We All Rot Eventually: A Horror Novella

by Mia Ballard

I watch, but I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. Something. Someone. A feeling. It’s the kind of ache that doesn’t settle anywhere, just floats under your skin, making you itch.

She’s always been better at feeling things than I am, better at knowing what to do with all that mess.

“You don’t love me,” I say, my voice flat, biting. “You love having something to hang yourself on.”

Men like him are wallpaper, always there, always leering, always thinking they have a right to the space I take up.

“Why?” He whispers. I watch him for a moment, my chest rising and falling, my hand still gripping the knife. “Because the man in my mouth told me to.”