Trudy woke up just as she had done the day before; only this time, she was still wearing her clothes. She felt stiff, having spent the night coiled in a tight ball. Her back clicked in several places as she unwound, groaning. Her clothes had dug in where they were fitted; there were marks around her waist and collar. She was also coated in a thick sheen of sweat, so she delegated immediately to the bathroom fro a shower. All the lights were still turned on, some flickering with strain. She could've sworn the whole house buzzed when she turned the shower on – but maybe she was just caught in Ymir's kitchen still, and the little black dots had somehow got to her brain through her ears and –

Water washed the buzzing out when she ducked her head beneath the shower's, letting it scorch her.

Once she had scrubbed every remnant of the past night off, every creepy crawly sensation flushed down the plughole until she was red raw, she slipped into something comfortable and sanitised her insides with a boiling hot cup of tea. To keep herself from slipping to far into the confines of her own mind, she connected her phone to a small speaker that came with her all over the house and set it to play something loud and aggressive. The kind of music that had been introduced to her by the same person who'd taught her to read the stars. There, holed up in her overworked house, she lost herself to screeching guitars and heavily handed drums for the best part of an hour.

If she hadn't been ignoring the entire world, she would have noticed the commotion outside. During a pause between one song and the next, at around midday, she caught the sounds of panicked chatter from the street in front of her house. Immediately her mind re-entered the real world. They must have found her. She set the empty mug she had been idly cradling down hard, hands already getting clammy. Her heart rose to her throat as she rose. Soon enough they'd be banging on the door. Best that she was the one who let them in.

She unlocked the door, still heavily fortified from yesterday, and peeked out. But there was nobody on her doorstep – nobody even in her front garden. Instead, from what she could see, there was a crowd amassing on the street, looking at her neighbour's house.

Or the space where her neighbour's house had been.

Trudy's mouth fell so wide, that a fly came in and out, causing her to splutter. When she regained composure, she had to rub her eyes and slap her cheeks. Wake up, wake up. She commanded herself. There was no waking to be done though. Her flesh was physical. Glancing back as often as she could while she made her way to the gate, Trudy circled around the front of the empty plot where Ymir's house had stood mere hours ago. A huge, gaping hole seemed to have swallowed it whole, sunken into the earth. Down, down so deep you couldn't see the bottom. Only a yawning black abyss – decorated with shiny string wall-to-wall.

She found herself approaching the nearest onlooker. "What happened here?" She felt herself say, unprompted.

"Not sure. Greta over there has just called the police –" the middle-aged woman gestured towards a similarly-aged lady, yabbering away, phone pressed to her ear. "I think what we all do. It's TNM; they're coming for the people." Her voice broke on the last words, and one of her hands shot up from her armpit to press against her cheek. "Ymir was such a sweetheart. Just an innocent old lady."

"She was."

The woman looked Trudy up and down. "Do you live around here?"

Trudy didn't respond. She was transfixed by the empty hole in the world. Was it the TNM? Why had they come for Ymir? Whatever had she done wrong -?

She caught herself in the question. What had Ymir done wrong, to spur Trudy so hastily out of the house? What was buried so deep in her subconscious that it caused her to act out, even after they'd conversed so sweetly?

Confusion and fear continued to build its crowd. People passing by crossed themselves or shielded their children, speeding up with revulsion. "Don't look." They muttered. "Don't look at what the monsters have done to us. Trudy wasn't sure how long she'd been watching the empty space, thinking of her kind old neighbour, ignoring the growing congregation of gormless watchers. Of her hairy arms and sticky web – of slammed doors and a desperate cry to "Don't go!" In the moment, it had been a command from a ravenous... monster. She swallowed. The more she thought about it, the more she acknowledged Ymir's pleadingly innocent tone. What had she thought Trudy would do to her?

The sound of police sirens snapped her out of thought. Panicked now, she looked around for those flashing blue lights – and upon seeing a clear coast, walked as casually as possible inside her house, pressing the door shut against her back. Trudy's desire to get out of the city had only grown with this new development. She knew she had to do more than just pack all of her things and wait for the right time; she had to go. Now.

First, she'd eat. She couldn't sabotage herself anymore for lack of appetite. So, she pulled together the blandest meal she could manage – plain old cream of tomato soup and buttered toast. With one hand, she shovelled the meal down her throat. With the other, she scrolled down listings of houses up to rent, somewhere far from the city. Spilling crumbs on the screen, it wasn't long before she secured her target. A tiny, somewhat dilapidated cottage in a small woody village several miles out. A cheap option, but it didn't matter so long as it was anywhere but where she was. Shakily, she typed a message out to the house's owner, and began the waiting game once more. Still no responses from PP News, nor Mary Lancaster, to her equal parts relief and dismay. On the former, she had expected a quick-fire reply, demanding further reason as to her withdrawal and a formal paper-signing ceremony, something of the sort. On the latter, she hadn't really expected a reply at all. Trudy hadn't been the nicest student, she supposed. Still, she kept her fingers crossed, and made a quick wish on one of her ceiling stars as she marched upstairs to gather her things.

Stripping her bed would get the ball rolling, that much she knew. If she had nowhere to cower tonight, she'd be forced out of the house and into her forming plan. She hadn't even de-cased a pillow before she decided it wouldn't do any harm to have a quick nap.

The loud 'PING' of her phone jolted Trudy out of slumber. She checked the time, still half asleep. 3:46. It had been two hours. She sighed, flopping onto her back with her phone over her face. There was a message from the landlord, agreeing to her request, but asking how long exactly she intended to stay, and do give a specific period of time please instead of just 'as long as is possible'. Just as she was tapping out her response – at least half a year, please and thank you and very much (she was about to correct her muddled wording) – her inbox pinged with a new email.

The release of the notification shocked Trudy so much that she dropped her phone onto her face. It bashed her nose and sent her lip onto her teeth, prompting a yelp. She bothered little with her aching mouth when she read the email address the message was sent from.

RE: Follow up to RE: Follow up to RE: Congratulations and good luck, Trudy!

Hello Trudy!
How wonderful to hear from you. Your message was quite unexpected – so much so that in fact I spilled coffee down myself when I realised it! Oops! J

No need to apologise for not reading my message initially. Once university is over, it is over in the mind of the student – meaning everything that came with it too. I cease to exist in the worlds of many a student many a year, so worry not. Having said that, it is quite a delight to hear from you (of all people!) now!

I am thrilled to learn of your interest in the course – and relieved, actually. It seems I got some of it wrong in sending your application under my name. I just spent an hour scouring my email to find the attached. Your acceptance was sent to my inbox, and they've been bugging me for a response for several months now. I'd left it open in secret hope that this day would occur – and here we are, occurring.

I hope that whatever 'odd position' you are in is relieved by a few months spent writing on the south coast.

With that, I am taking care, and I am here to hope you continue as J.

Mary.

ATTATCHED: 1 EMAIL:

RE: Offer of admission.

Congratulations, Gertrude Laith. I am delighted to offer you a next year's Hardwood Manor writing retreat, one of many exciting writing opportunities presented by the National Council of Writers.

Please fill out the following form in the link to confirm your admission by February of next year.

Your stater date is the 1st of March, and the retreat is set to conclude exactly two months from the date.

We hope to see you join us at Harwood Manor, Restton.

Tawanda Mostyn, Overseer of Events at Harwood, NCW.

The National Council of Writers is an organisation founded by Noble Orpheus Eastbrook MBE. As of the time of writing, twenty-seven out of thirty-nine countries who are members of IBOT have their own NCW and partake in such prestigious events. The Eastbrook Writing retreats offer coaching from experts, peer support from fellow passionate writers, and a vastly inspirational landscape from which to grow one's skillset.

Trudy flicked back and forth between the two emails several times before tapping on the link attached in her offer of admission. She had barely two weeks to decide whether she wanted to go or not – not that that was an issue, for her mind was already made up. She was off; she had to do it. It would give her some sort of structure, if only for two months. During that time, she could figure out what to do next.

For now, she had to survive the following month and a half. Once her acceptance had been sent off, with hardly much thought put into it, she was able to give the landlord a specific length of time she'd be staying for – 'until the 27th of February, starting today, potentially' – gathered up her possessions and sat on the dent in her suitcase in front of the door to wait for her taxi.

There, she made her last star-wishes. For a clear path ahead. For her problems to have simple solutions. She didn't know if she could handle complications forever. She wanted something that made sense, something she knew would be there forever. Everything was always temporary for her. Flimsy and unsure, usually collapsing after a short time. In the moments before the taxi honked its arrival, she wished for same thing as always.

Trudy couldn't relax. The drive, far as it was, was horrifically expensive. She kept her eye on the meter (which ticked up to dizzying amounts) surprisingly for the minority of the drive.

The majority was spent watching the old city buildings squish down until they became flat stretches of grass and trees.

"First time out of the city?" The cabby had asked when he'd helped her load her bags into the boot. She'd nodded.

"Holidaying, are you?" She'd nodded.

"Deaf, are you?" He'd mumbled, but Trudy had nodded again, not really listening. With another mumble, inaudible this time, they'd clambered in, sealed the deal, and sped off into the dimming world.

By now, the sky was bruising purple and blue, and the stars were just peeking out here and there. The brightest glinted to the north, throwing spiky lines of light around it. Trudy circled it with her finger on the cold, misted-up window. Her earbuds were pressed into her ears, pumping a familiar song that sent her foot tapping. From the outside, her demeanour could have been mistaken for a contended holiday-maker, eager to arrive at their destination and gaze at the skies all day. Trudy wished that was the case. But all she was doing was to try and escape the potential of her mind revisiting the past two days. Flashes of the mauled body, the faceless creatures and their freezing grip, the yells of the police, the night on the streets and the day next, racing home on the piece of evidence that was her moped – a piece of evidence tucked down the side of her house, for she knew the police were in the air and couldn't take any chances. Then came Ymir, her spidery kitchen – worse, the spidery hole that had taken her someplace only God knew where.

And the TNM. That was a general, overarching fear which ever member of the general public shared. But being so close to several speculated attacks was sending her nerves haywire. To reassure herself, she reached into her bag and pulled out her thick book. As soon as she had it on her lap and had checked it for any signs of damage (or further damage, because the thing was dog-eared, its leather covers littered with stains and marks), she let out a sigh of relief. With her right hand, she flicked the pages, letting them blow against her face, and inhaled the musty scent of paper well-loved. This was what spurred her on. Without her book, there wasn't much point to... well, to anything really. She didn't know where she would be without this freedom. Unfortunately, reading in vehicles made her feel sick. Doing anything other than listening to music did, really. So, she slipped the tome away, glad that it was still there and hadn't somehow grew legs and sprinted off, and went back to her songs and stars.

After paying the fee to the exhausted driver, who was also a little bit miffed that Trudy had fallen asleep with her face squished to the glass and had left an unattractive stamp of it on the window, she dragged her suitcase up the crumbling brick path. The garden out front was wild. The grass was ankle-deep, interspersed with weeds and wildflowers. The house itself was just as the picture had let on, if just a little worse for wear. The walls were losing some of their white paint, and the wooden windowsills were chipped and splintering. There were no windows in the front door. It was decidedly old-fashioned, with an iron knocker held in an unidentifiable big cat's mouth, and a single keyhole where a handle would usually be. As the landlord instructed, the key was underneath a chipped plant pot to the right of the door – one Trudy immediately knocked over and smashed. She cursed and looked around; surely nosy neighbours would be scrutinising her out their windows. She was quickly reminded that she was far from any neighbour. The house was surrounded by trees, only the road splitting the front of it from a very dense patch of woodland that gave way to a steep drop. To her left, trees. Unsurprisingly, to her right – also trees. She could just make out smoke against the dark sky between branches coming from down the road, another isolated house among a few more along this stretch. The village, according to the listing, was buried in hilly woodland. It was apparently a tight-knit community, but that was as much as Trudy read before she decided she didn't care. She inhaled the damp smell of a well-rained on wood, scooped the key up from the shards of pottery she would have to clean up and replace, and, after a few tries, kicked the door open.

The first thing she was welcomed by was the kitchen. The ceiling was so low that it probably would have been a problem for anyone who wasn't Trudy. Beams crossed it, ending at white-painted walls. She switched the light on – a single bulb, buzzing in the centre of the room. It smelled like wet dog. She pulled her suitcase over the lumpy tiles through to the room on her left – a small living room, with a sofa, a fireplace, and a little table tucked beside a case of rickety wooden stairs. The floor was worn carpet, marked with suspicious stains. In this room, the light came from glass sconces clinging loosely to the walls. She crossed the room, deserting her suitcase by the stairs, and tried a small lamp, immediately switching it off when it gave out white light. Out the back window by the table, a tiny garden with an overgrown patio and a small space slowly giving out to trees. There was nothing out there. Only the moon lit the garden, though the light couldn't break the trees as they became denser. Out there, it was pitch black. There was nothing.

It was perfect.