The Spot

The spot had been on the ceiling above Molly’s bed for as long as she had lived in her apartment, possibly longer than even those three years.

It had not been a problem before, as it was always only dime-sized, and barely a few shades dark. Molly had even felt a sort of kinship with it, as they were both things that stood out against the monotony of life. But that was before she had decided to move.

Suddenly, the spot had become a stubborn nuisance. When she showed it to her staging agent, the agent turned her nose up at it, and said that it must be checked for mold, and then, if it was fine, painted over.

Well, Molly thought, it had never grown in all the time she’d been there, and it never got any darker, so surely it wasn’t mold. She decided to just paint it over and be done with it. So she brought out her paints and dragged the wet brush over the popcorn ceiling, and soon she was finished, and the spot was gone. She was a little forlorn, as it cemented for her the idea of leaving that place forever. But after a glass of wine and a movie she felt better, and went to sleep.

That night she had the strangest dream. There stood Molly, in her painting clothes, with a knife in hand. And there before her trembled a white rabbit. Only… it wasn’t really white. No, she had painted it that way. But that wouldn’t do, to only be painted white. No, you had to be the real thing or it just wouldn’t work. What wouldn’t work? She didn’t know, only knew that she had to kill the white rabbit.

She woke disturbed. What an awful, awful dream. She got up and walked to the bathroom to brush her teeth. As she rinsed off her toothbrush, she noticed it: underneath her fingernails was white plaster. She stared, confused. Then the thought occurred to her to check where the spot had been.

There it was, except it wasn’t dime-sized anymore. It had grown to be as large as her fist, and much darker than before.

Maybe it was mold, after all, Molly thought. She tried not to think about why she’d scratched off the paint in the night. Instead she called Leola Mold Pros, and scheduled them to come inspect the spot later that day.

When they arrived, they had little to say as they investigated. They assured her that it was not, in fact, mold. Likely just a stain from something or another. They offered no explanation as to its growth, only shared a look that said, “Sure lady, it grew.” They billed her and left.

Molly lay on her bed and stared at the spot. It was positioned above her head when she slept at night, and she must have seen it every night as she went to sleep, but as she tried, she could only remember a handful of times where she’d actually taken notice of it.

She painted over it once more, and went about her errands. When she went to bed that night she watched it. She tried to burn the memory of the spot into her mind, but it kept slipping away. All that remained was the white of the ceiling.

That night she dreamed again of the white rabbit. She knelt to slit its throat, and its eyes went red and it bit her. She drew back her hand, and examined it. Instead of blood, there crawled a black spot along her palm, growing as the one in her room had.

She jumped back and tried desperately to shake it off, but the spot stuck, and she began to cry. The rabbit joined her.

She woke frightened. Above her it rested, now the size and shape of her head.

Hello. It seemed to whisper. Molly grasped at her blankets, drawing them close. The spot said nothing else, only seemed to watch her. She did not sleep the rest of the night.

As the days turned to weeks turned to months, Molly saw the spot grow. She tried other ways to cover it, contact paper, plaster, anything she could think of, but it always returned. Potential buyers were turned off by the shape of it, which began to resemble that of a woman.

One evening, as Molly lay awake, she was sure it reached forward to her, dark hand outstretched to strangle her, but it never connected.

On the night of the end, Molly had been on the phone with her brother before bed. When he asked if she was alright (he could see over FaceTime the bags beneath her eyes and the grayish pallor of her skin), she almost told him of the Spot. But when she looked over to it, it seemed to hold a finger where lips would have been.

Hush…

And so she reassured him that it was only the stress from the move, and that she really was fine. They ended the call, and she sat at the table for a little while, watching the spot in the reflection of her black screen. She watched it as it climbed down from the ceiling, crawled over her bed, and stood into the doorway and watched her back.

Finally, after she could no longer bear the foreboding weight in the pit of her stomach, she turned to look at it.

It was gone before her eyes, and she wept.

As she readied for bed that night, she knew. Maybe not all of her, but a part of her knew she was at the edge of the world, with nowhere to run. It would all be over soon.

She brushed her teeth and hair, put on her softest pajamas, and fuzziest socks. She wrote a text to her mother, but didn’t press send. Finally she slid beneath the covers, and rested on her back, staring up at it.

Hello, dear girl. It spoke.

“Hello.” Molly answered, and it didn’t feel odd.

Have you nothing more to say? It asked. Anything to say in regards to your crimes against us?

“I’m sorry,” Molly whispered. “I should have let you be.”

Yes. You should have let us, and we would not have bloomed. But now we have, and now we must become. You understand, don’t you?

She nodded, and closed her eyes and held her breath.

This time, when the Spot reached out for her neck, it made purchase, and wrapped its dark tendrils around her throat and tightened. Molly began to gasp and claw at the Spot, but her fingers went right through it. She choked out a quiet, “Please!” But it made no difference. Eventually, the light left her eyes, and her hands fell limply to her chest.

The next morning, something rose from Molly’s bed. It brushed her teeth and combed her hair, and dressed her body for the day. When it was finished it looked at itself in the mirror and smiled, pleased with its work.

“And so, we have become.”