Day 2,118

It lived in the old farmhouse out by the highway. A quiet little thing with eyes as big as dinner plates and skin as rough as the woodpile that had blocked the door for almost fifty years. People only seemed to know about it as kids, forgetting it as soon as they left the playground in the same instantaneous moment.

This was intentional.

It knew that kids were more likely to come by and try to free it, getting close enough for it to lash out and draw blood for it to feed on. They would tell their friends and draw up little groups of would-be heroes and it would always have a steady supply of food.

An adult would recognise it as a threat and chase it out or worse - dispose of it.

Reaching into their minds just as they're on the cusp of adolescence and removing all memory of its existence was child's play. Overnight all their scars from its teeth and claws became bike accidents and stray animals and all manner of mundane incidents.

And all the ones who had yet to age out of its diet would rally against it and it would feast.

Humans have always been cyclical beings. From waking in the morning and sleeping at night to bringing back fashions from forty years ago to making the same mistakes as our parents. No matter how far we go, we will always end up right back where we started.

For some this means yelling in their father's voice.

For others it means hunting the thing that lives in the woodhouse.