Word Count

Words can be deadly.

That was her latest Instagram post.

Just a spur of the moment quote.

She had no way of knowing that her latest Instagram post would become painfully accurate in the next few days.

Cressilia Crowe.

She always signed her name that way. She liked the way it sounded, the way the alliteration rolled off her tongue.

Her real name was Jane Smith. A boring name. A small town girl name. Cressilia had moved away from that town for a reason. When she moved to the city, Jane Smith died.

And Cressilia was sure this novel would be her big break.

She’d only just started it, but the words pulsed with a dark life. Her sentences dripped with blood. Her letters were scratched as if with a knife.

She’d done her reasearch. It had been a while since she was a teenager. Since she had read that book that changed her life. But her reasearch said that the average word count was somewhere around 70 thousand words.

So that’s what Cressilia was trying to do.

Of course, she didn’t have time to waste. Her rent was due in a week and Cressilia was running low on funds. This book was going to save her.

She just had to finish.

She churned through page after page.

When the sun set, she didn’t notice.

In a day, 24 straight hours, no talking, eating, or sleeping, she had written five thousand words.

Cressilia blinked at the numbers.

That couldn’t be right. Only five thousand?

At this rate, it would take her two weeks to finish! She needed it done in half the time!

Cressilia had planned on taking a break to eat, a quick nap, but now it seemed she didn’t have the time. She needed to keep writing. Already, she had wasted precious time.

She let her fingers tap the keys. She let the words churn, rip out of her like cancer cut with surgical precision. The pages filled. The real world around her burned, but all she could see was the screen.

And on day two of no food or sleep (she only took the smallest of breaks to sip her water) she began to see him.

The demon in her story. He scratched at her arms and legs. He bit at her.

He didn’t want her to finish. He wanted her to quit, to give up. But Cressilia couldn’t. She needed this story. She needed the money.

By the end of day three, she was measuring time in words.

At the end of day three, she still had only 20,000 words.

She needed to be faster.

But work is hard with the demon scraping her arms away.

She sipped her water. She typed. She typed until her fingers bled like her arms. In some places, she could see bone.

The stupid demon was tearing her apart. But she had to finish. She must finish. She had four more days till rent was due.

Now her arms were covered in red blood and white lumps of fatty flesh. Her stomach had burned away all her fat and was now eating away at her intestines.

She kept writing.

Just a few more days, she told herself. then it will be over.

She became convinced that when she finished her book, the demon would go away.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d gone without food or sleep, but she reached sixty thousand words.

So close.

Now the demon had begun clawing at her back. Her legs. Anywhere he could reach. Her body was a skinny mess of loose flesh and torn skin.

Blood stopped flowing from her new cuts. She no longer felt it when the demon clawed at her.

Few more words few more words few more words few more words.

She felt reality slipping away.

It was no longer about the rent. It was about the story. She needed to write it down. Needed to finish. Once it was over her body would heal, the demon would leave, and everything would be okay.

And on day six she did it.

The last word was written

The total stood at 70,000. Exactly. She’d done it. Her novel was ready.

On day seven, her landlord came and knocked on the door.

There was no response.

“Miss Crowe,” the landlord called. “I need your rent.”

He knocked. He looked in the peephole. He could see and hear no one.

So he entered.

He looked through all the rooms.

In the bathroom, there was nothing. In the bedroom, also nothing. In the kitchen, nothing.

In the living room, he found the corpse.

Cressilia Crowe, formerly Jane Smith, lay on the floor next to a massive pile of paper. Her body was shredded beyond recognition.

The police called it an extreme form of self harm. Her body was extremely malnourished. She’d clawed herself apart. No one really understood why.

And as for the manuscript?

It was Cressilia’s longest piece of writing. The words were her soul. Her essence.

And it was never published. The police kept it as evidence.

Hundreds of pages. Thousands of words.

And all of them said the same thing, over and over and over.

HELP ME.

HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME.

It went on. Seventy thousand words. All of them the same.

HELP ME.

Cressilia spent her last days typing out a massive, beautiful story—

HELP ME.

Or so she thought.

HELP ME.

Or maybe...

HELP ME.

Maybe the demon got rid of it all. Hid it away.

HELP ME.

Maybe Cressilia’s real story is out there somewhere.

HELP ME.

Or maybe not.