A stiff wind broke the morning clouds. It was another gloomy sunrise, in a string of second-rate days. Kiera woke much like the sun, downtrodden and wishing to fall back down. She snapped down on the alarm, knocking it to the floor, and with two blinks was out again—back into a world she was beginning to recognise.

First the flooding darkness. Despite two weeks of this her body still rejected it. Her body hated it. Pathetic. Limbless shakes as the throbbing chill tore its way through her lungs, gripped her skin like sweat. She could smell the sharp stink of iron. When her vision came she saw her arms were covered in blood. A red too bright.

A figure she hadn’t noticed flickered out of her view. She turned her head sharply but saw no one.

Kiera realised she was walking. She held a square, brown-wrapped package, which would not stop squirming. As she struggled to keep hold of the ******* thing, ****** prints coated its sides. A postbox lay on the other side of the road—the same colour as the blood on her arms.

Kiera was furious. The ******* package would not stop squirming. She needed to reach the postbox before she dropped it. She was desperate—scared shitless. Why?

Kiera began to cross the road. Each step sent the package twitching, twisting. Her legs were bone thin. Her skin was shredding apart. Another flicker—edge of the vision phantom—appeared, but she barely noticed. The package was growing so heavy that her toes were breaking on the asphalt. She looked up and saw the postbox had receded.  How dare you? How ******* dare you, you *******.

She was on the wrong side. She had never left the sidewalk. How could she? She had no legs. Blood began to pour out of the postbox. It crossed the road, coating her torso, lapping the bottom of the package. The package stilled and began to deform in her hands. It was rotting.

Kiera had an urge to *****.