(CW: chronic illness, physical and mental illness, nightmares, supernatural activity, discussions of death, implied death, light language)

**[diary of one Mullen, Isadora, found in poor condition on the floor of an abandoned home] **

**[text begins]**

**March 15th**

Hello.

I am not quite certain how to begin. Perhaps I shall start with my name? It is Isadora. Isadora Mullen, though I’m also called Izzy by the ones closest to me.

Good. Now what?

Well, I suppose I should describe for you the present moment I am living in. Set the stage, if you will. Right now, I’m sitting alone in the sand. The waves are enchanting today. The way they look as they roll in and out of the shore… why, it’s as if they are breathing! I like to line up my own breaths to match theirs. In and out. Just how my nurse tells me to.

I think it helps, being by the sea. Something about the salt in the air or the sand under my feet. It helps me feel alive.

No, let me amend that. It helps me forget that I’m dying. There’s a distinction between the two. Feeling alive, well, there’s hope in that. Freedom. Euphoria, even. Forgetting about dying, however, means simply making a melancholic peace with the terrible cards you’ve been dealt, if only for a sweet, wistful moment.

God, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten some space. Weeks, I think. My mother doesn’t like it when I go outside alone; she worries something will happen to me, what with my bad lungs and all. I don’t quite agree with her logic. The way I see it, something bad will inevitably happen to me anyway, so I may as well enjoy the time I do have instead of wasting it tucked away in bed.

But of course, I can’t argue with my mother. I hate to see her cry. The only reason I was able to leave my bedroom today was thanks to my good brother, Jack, bless him. He promised Mother he wouldn’t leave my side, and he’s a great liar, so she believed every word. Then he left me alone on the beach while he ran off with his current lover (he’s got new one every week, so it seems), and we both got our way.

I’m glad. I can hear myself think for once! It’s very stuffy in my bedroom; you almost have to swim through the dust in the air. And every few minutes, someone rushes in to make sure I haven’t yet died, be it my mother or father or nurse or brother. No moment feels private at all, for it may be intruded upon at any time!

Ugh! Speaking of such intrusions, I fear it has begun to rain. It’ll ruin the paper if I keep writing, so I’ll have to sign off for now. I should probably start back toward my house soon (least my mother come to fetch me and discover Jack is not with me), but I can’t bring myself to leave this place just yet.

**Isadora**

….

**March 18th**

Hello, again.

I did make it inside before the storm really picked up, in case you were wondering.

It’s a good thing too, for it was an angry storm indeed. The kind that old fishermen like to make up monsters and tall tales to try and explain. I could hear the wind’s screaming even from inside my room.

In fact, I have my own little story to share about it. Do not worry, I’m not one to believe in the fishermen’s nonsense either. It is only that I had a very odd dream the same night of the storm. I dreamt of a face, watching me from outside my window! A very distorted face; his skin was dusty and white, like bone, and his hollow mouth gasped for breath. I think the most unsettling thing about it was how much his expression resembled mine whenever my lungs give out. That or… oh! I remember it clearly now! His spindly limbs were all tangled and twisted around his body, as if he were strangling himself. God, what a grotesque sight! I am happy it was but a dream.

Ugh, that was quite a bitter note to start on. Jack always tells me how I should try to be more positive.

“Stop dwelling on nightmares and loneliness, Izzy,” he likes to say. Which is rich, honestly, coming from someone with friends and a job and a future. He’s right though. I have no desire to spend my last days agonizing over bizarre dreams and wallowing in self pity. Though I find it very difficult to think of happiness with the bedroom walls closing in on me like they are now.

I suppose… I should mention that it was my mother’s birthday today. That’s positive. We had a lovely lunch along the shore together to celebrate. Mother told us stories about her life when she was young, Father complained about the economy, Jack laughed at his own jokes… and my lungs didn’t once fail, not in the slightest! It almost felt like childhood again, so long as I ignored the looming presence of my nurse.

Anyway, it’s getting late. I should go to sleep now; I’ll be scolded for staying up much longer. Adieu,

**Isadora**

.…

**March 18th**

So, I couldn’t sleep. There’s a odd whistling behind my window—must be the wind from another storm—keeping me awake. I’m just going to write nonsense in here until I feel tired.

You know, I wasn’t always so sick. When I was a child, my lungs were strong and healthy. I ran through the meadows, swam in the saltwater, played with my brother, just like all the other children. But then one day… I do not actually know what happened. I collapsed in a fit of coughs and labored breaths, like my lungs had simply given up. It was like, well, like they were strangling themselves.

Alright, my eyes are finally getting heavy, so I’m going to try to sleep again. Hopefully I actually will this time.

**Isadora**

….

**March 19th**

I had the dream again. Hell, at least I think it was a dream. It seemed horrifically real this time. When that _thing, _that sickening _thing, _stared at me, just _grinning _with all his ugly, twisted teeth, I… I felt like he was wrapping his tangled arms around my soul. Squeezing, tightening, choking.

I don’t know if that makes sense. Maybe I’m going mad. Maybe I’m hallucinating. I don’t know. But that is what it felt like.

And I nearly lost it when he extended a broken finger to point maliciously at my throat. I woke the whole house with all my screams. My whole family and my nurse all dashed to my side. I tried to explain what had happened, but just as soon as I gestured to my window, he disappeared. Did not run away. Just vanished. Which leads me, of course, to doubt my senses a great deal.

A lot of things cause me to doubt. I mean, a tangled man—tangled _thing—_so thin he looks like a skeleton? With dull eyes and a waxy complexion and an open mouth? It sounds like a corpse. It sounds dead.

It sounds impossible.

But I just can’t shake the feeling that it just might not have been.

**Isadora**

….

**March 25th**

Six nights since my last entry, and the tangled thing has appeared in my dreams every single one. My days are just as restless, with the thought of him haunting the back of my mind.

I have tried to distract myself. I’ve done some weaving, some dusting. I even went on a walk by the water with my mother the day before last, but halfway through my breath left me. I gasped and wheezed, tears brimming my eyes, and as I looked up in desperation I swear I saw the tangled thing, standing above me, laughing. For just a moment. Then he was gone.

Mother was considerably frightened by the experience, so I haven’t left my bed since. However, I honestly think the confinement is making it worse. All this time for my mind to wander back to the tangled thing. It just won’t get out of my head, will it?

**Isadora**

…

**April 3rd**

I apologize, I haven’t been writing much as of late. I’ve been feeling very poorly, to a much greater extent than usual. Often, I wake up with no sense of where—or who—I am. It takes my mother to remind me: I am Isadora Mullen, I live in the town of Lunebridge, and I am seventeen years old. I am safe in my own bed, in my own home. There is no such thing as a tangled thing.

Oh, but it seems so real in the night! Pale, slender fingers crawling out from the dark! He’s coming for me, and very soon indeed. I just know it! Each night, I see him creeping closer and closer and closer, and still, no one is listening! I need help, I say. I need to get out of this damned room! I know I’m ill, but I promise you, I’m not insane. I’m not!

I hear him now, his scratchy breath whistling behind the glass of my window. It seems like it’ll never truly come to a stop.

**Isadora**

….

**April 6th**

I do not have much time left. You have to understand, he would have killed me already if I hadn’t shoved him in the closet and sealed him in with a chair in front of the door. But the knob is rattling now, and it won’t be long until he breaks through.

If you are reading this, please believe me. I just want someone, anyone to know what happened to me. Please, I need

**[text ends]**