Sincerely, Jennifer x

There is nothing to worry about.

I will arrive with a sullen brow and legs of lead, and you will ask yourself what you did to deserve me, but no answer, and no rescue will come. 

There is nothing to worry about. 

I’m sorry, but I’m just trying to survive. 

I know you can understand that. 

We were only trying to survive. 

There were no jobs in Broadberry. That’s what everyone said. We’d pass each other in the street, exchanging exhausted smiles as we went into each struggling shop to hand in a CV. By the time I was in my twenties, there were only a handful of shops left, and only a few people in my neighbourhood who had any form of paid work. 

The children went to school in tattered clothes with shoes that pinched at their heels, and their parents wept at night, staring with tired eyes at bare bank statements until dawn arose. 

People were desperate, and so, I suppose when the minister came to visit, there was no way that we could turn him down. 

You don’t realise how expensive life is, until you’ve got fuck all. I suppose that is the lesson I’ve learned from this. That, and of course, nobody is going to save you, not even if they sound sincere. 

It sounded so good. One month in the study and we’d each get £5000. It might not sound like much to some but to us, it would have been life changing. 

I don’t know anybody that refused, and so soon, the trucks arrived, and each of us were marched into the community center. 

The place was full of masked up soldiers, each making themselves busy with one of us. Blood tests, physical examinations, the lot. 

We never found out what they were looking for in those initial tests, but every now and again, I saw someone taken off to the side and marched down a corridor. I didn’t think about it much at the time, but I never saw those people again. 

After the tests, we just went back to our lives. Passing our CVs among each other, struggling and trying to survive. Waiting for the study to begin. 

They hadn’t given many details. We were to just carry on as normal, but they’d be observing and working behind the scenes. 

I could see them watching us, but after a while, I got used to it. The soldiers and scientists would gather in unoccupied shops and shuttered pubs to keep an eye, and I’d just do as I always did. 

It was nothing to worry about. That’s what the posters said. 

“There is nothing to worry about.” They were plastered all over town, and the more that I saw them, the more I realised that perhaps, there was something to worry about. 

The power began to go out all over town. 

It wasn’t all at once, just in a few buildings, every now and again for a minute or two. As soon as it did, those words would flash into my head. “There is nothing to worry about.” But I would. It put me on edge, sitting in the darkness, fumbling for a candle and some matches while I waited for the power to come back. 

I would jump at shadows 

Everything was fine when the lights came back on, but I’d pace my flat all the same, unable to settle back down. 

“There is nothing to worry about.” I whispered to myself as I looked around my empty home, shivering slightly as my stomach grumbled. “There is nothing to worry about.” 

But there was. 

My skin. 

It began to burn and itch. 

I can’t remember when it began. The lights went off, and then they returned. My throat was tight, and my head ached. The lights went off, and then they returned, and my skin was dry, from dawn until dusk. 

I lathered on creams and oils, spending hour after hour in the bath, but nothing helped. My fingertips started to peel in thick curls, and the tips of my nails turned a funny grey, like the underside of a storm cloud.

I stopped going out. I drank tap water and rationed the food I already had. I wasn’t sure when the last delivery had come, but the shelves had been getting emptier. The water tasted off, but I needed it. As the days went on, it got worse. Bitter, barely making it down my throat before I spluttered and coughed it back up. Still, I kept drinking it, clutching my throat and scrunching up my face as it went down. 

I thought that I was stressed. There was nothing to worry about, but I was lost in cabin fever. A few weeks ago, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and dropped my toothbrush. My eyes were yellowing, the pupils barely visible in the sea of gold. When I opened my mouth to scream, I saw a new row of sharp, bright teeth rising from my jaw.

I fell back against the bathtub, shaking and avoiding my reflection. 

I slept all day, drifting in and out of dark dreams until the sun rose again. 

The next day, I woke to find clumps of my hair on the pillow, wiry and brittle, stuck to the damp cotton like seaweed. My skin ached and itched, peeling away under my nails as I sobbed and scratched, black bones, thicker than they should have been were all that remained in some parts. 

I ran from my flat, stumbling down the stairs, my heart racing as I clattered onto the street. 

There was a gun in my face within seconds, and a stern look from a masked soldier. He motioned behind me to the door, staring with empty eyes from behind his goggles. 

The posters clung to the walls outside. Their corners curled with mildew, letters half-faded, but still legible. Still screaming.

“THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.”

I screamed too. Wailing as I scrambled back up the stairs, waiting for it to end. Days passed, and I drank the water, choking as the taste worsened. I awoke each morning, horrified by what I saw in the mirror, spending the day hiding from myself under the kitchen table as the lights went off, and the lights returned. 

I began to hunger, my mind dominated by something I couldn’t understand. I longed for a taste that had never touched my lips. The dreams followed me to my waking hours. I saw the pain everywhere. Your pain. Your bones, breaking between my teeth. I was unbearably hungry. I knew it was wrong. I prayed and I wished, but it never left me. 

I drank the water, I hid and I hungered. The lights went off, and the lights returned, until they came for me. 

I watched them pile out of the armoured van, and heard them clattering up the stairs. As they got closer, I could smell them. Intense, and intoxicating. I shook my head, biting my lip until it bled, waiting for the urge to pass. 

I begged them to free me, watching them with teary eyes, telling them that I wasn’t a monster, but they knew the truth. I could not meet the mirror’s gaze as they poked, prodded and then slowly began nodding to one another. 

There was something burrowing beneath me, breaking the skin and barrelling deep within my chest. I shuddered and ached as the soldiers nodded and dragged me down to the street, shoving me into the van. 

I’ll see you soon. 

I don’t know if this recording will reach you in time, or at all, but you have to run. 

It is coming, and I, with it… 

There’s just too many of you, and there isn’t enough to go around. Everyone must have a purpose in this world, and now, this is mine. 

There is nothing to worry about, or at least there won’t be, when there are less mouths to be fed.