It hides in the dark, waiting, watching. It wants nothing more than to devour you, to eat you alive.

We’ve all met it before…in the dark, cobwebbed corners of our minds. Our subject does not kill all at once, at least, not all the time. No, instead it will pounce, taking one quick bite and pulling away with a piece of you in its teeth. You grasp halfheartedly for your lost treasure, but the animal has already stalked back into the shadows, your flesh and a bit of your life blood in its belly.

Then it waits for you to regain your strength, to feel safe again, to forget it ever existed. The fruit tastes best when harvested at its peak. Out of the blue, it strikes again. Then the cycle repeats.

You think you’ve escaped it, you think it’s all over now. But the vemon of the beast just sits in the base of your spine, waiting for fear to activate its poison.