The new house was great, until we found the diary in the basement. The previous owner’s daughter wrote about monsters, leeching parasites that clung to her while she slept and when she bathed. It seemed there was no escaping them for her. She drew odd shapes, unrecognizable to us, splattered in red spots that I hoped weren’t blood. I tried to avoid touching them as I turned the pages and read her entries in the comfort of my living room, with all the lights on, doors locked and windows shut. I only went into the basement to do laundry, which was once a week. We found the diary in a back corner wall while we were renovating, in a box labeled “Gloria”. There was nothing else in it.

Gloria’s final entry was about how the parasites were taking her over, slowly. The blood became more and more present on the page. She wrote that as they took her over, she bled more and more until she felt like she wasn’t even part of herself anymore. As I read the entry, fresh spots began appearing on the page. I looked up to see a face peering from over one of the blades of the cieling fan, nose dripping blood. Whatever Gloria had looked like, that wasn’t her any longer. I woke up my husband with my scream, but once he came, the bleeding parasite was already gone.