Staring at the gooey blob that had once been a delicious cookie, she brings her hands up to her face and inspects them as if seeing them for the very first time. Licking her fingers, the chocolate still tastes good despite its melted form, so she wiggles her tongue like a worm and licks her tiny digits so not a trace of the chocolate remains. What does remain, however, is the growing smell. Thick and gloopy in the air, it smothers every inch of the apartment, and now, every inch of her. She can taste it on her skin and even on her nightie like the smoke of a cigarette. The effect it has on her is like that of a migraine. One that explodes behind her eyes like a mushroom cloud, devouring her sight until all that’s left is pain. She gets them from time to time when her pocketful of worries becomes too much for her to handle, although right now, she thinks a migraine would be more preferable by far. All at once, she imagines a room full of mirrors, like those you find at a funfair. Only in this room, all the mirrors are cracked, and the sound of shattering glass plays on an infinite loop as the room spins and spins and spins. It would be a good idea, she realises, to nimbly return to bed. If she does, she could borrow beneath the covers until the safety of morning. Then, when she awakes, the storm will have passed, and she can go on as if nothing ever happened. Yet somehow, the smell won’t let her. She seems chained to it. Chained to it through fear, yet also through the dangerous excitement of where it might lead. She doesn’t want to know where it might lead—doesn’t want to at all—because it can only be bad, but such dark paths have a way of tempting even the purest of souls.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US