It had begun slowly. The parasite seeped into the cracks, infiltrating the bodies of those society wished to ignore. The homeless, sick, and dying. They were given new purpose as carriers of humanity's end.

Anna was one such carrier. The beginning of her death was orchestrated by the river, the river that would soon engulf the world. The parasite, which they would later call Gorgon, lived in the water. A camping trip would bring Anna to the river. And from there, just a drop of water would decide the rest.

She didn't realize what had happened for weeks. First she assumed the symptoms were just homesickness. After all, she hadn't seen her mother for a few days and wasn't used to leaving the house alone. But soon that excuse wore out its welcome.

Then, Anna decided it was a panic attack. It certainly seemed to fit. She was overcome with fear, the inside of her mind begging to find someone else to lean on, her mother, her family, her friends. Just someone.

But soon things started to change. Anna was moving slower, and was dehydrated no matter how much water she drank. She slipped while holding a knife and cut herself, and to her shock her blood was black. Something was wrong.

Anna had heard new stories about a mysterious illness overtaking the people of China, those living near the Yangtze River. Doctors wouldn't say much, but the sickness was reported to be one hundred percent fatal.

She decided she couldn't return to her home. The parasite would want her to seek out human comfort, to spread it to the rest of the world. Anna wouldn't let it.

A week later, she was crying. Sobbing in the middle of the woods, her tears streaked with blood that the parasite no longer needed as it slowly replaced the red with its own black fluid. The parasite was in her brain, forcing her nervous system to activate its fear response constantly, to scare her into running back into her mother's arms. Anna knew she didn't have much time left. The parasite was replacing her from the inside out, and soon there would be nothing left of Anna Reynolds. She would be a memory, a shell.

In a brief moment of clarity before the parasite convinced her to return home, Anna tied herself to a tree. She would resist the siren's call, would stay put. She wouldn't let anyone die because of her.

Three days after that, she broke through the ropes.

Anna ran towards her house, what was left of her mind begging her legs to stop. Stay away from civilization, lest it fall victim to the parasite in your veins. But Anna was outnumbered by the parasite in her blood. While she had been scared out of her mind, it had been replicating. The foreign invader had overrun her body's defenses, and now it was her.

She never made it home. Anna reached the middle of a small town at the base of the mountain and frose. The parasite, completely in control, trapped her in her own body as it went through rigor mortis. But over the months that followed, her body didn't decay.

The inhabitants of the town didn't see Anna run down from the mountain. They just saw a statue, very lifelike, but still a statue. They didn't know what was happening until it was too late.

For months, Anna's body was still. She was long dead-the parasite had no need for oxygen, and she had suffocated inside her own body. Her heart still beat, though. The parasite had to move through the infected mockery of blood to keep replicating, keep expanding, keep growing stronger. Then, as winter came and the small town was blanketed in snow, Anna's body moved.

It was slow at first. Stumbling around, as the parasite grew accustomed to moving its new legs. Then it ran. Ran towards the river as the inhabitants watched in horror. Ran into the stream. Its skin steamed and dissolved, a chemical the parasite had released making its flesh soluble in the smallest quantity of water. The parasite burst forth from the corpse, traveling through the river. The inhabitants of the town watched as their water supply was poisoned. Within weeks, every drop of water in the world was infected with the parasite.

And the end of the world came, with the bodies of the infected becoming their own graves. The statues littered the earth, the only remnant of a species long ago extinct.

It’s nice out today.

Funny how a simple lie can make the truth look that much more clear. The sentence had been innocent. Conversational. A casual attempt at small talk, candid and awkward-looking in its stubby little chat bubble, dwarfed beneath a series of back and forth paragraph texts from the night before. It was the sharp trill of this message that woke me up that morning. I knew something was off right then, because usually I was woken by the trill of birds.

There aren’t any birds anymore. There is no sun. It’s truly the end of the world, and it’s exactly how every sci-fi film and dystopian novel has ever described it to be. The trees have lost their posture. The flowers are like pencil shavings, scattered in the smoke-coloured grass. The clouds look like they were birthed from fire. Life is nowhere to be seen.

The doctors told us five years. Five years. But as the hysteria kicked in and my vision blurred and David Bowie played faintly in my ears, I knew⁠—I just knew, somehow⁠—that this wasn’t quite right. Their estimate, no doubt backed by medical research and statistics, was wrong this time. They just didn’t know it yet. But I did. I knew. I couldn’t fool myself into believing that I’d get to keep you for another half a decade. Another eighteen hundred days. Because the truth is, you only had seven. Seven days.

In those seven days, I watched the world end.

Your voice shrank. Hoarsened, like a broken flute. A dying bird. I watched the colour drain from your face—the sun. I watched the flower petals that were once your eyelids become hollow and heavy, and your limbs curl inward like those of a withering tree. I watched as, with every breath you took, you didn’t choke on ash or smoke or dust; you choked on air. Clean air. Life. Life was killing you as though it were toxic, poisoning you with every moment that passed, and the injustice of it all is so frustrating I want to scream. I want to throw something. I want someone to blame. I can’t blame the doctors, who did their best with the time you had left even when they, too, realised it was less than they’d predicted. I can’t blame myself, which has always been a dependable choice in the past. And I can’t blame you, who had texted me that feeble sliver of optimism with unsteady fingers that morning, and then never sent another—no matter how much I blew up your phone in the minutes that followed. That day, through the static panic that rang in my ears and the lyrics of the song that circled through my skull, I could hear the birds call to one another outside my car window. I was blinded by the sunlight that reflected in the glass hospital doors. I staggered through lush summer greenery, a rainbow of wildflowers, a gentle breeze, and I watched the world end right there in front of me. Right there in that room.

Life will never be the same. Humanity has suffered a grievous tragedy and it doesn’t even know it. The people of this world will never realise how much they’ve lost, because they never got the privilege of meeting you.

It was not nice out that day.

It hasn’t been nice a day since.

It’s almost a tickling sensation, but darker somehow. A lump of dread that lingers in your throat somewhere between where your tongue begins and ends. An odious, swirling, restless something that fills your head with alarm bells. Television static. Police sirens. It paints your vision red and white, spikes your veins with malaise and fear. Intense. Illogical. All-encompassing. Like tunnel vision for the soul.

Afraid of winter. Afraid of doorknobs. Afraid to drink. Afraid to fly.

You’re seasick on land. Carsick on foot. There isn’t a single food you aren’t allergic to. You’re afraid of hospitals. Roller coasters. Red wine. Seafood. “Side effects may include.” You’re healthy in the eyes of every medical professional. You’re a hypochondriac. A germaphobe. An over-thinker. Obsessive-compulsive. Irrational. Paranoid. You’re just plain silly. It isn’t your stomach that’s restless—it’s your head. Working yourself up is what inevitably brings you down. The panic makes you feel queasy; the queasiness makes you panic. It’s a circle. A cycle. A cyclone.

Anyone can run from spiders.

Anyone can run from clowns.

Anyone can run from heights.

Nobody can run from themselves.