Day 805

Eyes as big as my fist and perpetually bloodshot, countless serrated teeth - too many to fit into their mouth and forever sticking out at odd angles and pale green skin all loose and flabby, barely clinging to the muscles beneath. This was my friend Elliot, I've known them ever since they crawled out from under my bed asking if they could sleep next to me because they were scared of What Prowls Outside.

We'd spend the early mornings talking quietly, freezing when the sunrise was blocked by an unexpected dark shape and heavy breaths smothered the birdsong. Elliot told me that What Prowls Outside eats whatever living thing it can see and spits out their bones in pale slime, the same slime that was a town-wide phenomenon that was commonly called "star jelly"and didn't seem to have any identifiable source aside from frogspawn or bird vomit.

Elliot was my ally against What Prowls Outside, though at first they looked as much a monster as anything else that moved about outside followed by cut-off screams and loud, wet crunching sounds. Even though Elliot ate rotting meat that they dug out from the graveyard, always directly beneath the coffins through a series of elaborate tunnels.

He dug similar tunnels underneath the homes nearby which is how he got to me in my room. Said he'd tried some fresh meat next door and found it tasted bad and then What Prowls Outside came by and he sought comfort from the closest thing - me. They never found my neighbour's killer but said they'd been killed in their sleep and I have to wonder... if I hadn't woken up, if I had run away or screamed out would I have been next?

Elliot won't tell me. He looks left and says nothing but I know he always looks left when he plans to lie.