Jessica Cambrook, 02 Aug '12

It is ugly. Horrific. Worse than anything I've seen in horror films or in graphic horror comics. I was just walking home from my boyfr... ex-boyfriend's house. He decided we were 'too close' and that 'we needed some space' because I'd 'changed beyond recognition'. I hadn't realised that 'too close' was even possible in a relationship.

The dark streets conceal my angry tears, and the more I think about him, the more furious I get. Who is he to decide when our relationship is over? I was happy, didn't my opinion count? That's the thing about people, you can't trust them.

That's when I stumble on... it.

Just a street away from my house, I hear its muffled screams. Normally, in a city as foul as mine where shouts and house alarms are a signal to walk the other way, I would ignore it. In my wretched mood, I want to see something even worse off than myself, and with morbid, gleeful curiosity I follow the noise.

It is shrouded in a thin, rubbery blanket. As if it senses that I am near, its cries quieten. I peel back the strange material covering it, and recoil, throwing the red blanket away in shock.

It vaguely resembles a foetus, standing no taller than my knee with a painfully curved back and a head that seems too large for its body. The bulging eyes hold no colour, only a cloudy whiteness. The skin is rotting, a sickly grey colour with open sores leaking pus and blood. It turns to me, snarling viciously and revealing shark-like teeth and a black tongue.

"It's okay." I say. It blinks a few times, and drags its feet towards me. I know it understands. Walking doesn't seem natural for it, but it manages to. I am frozen in debilitating terror. It reaches for me with two hands of four knobbly fingers, each with a deadly claw. Like a mother to a child, I reach down and pick it up beneath the armpits, hearing the squelch of my hands pressing against its unhealed wounds. I prop it on my hip, feeling light-headed and spaced out. Nothing makes sense.

I move without knowing how towards my house. The door is unlocked but my parents are out at a friend's birthday party. In a daze, I crawl upstairs with one hand, the other locked firmly around the creature. It must survive.

I stand in the middle of a room with a bed in it that is vaguely familiar. Where the hell am I? Everything is in a blurry haze of red. Am I in a dream? I hear the door slam and my eyes widen. The creature stiffens, holding tighter against me and hissing dangerously.

Everything makes sense.

They don't hear me creep back downstairs. The creature crawls up my back, and grips onto my neck cutting little crescents into my skin and sending shivers down my spine. I go into the kitchen where the lights are viciously bright. My sight comprehends nothing but white and shadows. The creature reaches up and curls its hands around my eyes. A silent scream. White to black.

I wake up in a world of blood. My parents. My hands. The creature has gone. I fall to my knees.