"It's hard to inconspicuous when you're hanging upside down."

To be fearful is to be smart, but that is not how to feels. No house is a home, but instead prison. Everywhere feels like I am tracking through the same place. Hell.

"Beautiful, lively Earth so full of mystery!" everyone else exclaims to drown me out.

Maybe I am just living a reverse life, doomed forever to see things upside down.

However, others are right that the world is filled with such mystery, though I wish it was not. There are people, things, that lurk around everywhere.

I hear them tonight tapping throughout my apartment. They are in the walls, the ceilings; in the bedroom, the kitchen and they are so loud. There is a hum from a closet, the low growl of a dog on a hunt. A scratching in the cupboard, the sound of a beast trying to find me, its prey. But I will not let them catch me off guard, I must remain awake despite anything my eyes tell me. The drowsiness that hits is just their attempt to cause an eternal sleep. The only way to fight their killer intent is to face them head on. So, I look for them and let the kitchen be my armory. I take the knife block to stop them from stealing my knives and I tear everything apart. I rip into the mattress, I use a hammer to investigate the walls, I tear open every door, drawer, and appliance to find nothing but I know they are somewhere laughing and preparing for my demise so I can't stop. I spend hours shredding everything, tearing, ripping, anything I see to shreds and in the midst of searching inside of the TV I fall on my back and I find it.

On the ceiling it is there just staring at me with a fractured expression. Every human limb distorted in the wrong direction, shoulders out of sockets and neck twisted and extended. Its arms and legs are backwards and impossibly holding onto the wall while it looks with its nonexistent eyes, all that remain are its ocular nerves and veins falling down without bleeding. Tons of veins are everywhere, exposed and it's covered in blood but the blood isn't falling, the blood is trapped like I am trapped, unable to look away. I stay on the ground until it finally says in a uniquely broken voice,

"It's hard to be inconspicuous when you're hanging upside down."