This time I came on her birthday, and I’ve been here ever since. Let’s see, that was… three months ago now. I haven’t missed a day. I don’t take breaks. I work 18-24-hour shifts.

A neurologist diagnosed her about two years ago. The medicine helps for a little while, but not for long. She used to vomit and catch a fever. Now, she’s built up a tolerance to me. Some days she hides in the bathroom and cries her way through it, which makes me feel kind of special, you know. See, the rest of her body tells me that crying isn’t something she often does. I mean, think about it, me, of all things, making a strong woman cry. That’s something to be proud of. I am not ashamed of what I do.

Wait, a second. Don’t judge me. I don’t take pity or prisoners. It’s not in my nature. She is one in one billion. Imagine that. I can’t stop progress for one person. What about the other billion people who have to suffer through me or my kind? Is she any more deserving than they are?

Still, it’s interesting the way her mind works. Her thoughts are so free, so complex. They float around me like a swarm of geese rising from a foggy pond. I love sitting on the rolling hills of her brain to watch.

Sorry, I get carried away. Where were we? Ah, yes, my nature. Like the enemy, I come to steal, kill, and destroy. I steal her peace of mind. I kill her joy, and I destroy her sense of self-worth. “How,” you ask?

For each person, it’s different. This girl, in particular, her soul, moves to the sound of drums, and so that’s the sound I used to drive her insane. It goes something like boom, boom, boom. “No one loves you.” Boom. Boom. Boom. “No one will ever love you.” Boom. Boom. “You’ll die before you reach the end.”

I always get her with that one. She has this grand idea of love and an even grander idea of her purpose. My mission is to break that. No, I can’t let her live. I can’t let any of them live. That’s not my nature. I am the one and only migraine. She, she is just one in one billion.