Day 1,728

In my dreams I am flying and breathing light over a land full of dead soil and crumbling bones. I swoop down and grab great handfuls of decay, breathing my light onto them and reviving them before I drop them back onto the dead world to spread their life.

In my dreams I am all that is left after everything else has died. I am the one bringing it all back and creating a new world from the ashes of the old. I always thought I was some kind of angel, a being of the purest intentions - a hero.

But when I wake up I am faced with a world that is very much alive. A world that thrives in spite of the fires that spring up from nothing overnight, slowly burning the world and driving all life into isolated pockets of safety by the sea. At least it feels that way.

It wasn't until someone caught a glimpse of the creature causing all of this chaos that I realised what was happening when I retreated into my dreams. I wasn't becoming an angel in my sleep, it wasn't life that I was breathing and I wasn't welcomed as a hero.

So I gave them my light. I gave them all my light and watched the sky turn sunset red, then sickly grey. Their lungs collapsed under the weight of the ash that blocked the sun and killed the plants. I outlasted them long enough to see my dreams become reality.

And then I didn't wake up.

Day 1,727

Well the good news is that the ship isn't totally flooded, bad news is we're missing everything from the third deck onwards... including the hull. We won't be taking on any water either, we're currently perched between a couple of rocks and one of those "unidentifiable creatures" they keep ragging on about back at Sweetbeck Port is right below us.

On the bright side, we're close enough to identify it and I can say with some confidence, what with being the only person who's actually gone down there and had a look, that we are in fact in the presence of a mermaid. Really big one. Lots of teeth too.

It's like a monk and a shark had a baby. Just weird seaweed looking hair and a weirdly humany face but with those jet black fish eyes and as much of a neck as the king, which is to say utterly none but it has those fluffy looking gills we saw on that deep sea creature back in Suruga Bay.

It might have seen me too... it might even have caught sight on me in the corner of its eye and turned back around and gotten real close to the surface of the water. So I don't know what the plan is in terms of someone else maybe having a look just in case or finding some way to gently discourage it from climbing up here.

I mean, I don't know if it could necessarily use the stairs but it sure as hell could get an arm or at least a fin over the rails and shuffle on deck like that walrus did a few months back... only I don't think we'd be able to throw enough fish at this to persuade it to leave.

I'm sure it'll be fine but I am starting to hear some worryingly loud creaking from the lower decks...

Day 1,726

It makes sure you can see it just enough that you remember why it's feared but never fully reveals itself. Seeing the creature as a whole being would somehow make it less scary, give it a quantifiable and tangible presence. We would know where it ended and thus know where we could slip by it, unreachable and safe.

I've only ever seen some of its face when it climbs the apartment block to peer in at us all while we cower in the more central rooms. All seven eyes move independently for the most part, only moving in unison when it's hunting or when you're too close.

I saw a part of its arm once -  it looked like a nest of snakes covered in a thin layer of jelly, just countless writhing strands and more eyes and mouths than I'd ever dare to count. That was when it went through a phase of sneaking up underneath you and snatching you away by your ankles.

I suppose it got bored of that one... too quick and easy. Now it likes to make noise, low snarls and snippets of conversations it's overheard just to remind us of how close it gets when we aren't paying attention. Less people are being taken this way and it gives us enough of a head's up that most are able to run away.

Still, we all know it's only a matter of time before it gets bored and tries something new.

And when it does... god help us all.

Or at least make it a quick death.

Day 1,725

We blacked out our windows like we were told to. We poured concrete around the front door and broke the stairs to pieces and crept from roof-to-roof just like everybody else in this poxy neighbourhood and yet, for some reason, there's a car waiting for us outside the house.

Now I know none of us would be stupid enough to use the paths, even though they look safe and Alexei from three doors down says he uses the paths all the time and he's clearly the pinnacle of common sense. No, we wouldn't use the paths and risk the cars seeing us, would we?

So, if we aren't using the paths and leading the cars straight to our own doors, how does one know that people still live here? Could be be that instead of sealing the windows like all the informants told us to, somebody instead left one open just a little bit to let the fresh air in and let the sound of our conversations out?

We've all seen the same cars outside right? Those flesh-filled abominations that were fused to the wheels as part of that "smart driver" campaign that went amazingly well. So well that civilisation as we know it has come to a sharp stop with no sign of continuation unless you fancy joining the armoured ranks on the streets.

With this in mind, and with the seriousness of our situation considered... who's going to answer the door?

Day 1,724

The church rotted away a long time ago but there ruins remain and the old graves still stand among the trees. It used to have a drop-box facing the stream, a place where unwanted infants were left by nameless parents. Even after the clergy abandoned the area people still left their babies there, opening the rusty metal hatch and piling little corpse upon little corpse and pretending it was somehow the lesser evil.

They left children there too - told them there was treasure buried in the deepest corner of cellar and barricaded the door when the poor mites were far enough inside. To this day you can faintly smell something rotting if you're close enough to the metal grate that now covers the entrance.

It was a fairly recent measure meant to put an end to people abandoning their children rather than seek out social services. Much as that worked, it still didn't help the souls who were already there, the ones who weren't able to rest and were still looking for that treasure and for their missing parents.

On some nights you can hear their little fists banging on the unmoving door... you can hear a metal hatch rattling as if something inside was trying to force its way out... you can see little figures darting between the gravestones.

Day 1,723

I didn't realise how much growing up around the paranormal had affected my judgement until I saw my coworker getting tossed about by unseen hands, their body growing limper with each impact, and I did nothing. I'd seen it happen so many times before that I knew you just had to out-wait these beings and then swoop in for rescue if their victim i still alive... depends how angry the poltergeist was in the first place.

I should have been scared, I should have tried to do something but every part of my brain was this sick, rational calm that told me they'd probably survive so there was nothing to be concerned about. Even causing a distraction would have been better than watching them crash into walls and furniture and hearing more bones break each time.

The same thing happened to my grandad back when I was seven. He was the second person I'd seen get attacked by a poltergeist and this was after three weeks of him slowly riling it up so he could expose it and exorcise it. Unfortunately he was a little too good at the former and didn't live long enough to do the latter.


Give me a simple ghost or shambling corpse any day.

Day 1,722

Officially our company's policy is that ghosts don't exist and if they did then we certainly wouldn't exploit their legal status as non-persons and tether their souls to varying appliances to save on hiring any more staff. It's a tad specific and a tad strange that they ever felt the need to include this in their company policy but the company maintains it would never do this at all...

That being said, the printer on floor 5 will only work if you call it "Matt" and say please and thank you before sending anything for it to print. This, of course, has nothing to do with a Matthew Dorbrooke who jumped from the top floor a year or so ago. God rest his soul.

There's also the matter of the "remote intercom system" that leads to the boss's floor but only if you address it as Stacey (no relation to Stacey Saxmere, the former secretary who was hit by a bus just outside of the office and was subsequently replaced by the intercom... God rest her soul).

These can be explained away as technology being quirky, just some coder's idea of a joke or memorial to our dearly departed colleagues. They haven't been able to explain the emails that new staff receive from an employee who died before our current system was even designed.

Still, as long as everything works, the company won't change a thing.

And they certainly aren't harnessing the souls of deceased staff.

That's against policy.

Day 1,721

The canopy was dense but the rain was persistently hammering down, turning streams into cascading rivers and making an ocean of the little lake. If it could climb, it did and joined the clustered creatures hiding amongst the leaves from the strange serpentine things patrolling the drowned paths.

Everything else was as good as dead and would likely be found all bloated, half-eaten and lodged against a beaver dam. Within this chaos rest our protagonists - an elderly couple who take their campervan deep into the forest to spend a week or so just fishing and basking in the barely tamed wilderness.

They will wake up to find that they have floated far deeper into the woods than they had ever been before, far beyond the ranger's signs that specifically forbid entry to protect rare plants. They will find far more than rare plants outside their door and it will find them a brief, yet enjoyable meal.

But before their untimely demise and after the open their curtains, they will wade through several miles of partially submerged walkways, heading for the ranger's tower in the hopes that someone was still there. They will see logs dragged down into cloudy brown water that didn't look that deep, they will see ripples that follow them, sinking if they stare for too long.

One will trip and injure themself, stirring the water with their bleeding leg and praying they'd find something to clean and wrap their wound before an infection could set in. They would be dead mere minutes before their leg began to swell and leak pus, souring the waters around them.

The other will put on their bravest face and fight against their aging mind to remember every scrap of survival information they possibly can. They won't remember much of it but they will remember the stories their granny used to tell them about an ancient king lowering a chest full of snakes into the lake to guard his treasure and how this angered their deity who cursed them to share the snake's fate.

Their campervan will be found five months after they are declared missing and three days after the search party has been disbanded. A hiker will trip over their bones, entwined with mud and faeces. Only a few will understand exactly what came for them, the rest will blame bears or mountain cats and all will lock their doors the next time it rains.

Day 1,720

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and leapt from the diving board, gliding down and landing a tad less gracefully than she'd have hoped. The water looked murkier as she swam up and she wondered if some of the lights might have blown when her eyes were shut.

As she surfaced she found that she wasn't in the Marston Bradrow Public Swimming Pool & Entertainment Centre, she was in fact not even in the swimming pool she'd jumped into. Instead of cheerful caricatures of local celebrities made to look like fish and neon blue tiles on every possible surface, she was treading water in some sort of raised canal and was surrounded by countless others.

They seemed to form some kind of maze and she was unfortunate enough to have no clue where she was or which way the centre was. She didn't even know why she would want to reach the centre but it seemed like as good a place as any to start.

Before she could debate between swimming there and stepping out of the canals, a tendril that she'd assumed was some kind of pondweed lashed out and flung her onto the land below. She struck the tiles (the same neon blue as the pool she was supposed to be in) with a loud crack and through the pain that seared across her spine she heard something wet shuffling towards her.

Whatever it was, it was muttering to itself and closing in fast. She rolled over and stumbled to her knees, keeping crouched down whilst trying to peer over the canals to see what was coming and more importantly, where from. The vaulted ceiling of her current location echoed the sounds just enough to make it impossible to find their source.

On her fourth meerkat-like attempt at peering over the canals she saw a bald and wrinkled head on the other side. She ducked back down and began to scuttle away in the opposite direction, hovering just around the corner of a three-way junction to see if this stranger might be able to help her.

As she waited, she felt one of her feet starting to slip on something far wetter than the surrounding tiles and she made the mistake of looking down... and along.. and up as her eyes followed a gruesome trail of bloody handprints with a light scattering of viscera and large swathes of red where someone- or something - had been attacked and dragged into the same water she'd been thrown from.

Whilst she'd been quietly panicking, the muttering person was now close enough that she could hear exactly what they were saying and, more importantly, get a quick enough look at their long webbed hands and bloodstained overalls.

She made her choice then and there to head for the outskirts of the maze, avoiding the humanish person, and hope that it would lead her back to Marston Bradrow or anywhere with a working phone. Before she could plot her route though, she had to wash the blood from her feet so she wouldn't leave a trail but judging by the way the water rippled if she looked at it for too long, this might be more challenging than she'd first thought.

Day 1,719

It had four legs and a lumpy torso that looked like it had been dumped on top like a lump of clay. It's head was a weird mix between an ant and a bird - all big eyes and rough pincer-things next to a mouth with two teeth that looked like a cartoon bear trap.

And it was sawing the legs off all the living room furniture while I crouched halfway down the stairs, muffling my breath with my sleeves and hoping it was just looking around the room. I swear it kept glancing up at me but its eyes had so many tiny pupils that I couldn't properly tell.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when my older brother snuck up behind me and tapped my shoulder. "Just leave it be," he whispered, "That's just what it does and it's better to let have the chair legs than our own." and with that he pulled me by the hand back upstairs, checking behind us when he thought I wasn't paying attention.

I stayed in his room that night, huddled next to him, pestering him with a thousand questions while he just shushed me and said he'd tell me in the morning. That night it felt like the morning could never come and when it did I wish it hadn't.

For as long as I can remember, mum and dad have always gotten up before us and we weren't allowed out of our rooms until they came to get us. I thought it was because we'd get in their way while they were making breakfast and getting themselves ready for work but now I know better.

They creep around the house to make sure it isn't waiting for us.

We'd never be able to outrun it and neither would they but they can at least fight back.

It doesn't usually stick around but I just know that the one day they don't check, it'll be waiting for us.

Day 1,718

It sounded great at the time - infuse the ashes of your loved one with a patented hybrid flower that initially resembled a honeycomb that would erupt like a dandelion and shower the world with genetically enhanced wildflowers.

In practice it soon developed unexpected consequences which came to be known as "Sprouting".  The seeds themselves were relatively harmless, just unusual looking flowers that maintained the same environmental role as their organic predecessors. It wasn't the seeds that were entirely to blame.

It was the wind.

A strong enough breeze picks up all sorts of matter that shouldn't be inhaled. The seeds were just swept along and just to happened to be inhaled by a few thousand people who loved downwind of the main manufacturing plant.

Something in the lungs of those people triggered the bonding agent that was used to merge the DNA of the deceased with the wildflower seeds and they began to grow, not as plants but as people. They grew so slowly that by the time they were recognised for what they were, dozens had already been removed and killed.

Protests were fought for and against these new emergent humans. Were they able to be classified as people if their DNA was still somewhat wildflowerish? Did they have the rights to the property of the deceased? Should they be classified as tumours and would removing them count as murder?

The definition of human was about to change again and the world was not ready.

Day 1,717

They glitched in and out of reality, shrieking and wailing and crying out for help while we all backed away slowly. There was nothing else we could do but make a silent retreat and pray they weren't able to follow us.

If any one of them got back to town and started screaming out the night's events then the rest of us would sent straight to death row without so much as a spare minute to explain ourselves... not that the explanation was much better.

Who would honestly believe that a group of schoolkids were just casually trespassing in a barn out in the middle of absolute Podunk and triggered a right clusterfuck of a machine that crushed several of their friends, leaving nothing but broken, ghost-like shapes in their place.

It's easier to say they ran away.

Day 1,716

A lean head peers around the stairwell, eyes so clouded you hoped it was blind but the dilated pupils were somehow still fixed on you. Limp strands of hair sporadically dotted its taut scalp, brushing against the lipless has that hung open slightly.

With a sickening crack its mouth opened further and a voice came from your broken Bluetooth speaker. It sounded so much gentler than its face would suggest and it was so much more polite than you would have guessed.

"I'd quite like some meat please." It said, as if it had just placed an order in a restaurant and like a waiter who was utterly terrified of losing their livelihood (or indeed, their life) you tried to smile as you ran for the kitchen, hoping it wouldn't follow.

Day 1,715

I can see them from my balcony, all the children who were in school when the landslide happened. At least, that's what the council said happened. The news never said that we were as far from any hills as an English village can get but that's neither here nor there.

Still, we all saw the school get buried by a great stream of dirt and broken trees.  We all tried to dig the children out and we all failed to find a single little body amongst all the detritus and broken desks. There wasn't so much as a scrap of their uniforms to be seen anywhere, like the ground has swallowed them all and spat back damp earth.

No bodies, just blood and damaged school supplies and yet there they all are - dancing in the fields behind our flats like they never even died. They call our for their siblings, their parents and neighbours - asking them to join the dance and come back to the school with them.

Judging by how empty the last village meeting was, I'd say they were listened to.

Day 1,714

It didn't look like much more than a pile of bones roughly held together with rotting sinew but somehow it was pulling itself along the bottom of the lake. It was one of those times where you wished that the water wasn't quite so beautifully clear and that your tiny canoe wasn't made of transparent plastic. Even a thin plank of wood would have made you feel safer, less conspicuous.

It would extend its neck, tongue roaming the water like a snake tastes the air, hook itself around a rock or dig into the looser shale and drag it's gargantuan body behind. It did have arms - little hook-ended find that might have been flared and muscular at some point but were now pretty useless and scrambled about, gripping nothing.

If it had eyes, you couldn't tell. It's face was mostly mouth with crumbling scales and collapsing bones composing the rest of its head. Even it's body was just a misshapen, vaguely scaled lump of meat with its ribs visible through the broken, greying skin. There was no telling exactly what it was when it was in its prime but now it was almost pitiful.

That impression lasted right up until it lashed out with unnatural speed and withdrew with a large turtle writhing about in its jaws. They snapped shut with a crunch that could be heard even from the surface. The turtle broke cleanly in half and the beautifully clear water soon became cloudy red.

The creature, seemingly satisfied with its meal, sank down and blended perfectly with the lakebed.

Day 1,713

People aren't supposed to go walking in the Drowned Woods and yet I see torch beams flickering about at night and I hear voices calling out the names of all the people who've vanished in the past month. There are always new names every night - people who have gone missing are known to the woods before they're reported to the police a few days later.

Sometimes I like to sit by the fence that surrounds the Drowned Woods so I can try to spot whoever is running about at night with a dodgy torch. It's like the damned thing is just about to run out of power, constantly flashing and dying only to re-emerge the other side of the woods.

Five years of watching and waiting and I've yet to see a physical person, only their footprints and tattered fabric trapped on thorny branches and little splatters of blood slowly dissolving in the knee-deep water. I can hear them walking close by, always close by but never in my line of sight.

Everybody knows someone who's gone in there before, me and a few mates worked it out that there's been roughly thirty people who have gone into the woods at some point but only eight who have come back out. Of those eight only three are still alive.

It seems that when you go in, you either vanish or you don't want to leave. Something will try to chase you out (maybe the person with the dying torch?) and you might actually get chased out but you'll be drawn to the Drowned Woods and you'll end up back there sooner or later.

Day 1,712

The fields that seemed to stretch on forever finally came to an abrupt end when thick forests and rolling hills came upon us. The sky was soon hidden by thick branches, smothered in summer-spun webs with large shadowy masses where something had been too slow.

We pass a sign advising us to kill the engine and let the gentle slope of the hill carry us the rest of the way down. We were going too far to read it all but my parents ignored it, said it was just a joke and that we just need to keep going.

They didn't say that it was too late, that they'd already woken something far worse up by knocking that scarecrow over but we all knew it. A deep feer settled over us, leaving us unable to speak for fear that breaking the silence would help it find us faster.

Day 1,711

It was simple - when people didn't want something to be remembered, they threw it into Castorchurch Cave. Apparently there was a small mountain's worth of cars in there, rusted so badly the water for miles around was stained a deep orange. We called it the blood mile and tried to remember to filter the tap water but the faint metallic taste still lingered.

When I was younger we'd dare each other to climb down Easter Gully, into Castorchurch Cove and sit in the old cars - seat belt and all! Now I know just how stupid that dare was but when we were young and unable to picture ourselves as anything but invulnerable, it was just another thing we did to pass the time away.

We stopped soon after Leena's little brother got himself stuck in one of the cars. It was funny until his wriggling dislodged something and the next thing we knew - he was gone. We were so scared of going to jail that we all swore to never tell a soul.

The only reason this has all come to light is because Leena just had to tell her children on her deathbed and now the few of us remaining are suspect to an unsolved missing persons case when it wasn't even our fault. We never made him sit in the car, we all begged him to sit still while we called for help but he didn't listen - the boy never listened!

Even now he won't listen. I've tried everything but all I can hear at night is that cut-off scream as all those cars just fell into the lake below with him still strapped in. We couldn't even see which car he was in for all the rust in the water and we were all so young and so stupid and we didn't know what else to say but that he'd run away from us.

And now you know he never left Castorchurch Cave.

He's been right under us this entire time.

And he just won't rest.

Day 1,710

"So you mean to tell me that you unleashed an all-powerful demon and, of all the creatures in the world to possess, it chose Mike The Gerbil?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up."

He was looking at me like I was a total idiot but in the grand scheme of things I think I got off pretty lightly and we both knew that damned gerbil was a real bastard to begin with. All in all I'd say it was a successful summoning followed by an unexpected addition to the house.

I may not know the demon's name but it answers to "Mike" so that works for now. It eats the gerbil food and does general gerbilly things for the most part but every now-and-then I'll look at just the right time and it'll be hovering three feet above the cage with Mike' poor little head at an unnatural angle or there'll be blood all over the floor.

It's a bit of a challenge but honestly I was expecting an imp. The ritual was for one single, entire imp and I only went and sneezed mid-word which was apparently The Only Difference between an imp ritual and a goddamned, all-powerful, reality-warping demon ritual.

Not that it really does any of that, other than that one time it warped all of the food in the freezer to my underwear drawer just to fuck with me. Hearing a laugh THAT DEEP coming from a gerbil is probably the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

But it does eat any spider it sees so we're cool.

Day 1,709

I met a god in the underpass near the old factories. Funny looking bugger, they were. Head like a clump of fish caught in a net, couldn't make out their body for all the blankets and cobwebs they were wrapped in but their voice sounded like my old art teacher.

I only know they were a god because they healed my stab wound with a single word, just when I thought I was off to join the untold number of wandering souls about the area. I mean, I was half collapsed right opposite the god and all I could see was all their fishy eyes staring at me, dried up and shrivelled, and curious ghosts closing in to welcome another one to their ranks.

Next thing I know I'm leaning against the god and I feel totally fine. I didn't even ask what they were a god of or if I needed to give something in return but they just told me that I'll keep on carrying on so that's just what I've been doing.

For about three hundred years now.

Day 1,708

Nobody else seems to be able to see the smoke rising from people's eyes and mouths which is just a tad disconcerting. I mean, the mouth-smoke could easily be passed off as smokers or cold air but eye-smoke was harder to find a passable answer for.

Smoke aside, there were other... issues that came from these people like the lingering smell of roadkill on a hot summer's day or the fact that their saliva turns black when exposed to sunlight or the way that birds won't fly over them.

The smell is easy enough for them to hide, just a dab of cologne or a quick spritz of deodorant is usually enough. Eating at home and barely speaking conceals their black saliva pretty well and who'd even notice if a bird flew over them or took a sharp and deliberate turn mid-air?

I noticed.

Thus far, there's nobody else who sees all this too and thus far I have no idea if this is some kind of illness or if they're even human but I do know that more and more are appearing every day and a few people I know have started showing the signs too.

They seem to be the same people but in order to prove that they're human and safe and not some elaborate and slow way to eradicate humanity, is to cut them open and see what, or even if, they bleed. I don't quite know what I'll do if they aren't human but I'll find out tonight I guess.

Day 1,707

Sometimes being haunted isn't as exciting or dramatic as the movies make it out to be, especially when it's the ghost of the pet bunny you had when you were six. I didn't even realise that's what was happening until I met this psychic chick at a friend's house party and she helped me focus myself enough that I could actually pet him.

Ever since then I've been connecting the dots of all the little weirdnesses in my life and they all come back to Snuffles. Any time the veggie drawer rattles, I know he wants me to put some carrots out so he can try to eat them and sometimes he actually manages to break the edges a little.

Any time large holes appear in the garden I know he's getting bored and wants me to throw one of those bell-in-a-ball toys about for him to chase. I can't see it but I can hear his little stomping feet and feel him brush against me when he gets a little too excited.

So yeah, I'm being haunted by my dead bunny.

Day 1,706

There's others like me who can see the stubborn dead.

One thing we all agree on is that they're usually standing over their remains. It's come in handy before when I spotted a pair of twins who'd been missing for almost three years when I was out in the woods. Called the police with an anonymous tip, marked the spot with a bit of old rope and sure enough most of their bones were buried a few feet below.

They're still there though so I think the police must have missed something but they won't press it any further. They have enough to declare the poor kids as deceased and their parents have closure so I guess they'll just be left there forever. I'm not about to go digging them up and incriminating myself!

One thing the others disagree on is what the stubborn dead look like. I see them as people for the most part, occasionally they'll just be vague people shapes with shading over the face that hints at eyes. It's a kinder way to see them, one of the group sees vivid splashes of colour, twisting and jolting in place, and another sees them as if they'd died right then and there.

I know they're jealous of how 'trauma-free' my sight is but I don't have the heart to tell them how they mostly look like whatever's left of them. I see the roadsides clogged with rotting animals, streets packed with skeletons in decaying clothes and alleyways with bundles of gently breathing fabric that will turn towards me, revealing a face running with maggots and tears.

Still, no matter where any of us go, there'll always be more dead than living and they never blink.

Day 1,705

"Cards?"

That one word, softly spoken by someone behind you was enough to silence the easygoing chatter in the pub and chill the air. All eyes were on you, waiting for your reaction and hoping you knew what to do, knew what to say and most importantly - knew how to die quietly.

As fortune would have it, you were prepared enough to force the word "Blackjack" out, letting the unseen force use your vocal chords to draw you into a game or life, death and chance. You were turned around by the fellow on the stool next to you, you felt too cold and too in-focus to do much more than breathe.

You remembered that it was a temporary effect, something to keep their prey docile and within arm's reach while half-full glasses were taken away, spillages dried and the deck shuffled by hands that moved too swiftly, too fluidly to be human.

It dealt two cards - one each and its first one face up. It meant to be the dealer and it meant for you to lose. The second it dealt the second cards you felt warmth flowing back into your bluish fingertips and you jerkily pulled your hand closer.

Dazed as you'd been, you were still able to count the cards as the deck flowed between those inhuman hands. A quick glance at your hand confirmed your suspicions. It was rigging the game against you and judging by the smug tilt of its head, it didn't suspect a thing.

From what you'd heard around, all those little whispers from teens who just wanted to help and older folk who didn't think you were within earshot, all you had to do was win fairly and you'd be fine. You already knew what happened to losers.

Well, your sister knew. Her body had been split into 52 chunks and each chunk cut into 52 thin slices and dried to form the same cards it had dealt to you. That may have been almost thirty years ago but the memory of finding her on her bed, cut up so neatly and perfectly, wouldn't leave you.

So with her and the countless others who lost in mind you said two words that made the air turn to ice.

"Hit me."

Day 1,704

The car had been parked outside her house for as long as she could remember and as far as she knew it had no owner. It was an old Austin Allegro that was held together by rust, luck and a moss-coated blanket with the initials X.Q. embroidered in every corner.

In all her years at that house she'd never once seen anybody come to claim it, clamp it or do anything more than give it a curious glance when walking by. She often wondered if she could pull it into her driveway and set about fixing it herself. It'd be a nice little project at best and something to sell to one of those "scrap for cash" places at worst.

So she pushed it onto her property, thinking nothing of it and planning all the things she could do to spruce it up a little. She never even thought to do much more than remove the blanket entirely and pick the locks on the doors.

If she'd only checked the glove compartment. She would have seen an interior made of cold flesh rather than plush fabric, one that warmed to her touch as its pistons started up for the first time in over thirty years and the tyres twitched impatiently.

She was startled when it suddenly started up later that evening, flooding the living room with painfully bright headlights as the bonnet slammed shut. She went out to check what had happened, thinking it was a tripped fuse somewhere.

If she had come out a few minutes earlier she would have caught sight of the bonnet clamping down on a crow. She also missed it eat a cat a few days later and a few more about a week or so later and a curious child a month later.

She didn't notice how organic the engine's purring was, how the resistance behind the wheel wasn't down to a lack of oil but an eagerness to get out and hunt. She didn't even notice that the rust on the grill was a little too red, too fresh to be actual rust.

Five months later she took it out to meet a friend a few cities over and was never seen again. A retired mechanic moved into a house that had an old Austin Allegro parked out front, held together by rust, luck and a moss-coated blanket with the initials X.I.Q. embroidered in every corner.

Day 1,703

She stood in front of an ornate mirror in an antique shop out in the middle of nowhere.
She was holding a basket of chicks in one hand and an icepick in the other.
She knew it wanted blood for blood and she hoped against hope that this would bring her brother back.


He sat in the small boat, clutching the netting on the floor like a lifeline.
He didn't know what he'd tell the cops because monsters aren't real but their boat had been attacked and
his friend was somewhere deep below, hopefully dead but probably just dying.


There were five of them this morning and five of them that night.
There were also five weird looking trees near to their campsite.
There were four of them in the morning and six of those strange trees now stood around their tents.

Day 1,702

By the time you realised that the tree branches were in fact intertwined antlers, you'd completely overlooked the multitude of eyes that peered around them. Maybe that's how you managed to avoid dying that day but you didn't come out of the woods alone.

It took its sweet time to find you - it had to. Drawing unwanted attention wasn't what it wanted, it just wanted to be forgotten and left to simply exist without so much as a second thought towards it. If you had just walked right passed it then you wouldn't be having this... issue at all.

Issue may be a bit of an understatement for being stalked by an absolute clusterfuck of bones and sinew that might have been a herd of deer. On the bright side they didn't seem to know exactly where you lived, they were just always in the general vicinity of anything you did outside.


On the bus heading to work? They are seen at least five times, same tree but different places.

At work and accidentally glance out of the window? Eyes are met by dozens of identical, blank eyes.

Eating lunch with your parents? Something falls from a nearby tree onto your lap... part of an antler.


It wanted you to panic, to break and head back to the woods where it could quietly and quickly finish you off before sinking its aching roots back into the dirt, a little further away from its former place. Hopefully far enough away to not be bothered again.

Unfortunately for it, you couldn't care less. It may be an ancient creature capable of unspeakable speed and violence but you'd been followed by strange assholes before. At least this one wasn't yelling obscenities and was mostly keeping to itself.

All in all - pretty weird but it could be worse.

Day 1,701

Today I learnt two new things.

1. I like being alone in the forest.

2. I am definitely not alone right now.


According to the rangers it's off-season and nobody else is renting one of the old fire-watch towers out at the moment. So by all accounts I should be looking out at a leafy green sea with only the stars igniting the sky and only the faint scuffling of nocturnal animals to be heard.

By all accounts I'm as far from people as I can reasonably be for a long weekend away and yet all the others towers are lighting up one-by-one, smoke-like figures are moving about like it's just another day for them and for all I know it is and I'm intruding.

That, I could deal with. Watching all these unreal looking peopleish shapes stand on their balconies and turn to stare at me, whispering everything I've never told anyone is just a bit too much for me. Regret is really hitting hard and I'm trying to move as quietly and slowly as possible.

I don't know what would happen if I spooked them or made a move towards the stairs which I definitely locked because bears but now I'm having second thoughts which means moving from my position safely on the floor with my back against a wall out onto the balcony where they can all see me.

What if they've managed to unlock the stairs and they're waiting for me, all crouched down just like I am? What if they're not but they're on the ground right below and they're staring at me like I ate their baby? What if they're climbing up the tower right now?

I think I may have done the thing where I overthink and make everything seem so much worse than it actually is and they're still on their own respective balconies, chanting away and not making any move towards me because that would be rude.

If I just peep over the window a bit I'm sure I'll see noth...

Huh.

Their skin looks like bark.

Day 1,700

It all started with antibiotic resistance and things only got worse from there. Before we knew it everything around us was getting stronger, stranger and harder to kill. It was fine for some things, I mean livestock were living longer and were generally healthier, it may take decapitation to kill them but they taste better too.

We didn't think long-term because, in all honesty, the few of us that do are ignored unless they have good news and they had absolutely zero good news for us. In fact the news they had was that humanity, for once, wasn't adapting like everything else was. We were starting to lose our evolutionary edge to the common fucking cold.

It'll only take a few more generations and we'll be sickly little things stuck inside sterile chambers while the world outside struggles to maintain itself. It's gotten a lot harder for predators to survive, what with their prey just straight up not dying and carrying on like nothing ever happened.

Soon enough herbivores will overrun us all and eat until the world it nothing but dirt and bones and then they'll turn to us and our heavily modified crops for sustenance. If we haven't reached Mars by then, we'll just have to die alongside everything else.

Day 1,699

Dear neighbour,

I've been wanting to put this into words for quite some time now, to help you understand that I never meant to drag it out for this long. My birth, your suffering - it was all meant to happen so much faster and with such little pain that you'd never even know I was there, let alone that I'd left you.

Unfortunately I got too attached, both literally and metaphorically. I came to like you, like everything about you, from your little quirks to your raging alcoholism. It was all so new to me and such an endearingly vibrant way of expressing your mortality that I was utterly helpless to do anything but remain and feast and delay the inevitable until it nearly killed us both.

Do you remember the day we first met? I don't suppose you would, you were more drunk than usual and too busy eating away at the food you'd already dropped three times but stubbornly picked back up. I must have showed up around the eighth or ninth drop when you were on the outskirts of the zoo.

You never took us there - not once! Was it because I was moving too fast and taking up too much space? Did I make you feel too lethargic, too hot under the collar? I tried to be as gentle with you as I could, to be unobtrusive and step around your more vulnerable sides to maximise our shared time.

Dearest neighbour and beloved host. Our time together meant the world to me and made me what I am today - fully fledged and ready to start a swarm of my very own. With the genetic information I consumed from you I dare say my swarmlings will all have your eyes - it'll be like we never parted!

Yours sincerely,

Yours regretfully,

Yours parasitically.

Day 1,698

The farm was utterly empty but he knew he'd meet someone if he looked behind for long enough. It didn't like to be stared at, you see, and he was more fond of living than he was curious to see exactly what had managed to thoroughly decimate humanity.

It was following him and had been for quite some time. In fact he'd stopped camping outside just in case it figured out his complex system of ropes and locks like it had figured out how to open doors and turn on cars (it didn't know how to drive yet, it just liked to sit behind the wheel and honk at him to get his attention).

He knew he'd slip up eventually and he knew it was growing frustrated with him. It had switched up its usual "make a loud noise to make them look" strategy a fair while back in favour of "throw things until he looks" which had almost gotten him a couple of times.

The urge to turn around, find the creature and deck it was getting harder to ignore with every rock, shoe and small dessicated rodent it tossed at his head. If it weren't for the brief radio signals he'd caught that mentioned a lighthouse, he'd almost certainly be dead and the creature would have one hell of a headache for its troubles.

All he had to do was get to  the lighthouse by Thursday and a small boat would be there - armed and waiting for survivors and he was damned sure he'd be one of them. He had to be. The alternative would be a lifetime of being just that little bit ahead of the creature at best and at worst he'd be dead before the morning.

So he kept on walking, dodging small projectiles and praying his calendar wasn't wrong.