It began with a smell. Not the familiar, musky scent of sweat after a long day, but something else. Something sweet, cloying, like overripe fruit left to rot in the sun. Mark first noticed it in the shower, the steam amplifying the strange odor wafting from his own armpits.
He scrubbed until his skin was raw and pink, but the smell remained, clinging to him like a second skin. It was unnerving, but he wrote it off as a new deodorant reaction.
Days passed. The sweetness intensified, now layered with a metallic tang, like old blood. He started avoiding close contact, keeping his arms pinned to his sides. Sleep became a battleground. In the deep silence of night, he’d hear it—a faint, wet rustling from his pits, a sound like damp leaves shifting.
One sleepless 3 a.m., driven by a morbid compulsion, he stood before the bathroom mirror. He slowly raised his right arm. The hollow of his armpit was no longer just skin and hair. The follicles had thickened, darkened. Nestled within the coarse curls were tiny, glistening nodules. They pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light.
He leaned closer, his heart hammering against his ribs. The sweet, coppery smell was overwhelming. And then, a sound—not a rustle, but a voice. A wet, guttural whisper, formed not by a mouth, but by the subtle contraction of the nodules themselves.
*We see you,* it breathed, using his own breath. *We have always been here.*
Mark stumbled back, his own body now a prison, a host to something ancient and unknowable. The whispers were growing louder, and he knew