Demon Fetus

She can feel it scratching at her brain as it searches for purchase. The faint taste of copper fills her mouth as the movement it makes disrupts blood vessels. She slaps the side of her head to get it to stop, but that only makes the movements more frenzy, and the copper taste intensifies into trickles of blood. She hunches over coughing and spitting the almost black hemoglobin on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. She grips the side of the tub as her lungs start to slide up her throat to flop on the ground like fish fresh out of water. She does not have time to digest what just happen before another fit of cough takes over sending a jarring pain down her spine as more and more blood leaves her body. 

The scratching at her brain stops, only to start in her chest as whatever is twists and turns to settle in the empty cavity her lungs left behind. Just as it had all started it stops and she sits on her haunches staring at her lings in the puddle of her blood before her. She does not understand how she can breathe, how is she even still alive after losing so much blood. 

Grabbing a town from the closet she proceeds to wipe it all up, folding her lungs into the once-white towel and pausing. What is she to do with them? She cannot just toss them out the trash for someone would find them from the smell alone. Maybe the freezer. That dose does not seem like a good idea either. 

She jumps at the little chuckle in her mind and feels a feather flutter in her chest. “I need them.”

The staring voice says to her, “Where are you? Who are you?” she demands holding a hand on her chest feeling it slowly rise and fall. 

“I’m inside. I’m who you called forth. I’m the despair you cannot live without.”

The feathering feeling in her chest subsidies, “I didn’t call for anyone.” she says to the empty room even as she slowly uncovers her lungs. 

“You did. In the deepest crevices of your mind, you did.” the voice says at the wiggles making her feel weird. 

“How am I even breathing?” she asks as she picks up one of the lobes to slick the copper liquid off it. 

“We are the same. My breath is your breath,” It says as she takes a tentative bit and feels the piece of organ slide down her throat. She is not disgusted like she thought she would be, but ravenous and wanting more. She takes one bite after another not bothering to chew the chunks she rips off her with her teeth. 

“We are now one forever.” It says as the last piece settles in her stomach. She thought she would feel sick, but no. The bloody towels needed to be dealt with. She tosses the used one in the tub, turning the hot water on and letting it wash them as she wipes up the rest of the blood. When done there are still dark streaks left on the floor. A towel had stopped up the tub so they are floating in a pond of red. 

She starts to ring them out one at a time until no more red water will leave them. The pile grows on the floor as the water slips down the drain. She uses the wet towels to clean more of the floor up and back in the bathtub they go to start the rinsing process over once again. They are now a faint pink. She stuffs them into a kitchen trash bag to toss into the garbage can outside. 

Her hand rest on the doorknob to outside, “Someone will see.” She says. The thing in her chest makes it flutter, a feeling she is oddly getting used to. “After dark then,” she says letting the door knob go and putting the first trash bag into another so that it does not leak. 

She stands in the room looking around blankly not sure what to do. The thought of finishing cleaning up the bathroom is no longer a thought. 

“Escape” It lays out the suggestion on a silver platter and she snatches it up with greed. She dumps the contest of one of the many backpacks she has on her bed to replace the items with only essentials. A blanket, a hoody, her wallet, and a photo of her and her mother that she cherishes. She takes a shower, leaving the bloody clothes on the floor and changing into cargo pants, a tank, a long-sleeve shirt, a t-shirt on top, and the only pair of good tennis shoes she has. 

With the backpack on the couch, she writes a note on a sheet of paper and stuffs it with her house key in an envelope to leave in the neighbor's mailbox. She grabs her good winter jacket and pauses at the door to look back on the life she is walking out on. She paused for a split second rethinking but nothing could make this life better. With one last click of the lock on her front door, she drops the envelope in the neighbor's mailbox and walks away from it all. She feels a curest from the thing in her chest, “Together.”  it says as her feet carry her further and further away. She will never know what happens when the neighbor walks into the house and finds the bloody clothes or the towels. She will become another of the thousands missing, but she will never be alone again. For It is with her and It will take on the pain and misery that life left her. For once in her life she feels a sense of freedom.