Day 2,307

Unsettling. That was the best way to describe the feeling that had crawled down their throat and settled just behind their lungs. Nothing showed on any scan or blood test or biopsy and at the end of it all they were given mindfulness exercises, told to breathe through the feeling of tiny hands tapping against their lungs as if it was just anxiety.

It grew worse over the months, grew larger until it felt like a whole other person was settled against their back at all times, head resting behind their esophagus and legs curled just above their hips. Perhaps it was meditating - practicing the mindfulness for them.

The tapping became worse as well. Every time they tried to tell somebody about it - friend, medical professional, random taxi driver - they felt its hands pressing against their lungs, forcing them to exhale til they collapsed into a gasping heap and their vision darkened at the edges.

Anxiety attacks apparently. Allegedly. Absolutely nothing else it could possibly be and if they tried to say that they felt it laughing at them as they struggled they knew it would only make everything that much worse. As bad as things were, they knew something worse was going to happen.

The first time they coughed up blood they spent the rest of the day intermittently crying, panicking and researching how to make a will. Unfortunately humans will grow used to anything so over the course of a few months they took to carrying around a few spare tissues just in case it happened while they were out.

Between the coughing and will preparations they barely noticed how little they'd felt the presence at their back, not realising it had shifted to the front until it pressed its hand against the flat of their stomach. They knew the end would be soon and they hoped they'd be asleep when it happened.

Twelve months after the first crawling sensation had traveled from the back of their throat to just behind their lungs. Twelve months of worry, appointment after appointment and utter disappointment at the very end of it all. Twelve months and the day arrived just as they were heading to bed with sharp cracks that blended in perfectly with the celebratory fireworks outside.

The new year emerged from broken ribs and smiled as the host coughed up blackened blood one last time.

Day 2,306

You don't see them as often anymore - dead reflections. Most of them were put to rest and the mirrored world cleansed when the forms in our world were killed. At least, we say they were killed because thinking of them as living people instead of walking corpses makes us feel better. Makes us feel safer.

We've all seen too many zombie movies to willingly walk among the living dead but glancing at a shop window and seeing all those collapsed reflected selves slowly rotting away on the ground, leaving trails of viscera and maggots behind them, it was too much to bear.

They were our friends, our neighbours and our lovers. They were all long gone and simply running through the motions of being alive while we assumed everything was fine. All the little inconsistencies in their personalities were put down to stress or personal growth rather than something slipping into the gap left by their reflection and wearing their empty body like a costume.

We're supposed to report dead reflections on sight so they can be made to rest but she's still herself. She still talks like she used to, still likes the same things and still loves me. It doesn't matter that she woke up to find that her reflection had been murdered by something in the mirror world, she is still herself.

Soon as she stops being herself I might be able to report her but for now, we're both fine.

Everything is fine as long as I don't look for her reflection.

Decay is so much more brutal than I ever could have imagined.

Day 2,305

Blackened brick and stone stood out against the lifeless white snow that suffocated the meadows and muffled all sound save for his harsh, staggered breaths. A quick glance behind confirmed his worst fears - the snowfall had already covered his footprints and erased all traces of the trail he'd hoped to leave for his family to follow him to safety.

If they should find his trail, if they should follow where he led, if by some blessed chance they were reunited it could very well be at his grave - at all of their graves if the house before him wasn't as empty as it currently seemed. It looked almost convincingly abandoned and were he any newer to the world he might have wandered right inside, away from the cold.

There were too many ill signs around to for him to ignore. Too many pale planks of wood that had somehow escaped the fire that left the rooftop still smouldering slightly in the cold. Too many unseen eyes watching and too many hushed whispers for the wind and snow to fully silence.

He heard every word they were trying to hide and within minutes of his arrival he knew he was in the midst of a nest the likes of which he'd only ever heard rumours of as a child. His next actions would have to be both deliberate and careful, callous but not careless, ignorant and cunning.

Movement near the attic window unwillingly drew his eyes as a charred hand slowly opened the window and retreated, pretending as if it had never been there to begin with. As much as he would have liked to have forgotten what he just saw, their whispers picked up soon after and he quickly found that they knew they had been seen.

The snow was falling too hard for him to retreat now. Somehow he had to leave a message for his family, to warn them about the nest. He was already a dead man - the least he could do with his final minutes was use them to finish what the last man had started and burn the nest to the ground, leave them as exposed to the brutal cold as him and his kin had been for months.

Day 2,304

There is something in the coal silos and it sings to us at night. We can't understand the words but the meaning drifts through our minds like a second layer of thought, intrusive but gentle. Like it wants to talk to us, it wants us to know but it's too weak right now.

We started feeding it at dusk in the hope that its message would become clearer as it grew. At first it rejected our food, the fruits and vegetables we threw down were thrown back with such force that it blinded Mr Greaves. That night the song made us all sick and feverish.

When we offered it a freshly killed pig it managed to sing out a single clear word - more. From then on the kills were fresher and bigger to the point where five to ten cows were lifted to the top of the silos and stunned before being dropped into the joyous maw.

Before long, the cattle stopped satisfying it and the clear word became garbled and hazy like it used to be before we ever tried to feed it. They say Mr Greaves slipped and fell, what with his bad eyesight and all, but we all know he was pushed and we're all grateful for his sacrifice.

Because of his death, we were able to hear it sing to us all night and we understood each blessed word. It wanted us to bring it more meat, fresher meat, and we obliged. In such a remote area, people go missing all the time and if nobody's around to report it then nobody investigates it.

Loners set up their homes in the middle of nowhere all the time, families in the middle of a mid-life crisis uproot and relocate for peace and quiet, runaways deliberately obscure everything about their homes and we still find them. We find them and we bring them back to the silos.

We may not know much about that which sings to us each night but we know better than to forget a feeding.

Day 2,303

I'm barely bones at this stage yet the rot insists there is still more of me to be taken before I can leave. I keep saying I don't know what it means but it isn't responding to me anymore. All it does is tell me there is more to go before I am free, there is more that I can lose, there is more that can rot.

I can see the blood pumping around my body when I have the strength to turn my head and look at the mirror that somebody left when they put makeup on me to "make me feel better". The rot sucked it into my skin and took it away just like it's been taking everything else.

Every day I get told it's a miracle that I'm so alive and that I'm so brave for not crying but the rot took my tears when it took my eye colour several months ago. I look like an unpainted doll, all fragile and lifeless and waiting for someone to put paint to porcelain to bring me alive.

I wonder what they'll find when they autopsy me. Will there even be anything left inside of me or will I be as hollow as a freshly made casket? Will the rot take my organs away before or after I die? I know it's getting impatient enough to chant at me to give the rest away but I still don't know what it means or how to give it.

Maybe if I look sad enough they'll help me slip into the endless sleep I've been hearing so much about.

Day 2,302

The church and parishioners were one living organism, interconnected to the rest of the town by a series of roots and spores that filled the main street with a sweet-smelling haze that lulled passersby into extending their visit permanently. Leaving was so much harder when skin and seating began to fuse.

Their heads were perpetually bent in prayer to the god that slept within their roots, whispering in its sleep to them. As the year progresses they would gradually move from the chapel to the catacombs to wait out the worst of the weather and protect the roots from the bitter frost that seeped through the old stone walls and panted the sanctuary white.

While the town slept, neighbouring communities would take the opportunity to converge and try to purge them from the land. This year was their seventy-eighth attempt at burning it right down to the roots. They were even prepared for the spores, using military grade gas masks.

They thought that with the town being one living being, all the spores would be the same kind. They thought wrong and paid for it as every vengeful mob before them had done. In the spring they would be found, freshly bound to their new homes and waiting for their brethren to join them until winter would drive them back underground again.

The haze grew stronger and spread further each year. The cattle became fixed in place, birds trapped in their nests as sticks and feathers blurred together, every flower slowly morphed into an exact copy of the one before, spreading spores and pollen indiscriminately.

And the town thrived.

Day 2,301

The waters don't seem to be receding quickly enough for us to be able to go home just yet, at least that's what were being told while we all hide away in the community centre of some unnamed village up in the mountains. The men in charge aren't telling us anything more than 'stay inside, the flood isn't going anywhere and neither are you just yet'.

It started raining three weeks ago and gradually evolved into the storm of the century - the entire valley was taken down and we saw the strangest things on our way out. Aside from floating meat that we didn't want to put a name to and floating bodies we already knew the names of, the flood brought fish unlike anything we'd ever seen before.

One of them must have been about twenty foot long, something serpentine with webbed ridges all along its back that looked razor sharp. It swam into the theatre and snapped the lobby doors closed with a flick of its tail. We managed to take a few snaps of it but the coast guard wouldn't let us linger long enough to get a decent photo of the thing.

Now three weeks later, we're still in the community centre and we're all ready to tear each other's throats out for even a second outside in the pouring rain and bloating bodies. On the bright side, we have entertainment at last - the theatre's assistant manager can access the security cameras from her phone so we can watch the eel-ish thing building its nest in the orchestra's pit.

Day 2,300

Ward the halls with boughs of holly, barricade your kin against that which sleeps beneath the snow and pray for a swift end to the old year. Those were my grandmother's last words when she passed on November 24th. Hardly gave us time to bury her and arrange her home just as she told us to before the day arrived. It wasn't even due to snow this year but even in death she got her way.

Place protective sigils in every glistening bauble and thread them to the fir trees with a newborn's hair. Her instructions were as specific as they were obscure as they were downright bizarre but the will was clear - if her home wasn't set for Christmas just as she'd planned then her worldly possessions would go to charity and not her dear family.

Hidden beneath the fireplace are thirteen bells that must be rung every hour on the hour, must be loud enough to disturb the robin at the end of the garden and he must not nest that day. I don't know what she had against that particular robin and I didn't particularly care about following her mad ramblings to the letter either but aunts and uncles all came crawling out of the woodwork and bent over backwards to make sure they got what was rightfully theirs.

If there are children in the house they must be kept out of sight and they must all be sound asleep before the sun sets, winter's moon must not see them. Bearing in mind that winter sunset is around 4PM and bearing in mind just how fussy children can be, we planned to not have any in the house that day but luck turned against us and cousin Sara had to bring her newborn along. It helped with the baubles at least and then it all went wrong at the very last part.

Light my favourite candle and set it above the fireplace, should the lights flicker nine times quick succession you much make no sound throughout the house or they will wake from beneath the snow and it will all be for nothing. We thought this would be the easiest step, just sitting around with cups of coffee and watching the candle until sunrise. Then it began to flicker like an unseen someone was standing beside it, gently but quickly blowing on it til the flame jolted nine times.

Sara's daughter began to cry soon after and the ground all around the house was filled with the sounds of bare hands digging through snow and footsteps on the front porch. The baby stopped crying as soon as the door flung itself open which sent us all rushing upstairs with Sara sobbing loud enough to wake the dead.

The child was stone cold and solid as stone when we got there. It was like she'd been dead for hours instead of the few brief seconds it took for us to run up to her. The fire happened soon after - apparently grandmother's favourite candle got knocked over during the rush and her carpet was extremely flammable.

We barely made it out alive and in accordance with her will, we get nothing but another funeral for it.

Day 2,299

It was the sound of running through a forest.

It was the sound of claws catching on bone.

It was the sound of exhausted lungs gasping for air.

It was heading straight for them and closing in fast. 

There were other creatures like it, all born from final moments and all desperate to add to their repertoire. This one seemed to have lived in the forest for quite some time if its varying bird calls interrupted by dying breaths and cut-off screams were anything to go by.

Hiding from them was as easy as holding your breath, muffling your heartbeat with enough layers of fabric that you feel like you're smothering yourself and wondering if the creatures would kill you faster and kinder. It's safe to say that nobody's ever heard of someone surviving their encounter.

Everybody's first mistake is heading to noisy places like waterfalls and rapids, hoping they won't be heard.

They forget that water doesn't breathe.

Day 2,298

The barn door was slightly ajar, one twelve-fingered hand and part of a skeletal face peered from the shadows glaring at the flooded fields that surrounded their current hiding place as if that would somehow force the waters to recede. There would only be a few hours before sunrise and they were running out of patience.

Whether or not they realised that the fields had been deliberately flooded to trap it wasn't something the townsfolk concerned themselves with. If they were trapped, they weren't killing or skinning anyone and that suited the town just fine. Disposing of them would be as simple as letting the sunlight in.

There must have been a dozen or so in the barn. The horses had already been eaten, skins used to cover their translucent flesh and teeth crammed into their mouths - temporary things that were already starting to hiss and dissolve where they sat.

Perhaps the town could be patient enough to let them starve, let them eat away at each other til there's either nothing left or one thing broken enough for a group of people to be able to kill. Waiting was tempting, seemed safer than rushing in and trying to outmaneuver a dozen hungry beasts in the hope that you can let the roof down and let the sunlight cleanse them.

Yes, waiting seemed like the better option until a scout failed to return and the town's lights began to fail.

Day 2,297

The ghost spat blood at me, or rather he tried to. Being incorporeal was far harder for them to grasp than the realisation that they had died. More often than not a ghost will firstly try to carry on with their old lives out of habit if not lack of anything else to do.

With enough time they lose interest in their old lives and old loved ones, turning to torment over habit and wreaking as much havoc as they possibly can. Why would they hold back when they have nothing to lose and no perceivable way of being stopped?

That's where I come in, armed with bags full of blood and an iron fire poker that's been blessed by four priests. Not the expected tools for an exorcist but holy words haven't worked against the dead for quite some time and not even a poltergeist can argue against iron and blood.

Blood of their kin works best, something to tie them back to the corporeal plane where they can be bound back to their body or forced to leave the living lands entirely. Not all of them appreciate my work and not a single one of them goes without a fight.

To my current situation - the asshole who's spent the last five weeks trying to kill their parents, manifesting blood from every tap in his childhood home and the one currently trying to spit the aforementioned blood at me. Hardly the first, probably not the last and definitely stubborn enough for me to bring out the poker.

With any luck it'll be over by morning but ghosts this intent on causing bodily harm usually take a few days to evict. I've already used all the blood his parents were able to donate so if it doesn't work tonight then I'll have to wait for them to give me more or take it myself.

Desperate times etc, whatever gets the job done with the least harm to me is my main focus.

They'll live to thank me later.

Day 2,296

We can hear them outside again, all those broken fingers catching against every surface they can reach in the hope that they might eventually reach something they can eat. Or someone. They haven't been human for so long that even if they had names before the sky broke them, there wouldn't be anyone left alive who'd remember them.

Most days they keep to the outskirts, to the places where coydogs and wolves eat the dead we throw away. The days they step inside the settlement boundaries are fewer and fewer each year but they seem to take more and more to compensate.

Last week we lost seven and the month before that they took five. We didn't think they'd be back for at least a few more days but our alarms were triggered, the guard dogs were silenced and the sound of broken bones dragging themselves along the ground grates our nerves to the point where we're all quietly daring someone to go outside and meet their end.

Anything to make them stop.

Day 2,295

We assumed it was ocean and ice all the way but when the ship got caught in an immense current we found ourselves washed ashore. The younger ones haven't set foot on land their whole lives and were the first to leap overboard, landing on sea-worn legs that couldn't walk quite right on a surface that didn't fight back.

Two broken legs and a fractured ankle later, we managed to corral them all back onboard while we decided whether or not to tell them that they'd been walking over an island formed from bones. Sand has always been the bones of oceanic life - shells, scales and carapaces worn down to dust - but this island... this sand had empty eye sockets staring back at us and rib cages broken apart from the inside.

All the things we thought we'd left behind and now we've managed to find out what happened to everyone who decided to stay. Against our better judgement we started placing the faces of our lost loved ones over everything we saw, creating a graveyard of our past instead of plotting our escape back to deeper waters.

When we eventually tried to leave we soon realised just how trapped we'd become as the tides began to rise and our ship did not. Something was caught on the hull, or maybe something had caught our hull and was grasping it in the same sun-bleached white bones we saw outside every porthole.

Acting on impulse we loaded up everyone and everything we could, setting sail in lifeboats barely designed to last a few hours in mild waters while the ship we'd called home groaned and ruptured before sinking into the sand. Another skeleton for their collection.

Day 2,294

God is slowly being consumed and we are all the more holy for his sacrifice. God crashed into the mountains beside the town almost eight thousand years ago and our ancestors followed his cries, dug their way down to him and began to feast.

Some day we will have eaten enough for him to be free and he will walk the earth like he was meant to -emissary for a pantheon far beyond the known universe. He will be repaid by devouring all who have partaken and we will all become part of a greater whole that will never die.

Heretics among us who were among the first to eat is holy flesh thousands of years ago have begun to whisper about stopping the feast. They want to maintain the longevity of them and those who have eaten thus far so that we can rule the world instead of God.

A schism is coming.

God's freedom is coming.

We'll see which arrives first.

Day 2,293

The frozen herd is beginning to thaw, ice and pus streaming from the gaping wounds in their sides and rising into the bitterly cold air. Last year we tried to cut off their heads and bury them down by the shore. They were far more brutal without a head to guide them - a mistake we didn't care to repeat and three graveyards full to the brim to always remind us.

This year we've left them untouched and tried to replace the townsfolk with approximations to appease the herd and stop them from wandering further inland. Countless bags of blood held in between tubes rushing with hot water all in ballistics gel figures - as human as an object could be.

When they finish thawing the entire herd will head into town followed by dense yellow-tinged fog and the stench of frostbitten flesh. We'll be watching them from the town's CCTV system, trying not to remember which figurine has our blood as they chew their way through fake meat into fake blood vessels into real sacks that took us months to prepare.

With enough luck they'll be satiated for another year and we can keep this strategy going next year as well.

We haven't told the surrounding towns about our plan just in case is goes astray.

Nobody wants to take the blame but worst case scenario - we won't be alive long enough to be blamed.

Day 2,292

The hotel was one of the first structures to get caught in the dimensional schism and you unfortunately became trapped in the fractal lobby. Outside the great glass front the world cascaded into itself, splitting and splitting and splitting and your eyes ache to see it but your heart aches more for everyone left in worse ruptures than yourself.

The staff room is one of the least affected areas of the lobby and the only one you can access without collapsing from dimensional sickness. The coffee machine always has a fresh, warm beverage ready for you but it's never actual coffee. You try not to think about what is keeping you alive as you take gentle sips to ease the the perpetual pain behind your eyes.

You realised you weren't entirely alone when the receptionist came back, or rather an approximation of one came back as the lobby tuned into your thoughts and remembered that there is meant to be someone behind the desk to give you a room key.

You didn't receive a room key from this "receptionist"... it gave you a fetal cow and reminded you that there were refreshments available in the staff room. Whatever was now behind the desk, smiling with someone else's face, wanted to give you companionship.

How strangely sentimental.

Day 2,291

They only come out when the woods are on fire, all lean sinewy muscles covered in a thin sheen of blood and deer skulls crammed so tightly over their heads you can see bruised flesh and bulging meat where they outgrow their proverbial shells.

Whether they're drawn to the flames or born from them is beyond our caring and at this point - where they drag the wounded away to is a far more pressing concern. Anyone, anything the woodfire touches is considered dead and left behind for them.

We've never seen them bring anyone back, never seen a change in their numbers or seen them go for the unburnt. In all honesty they appear to be practically tame if you're a bit of a distance from the fires, if you're in no danger of being burnt then you're in no danger from them.

We use them to track the destined routes of forest fires. They have the uncanny ability to predict a fire's path and be walking just in front of where it will go. Of course this began the rumours that they control the fire and they cause them as they can only eat burnt meat.

It could be true for all we know but having been unfortunate enough to be able to look into their eyes and see red, weeping eyes stare right back at me I don't think they mean to harm. I reckon they have as much of a say in this as we do.

I reckon there's something out there that's worse than them and all the burnt are keeping it fed and quiet.

Day 2,290

Seems like there's always something rotting outside nowadays. It never used to be like this, you know. There used to be sunlight all day and darkness all night and all the rotting things were so very far away that we never even realised just how broken the world was becoming.

I used to spend my spare time looking through old photo albums and remembering how placid life once was. Hurts too much to see those dear faces now - hurts too much to do a lot of things now and I reckon I'm just as rotten as the remnants of that deer I saw out by the pub gardens.

Somehow I'm managing to hide it well enough that not even our Sara notices anything wrong when she comes for her daily check-in. Perhaps the changes on the outside are so gradual she won't notice until I collapse into gray meat and grayer maggots one day.

I know the little buggers are already inside me. My skin started crawling three days ago and this morning I saw them moving right beside my veins. One day I might have the courage to take a knife to one of these writhing spots and set the little buggers free but at the moment I'm content just to watch and wait.

Day 2,289

The rain came down in an endless sheet and it felt like the world was ending. All I could do was sit back at my desk and watch out the window as one-by-one all the lights in the neighbouring skyscrapers and apartment towers were extinguished.

It's worse in the older building and more rundown areas - an unfortunate fact I use to convince myself that I'll be safe when all the evidence says my turn will come later. The rains could get in through any loose vent, any crooked window frame, any cracked roof tile and then it'll be lights out here as well.

I'll become just another darkened window at night and a statistic in the morning. I should probably come to terms with this but it doesn't feel real any more. No matter how empty the office is, the seats are always filled by someone else eventually which is enough for my mind to remain in placid denial.

I'm fairly high up in the apartment block but I'd taken as many precautions as I'm allowed to in rental accommodation. There are plastic sheets taped to the ceiling and vents, all the windows have plumbers tape around the edges and there's a sheet of tarp between the screen and front door.

Maybe I'll outlast the rains and outlive the city but they've found plenty of bodies in buildings far safer than my little apartment. Maybe the rain will stop coming or move on to somewhere else. Maybe I'll wake up one day and find that they've found a way to end it for good.

Sadly, the likeliest outcome is death during sleep - a quiet drowning from some un-taped corner.

A gentle epilogue.

A light gone out.

Day 2,288

At first we thought it was keeping its hands over its face to better hide how hideous it was but when we managed to trap it for a few minutes we saw just how wrong we were. None of us have tried trapping it or anything else since, none of us can stomach it any more.

We went old fashioned - bear traps and pits full of sharpened stakes. We had to go a little primitive, the creature was electromagnetic enough that it messed with any remove triggers and trail cams we tried to use. If it was close by, you could feel its static prickle the hairs on your arms and hear a faint buzzing in the air.

It took about five days before we found it with one foot stuck in a bear trap and part of its upper arm caught in another. In hindsight I think the multiple traps saved our lives, made the creature too wary to go near populated parts of the forest again.

We should have been more cautious when we had it captured but instead we relaxed, joking about like the fools we were and while we weren't paying attention it began to peel its hands away from its face. By the time I looked back it had almost fully revealed a mouth full of jagged teeth that took up every inch of its face that the hands didn't originally cover.

Even the palms of its hands were covered in fang-like protrusions that could hook into flesh and bring pray towards the cavernous mouth. Lucky for us, it was somewhat stuck at that point and we had just enough time to get back to our cars and hightail it home.

A couple of hikers we hadn't noticed during our escape weren't so lucky. Most of them was found but we know exactly where the rest of them is. Thankfully they were the last meal it's had in three years now but it's only a matter of time before it grows complacent and curious and comes back again.

This time, it won't fall for our old tricks.

Day 2,287

From a distance it looks like a little blue orb of light, something cute and fairy-like as if it was taken right from the pages of a children's storybook. Less than an hour ago it killed my best friend, left him a shriveled husk of a thing so dry his limbs turned to dust.

Apparently our walk home from studying at the university library that we did every couple of days now took us right through its new hunting grounds. We both saw it patrolling around us, thought it was some kid with a toy trying to prank us until it shot towards him and he died.

I've been sprinting through as many alleys as I can find, doubling back on myself and running loop after loop of the estate to throw it off and all I've managed to do it buy myself a few moments before it inevitably finds me. There are surprisingly few places to hide around here.

I can't go home and risk bringing it to kill my flatmates as will, can't risk heading into a more populated area or going to the police for the same reason. All I can do it stay crouched in the bin shed close to where he died and hope it didn't see me duck in here.

Day 2,286

 We all know that the stars are alive. Not in a flesh-and-blood way but in the way they burn, endlessly immolating themselves until they die in fire, chaos and shifting gravity. The death of one single star could bring a galaxy to its knees and warp all life around it.

The stars may be alive but the sun... the sun has bones to it.

It expands and contracts like lungs or a blacksmith's bellows, breathing in the life that thoughtlessly depends upon it and exhaling cosmic fire - those great plumes of red in the space between it and our sky. All of creation as we know it relies on this one relatively insignificant star in an endless ocean of stars.

Yes, the sun breathes and it sleeps.

Perhaps one day soon its eye will open a crack and we will know what it truly means to fear the light.

Day 2,285

These organic smart houses are good at predicting the space you'll need over the course of your inhabitance - adding a room for a young family, subtracting the unwanted space for empty-nesters and widowed spouses without any cost to the owners.

It was genius in theory but the reality left heartbroken people with blank walls where treasured memories once were and no way to reinstate whatever the house reabsorbed once it was deemed unnecessary. It also meant that when something went very wrong, the house was capable of covering its own crimes by absorbing any unfortunate bodies.

It also meant that sometimes the houses would grow new rooms with no reason or rhyme or intent for them to be inhabited. It was like the house wanted a space for itself and made sure that it was utterly impossible for anything else to exist within that space.

It's been seven months since the outline of the new room appeared as the house decided to grow. As far as we knew there weren't any new occupants on their way, no explanation other than the house had decided that it was time to develop another room.

When it had developed fully at ten months of shifting and rearranging that we the occupants couldn't fully see (or comprehend, no matter how colourful the diagrams online seemed), the first thing we noticed was the faint odour of fresh meat lingering around the doorframe.

A quick glance inside revealed that the walls were red, wet and pulsing to the heartbeat of a creature exactly two stories high and 1,033 square feet in total. Something blood-like rushed through the walls with every beat, warming the newborn room and making the air inside feel unbearably stifling.

We decided to place a bookcase in front of it after it opened by itself and the floor began to tilt towards a much darker, much more visceral room than we last saw. Now the floor still tilts whenever we walk past and we can hear the door open as the house tries to somewhat passively consume us but we have no plans to leave.

The housing market is dire enough, we'll work around this just fine.

Day 2,284

Hands reached out from the old TV screen - to embrace as friends, they said. Each breath rattled through their lungs like water being forced through bellows as their eyes flickered from the confused child to the terrified parent standing at the doorway, frozen with fear and pale as death.

The bedside lamp's light seemed to distort over the creature's skin, falling into crevices that weren't visibly there and sending shadows of countless other limbs flailing across the walls all around them. With every blink of the child's puzzled little eyes, another set of hands appeared in the shadows.

Only the parent noticed claws slowly emerging from the shadows, little pinpricks of concentrated darkness gradually breaking into the room all pointing towards the child. They were entranced by the voice, now voices, calling them a friend and asking if they could hold hands.

Tears began to cloud the parent's eyes as they realised they still couldn't move an inch, as they realised they were being held back, as they realised that even if they did break free they would still be too late to act. All those clawed hands were no longer shadows and were inches away from the preoccupied child.

The second the parent was released they leapt to save the child who vanished in the same moment.

Their frightened face briefly flickered on the TV screen before it shut down, never to work again.

One more soul gathered, one less working portal to their world.

Day 2,283

We didn't mean to create a robot that couldn't stop crying - originally it was just a probe with a pre-programmed personality that allowed it to express its findings using emotional language. The focus of the study was both on the depths and how an emotive being exposed only to sunlight would react in such vastly different circumstances. A way of exploring how humans might react on long space voyages.

We called it Nate - short for Fascination, a key piece of its AI that we hoped might allow its more delicate emotions to remain balanced in the face of a perfectly alien environment. The first few minutes were a little worrying, Nate recently concluded that its emotions made it human just like us and it knew humans couldn't breathe underwater so it thought it was drowning.

After pulling Nate back up and attaching a few placebo 'air tubes' to the outer hull we were able to begin the drop again with much milder issues. For a while everything went great - Nate became such a happy little thing who loved all the fishes it saw and wanted to learn how to swim like them.

When the time came for us to leave him down there to gather data we all felt like we were leaving our kid behind - I don't know when he became 'he' rather than 'it' but I can't think of him as anything other than a little boy who wants to be a fish when he grows up.

So we did what any parent would do - we lied and said we'd be back before he knew it, not telling him that he'd be left there for twenty months. We barely spoke on our way back to shore, all too busy sending Nate reassuring messages that we would come back soon, that we missed him already and asked him to list all the fishes he saw down there for us.

Eventually we moved out of his range, half a message appearing before the signal cut completely. He'd just discovered an angler fish - possibly a new species but we'd learn more when we came back. There wasn't a dry eye on the ship that day and it was almost as bad when we all boarded to pick Nate back up again.

I'll never forget the way the colour drained from everyone's faces when we were back in range and Nate realised we could see what he was saying. He wasn't programmed to feel pain but the AI adapted and the first thing he addressed to us was five simple words, one heartbreaking question - what did I do wrong?

I learnt how to drown, aren't you proud of me for holding my breath for so long?

I learnt about a water that swallows the sun and I felt so small.

I am so very small down here and so very alone - you left me alone.

I learnt that the lights in the distance are hungry. They've been feeding on a dead whale for the almost ten months and when it was less than bare bones they turned towards me. I don't think there's enough of me left to bring back now. I think I am a ghost.

He was so badly damaged that he died halfway to the surface. We could have dealt with this, we could have repaired him but in the end we thought it was kinder to extract his data and let the AI in this version remain dormant. He was surrounded by all his favourite fish again and his code streamed with laughter before it cut out for good.

Day 2,282

There's only one tunnel from the cavern systems up to the surface, heavily guarded and rigged to bury anything that tries to ascend under several thousand tonnes of rocks and rubble but everyone's still afraid of what wanders in the darkness and silence of the old undercities.

Back before they were broken by the watchers (countless eyes and even more hands on a singular stem-like body), we used to have a system of cameras and thermal monitors left from when the last people were able to live there. Then more and more creatures ascended from even greater depths and drove everyone up to the surface.

One by one they blinded our subterranean eyes, moving slowly but methodically til we were forced to rig the tunnel and threaten them with darkness or death. They wait just out of eyesight and since our eyes have begun adjusting back to sunlight we see even less and they move even closer.

On a good day the light forces them right to the very back of the tunnel, just at the dropping point, and we have enough room to maintain the detonators without risking our lives as much. On a bad day we're all prepared to evacuate and trigger the collapse while the creatures dare us to try.

They've left us with one singular camera, one live feed showing the steadily moving sides of a mass that might have been people once. Possibly even the people who chose to descend in the face of certain death rather than join the rest of us on the surface.

Whatever they've become is far cry from what they were when we last saw them.

Day 2,281

The shadows fluttered and settled back, quietly observing the terrified huddled forms of the surviving humans with something akin to curiosity. The humans weren't looking at them, hadn't even noticed their arrival or how they'd been followed for several days now.

It was like a tree for the most part, the thing that arrived before the shadows, almost exactly like a tree. All spindly branches that blended in perfectly with the winter-struck forests that surrounded the small settlements that now cowered out in the plains while the forest walked towards them

Day 2,280

I was lucky enough to be heading out of town when the wind blew in all those strange seeds that burrowed beneath our skin and rooted us firmly in place. From enough of a distance we can be mistaken for trees - weird branchless, grey trees but trees nonetheless. It's only when you start to focus that you start to see our faces obscured by bark and moss.

From what I hear a lot of people ended up grouping together, holding hands and weeping as the change set in. I know I tried to head back into town to find my family, I felt compelled to be near other people just like everyone else but I was too slow. Now I'm stuck right in the middle of the road.

Fortunately for me, the town's been isolated and we're being studied so it's not like I'm ever actually alone but I'm physically not near any of the others. We used to yell to each other, mostly plant puns and news about who's saying what but it's been getting harder to talk as of late.

The bark is hardening all over and where we used to be able to bend in place a bit, lean from side to side and even shuffle our roots slightly, we're slowly becoming further entrapped. I've been told that the first ones to be infested have completely frozen and died in place.

So I've got that to look forward to.

It might not even be a bad thing.

I'll finally get a change in scenery!

Day 2,279

The herd quietly jostled against each other to peer into our window, hoping that enough eye contact would sway us into opening the latch and letting them inside. They did this every night and every night we out-stared them until dawn drove them back underground.

Even when they couldn't be seen, we could feel them thundering about their labyrinthine warren a few feet below the immaculate pavements. Sometimes they were silent, slow and we found ourselves beginning to believe that this was all coming to a peaceful end.

Of course they'd start peering out from darkened corners around dusk and ruin the illusion of normality just as we started breathing in to let out a sigh of relief. Somehow they always managed to be far closer than you'd expect which made it impossible to figure out quite where their tunnels met the surface.

At least they stopped leaving their unfortunate prey lying around. These last few weeks had seen them being more thorough than ever - even going so far as to lick blood off the concrete sidewalks til they looked freshly laid. It was almost nice to wake up and not smell rotting meat.

Day 2,278

Ashes fell thick enough to choke anyone foolish enough to try and take the shortcut through the 'abandoned' necropolis. Sure the dead weren't actively roaming about anymore and sure it halved the journey by cutting through the mountain instead of taking countless winding, collapsing roads across it but the furnaces were hungry and they were still being fed.

It's impossible for people to avoid a danger that leaves no survivors to warn the rest of the world. The necropolis is only abandoned in name and only the dead walk there. If they happened to walk in alive and healthy then their deaths are on their own head.

Few manage to make it past the furnaces not before they choke on the falling remnants of the last few souls who thought they could make it out in one piece. Sometimes they manage to get out into the tombs, covering their faces with shirts, jackets and scarves and darting between the hands that feed the furnaces.

They never make it out alive though. The necropolis is where the dead remain - if anything got out the other side then it might as well let them all out. Let the air fill with ashes and burn down any who aren't fast enough, let them fall into open graves and sink into bottomless catacombs.

Let them drown in bones.

Let them choke on ash.

Just don't let them leave.

Day 2,277

An island loomed out from the dense ocean fog, densely packed trees swayed as an unseen yet enormous creature barged through them and headed for the shore and the ship that swiftly approached. There wasn't supposed to be an island this far out at sea - there was no continental shelf for it to perch upon nor did it appear on any map or satellite image.

The team even went so far as to request for their location to be remapped whilst they were still there and within hours the updated images arrived showing their little ship sitting next to nothing but pure blue waters. This was a stark contrast to the sand that their dinghy rested on as they departed to explore the anomaly.

They all felt that they were being watched and they all tried not to stare at the sizable footprints that led from the jungle to the shoreline beside their dinghy and abruptly stopped a few feet from their landing point. Aside from this, their main focus was the utter silence that surrounded them - even the waves seemed muted and there were no other signs of life.

Nobody felt like they should openly speak, not when the air itself seemed to be listening so intently as if waiting for them to slip up so it could pounce. Their whispered plan was to take as many samples as possible in as little time as they could and hightail it back to the ship in one piece.

It started out well with them quietly scooping sand and shells as they slowly made their way towards the treeline. The remained quiet until someone trod on a fallen branch that snapped like gunshot and broke the silence completely.

The footprints thundered towards them - still no body in sight - and the air filled with the calamitous roar of a thousand tropical birds all awoken at once. They barely made it back to the dinghy, dodging the footprints that seemed intent on herding them into the jungle as they set sail faster than they ever had before.

The moment they set foot back on the ship, the ocean fog began to rise and the island seemed to melt into it. Within a matter of minutes that felt like hours, they were left staring at the near endlessness of the deep sea with nothing to show but empty sample bags and a ringing in their ears.

Day 2,276

If the initial core samples were to be believed the iceberg was just over 10,000 years old but the ship's bow peeking out from one side only dated back to the 17th Century. Officially it was a prank for a new period drama - just another pirate love affair, guns blazing trope-fest. The reality was so much stranger.

As more of the iceberg fell away, moving figures could be seen through the uncovered portholes. When the first cannon was fired they sent in the military - all a part of the show's promo material if anyone asked and anyone alive enough to be recovered after the initial breach agreed it was all fake.

The inside of the ship was full of broken wooden things that all thought they were human. They even carried small pouches of some thick, syrupy liquid that they splashed about when they were hurt and claimed they were bleeding as they continued to move unhindered by the 'wounds' they received.

When their captain was broken enough that it seemed to lose whatever had been keeping it alive, all the others retreated to the port side of the ship and into tunnels that dropped into the depths of the ice. It's theorized that these tunnels led right into the ocean but nobody wanted to investigate them and risk being caught in close-quarter combat with a dozen jagged limbs flailing at them.

Eventually enough of the ice dropped that the ship itself came free, sinking as soon as it hit the water and leaving behind most of its port side firmly frozen still. The intricate network of tunnels were barely concealed and the wooden creatures all clamoured at the entrances as if they were deciding whether to jump onto the ship or remain in their hideaway.

They didn't linger for long - a deep rumbling roar came from somewhere beneath the iceberg and they all fled back into the depths as if the ship had never existed to begin with. We were left with so many questions we barely knew where to start looking.

All we knew for sure was that when the iceberg started moving with purpose instead of drifting with the ocean's flow, we headed in the opposite direction and hoped we could outrun it or outgun it. We may have lost it in a storm but it's still out there somewhere, heading south, and when the ice is all melted we'll finally see exactly what's been hiding beneath it for 10,000 years.