Day 2,669

I don't remember anyone standing behind me but he's right there when I open the camera app and flick the view around to see myself, to see him standing nearby - a silhouetted man-shape swaying in a wind that I couldn't feel. A silhouette that catches birds with his bare hands and stuffs them into a mouth overfilled with teeth.

The sound he makes when eating isn't something you could ever forget. The cacophony of agonised shrieks from the birds, his low hum of satisfaction and the whirring and chirring of the jaws inside his jaws slowly shredding the poor thing with every wet gulp of his throat.

I don't think he means me any harm but if he did I know I wouldn't stand a chance. Something about the perfect absence of eyes on his pallid face brings me comfort. Like a worn teddy-bear, he's missing pieces but he's familiar and he's a constant in my life right when I need a little consistency.

Amid the stress of building a work portfolio, minimum wage jobs to make rent and taking care of my family - he's a steady presence that never needs anything from me, never asks me for money or yells at me for forgetting something among the millions of things I need to remember.

If it weren't for the whole "brutal bird deaths" thing, I think we could even be friends.

Day 2,668

The face in the mirror blinked as the wall behind it slowly melted into the ground below. He could only sit and stare as the walls of his home slowly slid to the floor until all that was left was him in his favourite old chair, the face in the mirror and a seemingly endless void surrounding them both.

It looked a little like his aunt if he squinted, or rather it looked like someone had based their features on a description of his aunt and ended up with an uncanny mesh of features that was almost her. He supposed it was meant to make him feel comfortable in the void... it did not.

He found himself rocking the chair and feeling around with his slippered feet to see how much of the void beneath him was still something physical enough to stand on. In all honesty it felt like his normal rug on his normal floor. Perhaps the only issue here was his own eyes.

His eyes.

The face in the mirror had been mouthing the word 'eyes' for a while now and he started to feel like he'd forgotten something. As the face's own eyes suddenly burst, he felt the void around him shatter as his final moments came back to him in a flood of wretched emotions.

They'd been arguing - him and his aunt - something about his late grandfather's inheritance.

She'd taken the letter opener to his face, tearing at him til he collapsed into the chair.

The last thing he saw was her holding his eye before tossing it to one side and coming for the other.

Day 2,667

It wore him like a warm, wet coat dripping with unsaid feelings and bitterly shed tears. He was still alive somehow. Hollowed out as his body now was, he was still looking through his eyes, or maybe he was looking through its eyes as he distinctly remembered feeling it pluck his out and eat them.

Regardless, he watched it turn his hands this way and that as it settled into his form. It rolled his shoulders, tilted his head from side to side and took its first awkward steps out into a world that would no doubt see it for what it was -  a monster wearing his skin without an ounce of guilt for its brutal actions.

As they encountered their first person, he figured they'd be met with fear and revulsion but instead the other person smiled and waved. He felt it smile and wave back, realising in a gradual, cold seep of fear that there were far more monsters than there had ever been humans.

Day 2,666

Blood spilled over the hands clutching uselessly at the gaping wound in his side as the wailing grew louder and death drew closer. As soon as the hands managed to get a good grip on the edges of his wound they pulled, splitting the skin and tearing into his flesh as he weakly scrabbled against the unseen attacker.

His vision was fading fast, breath wet and staggered in his bruised lungs as the floor beneath him grew slick and warm from all the life he was losing. The hands, now apparently satisfied with his rapid decline, gently patted the wound and retreated back into the shadowy mass of limbs he'd tried and failed to run from.

Day 2,665

The strange deer didn't worry them until one calmly walked into the bonfire, sending everyone else running for cover as its fur sparked up like fireworks and heavy black smog filled the air, smothering the comforting wood-smoke and choking anyone stupid enough to stay and watch.

From that night onwards the deer seemed to have no amount of fear or sense left in their crumbling heads. They stopped in the middle of busy roads, bathing the tarmac in their blood as they ruptured on impact like overfilled water balloons. They ate through whatever came too close to their misshapen mouths - be it plants, meats or concrete.

Anything was fair game to them.

Day 2,664

We've always been farmers. If you check the parish records you'll find us Marshvines going back all the way to the Domesday Book and probably earlier still. For as long as there've been farmers in this county. there's been us and our own records proudly saying that we were here and we are here still.

As a child I'd spend hours going through the old family photos, looking at long-dead cousins who had the same smile as me or aunts who did their hair like my mum does hers. It all seemed to connect to us and the land around us in a perfectly endless circle.

Until my grandad died and grandma put out a scarecrow in his honour - he'd always loved making scarecrows you see, dressed them for every occasion and even managed to sell a few. They were just another part of his farm and I never even minded them but this one was different.

He seemed to move every single day, following when you aren't looking and somehow always managing to make me jump a mile out of my boots. It wasn't in the same way as Grandad's old good-natured pranks either, it felt intentional. It felt malicious.

It felt like someone's hateful eyes were burning a hole into my back as I turned around and saw him.

The scarecrow's straw face contorted into a parody of a smile, one I remembered seeing in the family album.

Day 2,663

As the overgrowth died back in winters cold arms, we started to notice how flesh-like the walls had become. The whole side of our house seemed to shiver, goosebumps spreading across the poor thing until the entire building gently shuddered with every gust that seemed to steal all the warmth from the pipes and even dim the fire.

My dad's always been the practical sort - moving us out as soon as we had a new place lined up, leaving our old home to freeze itself to death. He may have told us to "never go near the damn cursed thing again" but me and my sisters went to visit it every single day.

We even brought blankets, slowly stitching enough to drape over the roof and cover the entire house, save for its little chimney that soon started happily puffing away. We'd duck under our gigantic blanket and huddle next to it, giggling to each other and eventually deciding to name it Drei - it was number 3 Larchstride Street and it was now our friend.

When spring came and we noticed it beginning to sweat we climbed the tree again and removed the blanket, letting the sunlight hit it for the first time in months and nearly falling off as it wriggled in place before opening all the windows and doors in a sigh.

We went home that day happier than ever, never telling our parents why. The next day the news claimed that someone had destroyed number 2 Larchstride Street, killing everyone inside and leaving huge dents in the ground leading out to the forest like dozens of rocks had been thrown.

The space where Drei had been was not an empty hole.

Day 2,662

 She smiled with a mouth full of stolen teeth and laughed with a cluster of stolen voices. A new eye slid into place with every blink, never breaking eye contact with him across the dinner table. Even her body seemed to change as new bones slid into place, almost imperceptible twitches across her arms and fingers which grew and shrank minutely.

Whatever she was, she sure as hell wasn't human.

She was kind though. Kind and friendly, laughed at his jokes and reassured him that she was nervous too but happy to finally meet someone who hadn't just run away from her without at least letting her say hello. It made him feel a little guilty that he'd planned to block her number and ghost her as soon as he possibly could.

That was still his plan of course, but having heard her talk about how she'd spent the morning painting her balcony and all the birds that visited, naming them after her favourite book characters, having gotten to know her a little he began to see less of her monstrous appearance and focus more on how they liked the same bands and hated marmite.

For the brief moment they were sat there as two normal adults, talking and eating, everything was fine. The arrival of a waiter and the offer of dessert broke the spell as she suddenly seemed to have entirely too many teeth to fit into a human mouth, her jaw creaking as she shook her head and gestured for the waiter to leave.

They parted awkwardly after that, one hoping for a text and the other hoping to never see her again.

Day 2,661

The snow seemed to smother all sound, leaving the bloodbath before him eerily silent, almost comically so as the rest of the schoolkids were quietly eaten alive wherever they stood. He supposed that from enough of a distance it would just look like they're playing, if you could ignore all the blood... and the stench...

It wasn't like there was anything he could do other than watch it all happen from the doorway. There was no creature that he could even see, it was like the snow itself was made of teeth and all the children were being mercilessly chewed to death while he just stood there.

Before long the playground was as still as it was silent and the sky opened up to bring fresh snow.

He knew the blood would soon be gone and the smell with it.

It'd just be him standing at certain death's doorway.

Day 2,660

Something about the lake wasn't right. The way the light bounced off the water made it look oil-slick iridescent and the forest around it was always on the eerie side of silent. There was nothing peaceful or soothing about the way the waves seemed to claw at the shoreline, gently carving more space for the lake to settle into and it definitely settled.

The waves probed the new ground before oozing into it in ways water shouldn't be able to. Adjusting this way and that until it became still again and the next wave arrived to attack the shore and move the lake just that little bit further towards all the light and moving liquids of the nearby town.

Only when it rained was anyone truly at risk - when the lake could rise up from its bed and slam down across the freshly slickened road, dragging cars down to its crushing depths where they crumpled like burnt paper. It took as much as it could every storm and gave nothing back but pain.

It even had a body once - someone drank from the lake and it slid inside, wearing them like a puppet. Walking was strange, novel and gave it endless exciting opportunities to spread. The body could dig more than the lake's little waves ever could.

The body could find other bodies and help it spread further still.

Unfortunately the body needed sustaining in ways the lake didn't understand and scarcely had it finished digging a few feet towards the town before it collapsed and the lake poured out of it again. To keep itself looking enticing, the lake dragged the body down with all the others, now aware that they could be made to move.

Now curious enough to practice on its little collection.

Day 2,659

Laughter filled the air as its many mouths snapped open and closed, tongues flicking through the air as it tried to taste where they'd gone. From the way the air still held the sharp tang of their fear, they hadn't managed to leave the building yet - maybe not even the room.

Fortunately for them it had no eyes, no real features at all along its undulating flesh-toned mass other than the countless mouths and the ear-piercing laughter that rattled through the air as it stretched itself slowly around the room, heading right for the overturned car they were hiding behind.

Much like them, it had likely fallen through the factory floor into the sub-basement where the creature had been waiting for God-only knows how long for food to arrive and here they were. Crouched behind broken glass and crumpled iron that definitely had teethmarks all along it, wondering if they could make it to the emergency exit before the mass and mouths reached them first.

As its laughter gradually morphed into an endless chorus of howls, they ran.

Day 2,658

We only found his tiny withered body when they knocked down the chimney and he fell out, and landed at our feet. The son who'd run away had been with us all along, the faint coughing I swore I heard last Christmas had been real - I hadn't imagined a damned thing.

He'd died right in front of us and I'd been told it was all in my head when it was my son.

It was my son all along.

My little boy.

There aren't enough words for how I felt when I saw him still wearing his favourite dinosaur pyjamas. The unbridled rage, the agony, the relief - I don't know what felt worse. All I knew was that we'd finally found him. That I'd been robbed of the chance to save him because the drunken luddite said I was imagining things again.

I've got a list of things I want - no, need - to do to make things right before I to go meet my son again.

First - loosen his brakes just so. The wire will come loose and it'll look like an accident. Poor me.

Second - the backup plan. Another faulty wire - in his office heater. Let him burn as well. Poor him.

Thirdly - pour myself a large drink and go for a walk to our favourite bridge. Fate will fix the rest.

Day 2,657

His bike was parked in front of the old school gates. It looked all rusted and broken like it'd been there for decades when she'd seen him riding it just that morning. It made her wonder how much time had really passed by in the tunnel and if the world would be the same on the other side - if she managed to find him and return in one piece.

They were supposed to meet outside the old school to go ghost hunting, hopefully coming back with certain proof of life after death and becoming rich in the process but something about the tunnel and the sudden dead battery in her phone, camera and spare batteries made her doubt it all. Seeing his bike all rusted and busted like it had been hit by a truck only made the doubt in the back of her mind turn to nauseous panic.

Hope flittered briefly across the windows - a shadow casually walking in a way she'd only ever seen him walk. She sealed her fate and hopped the gate, running towards the half-broken front door whisper-yelling his name as the tunnel slowly faded into the undergrowth til the old schoolhouse was back to its usual state of utter isolation.

Day 2,656

We followed the smoke, creeping past the charred piles that used to be our friends and neighbours, praying salvation was on the other side of the countless fires we'd made over the last few weeks. Burning them was the safest and kindest thing to do, we said amongst ourselves, hoping that if we said it enough it might start to mean something.

They still twitched in the fires, writhing and groaning no matter how much accelerant and wood we used - it was never hot enough to outright kill them. They'd always live for a couple of hours first and they made sure you knew it - shrieking fading to groaning fading to harsh coughs and silence.

The silence somehow hurt more than their screams.

It made everything seem more final.

Made them feel like murderers when they were only trying to save everyone.

Day 2,655

The skull rattled and shivered in place as spider-like legs crept through the empty eye sockets, settling the creature into a crouched state as it began to survey its new surroundings. It wasn't under the ground anymore, it was somewhere stone-paved and empty.

Crates were stacked all around it covered in symbols it couldn't understand and full of other writhing, struggling, screaming creatures. If it had the capacity, it would have felt pity for them, would have felt fear for them all in the face of this uncertainty. As it didn't, it chose to investigate its surroundings instead.

Looming bipeds rushed around, nearly tripping over their own lowly number of feet as they tried to contain the swarm rushing at them from gaping void-like portal that jutted out of a nearby wall. The vague outline of dirt on the other side felt familiar, it felt like home.

Ignoring the swarm it skittered towards the portal, fully intent on settling back into the dark and the damp til something foolish enough tried to crawl into its shell and found itself fast becoming food. It was a simple existence, all that it had known until this day and one that was abruptly cut off as a foot came crunching down on its shell - shattering it as all that the creature was began to spill onto the already-drenched floor.

Day 2,654

The docks had fallen silent, even the waves made no sound as they gently broke against the pebble shore. It wasn't a peaceful stillness, the air was tense and heavy with dread. A shawl of anticipation lay over it all, heavier than any northern fog could ever hope to be.

The fisherman was coming. 

He was a man of legends spoken in hushed tones and deliberately unsaid words over the foaming remains of home-brewed ale. To say his actual name was as good as tossing a noose around your neck and leaping from the lighthouse, some might even call that preferable to meeting the man himself.

To know that he was heading back ashore, to know that soon his ship will sit silently at the end of pier 4, empty and waiting for the dockhands to load it up with the strangely-shaped tar-smothered crates that accumulated over the months he was away, to know he could set foot on land and curse them all.

To know this and not be able to run far enough from his eyes - it was a hell they'd only escape in death.

Day 2,653

The issue wasn't the fog that swarmed the town every morning, trapping everyone inside and forcing drivers into endless loops of unnamed roads if they dared to try and leave. The issue wasn't anything to do with the supplies that never depleted, the food that reappeared back onto supermarket shelves and family fridges no matter how much was taken away.

The issue was what the fog left behind every night, prowling the streets never blinking nor breathing.

Day 2,652

 The sickly sweet scent of death filled the air again as the thing on gurney began to wake up and weep. It's nights like this that made you reconsider your entire career, especially when they don't tell you about this in medical school, probably to keep people signing up.

If anyone had told him he'd be spending most of his shifts comforting the recently deceased more than their living relations, he would've laughed. Now he sits by the side of their gurneys, talking them through the embalming process and assuring them that their family had found their will/were looking after their dog/were burying them in a nice place.

Some nights were easier than others, just the elderly coming to terms, playing cards til dawn and generally just having a few final laughs. Other nights... nights like this where the body had been found at the scene of a brutal murder, were the kind he dreaded.

The weeping soon turned to incoherent screams of rage and he vaguely recalled that the victim's tongue had been cut out and force-fed to them before they'd bled to death. He quietly sighed and grabbed a pen and notepad. The sooner he started to help, the easier they'd settle in.

Who knows - maybe by the time they're officially done, they'll have accepted death and he'd have his peace as well. The morgue would be quiet and he'd be able to do his paperwork instead of half-yelling that they were safe but dead but still safe until they started to listen.

It was going to be a very long night... again.

Day 2,651

With a sickening crack the last of his teeth split, jagged new fangs replacing them as the rest of his body fell into place as it did every full moon. His hair becoming coarse and rigid, sharp enough to help him cut through the carcasses he always forgot to clean up, now digging into him and worsening his mod with every prick and small slice.

All around him the world seemed so silent and so loud, so afraid and impatient and the need to rush through it with teeth and claws bared was overwhelming. It was always like this for the first few minutes til everything settled into place with a few more clicks, cracks and aches.

In the end he was left unmistakably monstrous, hunger gnawing in his stomach from the exertion of the change while the scant rational scraps left of his human mind begged him to head for the shed where a defrosted deer lay waiting for him.

One day he'd head for it, when he was too old to hunt and too weary to walk but tonight he was young.

Tonight the forest whispered its prayers as he lumbered lightly towards the unsuspecting herd.

Tomorrow he'd wake up clutching their bones, the wolf appeased for another month.

Day 2,650

They say that when you die your whole life flashes before you but mine just carried on until I walked into the gallery where my friend's paintings were displayed. It was the anniversary of his death and I felt like I was being called there, pulled by invisible strings and unheard voices to see the works of someone who'd been resting in peace while I'd been walking in the shadows of the living we'd left behind.

I barely remember how we died anymore, just the pressure against my face and neck as the side of his car crumpled like wet paper. His death was instant according to the morticians, they said I lived for a half hour and passed as soon as they'd cut me free from the wreckage.

I tried to remember more as I walked by the landscapes and portraits he'd poured his heart and soul into until I got to a self portrait that didn't seem to fit in at all. It was meant to show him staring up at the sky but he was staring at all the living faces around him, mouthing the names of familiar people until our eyes finally met.

The dead man in the painting wept as he realised I could see him too. The rest of the gallery seemed to flow around us like we didn't even exist as he held out his hand and I stepped forward to take it. A part of me will miss moving around like I was still a piece of the world but at least I'm not alone for now.

Day 2,649

It hid out in the old orchard, whispering among the apples and begging passersby for just a drop of their blood. The locals were sensible enough to ignore it or avoid the orchard to begin with but there's no helping the curiosity of the ignorant.

Over the centuries it was them who'd kept it alive by accidentally cutting their hands on sharp branches to grab temptingly ripe apples, tripping over stray roots and grazing their knees, listening to the promises the voices made and impaling their palms on the thirsty thorns the orchard offered.

It kept its promises to them, for a price. They had wealth while their family grew sicker, they had joy while their friends mourned, they thrived by unknowingly draining everyone around them til they found themselves surrounded by graves.

Of course, they'd head back to the orchard to beg the whispering voices to take it all back, to bring them all back. They'd offer more and more and more until they offered their lives and the orchard always pretended to cave in and accept their noble sacrifice. 

Only in their final moments would they realise they never left the orchard to begin with.

Day 2,648

"Just because he died thirty years ago doesn't mean we shouldn't trust what he's saying." she argued, already tired of the whole ordeal and honestly just wanting it to all be over or a bad dream - anything other than the present. Anything other than her very much dead-looking grandad standing in middle of their parlour who seemed convinced that their lives were in danger.

Her husband scoffed and rolled his eyes in his usual obnoxious manner and she briefly wondered what was still keeping them together. "Some dementia-ridden old man in a zombie costume isn't going to make me leave my own home for some imagined disaster." And while he had a point about the sheer oddness of the situation, he was clearly her grandad and had already made enough sense that she was willing to trust him more than the man she regrettably married.

Her grandad somehow already knew about the nightmares they'd both been having the past month - all the same dream of waking up in a flooded cornfield and slowly sinking into the mud as the flood receded showing millions of blech-white skeletons with their arms raised to the pale sky.

He already knew about the flocks of birds in their back yard tearing each other apart til their little bodies were piled a foot high, blood and feathers splattered all over the damned place. Always in neat little piles in the south east corner where they buried her husband's childhood dog last summer.

He knew all the gruesome oddities that seemed to be following them and claimed they were all smaller parts of an overall sorrow intent on seeing them worry themselves to death, trapped in a house full of broken bones. Trapped and happy to tear into each other like so many small birds.

She was convinced enough to stop trying to save her husband and just tell her grandad that he didn't need to worry about her, that she'd heard him and everything would be okay. He seemed placated enough to nod, turn around and walk away, presumably for the graveyard.

She was out of the house that afternoon to 'go visit her cousin'.

The last time she saw her dear husband alive was when he asked her to grab the newspaper on her way back.

Whatever had been after them both had settled for him and that was fine by her.

Day 2,647

If the crew's bodies were all accounted for, then who was inside the airlock begging to be let back in?

It's the kind of question you hear whispered among other cadets but always as a joke, a ghost story meant to scare the newer recruits. Nobody ever thinks they'll have to ask it themselves, let alone face the genuine prospect that we might not be alone in the universe.

I'd counted the crew's bodies ten times before it stopped banging on the airlock door. For a brief, blissful moment I thought I'd just imagined it all until its voice came over the intercom again. "Don't make me abandon this body, not when I've worked so hard to settle in. You will not like the outcome."

Then it sat down in the middle of the airlock, cross-legged and waiting as if it thought I'd have a sudden change of heart and believe it was capable of doing anything other than waiting. I chose to ignore it and check up on the ETA for medics to arrive, not that there was much more for them to do aside from bag, tag and transport the crew.

5 hours.

I thought about how far a body could drift in that time and, as if it had read my mind, it calmly stated "It'd reflect better on you for me to be found here and brought inside rather than risk the medical team having to stop and pull me into their craft, wouldn't you agree? Imagine how much I could tell them in the hours between there and here." before breaking off into quiet chuckles.

It was unnerving to say the least, and more importantly it was right. If the others were left alone with it then it'd have plenty of opportunity to convince them or kill them and take over their bodies like it might have already done with whichever unidentifiable body was in the unmarked suit.

With a couple of hours I managed to figure out that it could see surface thoughts, like overhearing an obnoxiously loud walkie-talkie. Then I found its limit, rerouted controls to my personal pad and sabotaged the airlock - some minor fault that would depressurise in such a way that would crush whoever was inside whilst looking like a total accident.

By the time the medics had arrived it was long dead, controls had been returned to their normal state and the bodies were right where she'd left them. The transfer of consciousness was as easy as slipping on a pair of worn shoes, or rather slipping into a moderately worn body.

I'll stick with her story and hope I've gained enough insight into her personality to make it back to their base.

Then the real fun begins.

Day 2,646

I heard the bones whispering long before I could see them, warning me about the men who'd been tailing me for the last hour. If it weren't for them I'd likely be among the whispering ranks the men had scattered all around to confuse the police into thinking animals were behind the killings.

As if any animal other than a human could be so skilled with a knife.

The bones told me when to crouch, when to hide and when to sprint to make it onto a passing train. I spent the night freezing half to death on a bed of ore but at least I lived and somehow a fragment of bone had lodged itself into the sole of my shoe, its warnings following me all these years.

The men know I didn't travel far but they aren't actively seeking me out just yet.

I know the bones will warn me long before then, they've told me as much before and continue to remind me every day that this present will not last and that the only true safety is death. Sometimes I wonder if they followed me to warn me or to wear me down til I willingly join them.

Time will unfortunately tell.

Day 2,645

I'd say we didn't mean to lose her but that'd be a lie. It wasn't that we didn't love her, it was because we loved her that we took that trip out east and left her in the wake of that storm. We still love her but damned if we'll go back there again - damned if we'll stay in the country much longer at this rate.

They say she's still out there, howling in wastelands and wondering where we went. I say she can keep howling til the dirt and dust fill her lungs like sandbags, til her tongue shrivels up and til she drops dead for the second, and hopefully last, time.

I say if they're that concerned they can take her home themselves and shoulder her burden like our family has the past nine hundred years. Unsurprisingly there's been no takers and anyone who's been unfortunate enough to wander too close to her meets the same conclusion we came to - there's nothing in God's green earth that can help her.

We don't know what she was called when she was human, those records have long since been lost to time, but we've always called her Maríe. Not that she cares for anything as human as a name, honestly it was more for us to help with the burden of keeping her from the world and keeping her well-fed.

There's not a name for what she is - not that we've ever been able to find at least. She doesn't age but has a pulse. Hates the sun but is terrified of the dark. Only eats raw meat but it must be rotting... must be human. We've killed dozens of people for her over the years, til we couldn't stand the guilt any longer.

Now she's free and we're free.

And lord have mercy on whoever finds her.

Day 2,644

If they hadn't known what they were looking for they might have missed her body altogether. Her bleached bones blended in almost perfectly with the whale fall that was teeming with hagfish and sleeper sharks and if she hadn't tried to lash out at them while their camera was facing her then she could have easily sunk her claws in and town the small submersible to shreds.

Her mistake left her swiping at the water scant inches in front of them as they tried to flee for lighter waters as quickly as they safely could. Her body was just as limited as theirs when it came to ascending to the shallows where they prayed they'd be able to leap out at the dock before she could bring them back down.

As the hull creaked and groaned the crew silently prayed that it would hold for just a little while longer, just a few more minutes, just a few more meters. The water around them grew lighter, shoals of fish passed them by, swimming away from them almost as quickly as they were swimming away from her.

The thing about diving is that, much like the harsh vod of space, there isn't enough air for a human to survive and one wrong move can mean a brutally slow suffocation. This wasn't the case for them, they were not so lucky as the sub collided with one of the dock's support beams and spiralled back down to the bay floor.

She wasn't far behind at all.

Day 2,643

His bruised face broke into a smile at the sound of their screams, the blood leaking between his teeth dripping gently to the floor and joining the ever-growing puddle at his feet. This had been the best possible outcome of it all and with enough of their blood he'd be able to bring his boyfriend back.

It was their fault he'd died so it was only fitting that their deaths would save him.

All they had to do was keep shut about him and them being in love until they'd graduated and headed off to college where they could quietly drop all contact with his family and their home town and live the rest of their lives together in peace.

One tagged photo and it all came undone.

He went missing for three days and turned up dead by the side of a road near the bypass. A hit and run at first glance but he was too bruised, had too many broken bones for that to have been an accident. Nothing came from questioning his family and his friends all wept the same.

It made him sick.

The fact that their carelessness had killed him and they had the audacity to cry about it set him on the path that led to their deaths exactly thirteen days later. The town's librarian had been surprisingly accommodating when he hesitantly asked about a certain occult book with a very interesting ritual inside.

All for a school project of course, she gave him a solemn and knowing nod as he left.

The excuse came with worrying ease - a vigil for his dearly departed in the old treehouse they used as a hangout spot. Just isolated enough that nobody would hear them screaming and he'd be able to play it off as a rabid animal attack or maybe some random man with a gun.

It'd cause enough of a stir that he'd be able to hide his resurrected boyfriend in the loft til graduation.

They'd be back on track for their happily ever after as soon as those fucking cowards finished dying and he had the chance to ask the demonic creature for payment in return for the feast he'd brought for them. He never expected them to try and stop him but just had to stay awake now.

Only a little while to go til they were reunited.

Day 2,642

The rest of the bedroom swam in an inky ocean of shadows, all still whispering about her missing sister. They laughed and muttered half-clues that seemed to suggest she was still in the house somewhere which should have been impossible with all the police dogs that had searched til they all gave up.

She knew her parents knew more than they'd let on, far more than they told the police but just like the police, she had nothing to go on aside from a vague sense of knowing and unease. Without tangible proof it was the rambling of a sad child against her parents who definitely missed her sister just as much as she did.

Only none of them missed her and she just wanted to know where her sister was so she could avoid being there as much as possible. Anything to avoid her unblinking eyes and the way she always seemed to know what you were trying to hide from her.

It was likely that the shadows swarming their shared room were something to do with her sister - one of her imaginary friends that turned out to be a living creature... again. As if Mister Treeskin hadn't been bad enough. She wondered what this one was called but any time she tried to open her mouth, the shadows tried to crawl inside.

All she could do was try to stay awake until dawn sent them skittering back underneath the floorboards.

They she could finally sleep and after that...

After that she'd hunt her sister down.

Day 2,641

 For just a moment her eyes glazed over. For just a moment her mind drifted... as did the lorry turning in and heading straight for her, hydroplaning and spinning out of control. The windscreen shattered moments before the bonnet crumpled, pinning her to the seat as the airbags forced her neck to hit the headrest with every mile the lorry had been driving over the speed limit before they met.

And with a blink she was back in the moment just before.

Just as the lorry was pulling to to the junction.

Just before she died.

This was hardly the first time she'd seen herself die only to reappear a few minutes before the event but none of them had felt as real as this one had. She still had faint marks on her arms where bones had broken through skin from the sheer force of the impact.

At least this time she was able to pull over before the lorry had passed the point of no return. A part of her felt she should feel guiltier about all the people who'd died from the events that should have, and in some timeline had, killed her but she figured others must have done the same for her.

For all she knew there were thousands like her who'd died and come back to pass it along to someone else.

What should she feel guilty for when they might come back and cause her death later?

No, there was no guilt in this - only survival.

Day 2,640

In his dreams he stood in a field of freshly cut wheat as the pale sky stared down at him and blinked. It's eye was grey as snow piled by the side of a highway and as it followed his every move with all the rapture of a zealot, he didn't feel afraid.

He felt safe.

Sometimes he managed to walk as far as the seaside before he woke up, saltspray fresh on his skin and mud on his feet. Sometimes he headed for the farmstead and sat with the livestock, waking with hay in his hair and dust on his hands.

Most times he woke to the faintest outline of the eye on his ceiling as it receded back to wherever it came from.

Day 2,639

Judging by the outlines in the snow, there'd been five bodies here until very recently and the drag marks show they were taken to the old bus depot by the river. They couldn't have been thrown in the river itself, damned thing's been frozen solid for almost three weeks now and the depressions where the bodies had been was still fresh.

Following the drag marks only turned up more questions as more and more joined until there was a path carved into the snow from all the weight that had been pulled down it and through the broken doors of the old depot. It was at this point where they should have called for backup, should have seen several more drag marks were forming in the snow around them and should have noticed that their own footprints had faded into nothing.

It was like they'd never walked there but their curiosity propelled them onwards, towards the depot and hopefully towards bodies or answers of any kind. Instead of calmly walking into the abandoned building, they found themselves peering through rust-eaten doors as the sound of something eating filled the otherwise silent air.

They couldn't see anything inside save for snow drifts and a lone hiking boot - no blood, no bodies, no source to the sounds of chewing and tearing through fabric and meat and if they'd turned around a few moments sooner they would have seen the pale man with one missing boot before he had the chance to pull his gun on them.