Day...does it even matter anymore? We've moved, slowly, painfully from the darkness of the bridge, our shelter. We are leaving it behind. There is a whole world out here I must show them, my precious child. It is bright, but silent. We had expected more...

I must search, I must find a way to let little one grow. They need warmth, moisture, life. It is here and I will find it for you my sweet darling. I will give you what you need, no matter the cost.



Day six? Seven?
We have made our decision. It is too cold here for little one, we need the light, the warmth of the sun to let us flourish. Our legs are weak but we can make it up this hill, free ourselves from the chilly murk of these waters...

We can be free, the decision has been made. Little one must grow.



Day...four
I can see it now....and it is beautiful. Swirling red fills the water around me, the blood of my own sacrifice forging a corona of ruby for the unveiling of such splendor.

It rolls in runnels and rivulets down my sides, streaking my flanks in golds and blues. Sunlight and midnight sky it brings me, paints me, my child. The gentle pulsing of its tendrils fill me with a warmth I have not felt in so long. It lives for me. I am alone no more.



Day Three?
I am starting to lose track of time. I'm not even sure if time passes here. There is always a dim light outside of my self made isolation. Never do I see night fall or feel the true brilliance of sunlight. I would welcome the dark if for no other reason than to hide what I am becoming.

The light...the light I would shun.

It has spread, my little itch, spread from leg to flank and is growing still. A pulsing horror feeding on the dank heat of my flesh and I can do nothing but watch it crawl ever upward. I do not know what will happen when it reaches the last of me, but I fear it less and less. I am not sure why... Perhaps it is the knowledge that I will give it life. A child, unwanted, but mine.



Day Two:
The pain has grown, it is burning now and I am so thirsty. There is water all around me and I cannot drink enough to satisfy though I try and try. It is unbearable, I can only hope that I will perish before whatever horror that fills my leg tears itself from my flesh. I don't want to see it. I don't want to know. I just want it to stop.

A strange sensation is overcoming the pain now. Something must be crawling on me...



Day One:
It started with an itch. I had been laying in the muggy waters for so long, letting it slither through my fur, the the itch went unnoticed. Ignored even. Why should I care about such a trivial thing? Just another of the minutia trying to draw me from my haze, an insignificant thing.

I was so wrong.

It had started with an itch; I think I could have stopped it then. I could have drug myself from beneath this bridge into the warm sunlight and stopped it. But I didn't and now I fear I will pay the price, that we all will. I fear it will keep growing, this itch, keep growing until the aching knots beneath my hide burst free and flood this stream...But for now, they throb, they ache...