Day 3,000

 The hallway twisted and turned at random, disrupted every so often with a door or two that each led to the same street. At least from a glance they were completely identical but as soon as ones eyes began to wander, the differences leapt out and unease settled in.

In one door, the windows of the closest house on the right had sigils carved into every glass window pane.

In another, there were thin spiderweb covering the sky as if to mimic the clouds in the others.

But every street, every door and every turn within the corridor there was one constant.

One shared misery. 

One dead child's body, being made to follow at a distance.

Day 2,999

Beneath the sounds of bones splintering and rearranging, she could still clearly hear her daughter screaming for help.

Day 2,998

Thr bike was found sticking half out of the swamp, crumpled with clumps of viscera still clinging onto what little remained of the handlebars.

Day 2,997

Grandad always said he was heading out to hunt deer or catch us some pheasants for supper. We knew the forest was as empty as the village was becoming but we tries not to think about it when we sat down to a meal of fresh meat every night.

Day 2,996

The cavern was supposed to be filled with salt crystals and breathtakingly beautiful stalactites. When they arrived all they saw, spanning the ceiling in a thick pulsating mesh, was a fleshlike root system and at its centre a cluster of jaws snapped as they tore into something that still held enough air in their lungs to scream.

Day 2,995

It was already dying when I found it, all riddled with bullet wounds and shivering in a pool of its own blood. My handgun almost weighed heavier than my conscience as it weakly rolled its eyes towards me.

Yesterday it was my brother and bubtje end of today it would be just another mangled piece of meat for the birds fight over.

Day 2,994

He was drunk when he got into the thing he'd assumed was his car. He'd passed out long before he could realise that the door closed behind him with a distinct teeth-like click.

Day 2,993

I wouldn't say it floated per say, more that it hung limply in the air like a three week old balloon as it gasped and gnawed at the air. It was still searching for me and I have no doubt that it still is.

Day 2,992

Voices clawed and hissed at the back of his neck as he tried to finish handcuffing himself to the radiator before the evening fully set in.

Day 2,991

The eyes in the back of the corpse's mouth blinked up at her as the needle in her hand trembled with her failed attempt to not panic. 

Day 2,990

Mold clung tight to the tiles, muffling the sound of their tentative footsteps as they tried to finish crossing the old swimming centre without It seeing them.

Day 2,989

The ramp lights were out again some kind of algae had grown over the railing - the whole walkway was a hazard at the best of times but crossing between Pod A and Pod C was now a straight up guaranteed death zone.

Day 2,988

The creaking sounds that kept him up all night meant that by morning the ice would have him trapped. He knew it would only be a matter of time before it reached him and at that point his meagre little fireplace wouldn't save him.

Day 2,987

I know it preferred to move as a shadow within the thick fog that hosted it and I know that I'm only alive right now because it fed shortly before I ran into it.

Day 2,986

The water rippled as something stood up, though she couldn't see anything other than water droplets falling from its invisible frame. 

Day 2,985

It emerged from the flooded field riding the bloated corpse of the horse that had drowned there a few weeks ago.

Day 2,984

It came from within the smoke of the bonfire, starting as a hazy outline and solidifying before our eyes into the woman we thought we'd already killed.

Day 2,983

Today was the kind of day where not even the corpses hanging from the willow trees  could provide her with any comfort. Their withered grey faces looked as sour and displeased as she felt and after all the stress and chaos of the working week she almost considered joining them.

Day 2,982

I've been able to see ghosts since I got hit by a van three years ago. Apparently nearly dying and totally dead are close enough that you never quite recover and damned if I don't still feel the faint brush of that van and any other vehicle that drives through the spot on the road where I got sent flying.

I have a feeling that no matter where I physically die, I'll end up back on that road.

Day 2,981

I knew the insect had done its job and burrowed deep within her brain when her speech began to slur and her eyes rolled back into their sockets.

Day 2,980

It howled outside the inn, begging us to release our dead and no matter how loudly we cried back that we were all very much alive, its three heads continued to insist that some of us were very much not.

Day 2,979

I know my thrifted jacket belonged to a dead man cause the asshole won't stop lingering in the corners of my eyes and trying to lead me to wherever the hell he'd been murdered.

Day 2,978

Even with its eyes sewn shut, he could still feel its gaze burning against the back of his neck. 

Day 2,977

As she crawled out of the campfire, laughing and shrieking in the same breath, he wondered if he'd brought back the same person he'd killed.

Day 2,976

The infant's cries slowly faded as its blood filled the rusted goblet shakily held beneath its paling throat.

It would never know that it saved them.

Day 2,975

They called it a teratoma - a type of tumour best known for their proclivity of developing hair and teeth. They never said anything about its snide little voice constantly whispering to me.

Say 2,974

"Is this really as far as you're willing to go?" 

A seemingly innocuous question were it coming from literally any other mouth. At that time it came from the mouth of some squat cluster of flesh that bubbled and squirmed in place like a sack of maggots, only without the maggot's appeal.

It tilted the larger lump of flesh that was probably its head like a confused dog, as it waited for me to reply. I'd been hoping to buy myself some time but I could see its impatience growing in the way the twitching gradually became near convulsions as it slid closer to the open window in front of me.

I wanted, no, I needed to make that deal.

And so I simply said yes and then it left.

Thereby damning us both.