Emily could hear tendons snapping in her eardrums like dry twigs. The oddity stood taller than a toddler though it was considerably shorter than her. When it moved, Emily wanted to retch. The way the knees bent gave it the appearance of a four-legged spider with the speed and coordination of one as it scampered off. When it suddenly came to a stop, the fleshy sack clapped hard against an inner thigh and nearly wrapped the whole way round it.

The fleshy sac bulged as puss seeped from the white head of an enormous pimple. “There something inside," Emily whispered. The flesh spider disappeared behind a mountain of trash; Emily closed her eyes muttering “this isn’t real”. The next time her eyes opened, the creature was halfway down a pile of trash before tripping and tumbling the rest of the way down. She nearly died when it rolled into the spotlight of a street lamp.

The skin was ganglier than she thought and had a purplish glint to it. There were different cultures of mold that gave the rotting skin interesting hues. The sac became loose from its brief excursion. It swept the floor and was weeping blood from a flesh wound. Emily stood at the window mouth agape while her feet pushed to the tips of their toes to have a better view. “I...I—don’t,” she said stammering incoherently. She quickly covered her mouth not wanting to draw the attention of the monstrosity she spied on. Before she could study the creature further, it dashed off again.

The spider scrambled onto a bridge over the freeway as a gentle rain began to fall. It pushed up on its hind legs like a dog trying to jump the railing. Beneath the overpass, cars whizzed by unbothered. The flesh spider attempted to pull itself onto the railing and the rain washed it away. Just as it slid into the shadows, a man walked from the corner of Emily’s eye. She was so hyper-focused on the horror that she hadn’t noticed anything else and neither did he. The man simply walked around the pair of legs and who would blame him seeing as this is what they appeared to be in the dark. The sac’s ooze glistened in the moonlight and whatever was trapped inside was now fighting to break free.

The next time the fleshy mound stood up, it didn’t move with the same poise. In fact, some of the skin broke away revealing rotten flesh. Copious amounts of puss oozed from freshly ripped orifices as it tried to climb the railing once more. As soon as it stood on the ledge, a bone broke through the skin of a leg. The bone was covered in globules of stringy flesh. Puss expunged from the flesh as the crippled leg fell off balance. The skin at the bottom of the sack became smooth then taught under the weight of the thing struggling inside.

A tear not unlike that from a torn page grew across the surface of the smooth sack. As the skin separated, a black gelatinous goo gathered in droplets along the fissure. A glistening black nugget slid off the railing and disappeared into the shadow. Whatever was struggling so hard before appeared to be stillborn on the sidewalk. Before Emily could investigate the nugget further, the spider wobbled.

The first limb to break off fell away at the knee and plummeted onto the road below. Emily could hear the first car to encounter it. The hollow THUNK it made beneath the car’s undercarriage, knocked around in the basement of her eardrums. She shut her eyes and covered her ears, but that only made matters worse. When the second car hit, she felt it rupture and splatter across her nightwear. Her sheets caught some of the wet morsels too and the texture against her skin made her gag. The third car turned what was left to mush and that soaked the blanket through. When Emily opened her eyes, the monstrosity was gone. She could feel her heart rate easing as her breaths grew fuller and more pronounced.

The rest of the bloody thing must have gone over the railing and she was spared the experience of its destruction. There was a parade of vehicles that followed the fall, quickly turning the mound to mush. Emily closed the heavily starched curtains, rubbing the folds together in her hands. She was certain this window dressing was used to swaddle newborns at Henry Ford Hospital, but that didn’t matter much now. She took a deep breath and her head began to rock.

Shaking her head of disbelief, Emily waited for reality to return—but it didn’t come willingly. An unsavory chill went up the sides of her ribcage. She crossed her arms and frowned deeply as she stared down the dark path before her. Every footfall became heavier and increasingly more difficult to complete as Emily neared her bed. She felt like a spectator in her own body as she tried to encourage it to move just a little further and a little faster.

Emily sat down and clasped her thighs as she tried to discourage her agitated state.

You’re sleepwalking and you need to wake up...wake up goddamn it! The colors—they were all wrong...nobody dreams in color, do they...?

Everything she thought or said was dysfunctional. She was having trouble finding reality, but she refused to give up hope. It was carrying that sac...they were carrying a fleshy sac that looked like a diseased scrotum. It moved so fast that you should have missed it, Emily. But you can see it, so, that makes it a dream.

Emily was speaking nonsense but this was her process to reclaim sanity. She soon felt a damp aching in her kneecap as it balanced on a rigid spring. Before this time, she wasn’t even aware of the pain which meant she made progress.

Enough is enough, you’re back goddamn-it! Sit here all night if you want or shut the fuck up and deal with it in the morning—shut it off and go to bed!

Emily forced her eyes closed, focusing all efforts on finding sleep. When she thought she felt the sandman dust her nose, her eyelids gently kissed open and trailed off over her brow.

That ceiling always brought Emily peace. The crumbling plaster meant the ceiling was always changing but nothing revealed was ever vulgar; it was the perks of living on the top shelf. As Emily stared at a hanging bit of plaster on the wall, her meditation was interrupted by a loud creak below it. Eyes scrambled from the desk to the floor. The sound had a wooden feel to it and the stripped floorboards certainly could creak that way.

Emily sat up slowly and tried to lock eyes with the empty black void she floated in. “Hello,” she said foolishly. It was always a death sentence to announce your presence in a horror film and unfortunately, Emily just reenacted that moment in real life. No response meant it knew she knew it existed. Emily pulled the thin blanket over her head. Underneath the paper-thin cover, she heard more creaks that sounded louder with each passing moment.

A hot tear stung her eyelid when a faint voice cried overhead. It was so feeble that she questioned its existence, but she knew the language of weeping all too well. The sobbing stopped when a voice suddenly shouted “DON’T!”

That chilling cry was enough to bring Emily’s head from under the covers. The air felt like razor blades slicing through her clammy skin. She tried to pinpoint the location of the cry, but there were no clues to be found in the dank room. In this state of confusion, she nearly ignored the drip that spat on her from the ceiling. If it wasn’t so warm against her cool skin, she might have never noticed the sensation. Glaring at the ceiling, she was met with another warm drib. This one nearly landed in her eye as she stared down a growing stain above the bed. The next droplet forced her out of bed.

Quivering shoulders did their best to hide her neck while she distanced herself from the bed. She quickly found her hands clutching the stiff skirts that dressed the window. The drip became a steady dribble that grew into a black puddle on her pillow. Perhaps a pipe had burst. Seasons were shifting after all and it was only getting colder outside. The building was old anyways; old and rotting from the inside out. What could a few nuns do to keep it from falling apart outside of prayer? They were just simple servants of the Lord—not carpenters like the hero of their stories.

Emily looked to the door and watched the knob turn slowly. Something’s trying to get in! Fear kept Emily glued to the opposite side of the room, gripping the ledge of the window as she looked on in terror. THE LOCK! There was a simple hook lock that provided a small bit of privacy and enough security to prevent someone from barging into the room. Emily ran to the door and quickly slipped the hook in the eye. She quickly retreated but fell to the ground. Damn milkcrate tripped her and skipped across the floor leaving a trail of salt for her wounds. That was all the motivation necessary for whoever stood on the other side of the door. The doorknob shook in frustration as Emily scurried back to the window. The knob turned all the way and Emily could feel her heart deflating long after it popped from the initial shock.

Emily eyed the window; a window she opened several times before and even hung her legs from when the breeze felt right, or the radiator wouldn’t brand her bottom. The ledge is wide enough, I think. Maybe—maybe...maybe I can get away if there’s no bird shit on the ledge—wait damnit...there’s always bird shit on the ledge! The door and the knob started shaking violently, fuck it, I’ll jump!

Emily threw back the curtains in preparation. She dug her nails under the window and hoisted it up. As soon as she looked up, two giant yellow eyes were staring back at her. The pupils sat on top of the yellow spheres like thin razor blades. The black pupils widened as her shallow breath fogged the air before everything went dark and Emily fell to the ground like a stack of books.