We All Rot Eventually: A Horror Novella

by Mia Ballard

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.

He’s pretty, and he’s fun, and tonight, that feels like enough.

I press the button for the third floor with my knuckle because I don’t want to risk breaking my nail.

The way this is literally me

It’s not like I loved him. He was a pretty face and a warm body, someone to fill the silence, someone who made me feel less invisible for a few hours at a time.

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

Fame is a fire, and I want to burn with it until there’s nothing left.

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