It had never gotten this bad.

The Odio was something I lived with, something I put up with. Sure, it would bother me from time to time, rasping words of nonsense and sometimes banging on the walls. It liked to sleep under my bed, and that would get to me too. But it always kept its distance.

I used to see it as a child. Children don’t quite know fear, and I remember playing with it. It would push me on the swings, and when Mom made lunch, I would ask for a second sandwich for my friend. She thought all kids had imaginary friends, and the Odio was no different; a figment.

But even after I moved out of the house, it had followed me. I used to think that invisibility was impossible, but the Odio didn’t show for years. It was a ghost. It moved things in my home and would scare me half to death when it decided to take a stroll in and out of my room at three in the morning, making sure to make my door creak loudly.

I hadn’t seen its face for a long time. But then something set it off. And it came for me.