We All Rot Eventually: A Horror Novella

by Mia Ballard

The lights pulse like they’re thinking of dying.

The sugar clings to my fingers, melts into my skin, sticks to the parts of my thoughts I don’t want to touch.

The smell of gasoline is a second skin now. It soaks into my hair, my clothes, the spaces between my fingers.

Has she sat there for awhile killing time or does she work at a gas station? Edit: wait. This is considered horror. Oh dear

It means not standing under these lights, not smelling like cigars and gas and cheap hot dogs, not being the girl behind the counter.

Ok so yes she works there.

maybe she died the night I told the devil what I wanted,

She’s holding a glass of something brown and strong, pretending to read a book.

As most people do

she gets the last say, and she says the brooding (alleged) pedo can stay.

Does our fmc kill Dave. edit: hahahaha

When he shows up, he smells like the inside of a hot car—leather and sweat and something metallic I can’t place.

blood girlie

He grabs a crumpled People Magazine from my nightstand, flipping through it until he lands on Jessica Simpson’s face. He lays it flat on the floor, his movements quick, and dumps a line of coke right across Jessica’s smile. “Should I feel bad about this?” he asks, glancing up at me. “No I really don’t think she minds at all.”

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

What im picking up is that this woman is very disturbed perhaps to her core. Let's open the can of Alexa pls. edit: lets close the can pls

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

Unrecognizable after sinking everything for a dream thats not being registered

I look at my thighs, at my collarbones pressing sharp against my skin, at the way my face looks smaller now, prettier somehow, like the bones are trying to break through.

Ya girl has ED brain

I don’t trust the bus

Paranoia

It’s the kind of smile you give a girl you think you’re better than.

Alexa is projecting often

I read the lines like I’ve practiced them a hundred times,

Obsession

the sunlight slicing through my vision like it’s trying to hurt me.

the air is warm with too many bodies, too much talking, too much smoke. They’re all at the table, all three of them—Milo

She sounds so fed up and irritated here

humiliation of the callback sticking to me like a film I can’t scrub off.

She puts her entire worth on performing

There’s an open bottle of vodka on the table and a giant bowl of pesto bowtie pasta that no one offers me because they know I’ll just throw it up later. Danielle is swirling her wine glass like she’s bored already, her nails clinking against the glass.

Such an awkward feeling that the author is building

I feel the question stick, jagged and strange. I feel it sit in my chest, blooming.

Ofc you do psychopath

their hair catching the light like they’d rehearsed even that.

Well honey you clearly have an ED and your hair wont look like that

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

Oh dear what is she going to do on the dark web.

the kind of

Multiple times using this kinda bleh

she texted me: This guy wants me to peg him. Can’t miss that opportunity.

Broad city lolol

the streets blurry under a sky so empty it might as well be another ceiling.

Glass ceiling as a woman in acting unless you fit a narrative

I don’t smoke nicotine,

If you dont smoke nicotine then how did you magically light a cig

I put on my best performance.

Omg

Not because I feel anything, but because I know what’s expected of me.

Legit psycho

but all I can think about is how easy it is to lie when no one is looking too closely.

I wonder how long I’ll have to keep this up, how long I can make them believe that I’m wrecked, that I’m shattered, that I’m someone who cared enough to break.

But like shes thinking so inwards and out of body paradoxically

thick, low hum that’s been building in my skull

The ambience of fluorescents

I sit there for a moment, the room spinning faintly around me. My body feels too big, my breath too loud, and all I can think about is how Lars’ body looked yesterday morning, pale and slack, how his hand felt when I shook him and it didn’t shake back.

Blood sacrifice

I look at him like he’s dumb, and he’s still got that faintly bored look on his face, like the idea of me being important enough to get a phone call is something he can’t quite believe.

She is delusional like he is not thinking that. alexa is showing such signs of projection, paranoia, & narcissm

but something in me itches to pick up, like it’s the universe calling and I might miss it.

Honey thats magical thinking

like he was lost to it, not swallowed whole.

Forshadow or parallel to how she feels

We want it to feel raw, authentic.” I don’t laugh this time, but I want to.

Bc you are anything but

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

As in manipulation of the camera to get your break

I haven’t eaten anything in two days except for half of a Pop-Tart I found in the bottom of my purse.

Why would you even have a poptart in your purse

I don’t trust myself

You dont trust anything

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

I’ve leveled up.

Grandiose Thoughts

The receptionist doesn’t even glance at me as I leave, but I don’t care.

She feels manic.

There were whispers, of course. That I only got it because of Lars, because of the viral clip on the news,

Hmmmm lets continue

It didn’t matter how or why.

Except Me i wanna know how

if I hadn’t cried just right for the camera, if people hadn’t decided my grief was a commodity worth investing in.

Calculated in every way

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.

Wah wish alexa didnt have to tell us what we're reading likke we know she is a fastidious & creating a life on blank canvas

bring Danielle because she fits into this world better than I do—thin and sharp and mean

Danielle brings a mirror of who alexa wants to be

His platinum spiked hair is messy in that deliberate way, the kind that takes too long to look like you don’t care, and he’s not laughing at anyone’s jokes.

Ooh how mysterious and hot read my sarcasm

letting my heels click

What is with the heel click. Heels dont make a woman powerful or fierce.

He smirks, taking a sip of his drink. “I’ve seen your face all over the internet. You cry pretty.” The way he says it makes me want to hit him and kiss him

Girl WHAT. In pure psychosis mode