Day 2,185

 They call it the spring carnival like it isn't a flimsy cover for the fae to swoop in slit as many throats as they feel like before staggering back to the woods all bloated with blood. We started the parade through the woods in the hopes that they wouldn't be so ravenous with their prey so close by... it only worked once.

We made elaborate costumes to make us look just like them, hoping they felt enough empathy for their own that they might spare more of us. If anything it made them more cruel, made them take their time in cutting throat as slowly and deeply as possible. They made it clear we'd insulted them and we're still paying the price.

Over the last couple of years we've taken to drinking poppy tea to numb us in case we get taken, to help us slip slowly away instead of struggling against arms like tree bark as we choke on our own blood. We wear masks that represent something important to us, to make them realise we are deserving of life.

Sometimes it seems to work and they just stare into our eyes like they see something precious. Other times they strike deeper and harsher and take dozens down to gorge while the rest of us try to carry on, stepping over their bodies like fallen trees.

One foot in front of the other til next year's carnival.

Day 2,184

 The forest was burning too fast for anything other than birds to make it out alive. If it still had the strength to run, it ran until its legs were too charred to move and it succumbed to the fire. All others simply dug as deep into the cool earth as they could and hoped it would be safer or quicker than the fates of everything else.

Within a week there was no movement aside from the still-raging inferno, further spurred on by summer's warmth and the false promises of a storm coming soon, maybe tomorrow, always just over the horizon but far too late to save anything. The surrounding areas were evacuated and prayers were thrown up into the hazy sky.

Within a further week the fire seemed to stop spreading but continued to burn on as brightly as it had on the first day. Surely all the fuel must be gone, people thought, and surely with nothing left to burn it would soon extinguish itself and we can rebuild, people hoped.

Deep within the forest, near the heart of the fire, the ash covering the ground began to stand up. Hundreds of little bundles of ash wobbled to feet unused to existence but still remembering what movement was like back when they were alive and running from the warmth that embraced them now.

Day 2,183

The creatures were about 18 meters long according to the thermal cameras we sent down into the tunnels that had appeared beneath the city during the last earthquake. Everything about that earthquake didn't seem right, the vibrations weren't like anything we'd ever encountered before and now that we were confronted with evidence that the cause might be organic rather than tectonic, it started to make sense.

All our previous attempts at obtaining a tissue sample hadn't succeeded in the slightest. No matter what we sent down, no matter how many traps and sensors our drones delivered and setup, no matter how frequently we checked the feed to see if any of the creatures were near - nothing worked. As soon as they came even remotely close everything stopped working.

For quite a while we assumed they had some form of naturally occurring EMP pulse, like an electric eel on a much grander scale. We were only able to confirm that this was false when one of them followed a drone up to the surface and we were finally able to see them in their entirety.

They are so beautiful, so generous to choose our city as the entrypoint to their nesting grounds and we, insignificant vermin that we are, were blessed enough to be chosen as food for their new brood. As a member of the initial research team I will be honoured to be among the first to be offered as sustenance to the brood.

Long may they reign!

Day 2,182

 The care home was lost to the storms last year, no bodies surfaced but they were all assumed to have passed. By the time the weather had cleared enough for any of us to even remotely consider leaving our own homes most of the lower end of the valley was deeply submerged and covered in a thick layer of silt.

It took far more convincing than was morally right before the council organised diving teams to recover the bodies for burial but by then they'd adapted to the water. Hands as webbed as they were wrinkled gripped onto door frames and bolted-down furniture to haul themselves around as their fused legs weren't quite enough to use as tails.

Day 2,181

 We don't ask what's in the bottom of the iron well, we just throw it teeth and wait for it to speak. I think the bravest person in the world must have been the one who dared to find out that it doesn't need human teeth to speak. As long a they're freshly removed it doesn't even care about the source.

I heard from a friend of a friend that if you give it enough teeth in one go you can have an actual conversation with it - it'll even let you ask a question. I've always wanted to ask it where all the teeth go, nothing has a big enough mouth for the hundreds of years worth of teeth we've been giving it.

When I told my parents I got a job at the local abattoir they didn't so much as flinch. They just told me they knew what I'd be bringing back and that if I had any care for them I'd make sure to hare generously. I'm sure they've heard the rumours too, probably have just a many questions as the rest of the town if not more.

I don't know how many teeth is enough to ask. The friend of a friend hasn't been seen in weeks and it's still too soon, too insensitive, to ask how many teeth he offered. My parents raised me to be patient, to hold back and make my offering near the end in case its mood takes a turn for the worse.

I will find out how much it wants for a question and when I know I'll find everything out.

The world will lose all of its secret to me and all the cows who gave so much, asked for so little.

Day 2,180

 As I cut the tattooed map from his back I remembered all the times he made me skin deer in preparation for this exact moment. Honestly no amount of dead deer could have prepared me to flip over his dying body, tear the back of his shirt and begin the first incision as he tried to muffle the agony in his final minutes.

Nobody could get their hands on the map, he used to say to me - well, lecture me from each and every safe house we travelled to over the several years since the map's existence was revealed to the world. I only got a good look at it as I was cutting it from him and even now I don't really know where it leads, only that it's a better place than here.

Do you know much easier it is to preserve an animal's hide over a person's? I thought I knew but his skin is growing black around the edges and feels as damp as it did when I first removed it from him. All our hard work and I still managed to ruin it.

The only map to paradise is rotting and it's all my fault.

Day 2,179

The children are huddled at the far side of the playground, quietly chanting a new skipping song. It is not meant for adult ears, not meant for anyone not full of youth and lacking in the fear of death and willing to place their vibrant little lives on the line for mere minutes of entertainment.

 Six voices come from five throats - the game had begun.

The steps and verses grow more complex together. One hop becomes three hops, one half circle spin counterclockwise to face the person who last ate and one rhyming couplet becomes a saga that takes darker and darker turns with each passing sentence.

The children don't fully understand all of the things their five voices are saying - they follow wherever the sixth leads them just like the little scrap of paper that's been passed around eight playgrounds tells them to. Before long they start to forget what or why they are following and the game begins to lose its appeal.

All they remember is that they can't stop now that they've started. They all wrote down the name of someone they love on the back of the instructions and put it under a rock in the center of their little huddle - the person who would have to replace them in the game i they were interrupted or both would die.

As the end of recess bell rang they all leapt back to class, forgetting that they ever played the game to begin with as children often do. It became a part of the blur of activity that was the school day for them and drifted gently to the back of their minds as a nagging feeling of unease.

The following morning there were ten simultaneous deaths.

The following morning a sharp breeze would send the paper free from the rock.

The following morning the game would begin anew in the next playground over.