there is a gnawing hunger in you. it’s been there since you were born. you wonder what it feeds on. you realise it might be you.

reminder: 6:43pm oct 24, woke up + light was on, went to turn it off but then it was already off, voice said my name. (write up later)

you have to stay one step ahead. you have to. you’re not even sure why, but thinking otherwise is not an option. you don’t know what you’re running from.

you ache. the news is never good.

you need to get it done. you need to get it done. everything depends on you getting it done. you still don’t get it done.

you get your bill at the restaurant and you’re not expecting to find a death threat written on it. you call the manager over, who immediately calls the police. you didn’t want that much of a fuss -- maybe it had been a cruel prank -- but then the manager points out the server’s name at the top of the bill and informs you that no one of that name works there. he says that you should probably head to the hospital for a checkup.

you jump into the pool and keep your eyes squeezed closed. the threat of the chlorine sting is enough to keep them closed, even as you push back up from the bottom and feel something cold and clammy and human brush against your leg.

you see her multiple times that day. always smiling at you with that same too-wide grin, always getting to places in times that shouldn’t be possible. you stopped smiling back hours ago, but you’re worried it might be too late.

you’re driving over the bridge in the middle of the night when you glance down into the water and see a pair of headlights shining up at you from under the surface.

there are other pairs of footprints on the beach. you watch them as you walk, spotting the ones belonging to children, the ones belonging to dogs. a lone pair of footprints catches your attention. they lead into the sea. none lead out again.

there was a show you used to watch when you were a kid that... probably shouldn’t have been shown to kids. you remember watching it with a morbod curiosity, even though you knew it would give you nightmares. now older, you try and look it up, figuring that it would probably have lost its edge now you’ve grown up a bit. you can’t find anything about it, though. and the channel it aired on apparently never existed.

the jacket you wore out last night has a slash mark on the back. you don’t remember anything happening, but you do remember the feeling of being followed.

the security lights in the driveway keep flicking on. the shadow you see scurry out of sight is always far too big to be anything you recognise. the sounds aren’t right, either.

you used to like walking past the flowers until one day they started smelling of rotting flesh. you’re too afraid to look in the long grass.

the bones in the trash after the barbecue look human.