It lives inside me. This thing has penitrated my soul. For vast stretches of time I remember nothing, and those left in my life insist that during those cold hours that I twist into something like a nightmare, though my appearance remains unchanged.

They speak of those times as one speaks about the concept of hell itself. They describe the look in my eyes as I prowl into their lives, and systematically pervert it into something ghastly and cruel. Why they remain with me, I cannot fathom, for even it vacate my body when it takes over.

I am a puppet. I am a sad little puppet struggling against its strings. Everything I do in my ever shortening moments of consciousness is futile. Nothing can stop the wave of evil that has so enveloped me. I am drowning.

In my most recent efforts to subdue whatever abomination that has made me its home, I have locked myself within the bathroom. Here I am kept company only by my repulsive reflection in the filthy mirror that hangs on the filthy walls of this disgusting hell hole.

When I look in the mirror, I do not see myself. I see it. I see it in its fullest form and I know it has taken it just to hurt me. It laughs at me as I cry. It rises as I spiral.

My face has been stretched until the sockets that hold my emptied eyes are as big as my mouth, and my mouth pulled up to my ears in a forced grimace. My skin has taken on a pale shade of grey, and is carefully marked with an evil web purple veins. I stand hunched and deminished, like a dark caricature of a mantis. God, how ugly I am.

I feel no needs anymore. As with those who have frozen to death, that merciful warmth has fallen over me. I greet it happily. It heralds the end. And I welcome the beyond as the tired welcome sleep. I feel myself start to doze. Good. Perhaps this time it will finally stop flirting with annihilation and finally take me over. My eyes shut.

When I wake up, it is gone. In its place it has cursed me with memory. I remember everything it ever did. That I ever did. That we ever did. Was there ever anything there? I dont think it matters either way, because no matter what, I am repulsive to myself and the world. There is nothing left for me here but guilt. I am condemned to see the thing that overtook me whenever I look in the mirror.