can't we see them? What if they jumped? Yesss that would be fun to see, let's go to look? No, they were small boys, we saw that. They would break and be broken if they jumped so they must be here. But WHERE?" and their final word, said in a screech of annoyance, echoed about as the teens remained as still as possible, hoping the source of the sound would leave soon.

The person (or persons?) didn't seem to be able to make up their mind or comprehend that they could split up and check both upper and lower floor. From what they said their plan was to dangle as much of themself over the balcony as they could to check for the teens bodies or any hint of their current whereabouts. With a coarse rope-like noise and dozens of grunts the being seemed to be lowering themself right down "until the fingery-tips touch the floor. It makes for the best view, yesss."

With a prolonged thud and much pained groaning they seemed to have lowered themself too much and fallen straight over the ledge. Seeing their chance the two teens made a dash for the foyer, to one of the broken windows that led to the concrete canopy directly below. From there the drop to the street was only seven or so feet and they were more than happy to risk that rather than whoever, or whatever, was behind them, thumping up the stairs once more.

Rolling on impact they just about made it to the path below, relishing the fact that they hadn't been spotted. The streets in that area were generally quiet at that time of day, the busier areas being just around the corner. They ran without looking back, without thinking twice about the many pairs of eyes watching them go from the broken cinema window.

Day 747

There's always something unreal about airports, something about the staff's constant smiling or the metallic scent that lingers in the air or the military vehicles that constantly patrol the plane hangers with weapons far too large to be just for preventing civilian entry into off limit areas.

Even the tiny airports on the outer islands around Scotland have the same eerie atmosphere of not technically a part of the area it's in, technically an international space where nobody lingers for too long in fear of the staff who creep and prowl in their human guises like living shadows.

In our local airport the military presence is practically the main tourist attraction. Unlike most other airports in the country they don't stick to the outer areas and around the hangers, they is always at least one soldier in every room, armed to the teeth and so silent you can easily forget they're even there.

Around three times a year we can hear them firing in the hangers, whoever or whatever it is always leads to four or five ambulances being called out and rushed off to the nearest compound medical centre. Everyone knows soldiers don't go to civilian hospitals in case we see something we shouldn't.

Those of us who live around the airport are made to sign several papers stating we aren't allowed to talk about any unusual circumstances we experience, strange noises, lights and smells. We certainly aren't allowed to talk about the footprints all over our gardens, dark green, slimy eight toed things leading to our back doors and the airport several times as if there was more than one visitor.

This doesn't count as talking, right?

Day 746

Most old buildings eventually succumb to their surroundings, ivy grows over them and they collapse under their own weight. This is not the case for a decaying block of flats on the outskirts of Ilford that appears to be growing new windows.

Each window is different in style, shape and view. One looks like a ship's porthole and shows some kind of seaweed gently drifting about in a presumed current. Past the seaweed glimpses of a vast coral reef can be seen and people diving down to collect what appears to be branches.

Somebody once smashed this window only for it to fix itself up the next day. While it was broken I saw the ground around it was soaking and smelled like salt water, the seaweed had dried and shrivelled up,the reef in the background was a dusty grey husk and people were walking about in the distance, dazed and confused.

Once the glass was repaired again nothing was quite the same inside. Everything seemed duller and stiffer, like it was still dead but slowly coming back to health. Even the people moved stiffly, no longer swimming about but instead walking along the floor with a slow, carefully measured pace.

Some of the windows further up have people who open them, climb out and presumably have lives on this side of wherever they're from. I met one once as they had just finished sliding down the drain pipe. They didn't seem to have a discernible gender but called themself "Ali from Finance" as if that was their location, job and surname all rolled into one. They seemed normal enough but for the second set of teeth where gums should be. I don't see them around often.

Another "resident" lives much further down, his window peeping out from halfway through the path. He sometimes try to climb out but mostly yell at anyone passing by to bring him something from the local fish and chip shop. He never gives money for it though, he gives silver leaves which is what passes for currency on his side of the window. I suppose more people would listen to him if he didn't look like a cross between a pig, a bear and a lizard.

Day 745

Ghosts are well known for hanging around their old homes, places that they remember most for whatever reason. This wasn't a problem that most people noticed, what with them being incorporeal and unconcerned with what the living were doing, to an extent at least. Sure, the odd poltergeist made its appearance and was left to its own devices as the inhabiting living moved out as quickly as they could but for the most part this still wasn't an issue.

Then something happened, we still don't know what. Some kind of catalyst for the biggest rise in poltergeist activity since the Bell Witch Haunting came to the media's attention. Then cases went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 50 and are still rising.

Most homes are utterly uninhabitable by the living, whole cities have become lost to unseen figures and their anger. The worst of it isn't that we can't see them to defend ourselves, it's the messages they leave. It's that they are our grandparents, our siblings, our old teachers and neighbours who know us by name and hate us for living while they are not.

Whatever started their anger is still growing and with it we are forced to isolate ourselves further and further from our old habitats. Anywhere where humans could have lived or have lived is likely to develop poltergeist activity within an average of three days if there are living people present.

Our solution thus far has been to head to the near uninhabitable places, near to volcanoes, far out on the ocean, high up in the mountains, anywhere we struggle to remain in one place. The more we move about the less poltergeists can track us.

I've been out on the ocean since my grandmother came back and skinned my cat right in front of me before using his blood to tell me I'm joining her soon. Jokes on her, this boat hasn't stayed still for almost a year now and it's never been quieter out here. So painfully quiet at times but any time I feel the urge to go back to land I just remember that day and - surprisingly enough - the urge fades.

Day 744

I've always hated gardening centres for as long as I can remember. The air is always stale and reeks of fertiliser, the people seem to have this vacant disdainful stare that follows you the whole way around and worst of all these little -middle-of-nowhere places are the ones my mother swears by to the point that she refuses to go anywhere else but her set three places.

We've used them for so long I can trace their pathways and plant selection with my eyes closed, picturing the way my mother runs her hands over as many leaves as she inconspicuously can and smelling the soil of each plant thoroughly before placing it delicately inside her basket. She never seemed to noticed that everyone did the exact same things as she did, albeit at different times, almost taking turns.

No matter what the gardening magazines said she'd always pick the same five plants as she always did (three of them being different colours of germanium and two being different coloured poppies) and they were always planted in the exact same places year in, year out. I could plot the date by which plant she was moving where, she'd set them up in certain positions and gradually rotate them around over the course of summer (so they all get equal amounts of light, or so she says).

Nothing brings back childhood memories quite like helping her lug a pot of dirt three times my weight from one end of the patio to the other so that whatever she was growing in there got good sun. Come to think of it, she never did tell me what she'd been growing in there but I do remember going with her to buy the pot in the first place.

I don't remember her picking out the pot or helping her put it into the car but I do remember worrying  at some point about how stained it was on the inside and how it smelled like the tin cans we handed out for the harvest festival at school. Mum said it was just iron from the pot making process but I can safely say she was lying that time.

You see, the pot broke last night while she was asleep and I was the first down today. I remember now why she wanted that unseemly large pot and why she had to keep moving it about and why it had blood stains on the inside. I remembered I had a little brother.

He was about three at the time and loved eating anything his little hands could grab at. Mum left him for a few minutes to pot her regular plants and move them as she always had. She says that by the time she turned around he was already dead, granules of weed killer still stuck to his hand and around his foaming mouth but I remember otherwise.

I remember seeing her turn around from time to time while she was doing her regular moving, spotting him and carrying on like nothing had happened. The plants had to be potted and moved and she let him die. She told me to help her carry his limp little body onto a sack of soil and to wait until he woke up while she grabbed a doctor.

Only she came back with the pot and said the doctor advised that if we buried him head first then he'd just grow back up like all of her plants did. I was four, I didn't know better and she knew that. His body hit the bottom of the pot with a wet thud and bloody foam began to leak out of his mouth - a part of the process, mum said.

She poured dirt over him until nothing else showed and then told me we had to move him about so he got all the sun and nutrients and grew faster. I tried to forget it was him, somehow that made it all easier to the point where the pot became another one of mum's garden-things.

And then when I saw my brother again, under all that dirt and looking almost my age, I remembered.

Day 743

Ever noticed those pairs of shoes on telephone wires, dangling above with no owner in sight? Ever noticed how small they are? I've yet to see a pair that are actually adult sized or coloured. The most common 'round my area are those little boy style shoes with comic book characters plastered over every inch.

They're mostly found in the more rural areas, down by the farm houses and the garden centres along where the motorways meet the back-water countryside roads. There's one section in particular that's constantly gaining shoes to the point where the line around that street is terrible at best. They've removed as many pairs as they can but somehow someone just keeps throwing more on.

While the farmstead opposite that section complains about the static over the lines they say they're too used to the sight to want it cleaned up for good. The people around are always very quick to follow their complaints with a "but we love it, it's a tradition, we wouldn't change it for all the tea in China" and other local idioms to express their fondness for the inconvenience.

Idioms aside the locals all admitted they knew who put the shoes up there but they refused to name the person (or persons - they refuse to specify number). It wasn't until blood was found on a pair fallen from the line that everyone else began to ask questions. Those along that street claimed ignorance until matching blood was found scattered about the doorsteps of every house on that row.

Belonging to a missing child from east London, the blood was less than a week old and there was a lot of it beneath their front doormats. Some houses had the blood painted about like a sigil against something while others seemed to have hastily thrown it over their steps, covering it with a mat and leaving it be.

The child's body was never found, the street shut off and every house searched all for nothing. It went quiet for a while until a video taken by a London film crew showed several pairs of recently added trainers dripping blood onto the tarmac road below. When they tried to ask the street they found every door partially open and unlocked, the metallic scent of blood thick in the surrounding air.

Day 742

England has this obsession with converting old churches into museums, you find the damn things everywhere. It's always the same story behind it too - no congregation, no money, no point and therefore it must change. They like to say that society is becoming less and less religious, that churches are expensive (regardless of size or willing volunteers - it's somehow too much to financially bear) and finally the conclude by reverting back to "who even goes to church any more?"

Reasons aside the church-museum hybrids are always popular with tourists, some even going so far as to offer overnight stays to further scrape as much money out of people's pockets as possible. Even our local natural history museum (formerly known as The Gathering of Piety under Our Sainted Margaret of Cortona) used to host educational night stays for youth groups until some of them started telling strange stories about the ornate stone graves still inside.

They were these great big monstrosities made from the finest marble of their time and carved with figures posed lying down in their final rest. A couple looked to be knights of some sort but most were local nobles. During the day they were regal and elegant reminders of a bygone way to mourn the dead but apparently when the sun set and the main doors were shut the coffin lids would lift up.

Though they were terrified to remember, every youth who'd slept over had heard or seen something unusual about the graves. Even the smaller carvings along the walls and ceilings would shift after sundown into these scuttling imps that nipped and scratched at anyone awake or stupid enough to move. They never noticed the still people, perhaps being unable to or thinking them statues as well.

From what the youth groups have said the smaller ones come out in between the larger ones, like vultures dodging a larger predator but still circling the same group of potential prey. They were the last thing to worry about, the full size statues were armed and harder to fool. It got to the point where regular youth groups would bring grey face paint with them to better disguise themselves while the newer members would come away with cuts and large bruises.

The worst ones for attacking were the twin statues of Lord and Lady Otingham. they stood at five foot four and five foot eight respectively, one guarding the entrance and the other guarding the exit (as was their typical positioning). They wandered about a lot faster then the stone figures, being made from mahogany made it easier for them to glide along rather than let their joints grind like their old marble-boned brethren.

They would begin at their posts, glancing about, watching the smaller statues with vague interest and craning their necks forward as the night progressed. Eventually their bodies would catch up to their heads and they would start to scrape forward, heads bent low and bodies lower still. A few youths recalled how they'd stumbled upon one of the pair round a corner, nearly falling over them as they crouch behind display cabinets.

They like to work in a pair, singling someone out and herding them to toe centre of the room where they simply rush in and fall onto the unfortunate teen. Once they had someone caught beneath them they would pummel them as much as they could, faces expressionless and arms almost a blur of rapid movement. Multiple broken bones, fractures and concussions were all too common though thankfully there were no fatalities in their short time there.

We cancelled our night stays but there are so many more all around the country.

I can't help but wonder what their figures do at night and how many deaths they've covered up.

Day 741

I remember when I was seven my teacher Mrs Brinewight would tell us stories about her old school days, back in the early forties. The ones I remember clearest are the ones about her classmate Maurice Clarkes. He came from one of the older families of the area, the ones that used to be Big Money but were now low as the rest of them in the area.

His family were strange - even for the times. Apparently their rapid decline went further than just finance to the point where Maurice would come in every winter struggling to move, hands and face scrubbed so thoroughly he bled if he tried to smile. His movements would be stiff, like they'd starched his clothes to glass sheets, as Mrs Brinewight would say.

Took almost four years for the police to catch on, nobody told them you see. Back in those days kids were taught to not notice, that what we now know as abuse was just other kids acting oddly and they were to be avoided "for propriety's sake".

I remember her telling us about the day the police came to class to collect Maurice. It was nearly December and like all the December's before Maurice came in every day scrubbed and close to bleeding, his clothes and movements stiff as ice. The first thing they did when they came was gently peel back his cuffs exposing deep ragged stitches over a thick layer of scarring.

It used to be a thing apparently, to sew children into their clothing for the winter to keep them warm enough to last through days or weeks of unheated homes and long walks to school or work. What Maurice's parents had missed was that the clothes were meant to be sewn to each other, not to the child.

Day 740

There was a faint murmuring coming from the old town grounds. With a total population of seven people, a dog and two cows it was barely anything but they clung to the old namesake of Alpinton and the alleged ancestry of the ancient Pictish King Alpin and that his old bones lay somewhere out in the marshland.

Though marshland soil was great for preserving a body, there's not much chance of finding a body that's over 1200 years old. Still, when the winds blow over the Aplinton and the whispering voices carry over the houses, even the sceptics start to believe.

Day 739

He had never been allowed to sit on the plush armchairs of his aunt's house before. She used to say he'd break them, like they were made of porcelain instead of faux leather. No matter what he insisted (and after a few years it just became pure habit rather than desire) she'd always circle back to her final answer of "you'd only damage them with your persistent wriggling."

Fair point to her, he'd been squirmy as a child but mostly due to the cold wooden floors he'd been made to sit on while the adults got those invitingly comfortable seats. He only got the chance to sneakily sit on them when his aunt was taken to hospital with a bad chest infection. They insisted on keeping her in for a few nights and being the kind nephew he was, he'd offered to house-sit until she was well enough to return home.

The first thing he did when he got there was carefully sit on one of the chairs and not just any chair either - he sat on his aunt's favourite chair. The one she insisted was perfect for her delicate physique and arthritic back now cushioned him like it had been tailored to his own frame.

He must have fallen asleep there as he found his eyes opening to pure darkness. He remembered that the light switch was right beside the chair and flicked the room into yellow-tinged brightness. It never occurred to him to get up, not for the entire week he was there. He didn't eat or drink or move anything other than his right arm to gracefully flick the light on and off as day and night cycled about him.

By the time his aunt arrived home he was bone thin and lethargic, his skin the same shade of white as the chairs around him. The first thing his family did was to check the back of his neck to see how much of him the chairs had devoured. More than three inches off and he wouldn't be worth saving - at that point he'd be little more than impulses firing around the meat sack that used to be their little lad.

Day 738

There's nothing quite like the sight of a warm fire, the feel of its heat against your skin in the chilly spring air and the scent of the burning pine trees that the older generation seem so fond of using for kindling. That is, when you've planned the fire beforehand, not when you're thrown awake by a wall of flames several feet from home and rushing towards you fast.

The sky was a mesh of black smoke and flickering embers tossed up by the harsh winds that seemed determined to bring the flames right to your front door. During those brief moments of fear-turned-rational-thought you realised there was no sound. The fire stood at almost twelve feet tall, engulfing everything in its path without so much as a whisper.

Something about it seemed off enough that you stepped closer to the open flames, perhaps believing it was all a dream or perhaps half mad from the heat already. Your hand reached out to touch the flickering warmth and didn't feel any pain. Your eyes felt dry but didn't cause you any discomfort. Your skin blackened and cracked and you continued to walk forward.

Ahead of you were what could only be described as human torches, their bodies acting ad fuel and transport for the fire as they ran around, skipped and danced to some music you could only barely hear. They too made no sound, what little of their expressions you could see through the flames that were rapidly engulfing your body showed nothing short of pure joy.

One spied you and beckoned the others to head over to you. They in turn beckoned others and soon burning people were walking to you from every possible direction. Even the shapes you had thought to be conifer trees slowly ambled towards you, their impossibly long limbs swinging gracefully the air, leaving huge arcs of embers in their wake.

Your limbs moved to run away from them all, diving head first into a pile of ash and twisted metal that had maybe once been a car or a shed. The vibration of their footsteps came closer and closer, stepping right over you and trampling you further down into the ground, compacting the ash and soil tightly around until all that was left peeking above was the heel of our right foot.

The next thing you knew was that you were being dug out by someone in fireman's suit. Their skin had the same crackled, pus filled texture that yours did but neither of you were on fire, in fact the fire was gone. It left behind a landscape full of warped buildings and impossible creatures who'd been waiting in the trees for the right amount of warmth for too long.

Now, as you were gently led towards the ruins of the town church you began to understand what would happen. Everyone was queueing up to get inside, to be anointed for their new life. Where the baptismal pool had once been was now a deep gouge in the landscape, filled to the brim with thick bubbling lava. The line of survivors gradually moved into and under it. Nobody surfaced on the other side.

Day 737

Whales drifted past the office block as we all swam for the oxygen refill stations. It hadn't always been this way. When the floods first came we weren't even remotely prepared, drowning in our millions along the lowlands and trampling each other to death to reach the highlands.

It took quite a while to adjust but with the threat of further flooding looming over us (literally in some places) the world turned its efforts into creating safe havens for us under the ever-rising oceans. Every surviving country competed to create the safest, most luxurious deep sea citadel but only a handful have survived so far.

It's globally agreed that floating living areas are the safest option for the time being with continuous work being put into developing sustainable underwater living should the water rise too high for us to thrive upon it.

I used to work in the deep sea sectors alongside the remainder of Britain. As the saying goes - if it's not A cold, it's THE cold. Frostbite was an unfortunate occupational hazard in the more northerly areas and especially so as our base was joint with what was left of Scandinavia. No amount of thermal gear will stop the icy waters from taking you piece by piece.

Just last night my last toe went, it took its sweet time doing so. I hadn't felt the damn thing for weeks and then I wake up, roll out of bed and it rolls out with me or rather without me. It makes walking harder but doesn't affect swimming much, thankfully. If you can't swim then your job options are limited to food prep and surface scrubbing.

It wouldn't be so bad honestly but for the bodies that we keep finding. This water-based life has changed things for sure but those bodies are the biggest change yet. Literally. We've all been losing our hair but they've been gaining so much more. some are almost perfectly adapted to a 100% submerged life and yet something is killing them before they can last past a few days at most. We know, we've had them all tagged.

Day 736

At first we thought it was a mirage, the series of mountains so enormous we could barely see their peak but they felt real. Aerial shots of this area of Antarctica was just icy wilderness pretty much the same affair as the rest of the south pole in general.

The surface of the mountains seemed to be icy at first. That in itself was unusual as icy suggests there was, at some point, running liquid all down the mountainsides. Upon closer inspection and analysis of the mountain's surface we found them to be covered not in ice, but in enamel.

Specifically enamel similar to that of a whale. Somehow we were dealing with teeth big enough to rival Everest, teeth that had the remains of polar bears nestled well over every inch. At this point all we knew was that there (hopefully) had been a creature unlike any other we'd ever known and it fed solely on polar bears and other small warm-blooded prey.

It was impossible at first, to even think that an animal of such size could have ever existed, let alone found enough food to maintain itself. Perhaps that was how it died, as all the other gigantic beasts had, under their own weight.

We thought that at least. Then the upper jaw began to descend.

Day 735

We've been catching mice in the back garden. Nasty little pests have been chewing through the walls and wires and just about everything they can but shouldn't eat for no apparent reason. Honestly I'm not sure how they're even alive from the amount of brick they've managed to work their way past yet somehow they are and it's an absolute nightmare.

The largest hole they've chewed, the original one we keep sealing up with foam and dusting with rat poison , seems to be their main obsession. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen their fat little backsides wiggling through a gap that they've just finished making. Their faces are always covered in blood and dust, teeth broken and embedded in the foam.

We'd feel guilty but they just keep coming back until their faces are practically nothing but bloodied mush. At this point it's easier to just dispose of their corpses at the other end with a small "humane" mouse trap (a glass box with one-way hinges that lures them in with peanut butter and keeps them there).

After a further month if this we stopped getting any mice at all and gradually forgot about it until we found the old glass trap again. It was the smell that set us off, made worse by finding it stuffed to bursting with mice that were practically mummified. Their dry, shrivelled and crumbling little bodies were wedged in there so tightly we had to break the glass to get them out and toss them into a rubbish sack.

That's when we saw it written on the metal backing to the trap. Someone had scratched the "Three Blind Mice" rhyme onto the steel in tiny, precise handwriting. Over and over and over and over again. Towards the end they had just written "see how they run". We threw that away as quickly as we could.

We didn't get any more live mice after that but the trap kept finding its way back into the house, full of mouse bones.

Day 734

From a distance the group of children seemed to be huddled over something, their whispering and giggling sounding more like wind through the bulrush than actual speech. To the outside observer the only strange thing about them was how the moved, like one solid unit of flesh than a group of small people.

From one place to another they were always this squat collective refusing to be parted, spoken to or separated in any way shape or form. They were soon known as "the bundle" by one or two locals and much like any unusual nickname it spread like a raspy cough. Everyone knew "the bundle" and where they were at all times.

They wore the same uniform and at first glance it was enough to fool the unsuspecting person into thinking that they all wore their own. A closer look would show that it's a carefully sewn amalgamation of several uniforms, stitched just right enough to resemble individuals, as the "group of children" act just right enough to resemble individuals themselves.

Each head has a slightly different tone but says the same things as all the others and when "their" heads are always bent inwards its impossible to see how every mouth moves in time even when only one is making any sound. But as I said, it's enough to fool you at a brief glance and that's all they need.

It's unclear what they whisper about or where they shuffle off to every night or what "their" faces look like, if they even have faces. Their uniform logo is for a school that hasn't existed for over seventy years, their home and family utterly unknown. All they seem to do is shuffle around the town outside of school hours, muttering and giggling for a while before gradually moving to another location only to repeat this.

The main theory is that they were a group of friends that died during the blitzkrieg, their huddled corpses forming this intertwined ghost that wanders their old post-school route over and over again. It certainly fits with the date of the uniforms.

Another theory says that if you follow them for their entire journey they'll lift their heads to look at someone and five days later that person will die. It seems just as plausible but nobody's ever managed the entire trip around with them. We know where they start and where they stop but somewhere in-between that an overwhelming feeling of terror grasps you, freezing you dead in your tracks until "the bundle" moves onto their next stop.

Day 733

The journey from the town's outskirts to the centre took about five or so minutes by train and was the fastest way to get there by far (let's not mention the incidents involving three buses all trying to cram themselves into the same stop at once, each believing they are the only bus there, held back by some kind of unseen barrier).

Normally the train arrives down by the docks, almost entirely empty and perfectly maintained. The train station prides itself on things running smoothly and so everything, right down to the way the bags are placed in the small carriage bins, must be to absolute perfection. If they find any sign of imperfection they halt everything they can in order to fix it.

I remember being there when it happened one time. Someone near to me had made a call a few minuted into the journey to state that several newspapers had been left on board between the stops and within the minute the train had been brought to a complete halt.

The driver's shaky voice came over the tannoy saying "I do apologise everyone, we seem to have be faced with a red light and as we know, it is illegal to move any vehicle or persons away from or around the red lights. We do apologise for the delay and I shall be back momentarily with further updates on the situation. Thank you for choosing Trans-National Rails for your service today."

The call-maker looked smug, possibly picturing what would happen to the poor driver and how they had made the train system better for making the report, even if they had turned one lone newspaper into the epitome of a trash-filled pig sty. People like them always seemed to live in show-houses with their immaculate spouse and sterile plastic plants, plastic children too (until they made a mistake and reminded their parents that they were only human. Clearly the only option is to remove them from the otherwise perfect house until they learn to repress all humanity like any civil individual.)

The tannoy beeped into life once more and the driver spoke his last. "Good afternoon everyone, I do sincerely apologise for the mess in Carriage J. This is being remedied immediately. If you look to your right when the Improvement Siren sounds you will see the appropriate staff punishments being carried out. Due to the delay a replacement train to Liverpool Station will be awaiting all London-bound passengers upon our arrival at the town centre. Thank you for choosing Trans-National Rails for your service today."

Sure enough as he was relaying this in the robotic tones of despair that are so common during messages like this, a member of staff came by to scour the carriage for the "sheer filth" that the passenger had reported. I'll never forget the look of barely suppressed rage on their face when they were handed the single paper by that same call-making person, smug look very much in place. Not that they can show any other emotion at work besides that vague pleasant, subservient smile.

As they left with the paper clutched tightly in their hands the Improvement Siren sounded and everyone's head snapped to the right, eager to see the punishments doled out.

The first punishment went to the driver for failing to ensure full cleaning procedures were in place during the journey. Negligence always resulted in the loss of both eardrums, to be detonated minutely and remotely using Trans-National's patented technology.  His sentence was swiftly dealt out and before his blood had begun to cool on the bright spring foliage outside the next punishment had begun.

The rest of the staff faced similar punishments depending on their rank and placement within the train, those closest to Carriage J lost both ears, the main cleaner lost their eye and was ordered to report to the main headquarters for a replacement to "help them see uncleanliness faster and thereby Improve Train Satisfactory Ratings."

When the name was called out for the final punishments, the rest having taken about half an hour, the passenger near to me who had made the original call went pale and headed outside on trembling legs. The train's exterior tannoy announced that "from the gross exaggeration of reported negligence aboard Train 26451, Carriage J, your punishment is to forfeit your tongue and pay the fine of £112.50 to Trans-National Rails for the hour of staff time spent being punished for your report and to pay Trans-National's appointed courts the sum of £277.50 to award to the passengers for the wasting of their time during this incident. Thank you for choosing Trans-National Rails for your service today."

They were thankfully swift with the removal of his tongue, four staff members pinned him down while another went to the side of the carriage and extracted the appropriate tools from the Trans-National Safety Kit. He had such a set of lungs on him that people came out from the nearby houses to see what the noise was all about.

The rest of the trip was quiet, apart from his faint sobs as he sat slumped over in his appointed chair.

Better him than me.

Day 732

Some people never know when to leave the betting shops and head off with their earnings. People like Jerry MacKerren. He'd play until he was broke, vanish for a few hours and come back with bloody knuckles and more cash. The staff never questioned it, they made so much from him that it never seemed worth the bother.

Until he came back with a suspiciously large amount of blood on his shirt, calmly saying "Oh, it's no' mine." before returning to his usual machine to fritter away the £200 that he'd somehow gained in the short span of 90 minutes. They called the emergency services from the breakroom, making sure someone kept a close and covert eye on him until the police arrived, armed and ready to fight if need be. He went quietly, pausing before they led him out of the door to say he'd be back when he got out.

The trial didn't take place until the next year with a grand total of thirty muggings and nineteen murders being held against MacKerren. To his credit he never denied a thing, said it out and loud that he'd needed the money to bet on and they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. He did try to blame the local shops for feeding his addiction but at the end of the trial he was sentenced for life and given a $450,000 fine to pay as compensation for the families of the deceased.

Typical Jerry, he never paid his damn fine. In fact he only went and died nine days in, managed to hang himself from a stairwell when nobody was looking. He was always a fellow for grabbing whatever opportunity he could. A creature of habit too.

After his death bodies began to turn up around the area again with Jerry's signature kill signs. Poor sods had been beaten to death, their faces pulped beyond recognition and all of their pockets torn off, money gone somewhere or other. At the time we had no idea what was going on, we thought there was some stupid kid somewhere deciding that for some reason Jerry was his role model and becoming a copycat was the perfect homage to his rotten legacy.

It wasn't until Jerry's usual machine began acting up that we began to suspect something far worse than a copycat. Somehow the original was back to his old habits. CCTV footage showed that every night at his normal time the machine would start acting odd, like someone was trying to play it but their hands were janked up. It'd stop for a couple of house then start right back up again, money feeding itself through from an ever-growing pile on his chair.

The police are at a loss - how can they arrest someone who's already bloody dead?

Day 731

When they found the first body, an infant's head gripped tightly between their hands, they began to search the river. Sniffer dog teams scoured the banks for any washed up remains only for the dogs to go mad, howling at the river non-stop until they were well away from it. No matter what part of the river they were taken to they just shrieked, like none of the team had heard from a dog before. Like they were utterly terrified of the river despite being fine with any other source of water.

Their next plan was to send divers down, perhaps the rest of the infant had been caught up in weeds or whatever trash had been thrown down there by the uncaring townsfolk. Each of the five divers had a camera attached to their masks and one to the rear of their oxygen tank, in case they missed something in retrospect. Armed with nets, thick gloves and enough rope to keep them all tethered together, the team set off.

They relied on the small floats attached to the rope to guide them along, trying to move as little as possible to keep the camera footage as clear as possible. Whatever helped to find the rest of that poor, helpless baby and put its small body to rest.

It mostly worked, the cameras recorded their entire thirty minute venture in varying shades of brown and grey until the divers had to surface and warm themselves away from the spring-chilled waters. In spite of the mud they managed to still stir with their deliberately slow and sweeping movements the footage showed more than the team would ever admit to seeing.

From the first camera, through the sound of moving water and slow, steady breaths came the faint sounds of crying, the kind of stuttered wails that infants are so well known for. Those wet, heaving cries seemed to echo around the camera like the source was circling the diver, moving closer and further at random. The rear camera captured tiny, bloated toes flickering around the very top of the screen.

The second diver's front camera showed nothing but the flipper-clad feet of the diver in front moving lazily up and down as they gently moved forward. The rear camera showed strange swirls in the mud they stirred up with their movements, almost looking like the dumpy face of a baby, always scrunched up like they're wailing to match the cries heard in the background, same as the first.

The front camera of the third diver had the loudest recording of the crying infant, this time joined by several others all fading in and out and gasping for breath in between their plaintive cries and whimpers. Whenever the diver's hand moved into frame it was being held by a much smaller, dismembered one. The rear camera showed several pairs of tiny hands clinging to the flippers.

From the fourth camera (aside from the crying, a constant in all of the footage taken) it could be seen when the first car wreck was spotted. A drunk driver had come off at roughly this point several years ago and the vehicle was never recovered. This time as the diver drew closer he saw what looked to be a bloated baby, crawling along the dashboard and out of the broken windshield. As the diver focused elsewhere, turning away from the wreckage, the rear camera showed the infant swimming straight for them, podgy mottled arms outstretched, mouth wide open and taking in deep, gasping breaths.

Finally the fifth diver, the one who stayed closer to the surface to keep an eye on the rest of the crew and scour the shallower waters. The only one who would admit to there being anything unusual in the river, one who still heard the crying when he was near the river. The one whose cameras had a higher vantage point on the whole situation for safety reasons. The one who called the dive off for "cold water" as his footage showed a dozen infant bodies in varying states of decomposition and dismemberment circling the crew below him and darting behind him, gripping his flippers and trying to pull him down to the same level as the other four.

Day 730

Our dreams are being watched and categorised, left to age like a fine wine and brought back to us at the strangest moments for us to relive the confusion which is so greedily inhaled by the feasting unseen.

They call them lullabies, those soothing sounds made to infants to get them through the nights of harsh dreaming they are subject to, when they have no words to describe the fears the unseen give them.


The arsonist's lullaby smells like singed hair and burnt rubber pipes. It feels like warmth just on the side of discomfort and the adrenaline rush of running from somewhere you shouldn't have been where you did something you shouldn't have done. It sounds like crackling wood and laughter made deep and husky from too many years of smoking.


The vicar's lullaby tastes like room temperature wine, passed around a congregation that barely believes, barely breathes. It looks like flashes of impossibly tall cathedrals whose sainted statues rotate on their plinths, writhing in unimaginable agony to the sound of enthusiastic hymns. It smells like old books and pews damp with the sweat of too many people in too little space, eagerly awaiting words that make them feel saved.


The former child prodigy's lullaby sounds like hateful whispers from loved ones and songs played with almost robotic perfection but for one single note. It feels like a slap that hurts them more than it hurts you and too many books digging into the palms of your hands, a backpack twice as heavy and overflowing with books to be read by morning. It smells like the salt of sweat and tears mingling freely over a face made weary with age before their tenth year.

Day 729

My aunt called me again, fifth time today and I'm still not answering. She's been doing this ever since the funeral and I know for a fact that it's just a ploy for attention. It's just another way for her to validate her existence and continue to plague the rest of the family.

The letters were the start of it all, written on floral stationary that reeked of her lavender perfume and old cat. From there she'd visit when we weren't around and leave mud everywhere, footprints, hand prints, even her damn cat's paw prints. It was ridiculous and she refused to stop until we talked to her face to face, or as close as you can get to the dead.

At first it was easy enough to answer the phone and listen to her muffled sobs and complaints through thick staticky crackles but she could only say the same three phrases. She always began "It can't rain, the weather forecast said cloudy skies only!", "Roger don't call me when I'm driving, you know how muddy these roads can get" and always ended with "Traffic's too bad, I'll take the short-cut off road and be home in 5."

She drove right into a swamp and by the time they found her she was water-logged and stone cold dead. Shame she doesn't reckon so, as far as she's aware she's still stuck in traffic and trying to get back to Uncle Roger in time for dinner.

We've told her time and time again what happened but every time she begins to understand she just loops back to the beginning and forgets it all. An hour or so later she'll call back in complaining about the rain and how the forecast couldn't possibly be wrong.

At least she doesn't come here in person any more, that much is a blessing.

I never could stomach the smell.

Day 728

She signed into her pillow and heard her voice echo out from underneath it.
Bolting upright she glanced down and saw it move by itself, wriggling slightly as if to settle.
It laughed, a high pitched childish thing and it began to rise up.
Half asleep still she grabbed the bedside lamp and swung it down until the movement ceased.

She thought she'd heard it cry at one point and whimper as it finally came to rest.
As blood began to seep out from underneath she remembered she hadn't gone to bed alone.
Her daughter's crib was just across the room, empty and with the side lowered.
A small stuffed cat was poking out from the side of her pillow, a tiny pale hand still clung to it.

Day 727

Your clothes gather skin cells from you. Hair as well.
We explain this by saying we shed our dead layers which is only partially true.
We have help.

As the old saying goes "the clothes make the man".
In some cases, where clothes have been left unnoticed for too long, this is true.
Where fabric is frequently touched but never examined, like a fabric shop or clothing store.

Half made man-things shamble along these areas, just out of our sights.
Their skin stitched together so finely you can hardly tell but they are never completed.
They have no eyes, nor teeth as those are the hardest parts to source.

The clothes will drape themselves over these human-esque forms and move about like us.
At least, as much like us as they are able to.
Sometimes they are found draped over whatever surface they were left on.

Bare skin gradually dissolves to dust again and we wonder when we last cleaned the room.
Surely you've had one or two moments where you've realised how much dust is around you?
Not always, of course, sometimes it just seems to vanish all by itself like it walks away.