A Spooky Short Story From De Elizabeth & Molly Watson
Happy (almost) autumn! You can read "Influenced" today.
Welcome back to Haunted Books & Haunted Girls, a newsletter all about writing and ghosts. I’m so happy that you’re joining me. If you haven’t subscribed already, please consider signing up below (for free!), so you never miss an issue of this newsletter. It’s always spooky szn here.
It’s finally, finally almost autumn, and what better way to celebrate feral girl fall than with a creepy, slightly unhinged short story? (Yes, I told you all this was coming tomorrow, but we love an unreliable narrator, don’t we!)
I recently teamed up with Molly Watson, writer, editor, and all-around witchy icon, and together we dreamed up a spooky tale about a social media influencer haunted by an entity eerily similar to the online persona she’s been carefully curating. “Influenced” was born from our shared love of messy main characters and all things horror, along with our own conversations surrounding the slippery slope of trying to game the algorithm. Let’s be honest, the algo is a little demonic entity in and of itself that you have to feed with “sacrifices” in the form of #content.
Co-writing is both fun and challenging, especially when you have two writers with different voices and styles. To do it, we outlined the story’s main arc, broke it up into scenes and beats, and then divided up the workload. We edited one another’s sections, scheduled many wine-accompanied calls, and after a lot of Google Doc comments and track changes and word count trimming, we had a finished story that we’ve been so excited to share.
With that, our haunted girl Hadley Dash is in your inbox today. We hope you enjoy reading!
Please note that content warnings include: body horror, gore, blood, brief sexual content.
Hadley Dash <3 ᐧ 1 new post
12 hours ago
Alt Text: A dark-haired woman sits in a dimly lit restaurant as she twirls a forkful of pasta, her image just out of focus. In the foreground, petals float in bowls of water as candles and lipstick-kissed stemware litters the table cloth.
@hadtobehadley: I’m not like other girls. I’m worse.
1k likes, 89 comments
I’m certain there are cubicles in hell.
It’s not a place bathed in fire, but an endless stretch of muted gray beneath fluorescent lighting. A flurry of spreadsheets and Slack notifications dinging against your skull at all hours, blurring days into weeks until you can’t even remember what year it is, only that this isn’t what you meant to do with your life at all. A full-on existential crisis wrapped up in calendar invites and emails “just circling back!”
The ninth circle of hell is a corporate marketing job, and I’m earmarked for eternal suffering. It’s the only way to explain the fact that I’m still an associate strategist after five years, despite spending the entire time trying to be something—someone—else.
My phone vibrates against my desk and it feels like a crack of electricity amid the sterile room. I tap the email, and its subject sends a whorl of adrenaline coursing through me: Sponsored trip to Helsinki on behalf of Etiäinen.
The room spins as I read the rest.
Hi Hadley! I’m reaching out on behalf of world-leading fragrance, Etiäinen. We’re gearing up for an exciting new release, and looking to send our favorite social media faces on an all-expense paid trip to Helsinki for the launch next month. If you’re interested, please have your team send over your Instagram stats by the end of the week. Thanks!
Xx Isla Lehto, Valoa Communications
I stare at the email so long the screen melts into a watercolor painting and a rush of doubt floods in. My numbers are good, but they aren’t Etiäinen good; I’m not even a mid-tier influencer. I click to my last post and my stomach knots. It’s barely cleared 1,000 likes. And why would it? It’s a shitty shot of candles and crystal; my face is blurry and out of focus. My fingers itch to delete it but I hide the “like” count instead, mentally composing my next picture: A slice of skin bathed in golden hour light. Strap dangling from one shoulder. The kind of photo that says, I snapped this on a whim! And not, I took 325 selfies until I found one I didn’t completely loathe.
Glancing at the email again, an ache throbs in my chest. The words seem to smirk back and desperation pools inside me, sour and swift.
I’d do anything to be chosen for this trip. Anything.
Dropping my phone, I jiggle my computer mouse and frown. No matter how many times I move it, my screen stays dark.
“Shit, not now,” I grumble, hitting random keys.
Finally admitting defeat, I reach for the plug. But as I lean closer to the screen, I freeze.
My reflection ripples in the black glass—distorted, as though someone dropped a coin in a too-still pond. But something isn’t right. Because when I move my head to the side, mirrored me doesn’t.
She stays perfectly still, as though she’s less of a reflection and more of a painting, her stony gaze locked on mine. It’s me—the same girl I am right now. Chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail. Alabaster skin glowing with highlighter. But her eyes are gone; completely hollowed out, as though someone scraped at them with a carving knife, or scribbled over them with black permanent marker.
I squint at her, but in the next second, she’s gone.
“Hadley, you okay?”
My head snaps up.
Mateo Alonzo is one cubicle ahead of me; he’s been my work husband since my first day at our mid-level marketing firm on the Lower East Side. Mateo is the person I turn to when we get curt emails from our boss; I’m the one he rolls his eyes at in meetings. We know each other’s Cafe Grumpy orders by heart, even have our own Slack emoji code. Though our exchanges are usually tinged with sarcasm, right now he’s looking at me with concern.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Computer crashed. I think I need to reboot.”
“Here.” Mateo leans over the divider and tugs on the plug. “Let me.” A swirl of dark hair hangs over the copper of his forehead as he searches the shadows between our cubicles. “Got it,” he declares, and my computer hums in confirmation.
“Thanks.” I swallow, and the inside of my mouth is like sandpaper.
The screen shivers back to life, and I blink at the loading bar. I must have imagined the unmoving face. Not enough sleep last night. Too much caffeine this morning.
“What are you doing Friday?” Mateo is still peering down at me, one elbow hooked over the divider.
“I’m—I’m not sure,” I answer, trying to picture my calendar.
My brain conjures a vague image of a cocktail party invitation at The Honeywell, and I can’t remember if I RSVP’d. Static swells in my ears. Mateo’s response feels like it’s coming from above water.
“...was thinking if you’re free, you might want to—”
He cuts himself off with a surprised swear, disappearing behind his cubicle. When he returns, he’s brandishing a tissue.
“Hadley, your nose.”
Confused, I take the tissue and press it to my nostrils. Somehow, I’m not surprised to find it smeared with blood when I pull it away.
“Are you alright?” Mateo asks for the second time.
Am I?
I dab my nose again and try to summon a smile. “Fine. It’s just dry in here. What were you saying about Friday?”
He stares at me for a moment, whatever question he might have asked already evaporated like steam.
“Never mind. Coffee later?”
I nod, face half-hidden in the tissue. Mateo disappears again and I stare at the empty wall, wondering if he was about to ask me out on a date. I try to convince myself it’s better he didn’t, but a knot forms in my chest anyway. It stays clenched for the rest of the afternoon.
“Can stress cause hair loss?” I ask, fussing with my limp brown waves in the front-facing camera, phone propped on the bread basket in front of me.
“It can—I thought everything was fine at work? Is your mom okay?”
My best friend Billie sits across from me, waiting patiently while I finish primping, salad and latte untouched. With a last disparaging look, I hand over my phone and beam as she dutifully snaps a flurry of photos. Tearing off a small chunk of the warm, crusty bread, I pose with it by my open mouth—torture, but at least I’ve already thought of a caption.
“What? Oh, yeah, work and mom are fine.” I reply, reclaiming my phone. “But my engagement has been tanking and I can’t figure out why.”
Billie stifles a sigh, but not before I catch the note of scorn in it. She’s been my anchor since college, my tether whenever I start to spin faster than the earth; but she’s never understood my relationship with social media. The way it transformed me from a sad, insecure nobody to @hadtobehadley. Artfully curated but still refreshingly candid, she’s the depiction of myself as I aspire to be. But in the shadow of my online counterpart, behind the carefully sketched caricature of perfection, lives the secret fear that someday everyone will find out I’m only pretending to be her. This strange, pixelated version of myself. Somehow tangible, yet just out of reach.
I nod along to whatever Billie’s saying—something to do with her brother? Under the table, I drag my finger down the screen, refreshing the notifications and watching the likes trickle in.
Hadley Dash <3 ᐧ 1 new post
20 minutes ago
ALT Text: Giggling around a mouthful of bread, a pretty brunette winks at the camera as sunlight sparkles in the mirror behind her, a glimpse of bustling New York City framing plush mid-century booths.
@hadtobehadley: But first… carbs!
879 likes, 3 comments
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I have to be dreaming. I’m at a house party—the kind of party I might have gone to a decade ago, in someone’s basement with a ratty couch in one corner and beer pong in the other; back when the world didn’t exist in red bubbles and hearts. A Paramore song blares and nostalgia burns in my lungs as I weave through the shadow-laced crowd in a black bodycon dress and chunky heels.
A pair of strong hands fold around my waist from behind, and Mateo’s voice is in my ear. Dance with me. There’s no logical explanation for why I would find myself in a crowded basement in Mateo’s arms other than the fact that my subconscious is at once cruel and smug. Distantly, I wonder which version of Hadley he thinks he’s getting. Which version he really wants. If I’ve twisted and contorted myself enough to fool him along with everyone else.
I shove that thought down and give in to the pulse of the bass instead. For a few moments, we dance without talking. Then I tip my head against his shoulder and shout over the music—
What were you going to ask me earlier?
But Mateo’s reply carries a sadness I don’t expect. There’s no point. His hand skims my ribs as he pulls me closer. You’re like a wall, Hadley. Impossible to break through.
I frown, twisting to look at him. What—?
Why are you so afraid, he asks, to let someone in?
His words feel like a dare, and without thinking twice, I press my mouth to his.
The room tips on its side—there’s a surprising hunger to his kiss, like he’s searching for something I don’t have. We rotate until I’m wedged against cold concrete, his body flush against mine. His teeth catch my lower lip, and the basement evaporates into muted ink.
Hadley. Mateo says my name like it’s a secret. Let me in.
Our shared breath forms a cloud of silver as hesitation swells inside me. I want to tell him yes. I want to push him away. I want to be consumed. I want to be left alone.
But then he lifts his gaze, and I’m not kissing Mateo anymore.
I’m kissing a girl. Who looks exactly like me. The same hair, the same—
Me. It is me.
It’s like staring into a mirror only she’s blurred to perfection, skin rubbed raw with a Facetune brush. No stray pimples, no bruised shadows beneath her eyes. Lips, overlined and glossy, crush against my own.
Wait, I choke out. She tastes like wine and cherries and something I can’t place, but it reminds me of summer rainstorms and slices of light against glittering blacktop. Pastel chalk melting into rivers, ice cream dripping down my wrist.
The girl just cracks out a laugh and kisses harder, coaxing my mouth open. Heat pools low in my stomach, mixed with revulsion at the thought of kissing myself. But it’s only a dream, I repeat silently, and let her in.
I lose track of time. Every touch of hers matches mine, palms like mirrors, opal-spun sighs twirling in perfect unison. Her tongue traces between my lips until I feel something hard and round tumble into my mouth.
I swallow and it scrapes all the way down. I fight back the urge to gag, coughing hard instead. She strokes my hair, whispering a string of praise in my ear while my stomach turns and turns.
But then she pulls back and fear crashes into me like cold seawater.
Her face is alive with electric blue veins, shifting beneath dewy skin iridescent with notifications, heart-shaped icons cascading from her cheekbones like drops of blood. Her eyes are glittering caverns, but when she smiles at me again, her teeth are suddenly rotten and teeming with slithering bugs. I scream, clutching at my throat and—
My bedroom is flooded in golden hour light. 4:49 in the afternoon.
I sit up, tangled in sheets, coughing against the metallic bite of copper. There’s something still in there. I push onto my knees, back arching like a cat’s, and heave until I feel it move. Not in my throat anymore, but in my mouth. I spit it out, peer at the jagged and yellow object in my hand.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m staring at a decaying tooth.
I let out a hoarse shriek and drop it, scrambling until my back is pressed against the wall. What the fuck—?
I race for the mirror, tripping over the slew of clothes strewn across the floor. I inspect my face, baring my teeth. Not rotten. None missing.
Pressing my forehead against the cool, fogging glass, the remnants of the dream wash over me. I think of Mateo, calling me a wall. As if I’m actually someone he wants to know, someone he wants to understand. To look closer at. My bones ache with the awareness that, if he does, he won’t like what he’ll find.
I turn away, and catch a flurry of notifications scampering across my phone’s lock screen. I grab it, tapping to Instagram.
And when I see the photo getting all the likes, I sink to the floor.
In the picture, I’m wearing a black bodycon dress, posed in front of a concrete wall with messy hair and bruised lips, skin shimmering with sweat. I look like I’ve been dancing. I look like I’ve just been kissed.
I look like I’m half dead.
But it’s not me. It’s her. The girl with the blurred skin, the cherry-wine lips. The other me. Not-Hadley. How is it even possible—
The room sways.
I definitely didn’t take this photo. But it has more likes and comments than anything I’ve posted in weeks.
Okay, I’m not playing Dungeons and Dragons here—literally none of this shit is helpful.
I snap my laptop shut and pad through the gray dawn shadows stretching their fingers across my apartment, tugging the bathroom door closed behind me. Gripping the sides of the sink, I draw a deep, steadying breath. What am I even doing?
“Spooky shadow girl, I summon you!”
I hold my own gaze before dissolving into giggles.
“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”
Still nothing.
Another fit of laughter is fighting something sour in the pit of my stomach, and my stare falters as I cave to the hollow want pressing against my lungs.
“Please,” I whisper, “just…tell me how to actually become her.”
Something shifts in the air. A wash of ashy light, the clip of a bitter breeze. I yank my gaze from the drain the way a kid rips off a bandaid—as though the flourish will make it hurt less. But it’s still just me in the mirror, laughably corporate in my cheap Zara blazer. The version of me I despise.
This tiny bathroom, with its mysteriously stained ceiling and dripping bathtub, always seems to magnify the parts of myself I hate most. It had to be Hadley, of course. Hadley, the pick-me girl, picked last for everything. Just another small-town nobody working her ass off to “make it” when, in truth, she’ll never surpass average. Here, in the humid privacy shrouded in chipped tile, I have no choice but to reckon with all the secret ways I have fallen short.
How bizarre it feels to wish you were the version of yourself everyone already thinks you are.
The light’s buzzing rises in pitch, accompanied by erratic flickering. I really need to call maintenance. And I’m going to be late. Again.
I grab my phone and open my Favorites album, scrolling to a shot of my hands wrapped around a steaming mug and tap out an Instagram Story. Today’s affirmation: Manifesting my biggest goals into the reality of daily life. But first, coffee.
I can’t resist one more disparaging glance over my shoulder as I turn to leave. There, in the shadows stretching endlessly into the mirror, is the not-me; leaning against the sink and examining her cuticles. Almost as though she can feel my gaze, she looks up, and there’s something frightening in her eyes—my eyes. A ferality that chills me to the bone. It winks.
The second I step through the elevator, Mateo is there.
“Where the hell have you been?” he hisses, tugging me between the Keurig and the mini fridge.
I blink. “What?”
His face twists in disbelief. “Our presentation? Did you forget?”
“No?” I match his incredulous tone. “I have everything right here.”
Mateo quirks a brow. “Hadley. Are you fucking with me? Our presentation was on Thursday.”
My skin prickles. He’s using past tense. But today, today is—
“Today is Thursday.” I fumble for my phone.
“No.” Mateo’s words hit me just as my screen lights up. “Today is Friday.”
The inside of my mouth grows dry, any semblance of a response shriveling on my tongue. The letters F-R-I-D-A-Y dance in front of me like some kind of taunt.
“I was worried about you,” Mateo continues. “Thought something happened to you. I must have called 50 times.”
My gaze snaps up.
“But then I checked your Instagram.” He pulls out his own phone, eyes simmering with annoyance. “You sure as hell weren’t too sick to go dancing.”
“Wh-what?”
I can barely squeak out a response to the post he’s brandishing at me. It’s me, perched on the arm of a couch alongside a smarmy, floppy-haired YouTuber the internet tries to cancel at least once a month. I hate that guy. Everyone hates that guy. But—
“Holy shit,” I whisper. I snatch Mateo’s phone and peer closer.
The photo has more likes than I’ve ever gotten. More than my other photos combined.
Clicking to my profile, my breath catches. My follower count has jumped nearly 10,000 since I last looked.
Was I really there, legs draped across the lap of social media’s most punchable human? I remember sleeping, sweat on my skin, waking in tangled sheets.
I don’t remember this.
“Hadley.” Mateo gently takes his phone from my hands. “What’s going on with you?”
My own phone buzzes. I glance down to find a meeting invitation for this morning. With HR.
A ribbon of dread uncurls in my belly.
“I’m sorry.” Mateo’s gaze falls to my screen. “I tried to warn you.”
My breath rushes out. “I mess up once and they’re going to fire me?”
“Who skips work to disappear on a bender and leaves digital breadcrumbs? What did you think was going to happen?”
I turn so he won’t see the tears threatening to spill over.
“Hey.” His voice softens. “It’s going to be okay. Let me help, I could—”
“You can’t,” I clip. Mateo can’t help. No one can.
My brain is full with too much at once. Echoes of dreams. The aftertaste of cherry lipgloss and rotting teeth. A splash of Etiäinen on my wrist. Let me in; the words whispering through it all, weaving it together.
I don’t hear Mateo when he walks away.
I sleep in fits and starts, drowning my sheets in sweat. I dream of Helsinki’s snow-covered streets, the steel pipes of the Passio Musicae, a stone fortress surrounded by ice. I stir in darkness, in shadows, in pools of light, in dark again. My skin burns under the gnawing of razor-lined teeth. Numbers and digital hearts cascade behind my eyes, bleeding into my corneas. Not good enough, not good enough. I writhe under blankets, spinning through cobblestone sidewalks in my dreams, soles of my feet slick with blood. Hadley, a voice whispers toward the edge of morning. Let me in.
Hadley Dash <3 ᐧ 1 new post
1 day ago
Alt Text: Three girls dance in the middle of a crowd, their nearly identical mini-dresses a dazzling trio of precious stones. A bacchanal framed in rich chocolate and deep emerald, dripping in the ambient honey spilling from vintage chandeliers.
@hadtobehadley: Dancing queens in @rotateclothing
51k likes 578 comments
The first thing I notice when I wake up is the blood.
I’m covered in it—congealed on my flesh, beginning to crust off in flakes. I scramble out of bed. For a moment, all I can feel is the adrenaline hurtling through my veins, the panic singing down the back of my throat. Then, a dull ache throbbing in my hand. Another, sharper pain tracing my chest. I glance down to find an uneven gash carved into my palm. A second one along the neckline of my shirt. Fabric stained red, skin matted crimson.
I race for the bathroom—and skid to a halt.
“What the fuck?”
Every candle I own is arranged in a haphazard circle on the floor. Squat tea lights. Overpriced Etsy ones with Harry Styles lyrics on the jar. Ancient gifts from Bath & Body Works. Some are overturned, wax spilled in frozen puddles against the ruby-smeared tile.
And then there’s the mirror. Or, what’s left of it.
Most of the glass is in the sink, white porcelain covered in sharp confetti. The floor shines with broken dust, crunching under my bare feet like little teeth.
I stare at my jigsawed reflection as fractured memories flash through my brain like B-horror-movie footage. Me, screaming in the mirror. My fist slamming against the glass. Eyes like onyx orbs glowing in the empty space, a whisper kissing the inside of my skull.
I think of all my half-assed research. Summoning rituals. Blood sacrifices. My stomach turns. Did I do this?
Stumbling to the bedroom, I grasp my phone, nearly knocking over the nightstand.
Billie: where have u been? text me!!!!
Billie: im worried
I freeze, spying the voicemail from Mateo, timestamped at 3:53 am.
“Hadley it’s me,” he says, voice thick with sleep. “Sorry I missed your calls. I couldn’t understand what you were saying in the messages.” His sigh becomes a cloud of static. “Just call me back.”
I stare at the screen until it goes dark. In another world, another lifetime, maybe Mateo and I could have been something. But now, he’ll only think of me like this. A hot mess. A train-wreck. A facade. A girl who tried and tried and tried, but failed at everything instead.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I bury the ache before it starts.
In the umbra behind my lids I see her, the not-Hadley. Crouched in the corner of the bathroom, silhouetted like a gargoyle in candlelight. She reaches toward me with too-long arms, stretching like Silly Putty across flame-dusted tile. Her smile is crooked and rotten.
Did that happen?
The blood on my chest is cold when I touch it. There’s a hollowness in my ribs, an itch beneath the flesh, along the bone. I imagine thousands of tiny beetles clamoring under my skin.
If the girl in my dreams was real, did I set her free last night? Or did I let her in?
Before I can contemplate the difference, my phone vibrates with an email from Isla Lehto, the PR rep for the trip to Helsinki.
Hey Hadley! Thanks so much for sending your stats, your engagement is incredible. We’d love to invite you to dinner tonight to discuss the trip— 8pm at Dante!
The room lurches, but hope sings through my veins.
I peer into the darkness of the bathroom. If I squint hard enough, I can almost make out her shape, crouching in the corner like she’s waiting to pounce. Waiting for me.
I march across the room and slam the door shut.
The restaurant was a blur of champagne and air-kisses, flight numbers and itineraries. I should be buzzing with excitement and relief. But as I return to my apartment, all I can feel is foreboding, hammering at the door to my subconscious.
The elevator is out again, and the light in the stairwell is stuttering its last breaths. A final death throe of incandescence plunges the shaft into darkness before I reach the second floor, the blinking red glow of the exit sign filling the landing.
I grit my teeth and keep climbing.
In the dark, I can’t ignore the prickling sensation that there’s something lurking just out of sight, sucking at the atmosphere like a black hole. I can feel the weight of its presence, infinite and ancient— and it hits me that perhaps this isn’t something I can undo. I feel like a child, trapped in a rip current and realizing too late that knowing how to swim has very little to do with surviving the ocean.
The light flickers out, blackness.
It shudders back on, and I nearly scream, smacking the back of my head against cold cement as I reel back. She’s right in front of me.
The warmth of her breath is sweet with champagne and cherries—but the look in her eyes is predatory. Something twists low in my stomach as I remember the heat of her mouth in my dream.
Cool fingers graze the top of my jeans and I can’t help the goosebumps that follow her sharp nails, trailing up the bare skin of my stomach. Her pupils glow red in the flickering half light, conjuring blood moons and prophecies. She looks like a renaissance painting, dark and dreadful, sable hair gleaming and heavily lined eyes burning with celestial fire. She looks like all my nightmares and all my desires at once.
Hysteria presses against my ribcage like collapsing rubble, every nerve of my body begging me to run. Instead, I let her tip my face to hers, our lips barely grazing; suspended in a moment of cacoëthes and anticipation. Then her teeth collide with mine.
The exit sign flickers steadily; pitch black, red glow, pitch black.
A small whimper escapes me as her fingers deftly navigate now-unbuttoned denim. A door clangs from a few stories down, and my gasp is muffled as she presses one hand over my mouth, the other not pausing as footsteps climb toward us. Holding me captive on the knife’s edge separating fear from pleasure, her glossy lips drop to my throat as panic and need twine together.
I should push her away. I should let her in.
The door below slams shut and she decides for me, fingers pressing deeper, tipping me over the precipice. My head falls back, surrendering. Giving myself over to darkness as the crimson glow blinks out. Through waves of ecstasy, there’s a burning pinch where her mouth works against my neck.
“Hey, that hurts—” My words are swallowed by her palm as dread reverberates through my body. I push her away, running my fingers over the place where her mouth had been.
They come away sticky.
“What the hell?” I breathe; but I’m talking into the dark.
When the light flickers back on, her mouth and chin are smeared inky black.
Something about her complete stillness and the set of her head, cocked slightly to the side, raises the hair on my neck. There’s a silvery chill radiating from her, the way you can feel winter clinging to your coat when you’ve come in from the cold.
Her face is my face but not, carved like a death mask into terrifying perfection; eyes glittering with broken glass and bottomless pits where there should be pupils. Not taking my eyes from her, I grope blindly until my fingers find the cold metal of the doorknob. I’m not sure which is more unsettling—the fact that she hasn’t said a word, or the grin slowly spreading across her face.
Her mouth twists grotesquely, splitting in two; I register the clotted red of exposed muscle and too many teeth in haphazard rows before the light flickers out. I whirl, yanking the door and slamming it so hard I can feel my shoulder screaming in protest. A giggle bubbles past my lips, echoing down the hallway as I stagger for my apartment. My hands are luridly red under the sallow lighting, and so slick I nearly drop the keys. Breathing hard, I slide the deadbolt into place and lurch towards the bathroom, blood slowly staining the flimsy chiffon of my top.
The radiator hisses, but below it is a steady, guttural hum that could be either purr or growl.
Did you really think you could take everything, and give nothing in return?
I freeze as my hair, matted with sweat and blood, is brushed away from my neck, cold lips grazing my ear.
You called me here, said you would give anything to live the life you were already pretending to have.
I don’t know whether I hear her voice, or feel it scraping against the edges of my mind.
I felt your desperation, your wanting. They stretched past the mirror, through galaxies of gray matter, and found me. You reached into the void and drew me here, to your constellation of color and crying children, sticky with sound and smell.
I can’t bring myself to look at her.
I kept my end of the bargain you made in broken glass. You gave me a foothold, shattered a small hole for me to climb through. I gave you everything you ever wanted.
I can feel her behind me now, body pressed to mine.
“Please.” It comes out strangled. Self-loathing slithers up the back of my throat, choking me with my own fear. “I didn’t know what it meant, I didn’t understand.”
Her claws dig into the soft skin of my upper arm, drawing tiny beads of blood.
You already let me in, Hadley Dash, and I want to stay.
At that, panic slams into me like a wave, standing thigh-deep in the Atlantic off the beach at Coney Island bathed in the gray morning light of January first. Washing me clean, reminding me of the life that exists outside the confines of my phone screen. A life beyond red bubbles and hearts.
I can’t let her stay.
Tearing my arm away, I bolt for the kitchen, clawing my way along the wall and knocking photos to the ground in a succession of shattering glass. My feet find the linoleum just as screaming pain erupts in my head, yanking me back. I land hard, crushing my elbow at an awkward angle.
I hear it snap.
The air in the kitchen seems to shudder, dragging me toward coalescing shadows. I twist frantically, sweaty palms scrabbling at the ugly faux-tiled flooring, smearing it with blood as desperation tears the nails from my hands.
There’s a ripping sensation, an uncomfortable twisting deep in my gut. Time seems to slow as my thoughts sluggishly try to make sense of themselves, and the only sound is a grisly wet crunching.
I can see myself, eyes open and frighteningly dark in my pale, blood-spattered face; staring blankly at the refrigerator as my head lolls and jerks with my body. A marionette with her strings cut. Something is hunched over my hips, ripping gleefully at the same stomach I’ve spent hours hating, pinching its stubborn layer of flesh between my fingertips.
I don’t think I could tell you the last time I ate lasagna, but it’s everywhere, spilling out of me onto the cheap flooring. The less I look like a person, the more solid the shadows seem to become. They almost look like me.
From the hallway, behind the bathroom door, I can hear the ocean.
Hadley Dash <3 ᐧ 1 new post
10 hours ago
Alt Text: The ferris wheel is blazing against the night sky, stars twinkling in a bed of velvet through the windows of the gondola as three girls perch on the bench, arms looped around one another in thick wool coats, beaming at the camera. The girl in the middle is the very image of perfection, eyes glittering like broken glass beneath her soft fleece hat.
@hadtobehadley: Helsinki with my favorite @etiäinen angels!
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