I’ve never felt this skin touch air before. It’s pink and raw like fresh meat, like something not meant to see the sun. And here I am, half-naked in a garden that pretends to be Eden, if Eden were lined with thorns and mountain lions instead of angels. The shrubs rustle. I hear it breathing. I know it’s there.
Maybe I made it up. Maybe the fear is its own beast.
Tonight, sleep will come with teeth. That I know. You can’t talk to nightmares the way you talk to people, there’s no bargaining, no clever arguments. Just blood and the echo of screams.
There's a cartouche on my wall, etched in gold and dust, staring back at me like a curse I forgot I summoned. I think it’s watching. I think it knows. And where the fuck is my shoe? I had it a second ago. It’s absurd, isn’t it? That I’m thinking about footwear while being hunted?
It moves. I move faster.
There’s a crunch. A scream, mine, maybe. Or maybe the thing’s.
I look down. Under my Converse, something’s twitching. Then it’s not. Just a smear, just a stain.
I’ve killed it. I think. I hope.
And I wonder, briefly, stupidly, would Mother Gaia forgive me for snuffing a life because it frightened me? Because it was inconvenient? Because it was there?
Probably not. But it’s dead all the same.