Thousand: Six Hundred Forty-One

“I will never get anywhere in life. People hate me. I hate people. Everything is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.” The girl looks over her shoulder. A black thing is sharing the hall with her. It’s about the size of a foot stool. And it’s looking at her. “Wrong girl. Wrong day. Wrong way out.” “It was you who spoke,” the girl says to the thing, which moves a little closer on legs long and knobby that immediately disappear under it when it stops moving. “You’re wrong,” agrees the mouth, which looks like it’s been dug out of a mouldy tree