I wish it would have been a rat. Termites. Hell, I'd take bedbugs. Instead, we had a nameless thing, some undefined terror. These pests might take from you, things or drops of blood. But they leave you in tact. It's been months since we've moved, my roommate and I. But I haven't had a full nights sleep since. Nick is in a worse state than I, still medically recovering as well as mentally.

The evidence of its existence first showed and we thought it was a mouse. First in Nicks room we found a small hole. Then later in mine. Around the same time, we'd started developing a cough. We'd thought perhaps this was allergens from our new rodent friend. Nick's cough was particularly nasty. A phlegmy rattle sounding like a throat full of gravel and molasses. He complained of a sore throat.

"Probably shredded from the coughing," we agreed.

As my cough worsened, Nick developed crippling digestive issues. Starting as a cramps progressing to nights in the bathroom. I starting waking up with a raw throat. By now we'd ruled out mice or rats. We found droppings and searched them online, getting no results on the origins. More investigation for signs turned up little. We found no bites common to blood sucking pests, nor stolen food or damaged packaging.

Over all this time Nick and I were rapidly dropping weight. Nick especially looked gaunt, a dead man shambling through the apartment barely managing to work his remote job. He had to take multiple naps just to get through a day. I wasn't doing much better, but thought by now we both had something and I would be shortly behind.

By now we'd seen doctors, but the symptoms were lumped into influenza and we were supposed to check in if it worsened. The night Nick passed out walking to get water we decided it was time to go to urgent care in the morning. I'm still not sure if going to the ER then would have helped.

The same night I lay tossing and turning, trying to maintain at least a light sleep. But something kept stirring me awake. A ticking sound like long nails drumming a table. I strained to listen. At the time I thought, "finally I'll see this damn thing."

tiktiktik.

It was coming closer to the bed. It's limbs lightly tapping the wood floor.

tik tik... tik.

Some part of my brain stem knew the rhythm of threat, because adrenaline and fear shot through me and I snapped up in bed whipping around while pulling up my blanket in some mockery of a bull fighter; add that to the list of things I'd wish were there instead. My feet planted on the floor with two pitiful plops and I went to flip on my table light.

As I flipped on the light I saw movement towards the hole in my baseboard. I threw the blanket over and it covered the creature. It was going so fast it tangled into the blanket and rolled into a bundle of shrieking and flailing cloth. I come closer, hoping to bundle it into the blanket and somehow subdue it. But as I got closer I began to lose confidence. The shrieking and flailing seemed to slow with my approach. The heavy blanket had settled and some of it's shape stood apparent.

A slow leech-like undulation rippled through a large portion of the fabric, with tented cloth poking up in another. Before I could fully decide what to do, I heard a stomach turning gagging from Nick's room. Not caring if, or hoping that, this would disappear while I'm gone I slowly make way for my door.

Hearing or feeling this, the creature suddenly bursts from the blanket. I see an array of gleaming eyes streaking towards me in the low light of the lamp. I dodge blindly to the side as it narrowly misses me. I snap around where it has landed an arms reach from me, a blur of centipede like legs scuttle around a fleshy grey mass and strange antennae like eye stalks of some horrific crustacean spin with it. A long fleshly tail raises from the mass and waves. At the same time, the antennae bulge and something races up to the tip suddenly spraying a fine mist. As the mist spritzes I cover my face, burying it in my shoulder but I still smell an oder like ozone and burnt hair. I hear Nick gag again as I suddenly as my legs buckle. My vision began to tunnel and I could see the creature slowly closing the distance, the tiktiktik almost eager now.

I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, and remembered my lamp still close. I moved on my hands and reached for it swaying like a drunk, nearly knocking it off as I fumbled it off the desk. The creature's legs no longer tiktiktik. I feel them tugging on my sweatpants as it attempts to crawl on my legs towards my back. I let out a scream that comes out more like a moan, turn and bring the lamp down as hard as I can. It shrieks and retreats. I dash for the door and slam it.

I prop myself against the wall across from the door and look. Nick gags and moans again, but it sounds wrong. Bile rose in my throat as I realized it sounds like he's being smothered. As I process this, I begin to see the creature from my own room trying to squeeze under the crack of my door. Its cluser of eyes flattening to a row as it squeezes as a rat would through a pensized hole. I pull myself up and book it to Nicks room. Hoping to save him from whatever is happening.

I burst into the room and stop in shock. Nick was lying in his bed, his arms splayed out and blankets kicked off the bed in some nighttime throws. The creature was on his face. What was a raisin like body when I'd seen one in my room is engorged like a tick, throbbing along with the tail that lead into his mouth. I could see his stomach bulging, its contents being pumped. I could see cartoonishly round... gulps.. leaving his stomach up his throat and into the creature. The stalks fed into his nose as though they were some sort of hospital oxygen line. Near his trunk and pants leg, a line of mucus and blood ran a path down his leg, the bed, the floor and into the hole. I panic, grab the bat he keeps by the door and his phone. I use the emergency call feature. As I ramble to dispatch, Nicks door creeps open. I turn but before I can even lift the bat to strike I'm hit again with the mist.

My next memory is waking up in the hospital surrounded by hazmats and blindingly white plastic covered walls. Nick is in a bed across from me hooked into monitors and drips. We were interviewed about the creature. They took samples. Flushed our systems. Ran tests. They told us we'd get more information as soon as they do. The only things we learned were what were considered medically pertinent. We were both severely malnourished. Their current hypothesis is that it had been stealing our days' food while we slept. Apparently this type of parasitism is more common than most people realize, it's just been confined to the rest of the animal kingdom. Nick became a host, a culture had been planted deep in his small intestines to feed on more disgusted food...

I still have heard little back about it. But I have a feeling they know more now than they are willing to share with Nick and I. In my nursing work, I'd heard there's a new anesthetic entering the market.