Day 1,008

There's a thirst in the long roads, the ones we don't build our homes around. Something older than the tar we've poured over the ground has started waking up and it's got a hunger in it that rain can't tame.

I've seen it creeping along the motorways ever so slow. You'll notice it when traffic's heaviest and there's no room for anybody to move more than an inch. It waits for the smaller things to get roadside, lured by whatever we toss out our windows.

It's harder to realise you've run something down when you're barely moving. The crunch of their little bones is so easily drowned out by our engines and that's when the old roads comes out.

Ever notice how roadkill doesn't bleed? It's always those shrivelled up little sacks of fur that you see and rarely anything fresh and dripping. The road soaks it all down and down and never-endingly down to depths we can barely imagine.

Day 1,007

It's coming to the time of year when we ring off the dead trees, for the good of everything else. By now you can tell by sight which ones are gone and that's a blessing for sure. In the months before spring there's always that worry that you'll brush against a tree that's died and carry that death with you to the next living thing.

Everyone knows that passing the death on ensures your own but for some they'd rather be dead than sent into isolation on one of the thousands of micro-islands that have been made since we found it could only spread through touch. The centuries before were fraught with misunderstanding and countless unnecessary deaths.

Some say that we made the death as a bioweapon against foreign forces, others say nature is trying to reclaim its place in the slices of earth we've carved out for ourselves. I choose to think of it as something in between, after all everything adapted from somewhere and what better place to start than a laboratory somewhere deep in the north pole, one slightly cracked window and a strong arctic wind to share whatever has been created - for better or worse.

I've lost count of how many times I've seen people trying to shove each other into dead trees out of anger, spite or some petty argument but I never thought I'd be next. All I did was smile at a stranger and not even an hour later I'm being pushed through the protective ring by their jealous partner.

There's no way to tell who carries the death, it's the only thing keeping me here.

Day 1,006

It begins when the school bell tolls at 3:15pm exactly, though the building itself hasn't been in use for ninety or so years. There just weren't enough children in the area, not since the mines began collapsing causing most of the town to be declared too unstable to live on.

Still humans are and always will be creatures of habit, keeping to their old schedules long after their bodies are gone and so the children went to school every weekday, returning to wherever their homes once were at the school bell's toll.

People used to gather around to watch their lifeless shadowy figures chase each other about as they gradually made their way down the hill before separating at their former doorsteps. Most were still houses, carefully preserved for the parade of little ghosts while others had fallen into the old mine-shafts and were little more than rocky dips surrounded by tarmac and carelessly cordoned off.

Some of the children would act out their old routines of doing homework or rushing upstairs to play with old toys (even if their homes had long since fallen) while others, slightly older and larger than the rest, would just stand and look around them.

It was as if they were trying to remember what they were doing or perhaps they were physically stuck in their route but completely conscious of their state of departure and, having no other option, were left to contemplate their predicament indefinitely.

At 8:30am sharp, the school bell tolls and all the dead children rush to get into school, seeming to vanish as soon as their feet pass the threshold. It isn't known if they are still taught or if they even exist once inside the building.

It is wondered if they will ever rest.