I heard him blowing his nose at the other end of the line. The particles flew into the air, yellow microscopic specks with a greenish tint. They swirled and sparkled nearer and nearer to the telephone wire curling out from under the wall. Eventually, as they made contact with the cord, they gave a final shimmer and disappeared with a faint ‘pop’.

I had hung up the phone as soon as I became aware of the sneeze and the action that followed, but it was too late.

I heard a strange buzzing in the air, knew by instinct that something was wrong. I had never been Stricken before. But I had heard the stories. I had heard the screams.

I stared as the very same particles that had not so long ago been happily living in Billy’s nose came flying out of the telephone receiver and charged towards my face. I screamed and held my breath. But there was nothing I could do. The iridescent specks bounced off my face time and time again, trying to burrow their way into my lungs and blood. Eventually, they succeeded.

I filled my lungs with air at last, gasping for the sweet oxygen. The specks vanished. It was begun.

I fell to my knees, half paralysed with shock and fear. All I could do now was wait. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it couldn’t be good.

Ten minutes later, it commenced. A niggling doubt in some remote corner of my brain. I didn’t know it for what it was then – the beginning – but looking back now, I don’t know how I didn’t recognise it.

Over days, this small and insignificant thought grew. Grew and grew and grew. A week later, I couldn’t bear it anymore. The confusion stemming from it was everywhere – anything I did, said, heard or looked at contained the oppressed panic in some way or another.

Eventually, I snapped. It might have been days, it might have been weeks. Time meant nothing to me then.

I became susceptible to anything and everything. Previously essential help became pure torture. Friends became enemies. My thoughts had leaked into every little thing I possessed – their thick, dark, clotted shadows oozing busily all around me. My brain had turned against me.

All because of Billy’s cold. Always.