It was not a disease.
It was not an invasion.
It was a harvest.
---
It started with a smell.
Something between damp rust and forgotten flesh.
Something he tried to ignore.
But it was already inside him.
Growing. Pulsing. Feeding.
---
The stain on his chest was not a tumor.
It was a promise.
Every dark thought.
Every guilt buried alive.
Every fear he refused to face.
For years, it fed.
Silently. Patiently.
Until the thing inside him became too large to remain hidden.
---
This is not a story about a monster that invades a body.
This is about a man who cultivates a monster within himself.
And when it no longer fits inside the shell that housed it since birth...
something will open.
What emerges will not be beautiful.
It will not be redemptive.
It will be the materialization of everything he never wanted to face.
---
What are you feeding inside yourself?
---