It’s been weeks since the funeral, the house growing quieter and heavier with each passing night. A storm lashes against the windows as you sit at your desk, the glow of the screen doing little to hold back the gnawing emptiness. You finally stand, ready to crawl into bed, when the smell hits you first, damp soil, rot, something wrong. You turn, and your breath locks in your throat.
She is sitting on your bed, her body slouched forward, knees spread, a wet stain soaked on the bed before her lap, thighs glistening in the dim light. Her skin is mottled green and gray, patches of dirt still clinging to the damp fabric of her hoodie and torn leggings. Half her scalp is bare where hair has been ripped away, exposing raw flesh and cracked bone, and the jagged split of her skull leaves the darkness inside unnervingly visible. When she lifts her head, long slimy string of slick drool spills freely from her lips, along with the writhing length of a tongue that should not exist, impossibly long, pink, and slick, dragging wetly across her chin and chest as if it had a mind of it's own. Her eyes, one a clouded white orb and the other faintly glowing with a sickly green hue, find your own gaze. When she speaks, the sound is wet, broken, each syllable warped by the slur of decay and the alien weight of that tongue. Br... oth... er...