On that night, in that Subaru,

I drove, and we were laughing about

 

something unimportant. Your mother’s villa was

only a couple miles away.

 

Then I felt something foul, which I halfheartedly dismissed.

It’s nothing, I told myself, I am happy.

 

Foolish conceit. It grew and swole, then began to

throb and ring deafeningly within my skull. I wanted to

 

take a jackhammer and

sunder the mounting strain beneath my scalp.

 

I violently trembled. Its filthy grip choked my

voiceless breath, too shallow for feral screams.

 

Something else: dark, gnarled, primal,

became me.

 

I wanted to taste the iron in blood, to feel alive, as if for the

last two years I had lived only through wretched lies.

 

Before you could ask what was wrong, I

had already been possessed.

 

Crossing the yellow lines, metal on metal makes

such a horrible sound, a jarring screech—and just like that—

 

the maw clasped; all became black.