"...This is one of the traps in the Nest with the highest death rate."
It was as if the folds of her brain had become winding cracks, and through them, a voice—doing its best to pass for human—leaked in like a draft.
Ashley now knew that it was one of the creatures from the Nest known as Residents.
Ever since it had extended a hand from her eye socket, she had been slowly turning into a door panel that had been shattered and then taped back together.
When Ashley sat in the bathtub, water would leak through the cracks. When she walked down the street, she always felt the tape would suddenly snap, her shell shattering and collapsing... She would be paralyzed, able to do nothing but watch as the Residents crawled out, one by one, from the wreckage of her body.
She could only tell herself, again and again, 'This is just temporary.'
