Building 11 “A Wonderful Monster”

“I hear them calling every day now. Tonight, when the moon is full, their voices are the loudest. It is all part of the order of things, at least as far as I can tell. There is a way things are and the way things aren't, and they are telling me that what this is, that what I am. is not the way things are.

It is the way things aren't.

He doesn't understand. He thinks that there is an alternative, that this is not going to end the way it is fated to end. He is determined to prove me wrong, so I can't help but keep it to myself. He can't know that it is already too late, that the changes started long ago.

First it was merely a smell under my nails, black stains on my skin. But, and I know this is going to break his heart, I have been hiding the rest of the signs. I am thankful that it has been a cold year so far, and that the excuse to wear gloves inside hasn't yet become an issue.

But I can't hide it forever. I know that better than people think. When I close my eyes it is so much easier to write. When I close my eyes, all that I am is in my mind. All that I am is a soul, resting in a body that was never meant for me. And if I could have gone back, if I had known what was coming, I likely would have done it long before I started a family.

My sweet little girl. I don't know what it is going to be like for her, growing up without a mother. I am a bad person I think, for abandoning her. But that is the problem isn't it. It isn't that I mean to be a bad person or to fail to be happy like this. But the reality remains that I am a bad person.

I have never been good at being a person.

Because I am not a person, deep down inside.

Inside this shell is something waiting to come out, beginning to be released. It is a thing I have known would be coming since long before I even had words for it, in dreams and premonitions. Smells that stand out to me and things that reek of the strange and the odd.

But not for me.

The smell of sewage and ink is my perfume.

The black of oblivion is my dream.

I am a bad person.

But I make a wonderful monster.”

A wet coldness runs up my spine, even as I write this now.

You would think the feeling will fade, but I am wrapped in blankets, and yet I still feel the cold. I was just organizing the house, like I normally do when I am feeling far away. As I went, I decided to look through some drawers I usually leave left alone.

Junk drawers. Stuff like that.

In one I found this note. It is in my mother's handwriting. Or...it is very much like my mother's handwriting. It is like an in between, a transition. And when I think back on it, when I really think back on it...my mother seemed to be struggling in the notes I read from her, in the final weeks before she died. But I simply thought she was just having a hard time, like she often did.

Like I often do...

Jesus Christ...what the fuck is this? What the fuck is this!?

It isn't her. I know it isn't her because I was the one who identified her body! I was the one who had to look at her face, pealed off the ice. Not dad. Not anyone else. It was me. And I know she was dead, and there is no fucking way that thing can be my mom. It doesn't matter...the note isn't new, but that doesn't mean anything.

The things that live here. They mock us...some of them do. They take the things we love and they use them against us. But I refuse to be manipulated. Okay? I fucking refuse. I don't need this shit right now. I really...I have enough to focus on without some vile thing trying to reach out to me. I already had a mother, and she went missing from the morgue...

No. It can still be just coincidence. All sorts of things could have grabbed her. She could have been misplaced, the name could have been wrong on her body. Who else but me would have known it was her? It is an easy mistake to make.

My mom is dead.

I have to focus.

There are more important things for me to worry about right now. I reached out, and The Officer finally contacted me again. She said that she wanted to meet up next week, to go over the things she has found out. All the better. I am just happy she is alright. Ariana is okay, or at least she says she is. I will know more next week. I told her that she had to be honest with me.

We all have to be honest with one another.

I am going to have to ask my dad about the note. I don't know what he will say.

I know when he is lying.