September 16 - Rot
At the edge of the city there stands a man. He had a name once long ago, but it’s long since rotted away, so let’s simply call him the Doctor. The Doctor stands there, hesitating, as if some long-passed thought won’t let him enter this place. But he gets past it, and he crosses the boundary to the city. The moment he does, something changes in the air. The somewhat stale city air, already filled with smog and particulates, suddenly takes on a particularly rank flavor. A hint of the sick sweetness of rot, that sinus-purging unpleasantness that makes your stomach churn. It’s late at night, so few in the city notice, but the Doctor takes a deep breath to take a mouthful of the new aroma.
The Doctor takes a few more steps into the city, in the center of the sun-bleached asphalt. With every step, his feet sink slightly into the blacktop, well-used work boots pressing into the ground which rots before him. Every one of his steps leaves a track of sickly brown fluid down the middle of the road. His steps get more insistent, seemingly more comfortable in his half-sloughed skin and his decaying brown suit, more comfortable with the way the road before him rots away. Suddenly he veers away from the center of the road, determinedly strolling up to the house nearest to him. As he steps off the curb and onto the sidewalk, the curb crumbles and falls behind him, and then the grass on the parkway dies with every single one of his footsteps.
The Doctor strides up to the door, and gives it a knock. The knock makes a sound much like punching a slab of raw meat. He waits a moment, absentmindedly tapping his foot into the melting concrete of the front step, before the door opens up. A gaunt old woman opens up the door, the house behind her dry and dusty, as though all the life had been drained from the furniture inside. She looks at the Doctor, sees his melting skin and rotting eyes, smiles, and gives him a handshake, saying “I’ve been waiting for you, you know? But now, let’s have our fun.”