Sincerely, Jennifer x

Personal Log – Staff Nurse Terry Thomas – 27th January 2079

She was at my flat. 

Nobody believes me, of course, but I know what I saw. 

She did something to me… I’ve tried to tell myself it was a dream. That’s what Doctor Turnips said when I tried to explain what’s been going on, but I really can’t be sure anymore. It felt so real, and I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t free my body from how it felt at that moment. 

Was it real? I don’t know anymore. She’s messing with my head, and I can’t take much more of it. 

I was taking a nap after a walk down at the beach, and as I awoke, there was a storm outside. My eyes slowly opened and I could see the sky was lost to lightning and the room was shrouded in shadows. 

I could hear squawking, sinking into the symphony of thunder strikes, and behind me, I could feel the weight of someone else in the bed. 

I froze, my breath caught in my throat as fingers tapped gently on my back, and a voice spoke. 

“I was born of a great but terrible King.” My skin itched, up by my neck and down to my shoulder blades as the fingers continued their rhythm. It was Jade, unmistakably. “Balam commeth forth with three heads, and all of their eyes are watching you Terry.” I tried to move, but fear rooted my body in place, as she continued. The sensation burrowed deeper, as if something under my skin was shifting, pushing outward. “All his legions shall belong to me, and the birds will bow to my horrid hand, including you.” With those words, I felt the weight of her body lift from the bed, and she was gone. 

I stayed for a moment or two, silent and still, my heart pounding as the storm raged on. It was the pain that made me move. It began shooting down my neck and through my spine. 

Falling from my bed, I crawled to my feet, clattering quickly into the ensuite door. I managed to steady myself for a moment, making it into the bathroom, and falling against the mirror. 

A horrible sight met my eyes, and I stared, breathlessly at my reflection. 

Feathers. Small, pale grey ones, sprouting like weeds from the ridges of my back. My breath hitched, and I stumbled, trying to reach behind me to pull them out. They wouldn’t budge. The skin around them felt alien, taut, as though I was wearing someone else’s body.

Panic churned in my stomach. It wasn’t real, I told myself. It couldn’t be real. Just a dream, or a nightmare. I gripped the sink to steady myself, and my fingers looked…wrong. My nails were harder, thicker, yellowed, curving unnaturally. I clenched them into fists, willing them to return to normal, but it only made my wrists ache as the bones beneath shifted with a grinding sensation that made my head spin.

I tried calling for help, but my voice cracked into something sharp and shrill, a sound I didn’t recognise as human. The world outside my window felt farther away, the walls of my tiny flat closing in as the transformation crept forward.

I knew what I was becoming, but it felt so impossible. 

My feet were next. Oh God, my feet. I ripped my socks off, and there they were—gnarled and scaled, the beginnings of webbing forming between my toes. The sight was grotesque, but worse than the sight was the feeling. A hollow, restless energy filled my chest, and with it came the overwhelming urge to leave. To go up.

I stumbled back towards my bedroom window, throwing it open despite the biting winter wind. The scent of salt and seaweed hit me like a punch, and a part of me—a new part—found it exhilarating. My stomach churned again, but this time it wasn’t nausea. It was hunger, a deep, insatiable craving for things I’d never wanted before. Fish. Bread crusts. Whatever scraps I could find.

“No,” I whispered—or tried to. The word came out as a rasping squawk, high and unrecognisable. My hands shook as I braced myself against the window frame. My reflection in the glass stared back at me, eyes too dark, too sharp. My jaw ached, and when I touched my lips, I could feel my nose lengthening, merging, hardening into a beak.

I wanted to scream, and believe me, I tried, but stronger than that, itching and aching within me was the urge to fly.

The breeze tugged at my growing feathers, coaxing me forward, and for a fleeting moment, the fear was replaced by something else—something primal and wild. 

Across the road from my flat, I saw her, standing with a nonchalant smirk as the wind and rain whipped around her, waving her pinkie. 

Pain shot through my body, and I collapsed, falling to the floor and blacking out, surrounded by the cacophony of squawking and thunder. 

I woke up, hours late for work and rushed to get ready. I tried not to think about what happened, unsure of whether it was a dream, or not. I went to the asylum on autopilot, and tried to get by, but I couldn’t get what happened out of my head. 

I found feathers in my trouser pockets, and in the coffee pot when I took a quick break. 

Jade was in bed, like all the other residents, at least for the beginning of my shift, but within a few hours, she was back on my trail. 

I saw her watching as I did my rounds, sometimes from her bed, and sometimes round corners and in the shadows. Always waving with her pinkie and smiling with such menace. 

I spoke to Doctor Turnips, like I said, but he’s convinced it was just a dream. Maybe he’s right, but I don’t know. I wish I could understand what was happening, but I’m too overwhelmed to even think about it too much. 

As I was leaving this morning, grateful that my night shift was at an end, I saw her in the car park. I couldn’t believe it, frozen in place as seagulls flocked from the sky and flooded my car. She smirked, waving her pinkie as the wind nipped at my trembling hands. 

I couldn’t get closer. I knew I should, but I couldn’t face it. 

She watched me, slapping seagulls against the windshield, gleefully smearing the blood against the glass. 

I shuddered, bolting for the bus stop, and leaving my car, the birds and Jade behind me. 

I know I need to pick up my car at some point, and I have another shift tomorrow night, but… I can’t. I really can’t. 

She’s waiting for me, I just know it, and she will be the end of me.