We All Rot Eventually: A Horror Novella

by Mia Ballard

The mini market gas station off the 405 smells like gasoline and burnt coffee, and it sticks to me like it knows I can’t outrun it.

a bag of peach rings open beside me. The sugar clings to my fingers, melts into my skin, sticks to the parts of my thoughts I don’t want to touch.

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.

I scroll through the rest from that day—my face again and again, always trying to catch itself, like a dog chasing its tail. It feels like looking at someone I used to know.

It means people saying my name like it means something, saying it with reverence, like a secret they get to hold in their mouths.

a girl with skinned knees and a bad temper, kicking sand in her crush’s eyes in the first-grade because she wanted to see what rage looked like on someone else.

I lie back on the futon, the script still crumpled in my hand, and Lars lies down next to me, his breath warm on my shoulder. The lights outside flicker, the city groaning with its own dreams, and for a moment, I think maybe this could be everything. But only for a moment.

The room feels darker when Lars leaves around five in the morning, though it’s probably just me.

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

All I can think is, I’ve lost ten pounds this month, and I’m still not enough.

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

So now it’s just me, alone on the bus at 10 p.m., on my way to Lars’ show, dressed like bait, because my roommate is pegging some guy and probably making a meal out of it.

The city hums around us, and I think about the bus ride home, about the heels, about the fact that tomorrow is just another day of waiting to be seen. Lars is looking at me, but it’s not enough. It never is.

I let myself cry against her shoulder, making all the right sounds, letting the sobs tear through me like they were mine. And I haven’t stopped since. Not because I feel anything, but because I know what’s expected of me.

I think about his hands, his long fingers curled against his stomach, and how I didn’t want to touch him, not even to check if he was warm.

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

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

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.

I think about how none of this would’ve happened if he’d lived, if I hadn’t cried just right for the camera, if people hadn’t decided my grief was a commodity worth investing in.

My life feels like a music video on loop. Glossy, chaotic, full of light and noise. 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.

like living inside a strobe light—flashes of blood, cameras, moaning, and the metallic taste of danger that never fully dissolves.

This is the life. This is what I killed for. Every time I step outside, I feel them watching, feel the weight of their hunger, and it fills me with something warm and electric. I know it can’t last.

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

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

I close my eyes. I smile. I am famous. Alexa Valentine will be famous after this.

“I told him I’d do it. The man in my mouth. I said his name out loud—Lars Bauer. The demon smiled inside me, its voice curling around my bones, promising everything I ever wanted. It told me fame needs blood, and I believed it. I believe it still.”

Authorities are continuing their investigation, though they warn the full extent of Valentine’s crimes may never be uncovered. For now, Hollywood mourns not just the victims of her violence but also the chilling revelation that its brightest stars can sometimes burn the darkest.