I am frozen; only my eyes flicker around
Not again..
A boy stands above me, painted eyes radiating
Pointed anger, a blade to my neck
A hand pressing down on my chest
I am helpless to the ghost whose corpse is a puppet
A specter tied down to earth
A knot in my stomach
A friend I let suffer visits me every night
A curse I brought upon myself
A death I might have been able to stop
I’m called Copper. It’s a nickname that’s stuck, and I don’t want the Finders to catch me if they come across this journal. Oh, yeah, I should fill you in on the Finders. Basically, the moon did shitty things like get hit with a meteor and glowed for a bit and then these things I call the Finders came down.
When the first one landed, it was in the middle of a crowded area. People gathered to see the creature. It was all over the news. A beast with a mess of slender limbs with joints like a puppet and four thick, spider-like legs. A head that opened like a flower, one with bright purple petals and a thousand yellow thorns inside. People were allured by the bizarre and the unfamiliar and the very obviously unsafe being that just came from the f**king moon.
And it snatched a dude up and closed its face flower around his head, spitting him back up with his face replaced by smooth skin. Everyone there freaked out, and later the government people got together and told us to keep calm when we suspect somebody is a disguised Finder, because those things can steal the forms of other people. We were told to call a specific number and to not let the suspected Finder know that we didn’t think it was human.
They seem to be toying with us. Their disguises are usually pretty bad, with them being the wrong height, their eyes usually unblinking, and their pinned up creepy smiles. They don’t hunt when prey is unsuspecting. They like the thrill of being caught, of catching those who know what they are because they’re silencing them. The Finders are like a problem that you’re meant to ignore because it’s too painful to bring up.
But hopefully one day we’ll be rid of them and be free to speak of them and the hurt they’ve caused and not be constantly afraid. Maybe one day, I won’t regret so many things. Maybe the hurt will go away.
But maybe it won’t, and I’ll have to do more things I regret.
