Flesh. It's a damn odd thing, skin and bones, tied up and organized to make a human being. But that ain't really a human being, though, is it? It's the spirit that makes us who we are, infuses meaning into that sinew and binds us to physical being. It's the spirit that's human, the soul that divides us from... them. Them, meaning, those falling apart at the seams, ripped by the curse that's been going round lately and all. Them meaning the broken, soul-less, monsters of rotting flesh and bone. Can't be saved. Even all the Loa of Bondye can't bring them back. These prayers, for once, are becoming useless, the crossroads of Papa Legba avoided by those unworthy to return to neither the spirits nor the living, and the result becomes this. Rotten flesh meandering and devouring the weak and slow. Shells of those once filled with spirit and knowledge reduced to simply that, shells.

I seen one first at the hospital after that whole shabang with my fist and the car window. Dead and gone save for that movement of its limb, shock went right through me like a damn bullet and I hurled myself away, escaped on a fucking helicopter (flying ain't as bad as I thought) with some military outfitted form and a worried nurse who tried to keep the calm, but we all knows she's scared as the rest of us. Ended up on a fancy-ass military ship. Don't know what to call it. Got yelled at by a corporate figurehead and accused of inciting riots, ain't got any idea where she got that shit from. Said it's because I'm a percent or something. No fucking idea. What the fuck is "Face Book"?

Most of us left the ship for supplies. I'm still out here, got rid of a lot of roaming curses, spreading all their evil with that coagulated blood stained all about. Ain't smell very pretty, ma and pa never would have left anything stinking that bad, chickens don't even get a fume that bad even in New Orleans sun! Speaking of parents... I ain't seen them since that casino. Said they were gonna win big. I hope they do. They ain't suckers, not like them others back home used to call them. My family ain't a bunch of losers. If anything, we're all lucky as fuck. Especially me. Not to brag, but I'm surprised I ain't been so much as grazed by the shells.

I been hiding in a big wooden box like a damn rat for hours now. Military-grade paper's nice, got a nice smooth feel to it. Can't leave 'til the shells outside the door meander away, too much of them to take care of with a pocket knife and the giant wrench-looking shit. Guess I been out here long enough for my scent to kind of mix with theirs, 'cause I ain't been spotted yet. Yeah... I smell like a corpse now. Could be worse.

I'm gonna swipe this paper. Stuff it in my bra. Try not to think about that.