Day 2,577

I saw a familiar face on the train the other day and it sent my mind back about thirty years, back to my last scout's trip and the snake who wore a boy's skin. It was 1988 and our troop was set to spent a week out in the Lake District, hiking the mountains and setting up camp wherever we went - every young boy's dream back then.

It was also the day that snake boy joined. It's how he introduced himself, you see, not a malicious nickname or insult on our part. If I remember rightly his Christian name was Michael but even the leader called him snake boy after a few hours.

He insisted that he was a snake dressed up as a boy and we all humoured him, saying we were wolves or tigers or badgers dressed up as boys and he looked so relieved. Poor bugger thought he was among his fellow animals and us being rowdy little boys all went along because it seemed like a laugh.

We never imagined he was telling the truth or that he'd peel his face away like... well like a snake shedding its old skin to reveal glistening new scales. His were vividly red with black stripes and as he pulled his skin down to his arms they went limp and fell, leaving the him to writhe out of the rest and demand we do the same with our 'people skins'.

At this point the leader had passed out from shock and we were all screaming, begging him to stop and turn back. He seemed to realise that we'd only been playing while this was his reality and he fled. When our leader woke up we all said that snake boy tripped him and he hit his head on the way down. We said while he was out, snake boy had run away and we couldn't catch up to him.

They never found him, you know. Never found out who his parents were either. Months of searching and the whole family had just up and vanished that same night like they all instinctively knew they'd been seen and might not be safe as they were with their current faces.

Part of me hoped he was out there and thriving.

Part of me hoped it was all a messed up dream.

But seeing his face on the train the other day can only mean that the rest of the troup is already dead.

Day 2,576

'The old man's back outside the magpie.' she said, nonchalant as all teenagers seem to be when they're trying not to sound as afraid as they secretly are. I tried not to sound afraid when I asked if he still had his book of names, the book bound in human skin (we all know it was his wife's - even the police know but they're just as scared as we are and rightfully so).

She said yes. He had the book in his hands, pages wide open as he screamed out random names and wrote them down. She reassured me that he hadn't said our names but it'll only be a matter of time before he does and we go missing like all the others have.

I made sure to tell as many people as possible, only some of them didn't answer. To think he's started so soon after arriving here again, after all these years of peace and silence where the fear of waking up to find your loved ones simply gone had all but faded to a quiet anxiety.

We sleep in the same room now, hooked up to dead man's switches that'll sound a siren to high heavens if it loses track of our heartbeats. We can't stop him from speaking- he'll only vanish and reappear again, we can't run away from our lives and our loves here but we can damned well try to stay together for aa long as possible.

Until the man outside the magpie reads our names from his book and we answer his call.

Day 2,575

Several days should have passed by now but the damned sun refuses to set. The sky is a constant kaleidoscope or oranges, purples and hints of blue to the east but it hasn't moved an inch and the rest of the world either can't see what we're broadcasting or they don't care.

For all we know we died as the sun was setting and this is our collective afterlife. I never thought I'd still have to go to work after I'd died but the universe lives to prove me wrong. Honestly if it was just this endless sunset and all the world ignoring our confusion it wouldn't be all that bad.

But three days ago someone spotted strange figures on the horizon, an army of inhuman shapes gradually closing in. Of course the first thing we all did was try to leave but all the roads just led us straight back to town without so much as a minute passing though we'd been driving for hours.

So to summarise: time is meaningless, there are monsters heading right for us and help isn't coming.

Until the aforementioned monsters arrive, at least I can say that things could be worse.

And when they do arrive I suppose I won't be alive enough to say much else.

Day 2,574

Their voices carry along the current, whispering and wheedling through the old quarters of the village while everyone hurriedly stuffed cotton in their ears and tried to avoid being riverside. The bridge was completely out of the question and barred on either side with thick iron gates, as if the voices in the water followed mortal superstitions.

Hushed rumours said that if you stared down into the river while the voices were awake you'd see the face of your true love. They also said you'd see the face you had in your past life, the face of the person who killed or will kill you and all of these faces could very well be the same. Rivers are tricky like that.

Anyone with an ounce of sense stayed clear of the river entirely when the voices were known to be awake but there was always at least one death every time. Another bloated body found stuck under the bridge, another family left mourning, another drenched ghost to walk along the river, staring down and smiling.

Day 2,573

What started out as an evening of drinks with old friends had somehow become a desperate bid to escape some kind of gargantuan warren that spanned the entirety of the town and possibly well beyond. There had been five of them sitting in the same pub they spent most of their university afternoons in and now there was only one.

She'd spotted at least two of the others on her way through the countless tunnels, flashes of familiar fabric and hair that she didn't want to stare too long at in case she broke down completely and ended up joining them among the countless other corpses that were piled up in every stained corner.

For now running was safer, running put more distance between her and the gnawing teeth that seemed to merge with the wall as if the warren itself was alive. Whatever attacked them in the back of the pub garden and brought them here was roughly the size of a full grown man, something that terrified her to think of.

Every new tunnel felt like she was making progress, every hint of fresh air spurred her on until she came to a central chamber, a well-populated central chamber whose inhabitants were currently in the midst of a feeding frenzy and had yet to notice her.

This would soon change.

Day 2,572

From enough of a distance they looked like a cluster of baby's heads standing on cattail stalks, gently blowing in the bitter winds that drifted across the saltwater marshland. We called them Whipowills and prayed they'd move into better hunting grounds before we lost as many as West Mowsey up the coast had.

There've been five gone so far, five new heads on the hydra-esque little beasts and five new voices given to the damned things that now know all our names and beg us for help as soon as they see us. A sensible person can easily ignore this but Lord knows people like those are few and far between, especially around here.

Personally it's the kids I fear for - the ones who hear mummy and daddy out on the marshes and don't know any better than to rush out and help. I've not let my own out of my sight since their granda was taken last week, not with how fond they were of him and not with how much they miss him.

Day 2,571

The air felt heavier when she woke up, like something had settled overnight and she'd interrupted its arrival. Though she couldn't move much she was able to look around still, not noticing anything different until she glanced up at the ceiling again and saw a trail of footprints beginning to make their way from the doorway towards her unmovable body.

They came to a stop right above her and she got the distinct feeling that she was being watched by something tall enough to be inches away from her face. It felt like a lifetime had passed before the footprints turned around and moved towards the doorway again.

The door opened and as it closed the air went back to its normal, if slightly stale state. The weight lifted from her body and she was able to roll out of bed, wondering where the footprints had gone to and dreading what might happen to her now that she was mobile again.

As she stepped into the hallway she could already tell where it was by how the air around that room felt odd.

Muffled screams met her ears and she silently crept back to her own bed, not wanting to be next.

Whatever had happened would have to wait until morning.

Day 2,570

The road was narrow, trees lined it like the alley walls in the oldest parts of the city only here wasn't nearly as well lit nor half as inviting. It was the kind of road you found yourself trying to find a spot to turn around in, the kind that your map says will lead you to your destination but all you've seen for the last three hours is dense clusters of trees and empty brown fields.

And there I was, driving down this nothing-and-nowhere nightmare road with only the whispering corpse of my great aunt for company. She used to speak full, coherent sentences but since her tongue has started to rot she just continually mumbles to herself.

She's still my copilot though, still pointing me down the road to her resting place and as soon as we get there I can finally bury her and be free again. It's been five months of her leading me on a goddamned goose chase but now that the rot is well and truly setting in she seems to have stopped messing me about and is actually taking this seriously.

If we make it past this endless sprawl of empty fields and sparse woodland that is.

Day 2,569

Humans will grow used to just about anything - a pair uncomfortable work shoes, the constant sway of a boat on the open sea, the faint sounds of someone being torn limb-from-limb. If it exists for long enough, people will become accustomed to it and even miss its absence, no matter how horrifying it may be.

In this instance it was a shadow that called itself Myra and the silent child it attached itself to was known as Eve. They had a perfect symbiotic relationship - Myra would climb inside Eve's mouth and speak for her and in return Eve would share whatever she ate.

The young pair thrived until Even began to realise that nobody else had a Myra, began to wonder what a Myra was and began to fear what a Myra could do if it found out that Eve was doubting them. So Eve tried to keep her concerns to herself, tried not to gag or panic when Myra edged a little to close to the back of her throat, tried not to think about how easily she could be killed and how her killer couldn't be caught.

This did not go unnoticed.

Of course Myra knew about Eve's concerns and feared itself that one day the soon-to-be teenager might cut it off and let it shrivel up and die in some brightly lit park somewhere far away from home. It tried not to worry whenever Eve held a pair of scissors or a kitchen knife.

This too did not go unnoticed.

It was hard to say who struck first,only that in the end they both attacked and both succumbed before anyone even knew what was going on. Eve would be found in a puddle of some tar-like substance, the same substance that was found in her asphyxiated throat. The puddle itself had a bread knife sticking out of what appeared to be a flesh wound and part of it almost seemed to form a face warped with terror and pain.

They would cremate Eve and burn Myra, their ashes mixing in distant winds - together again.

2,568

I don't know if she's keeping the plants alive or if they're keeping her alive but either way she won't wake up any more and there's roots coming out of her skin, sinking deep into the soil below the broken concrete ground. She always loved her greenhouse so I guess it's only fitting for her to spend her remaining time there.

Her skin gets greener every day, she gets thinner too like the plants are eating away at her meat to make way for more roots, shoots and the dozens of flowers clustered in her hair and the corners of her mouth. From a distance it looks like she's smiling but for all I know it's just rigormortis setting in.

She doesn't smell dead, just smells like dirt and warm air. Maybe she's still alive after all, I mean her chest moves like she's breathing for the most part. Other times it moves like she's trying to smuggle a sack of snakes under her jacket. I'd be more worried but among everything else it's really not the worst thing.

I just hope she ain't in pain.

Day 2,567

A faint hiss bubbling up from the mud he just stepped in was all the warning he got as the ground rose up and skeletal hands burst out to greet him. He was well-versed in avoiding this kind of death - the rainy season tended to bring these creatures up more than any flash flood or stagnant pond ever had.

With a quiet sigh he collapsed to one side and rolled into the still-wet undergrowth, settling into the damp shadows mere moments before the skull crowned and a full grown mudlark stood before him, snarling at the loss of its prey. It was times like this, when he was close enough to the damned things that he could see their slit-nostrils quivering as they scented the air, that he was grateful for all the grime covering his clothes and masking his unwashed body.

Now it could be minutes before the mudlark went back under, to wait for fresh prey or his reappearance - whichever was first, which gave him time to think of a way to lure it further afield without accidentally showing it where he was hiding. Now his usual go-to method was hurling firecrackers and running in the opposite direction but with the ground being so wet there was too high a chance they wouldn't go off right.

The only other thing he has stocked at that time was a blowgun with LED darts. It was clunky but within reach and quiet enough that he still stood a chance of luring the mudlark away so he could continue further inland. Anything was better than facing the shoals of leviathans that had discovered they could beach themselves and drag their colossal bodies around the coats to hunt.

Keeping his movements as slow and silent as possible, he raised the blowgun to his lips and prepared to run.

Day 2,566

The ruins of the old Abbey, the warning signs, the man hanging from the sky. 

There's no place like home. 

I used to think I could leave home when I was a kid, dreamt I could go away to university and never come back. Trick the whole village into thinking it was only going to be a brief sojourn and then burn every bridge that led me back.

As a teenager I truly felt like I'd managed to escape the village's oddities only whenever I mentioned any aspect of home life my roommates all looked at me like I'd grown a third head and it was insulting their mother. I quickly learnt what it meant to grow up in a place full of horror and how hateful it made other people.

I even began to miss the village, the crows that chanted your name and death date, the way the warning signs made your vision blur and bleed around the edges. I even missed the evenings my family spent barricading ourselves in the attic while the souls of long dead monks begged us for shelter. 

When one of my roommates mentioned seeing a weird sign out by the river, I knew I hadn't escaped at all. I knew it would only be a natrer of time before worse things came and my choices would be go home or wait for home to come to me. 

So I chose to run until there was no world left to run to. 

Day 2,565

It comes in waves, irregular and colossal waves that devour everything organic leaving only the bones rooted in place. Ours is just one of the countless cities of skeletons and while pockets of us manage to survive, each new wave takes a couple more away.

If it was just a matter of losing people til the world's nothing but bones that'd be one thing but the bones are starting to move by themselves. It started with short blink-and-you-miss-it twitches for the first few waves and now there's roaming packs of them walking around like everything's normal.

Maybe for them it is but for us final few, it's just another nightmare to add the the ever-increasing list. 

Day 2,564

The fog was so dense I couldn't see what was climbing out of the ocean and onto the prow but I could sure as hell tell that it was damned heavy by the way the ship was dipping under its weight. I could also tell that it had claws by the sound of metal being jaggedly sliced that filled the air, reverberating around the fog til we all felt like we were in a tin can full of screams.

I don't know how we managed to stay so quiet and so still for so long - was it fear, exhaustion or curiosity? Regardless, we were quiet enough that whatever was climbing aboard lost interest and began to let the boat go, but not before making sure we all saw its face.

It looked like a skinned whale, that's all I could think about when it brought its head close enough that the fog couldn't obscure it. All that raw sinewy-looking flesh mixed with the stained baleen plates instead of teeth was quite frankly the ugliest and the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.

And it let us go.

Day 2,563

It had been outside all night, leaning against the front door groaning, coughing and gently rattling the handle all in the hope that we'd feel pity enough to let it inside. As if we hadn't been watching the news for the past year and seen others just like it luring innocent folks into the dark to eat.

They look like a child's drawing of a teddy bear, all gummy-faced and dense fur. The younger ones are usually absolutely drenched in blood and look more like skeletons covered in red Spanish moss while the older ones are smart enough to keep themselves clean, adopting a cuter appearance and gently lumbering along while the younger ones skitter like a startled cluster of spiderlings.

It's when they open their mouths the wrong way and their lips peel back to reveal row upon row of serrated teeth that you find yourself too frozen with terror to do anything more than succumb as their paws pull you close and their jaw dislocates to better fit you inside.

You never forget the first death you hear - how sickeningly sharp the crunch of a broken neck is, how much blood pours out from the severed arteries, how long a body can move without their head. Of course while you're noticing this you're being noticed in turn and they move fastest when they know you're not paying attention.

Day 2,562

I don't get out much, mostly just sit down roughly in the middle of where all my bones are now that current and river critters have broken my body down. Sometimes I'll drift to the surface to see if he's come back, see if the guilt's driven him to return but in four years I've not seen him once.

I see my mum though, she walks the dogs along here every now and then. They see me but she can't seem to figure out why they're so desperate to play in the river. Last week they showed me that I can't touch the living - my hands went straight through them but I could hold onto their collars.

It made me wonder if I'd be able to move my bones to the shore. I'd have to find them all and move them to one central place cause if someone goes diving for my bones and misses one I could be torn between wherever they bury me and the river.

Took all night but I found all of myself and make sure none of me would be washed any further away. All I've got to do now is move myself to the shore and wait for someone to find me. For the first time in four years I hope my dad doesn't visit me.

Day 2,561

As they crossed the river they held their breaths and prayed that the last ones to try had made it to the other side. Though it pitch black, the rope was slick with a metallic smelling oil, the pulleys made no sudden sound and for the first time in a long time, they felt hopeful enough to silently smile.

Their smiles quickly faded as they heard several loud, heavy splashes to their left and right - the sounds of at least two large beings walking into the water. With any luck they'd end up either parallel the whole while or the walkers would head away from them altogether.

Tonight there was no such luck as a clawed hand descended from seemingly nowhere and tore one of the elders from the raft and straight up into the perfectly dark sky. It was merciful enough to tear out his throat before he had a chance to scream and bring more trouble to the group.

Unspoken understanding passed between them all as everyone who could grab the rope soon did, all working to pull the raft to shore before it had the chance to take someone else. With an almost clockwork level of precision they pulled themselves further along and ducked away from blood-soaked hands until they hit the pier with a gentle thunk.

They spilled from the raft, intending to lose the creature in the tall grass and broken cars only to trip and land among the bodies of the last group. Bodies so fresh that rot hadn't started to set in yet and flies were only just gathering around the gruesome scene.

Holding back screams of pure fear, they carried on, hoping the scent of blood wouldn't attract anything worse.

Day 2,560

Its body was built like a worm's nest that wanted to be human, save for the almost skeletal face perched atop the writhing mass that was attempting to make small-talk as it climbed into my little fishing boat. Maybe if it had eyes I'd feel a little less terrified but it didn't have any teeth so it could have been worse.

"So, how's this boating about work anyways? You one of them catch and release guys or do you sell 'em?" it asked. Its voice was far gentler than the agitated mass of worms that was currently trying to figure out how to nonchalantly cross its legs. I vaguely explain that it's a little of both, depending on what I catch and when.

It liked the answer, the corners or its head stretching in a way that suggest it's trying to smile.

"Sensible words, my lad. Always did wonder what you still-bodied odd-lot do up here and it just seems to click doesn't it?" it says, head gently bobbing in agreement. I wonder how long it had been studying human mannerisms for - evidently long enough for me to not have jumped ship immediately.

We spent a good half hour in idle conversation about this-and-that, all the nothingness of the talks you have with aunties you've not seen since you were seven but with a much more unsettling tone. That and the occasional moment where a limb would uncoil too much and fall off, leading to profuse apologies on both sides.

By the time it patted its thighs and said "Right, better let me let you go. Fishes to catch and all - have a good'n lad!" as it leaned back and slid into the water with scarcely a ripple. I watched the faint white haze of its body slither deeper and further away til I realised I'd just been staring at the water for almost an hour.

I don't use that fishing spot any more, I take myself down to the coast instead and try not to think about the pleasant, yet disturbing worm-thing of the lake. Much as I hope he hasn't bothered anyone else, there are times when the sea is too quiet and too still and I miss our little chats.

Then I remember the way he tried to smile and suddenly, I'm alright thanks.

Day 2,559

My husband's been changing a little every day, not in a "new hair, new clothes, hidden mistress" kind of way either. His eyes have gone through every conceivable human colouration this month til they settled on a slightly corpse-y looking pale grey and his hair, formerly pale brown, is now jet black.

Friends think he's having a mid-life crisis, coworkers say he's become a little off in a way they can't describe, a way that unsettles them and makes the hairs on the back of their necks rise. Family haven't said a thing but I reckon they're either in on it or they've undergone a similar kind of strangeness.

His mouth is the latest in these changes as his lips seem to change shape and colour slightly. His teeth seem to be settled on pointier-than-human-teeth-are-supposed-to-be. I dare say he'll look like a completely different person by this time next year, if I stick around long enough to find out.

If I survive long enough to find out.

He acts mostly the same only clumiser in ways that often end up hurting me like tripping and spilling scalding hot coffee all over my face and arms or dropping knives or the iron or the goddamned hairdryer in the bathtub. Every time he apologises and cries like he's killed me and if these 'accidents' happened once or twice a month, I dare say I wouldn't be as suspicious.

But no, whoever,or whatever,  this man is becoming - he wants me dead.

Day 2,558

It was one of those years when the only thing the tide brought in was seaweed and sailor's bones. Never anyone we knew, never anyone known at all, no DNA matches ever found and nobody calling in asking to see the remains in case it was a lost loved one.

All we knew was that dead men were washing in so tightly trapped in dense clusters of seaweed that it sat like skin against their glistening bones and we knew if we left them long enough they'd only start to move. Found that one out the hard way when one fella sat bolt upright and stared us down with those long-gone eyes til someone bravely cracked its skull with a shovel.

We don't let them sit any more, soon as we find them we split the bone from the seaweed and burn them both in two separate yards. The bones get lain in consecrated grounds and the ashes tossed back into the ocean. Not sure if it helps the overall cursed situation but it helps us all rest at night and surely that counts for something.

Day 2,557

It's been almost a year since the city drowned and took us all down with it. Almost a year of wondering how we're still breathing, wondering who is sending the food parcels that fall down from the surface and wondering why the city won't let us swim away.

I've not noticed any physical changes on myself but I know that hundreds of others down here have begun to adapt to the point that we all know, without saying, that they'll never survive on land again. I've seen folks with gills all down their necks and torsos, folks with clawed and webbed hands and feet and folks who are so densely scaled that if I hadn't seen it develop over the year I wouldn't know them as human at all.

Sometimes I'll sit in my room and feel my sides, wondering if the bumps are just my ribs or if I'm growing gills as well. It's getting to the point where everyone's changing at least a little and I'm over here looking as human as I ever was, not that I know if I still am.

I don't think I am, don't think any of us are any more, not that it really matters. As long we we're getting food and as long as we're not actively at each other's throats, like we used to be as humans, I'd say we're just fine - maybe even better than we were before the city drowned.

Day 2,556

We never saw its face, only the pulsing writing mass of its body winding between the trees like a ribbon in a hurricane. It was hypnotic and disgusting and if we hadn't spotted the cougar carcasses tangled up between its coils, sluggishly bleeding and gasping their last, we might have been next.

We know it followed us, or it tried to at least. For most of the 5km walk back to the campsite we'd see it in our peripherals, dancing around the canopy, slowly weaving closer and closer. We began to take riskier paths, steeper and rockier paths without even stopping to set up our rope and carabiners.

It could have taken us out at any time, we felt it eyeing us up from somewhere behind us but it never struck. Maybe if we'd seen its face things would have gone differently, maybe if we hadn't noticed it so quickly or used such rough terrain to get back then we'd be just as tangled up and broken as those cougars.

Day 2,555

Whatever it was, skittering about the junkyard on disjointed metal stilts, it had just proven that it was carnivorous. The remains of the guard dog were strewn around like week-old festival confetti and the ground all around the main office was slick with the poor thing's blood.

The graveyard shift, consisting of Craig and Dmitri respectively, huddled under the lunch table and prayed that it couldn't open doors. Every few minutes they'd see it darting across the monitors - patrolling, they realised. Patrolling and scenting the air, knowing there was more food nearby but not quite pinpointing them yet.

They were torn between two choices - hide and wait until morning, either hoping it would get bored and leave by then or that the day crew would scare it/feed it. It was a real coward's choice but as Dmitri pointed out - cowards live longer.

Their second choice was to use the junkyard's speaker system to lure it away and then make a mad dash for the car park just outside. It was dangerous, crazy dangerous and they reckoned they'd both end up painting the ground before they could even see their cars but it meant the ordeal would be over quicker.

In the end their decision was made for them as jagged metal legs punctured the glass and then their throats.

Day 2,554

After the goliath-class solar flare, the station's sanitation protocols went rogue and wiped out everything with a pulse. All meat was deemed unsafe and every working drone was quickly re-coded to deliver the meat to the closest functional airlock for disposal.

Before long the station was surrounded by the radiation-scorched corpses of her former crew. The drones were set to patrol for any signs of disease and the atmosphere was vented not too long after to remove any anomalous bacterium left lingering after the mat had been dealt with.

Attempts at other stations remotely accessing or communicating with the infected station only led to the malfunction spreading and spreading until every single space station was each surrounded by a halo of death while ground control shut down their centers and fried their own systems to ensure the damage didn't spread to Earth.

Shame they never thought to fry their own phones.

Day 2,553

She opened the closet her son's laughter had been coming from and shadows spilled out like floodwater, filling her lungs and burning her eyes as his laughter grew louder and louder til it felt like her ears were as broken and bleeding as her heart and then - silence.

Silence and darkness so tense that she couldn't even hear her own heartbeat, though she still felt it pounding in her chest. She blinked and saw nothing but the vague swirling darkness of the same shadows she'd unleashed in her grief-stricken attempts to bring him back again.

This wasn't what the book had promised, this wasn't the joyous embrace she'd pictured. It felt like she'd been buried alive and as she clenched her hands she felt the same taffeta they'd lined his tiny coffin with. She already knew it was green - his favourite colour.

She'd done it then, she'd brought him back and all it cost was her own life - hardly a cost at all, she decided.

The air was fast becoming painful and difficult to breathe,not too long to go now.

She hoped he'd have a good life and went to sleep with a smile on her face.

Day 2,552

We buried them beneath the orchard, not once considering that their souls would fill the trees and turn the fruits as bitter as their last moments. Every year after the fruits became more and more bitter til not even the maggots that fed on the meat below ate them.

We had to seal the whole orchard off, call it a graveyard and try to plant from fresh seeds elsewhere. Damned souls followed us at every turn to ruin our fruit and starve us into a new area. We became purely nomadic after a while, desperately trying to outrun the curse we created.

It's been a few generations since then - a few of the souls have seen their murderers die and given up, a few lost interest and turned back leaving the worst of the worst with us. The ones who can't settle their hatred, can't move on and can't stand to see us alive.

We see their faces in the trunks of every tree we pass and pray the roots hold them down a little longer.

Day 2,551

The sun should have risen five hours ago but we scarcely noticed, too preoccupied with the gasping heap of flesh slowly rolling itself towards the town hall. Clusters of bloodied and bruised hands pushed, pulled and grappled against gravity to propel it while we stared in perfect silence.

I recognised the nail polish on one hand and said nothing. She was long past the point of saving, now the kindest thing I could do would be to shoot the flesh til it decompressed into all the mutilated bodies it had engulfed to become as large as it currently was. But I just stood there as helpless as everyone else.

The sun should have risen eight hours ago and now that the cluster of flesh is deep within the town hall we can begin to actually panic until someone figures out what to do. Lord knows I haven't a clue, I barely understand how the flesh lives for as long as it does, let alone knowing why or how it stopped the sun.

I went home and locked myself on the roof of the apartment block, hoping either an answer would come, the sun would rise again or if the flesh came for me it'd be delayed long enough or me to jump and save myself feeling the agony of becoming.

The sun rose eleven hours late then set for the evening.

The flesh consumed the mayor and dissolved down the closest drain, apparently heading out to the ocean.

I fell asleep on the roof and woke up to a swarm of seagulls pecking at my exposed arms.

Life goes on.

Day 2,550

I'm dead and aware. Apparently that's somewhat of a rarity and judging by all the mindless haints I walk past every bloody day I'd say I'm the only one in the area. They're just blobs that vaguely remember one single human emotion or memory from their sad little lives and I'm unlucky enough to remember every single detail right up to the moment of my death.

Definitely wish I could forget that bit.

Definitely cannot forget it while the bastard who killed me keeps trying to kill my mother as well. I honestly think he was trying to kill her in the first place and my stupid self just got in the way so now I spend my time haunting him and hoping he fucks right off.

Not going great so far but I've got nowt else to do.

As of this week I've managed to trip him and make him spill the poisoned tea he worked so hard to make, I also managed to completely disconnect my mother's car engine so she never found out he cut her brakes and this morning I scared the cat into making him drop yet more poisoned tea.

He really has a thing for that this month... must have been a deal on poison or something.

For now I guess I just keep on keeping him from killing her or find a way to kill him myself and then hope he's another mindless haint and not all painfully aware like me. Mind you I've seen plenty of haints fade into nothingness when their surroundings either change or whatever issue they had gets resolved so even then I could get rid of the bastard.

Until then I'll keep tripping and inconveniencing him, and keep old mumsie safe as houses.

Day 2,549

I've seen her around town a few times now, she walks something on a leash but my eyes refuse to focus on it. In fact the ground around her feet is just a headache-inducing haze where something sits and pants as she does everything she can to avoid drawing anyone's attention to it.

Ever since she moved here people have gone missing and turned up as half-chewed corpses in the dog park. I know its that thing she walks with but what I don't know is if she's the one controlling it and selecting the victims herself or if she's just as much a victim as all the others, trapped beide it and forced to watch it mutilate time and time again.

So far it seems like nobody else has put two-and-two together but me, nobody else ever really notices her. I'm glad to be different enough that I can actively avoid her which hopefully means I won't end up the next mangled body in the dog park... unless it's safer to stay in her radar rather than under it.

Either way, the thing she takes around town is growing bigger and bigger every week. Soon enough it will have driven everyone mad or killed them and I'll be the last one alive, crouched in a corner with a splitting headache but alive nonetheless.

Maybe then I'll finally be able to see what it actually is.

Day 2,548

Hell looks different to everybody.

For some it's the classic fiery pit of endless souls burning and screaming and you're always on the precipice of falling in forever. For others it's a situation they can't get out of - an endless argument, the edge of a fistfight, an auditorium of strangers struggling to hold back their sneers and laughter as you hold back your tears and try to talk about something you know absolutely nothing about.

For me, it was the grocery store my mother left me in when I was seven. I didn't die til I was nineteen but that's not the point. The point is that I never really left that moment and now that moment is my eternity, just those endless aisles of blank boxes and cans and flickering fluorescent lights.

Some days there's cashiers round the front and lines of distorted things that I guess are the customers. Makes me wonder what I look like now but the bathrooms are always out of order and there's usually blood or vomit pouring out from underneath the door.

There's always a set of footsteps just out of time with my own, always in the next aisle and always nearby no matter how many aisles I run down or climb up or hide under. Whenever I move, it hears me and it makes sure I hear it too. I used to think it was a demon or something but now I think its my mother.

I guess neither of us ever really left that day but I can't pity her after all these years.

If  it is my mother stalking me through this damned place then I'll just have to kil her.

Again.