Tag you're IT. The shape of IT - by Danielle Daniel

<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000097080.png" style='background-color: transparent; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;'/> Day 1 IT arrived on a Tuesday. Not with thunder or screams, not in the way monsters are supposed to arrive. No—IT came quietly, with the cold. One moment, Mira was brushing her teeth. The next, she was breathing like a hunted thing. Her lungs turned traitor. Her mind caught fire. And suddenly, she was both the Bear and the hunter. She clawed at her own ribs. She growled. She begged. But IT did not speak. IT only stared. Day 2 By Wednesday, she was trapped in a glass box. The kind you see in museums, with perfect lighting and no escape. Her mouth worked. Her fists banged. She screamed for someone—anyone—to see her. But outside, the world moved like a dream. People passed her, laughing. Talking. Eating sandwiches. Living. And inside the box, IT sat cross-legged like a child, calm and quiet. Mira pressed her forehead to the glass. Her breath fogged it. She wrote “HELP” with her fingertip. The letters faded before anyone looked. Day 3 Thursday IT gave her keys. Real keys. They hung from a string around her neck. She stared at them all morning. She could leave. She didn’t. The box, suffocating as it was, at least had walls. Out there, IT could chase her. In here, IT only watched. So she stayed. Day 4 On Friday, IT played tricks. It skulked behind her eyes, whispered through the floorboards, hid under the bed. Mira lay frozen in the dark, afraid to blink, afraid to breathe. “Please,” she whispered. But ghosts don’t answer prayers. Day 5 Saturday was a game. Hide and seek. She knew the rules: Don't make a sound. Don't move. Don't be found.Don't be found. She hid under the sink. Knees to chest. Heart a hammer. She heard IT moving. One creak. Two. And then: silence. She opened her eyes to find IT’s smile grinning back at her from inside the cabinet door. IT found her. Day 6 By Sunday, the silence inside her hurt more than the noise. So she used the blade. One cut. Two. Each line screamed louder than her lungs ever could. Blood ran like ink. And IT? IT stood quietly in the corner, watching. It always watched. But for once, it was quiet. Quiet like the grave. Day 7 Monday came. A tug of war. “I’m okay,” she whispered, brushing her hair. “No, you’re not,” IT whispered back, from the mirror. She smiled. Lipstick, like war paint.“It gets better.” “You're lying.” She blinked. In the reflection, IT smiled with her face. And for a moment, she wasn’t sure who was holding the rope anymore. Day 8 Mira doesn't open her curtains anymore. Light feels like a lie, and the world outside is too loud, too alive. She presses her palm to the glass. Somewhere, a dog barks. A child laughs. IT hisses. The sound isn’t a voice—it’s the slither of static in her ears, a buzzing like something feeding on her thoughts. She flinches. IT likes it when she flinches. Day 9 She finds a dead bird on her doorstep. Neck twisted. Eyes wide. Tiny, stiff talons curled into themselves. She knows IT left it there. She knows because IT is smiling from the shadows behind her coat rack, fingers twitching, head tilted, like it’s waiting for applause. Mira picks up the bird and buries it in the flower pot she never waters. She does not cry. She hasn’t cried in three days. Tears make noise. Noise brings IT closer. Day 10 She tries to talk to someone. A barista. A stranger. Someone in line at the pharmacy. Her mouth opens, and the words are right there—on her tongue, her lips, in her chest. But then IT presses its hands over her mouth from the inside. She gags on silence. Swallows her voice whole. Nods. Pays. Leaves. Later, she carves the words into her notebook instead. Page after page of black ink: “I CAN HEAR IT UNDER THE FLOOR.” Day 11 IT changes form. No longer a shadow. No longer still. Now IT moves. Fast. Too fast. Like a thought you don’t want that gets there before you can stop it. IT crouches at the foot of her bed. Its fingers tap a rhythm only Mira can hear. Tap. Tap. Tap.“I’m not real,” IT says, for the first time. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Or maybe you’re not.” Day 12 Mira boards up her vents. IT was whispering through them last night—long, dry murmurs like leaves brushing the back of her brain. She shoves a towel under the door. Tapes the windows shut. Still, IT gets in. IT always gets in. She tries not to sleep. But when her head falls to the pillow, she dreams of drowning in her own voice, echoing endlessly:“LET ME OUT. LET ME OUT. LET ME OUT.” She wakes with her hands around her own throat. Day 13 Mira finds a mirror she forgot she owned. It shows her face, but wrong. Her smile is too wide. Her pupils too black. Her reflection moves a second too slow. IT stands behind her, only in the mirror. She smashes the glass with her fists. Blood spatters the wall like punctuation. She keeps the largest shard. For tomorrow. Day 14 She leaves a note. It says: "Do not look for me. There is no me. Only IT." She folds it neatly. Places it on the kitchen counter like a final chore. Downstairs, under the floorboards, she hears it again—tapping, scratching, laughing. The mirror shard shines in her hand. Cold. Clean. Honest. She walks toward the sound. The story doesn't end. It just gets quiet.

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