It was the normal routine for me- wake up, get ready, work for hours, go home, eat, and sleep. By ‘normal routine,’ I mean ‘painfully repetitive routine.’

I’ve been walking home from work lately, mostly because my car needs to get fixed and partly because I didn’t want to have to pay for a cab, I have a low paying job and I live by myself since my parents have been dead for a few months, forcing me to quit college so I could pay the bills. However, this night feels….. off, somehow. It’s like someone is following me, but maybe the person behind me is just going in the same direction.

Curious, I took out my phone, not to make a call or text anyone, but to look at the reflection of the person behind me. Of course, I couldn’t see much, it was dark and cell phone screen reflections aren’t really the best. What I saw was a slender figure wearing a long trench coat and- huh?

The person behind me, most likely a woman, her face had been shaded by the darkness, but after passing a street light, I could see her smile widely. Her eyes and cheekbones were sunken, and her lips were… were they… rotting?! Yes, I could see clearly that the skin around her lips were dark and reddened, like they were scraped severely, but in this case, it was decaying. I put away my phone as quickly as possible.

“Yooouung man……” a piercing, guttural voice emanated from the… thing behind me, causing me to involuntarily stop, as my knees started shaking violently just from looking at their face. I couldn’t help but slowly turn my head to see ‘it’ practically stagger towards me. It opened its eyes widely, making it obvious that its eyes were bloodshot. “Giiive mmeee yyour SKIN. New host fforrr thisss parasite.”

I couldn’t move my feet, no matter how much I tried, it was like something was holding me down. I looked down, and around my ankles, just what was it?! It looked like thick strands of flesh or something, jutting out of cracks on the sidewalk.

The thing’s eyes popped out of the sockets, and its mouth dropped open, revealing rotting teeth. The trench coat fell from the woman’s shoulder, which was apparently the only article of clothing she had. Out of nowhere, a skinless hand ripped open her stomach, and made the gash larger and larger until the thing crawled out of the body.

I was about ready to throw up at that point. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

The thing- that parasite, was slouched over, it had eyes, but they had no irises and pupils. It had no skin, it was all made up of muscle, and it was staggering to me, raising its clawed hand with a disgusting smile. “Skin. Skin. Skin. Skin. SKIN. SKIN. SKIN. SKIN. SKIN. SKIN. SKIN. IIIIT’S MINE.”

I couldn’t even scream as it cut open my stomach.

It wasn’t long after that, that I was dead. Every muscle, every bone, every organ, every vain and artery was ripped out, and it made its way inside me and stitched up the cut from the inside.