Day 2,131

For as long as I can remember people have always left empty baby carriers around town. My dad got me into the habit of checking any that I stumbled across just in case someone had left a child inside but thankfully the ones we checked were always empty.

When I was older and going out with my friends, they never checked and I used to hold back the impulse to peek over the tops, sneaking glimpses when they weren't looking so they wouldn't tease me about following a daft old superstition.

It was when we were heading out to a music festival in the fields outside the town that I looked into an empty carrier and saw milky blue eyes staring back at me from a shrivelled infant's face. Their skin was thinner than a paper-bag and creaked worryingly with every wheezing breath they took.

I don't know why I thought they were alive but the first thing I did was call my dad and ask him what I should do. He listened to me rambling on and on and interrupted me to say it was already too late and that I hadn't learned anything. Then he hung up.

When I looked back at the carrier the baby was gone, all that was left behind was its weather-worn onesie and the faint smell of decaying meat. That same smell followed me everywhere I went and every carrier I looked into had that same child staring back up at me, gasping for breath and fading to nothing as soon as I looked away.

Even though I've moved towns several times now I still see those carrier everywhere I go and it's always there waiting for me. A couple of times I lost my temper and tried to grab it, only for it to turn to dust in my hands. First time that happened I gasped in shock and breathed that dust right in.

I have a feeling that out of all the mistakes I've made in my life - that was the worst.