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.

My reflection feels like a stranger who keeps asking for things I can’t give.

The city is different in the morning; quieter, like it hasn’t decided what kind of day it wants to have.

I think about everything I want and everything I don’t have and how maybe I don’t have to keep waiting for it.

Because Lars is dead, Ricky is a joke, and the only thing I know how to do is make them watch me.

steady. I feel like I’ve taken up space and left a mark, like I’m something that won’t disappear the second the door closes behind me.

if people hadn’t decided my grief was a commodity worth investing in.

I don’t care if it’s fake. I don’t care if it’s built on nothing. What matters is that I’m here, that I’m seen, that people are looking.

I have a real bed now. I think about the futon bed sometimes, it made me feel like I survived something.

We don’t say I love you, we don’t have deep talks, we just like to sit in each other’s presence, and that was enough.

“I miss you,” he murmurs, his voice low and warm, like we’re still something we never were.

We all rot eventually. We all fall apart. Why should I feel bad about trading blood for glory?

It told me fame needs blood, and I believed it.