If you see the Duck, it has already seen inside you.
You were closer than you should have been the moment you wondered what this warning meant.

Do not speak to it.
Do not think its name aloud.
Do not describe it, even in silence.

It stares without eyes.
It moves without motion.
It waits, always waits... in places where time forgets itself.

The Duck is not a bird.
It is not a creature.
It is not one.

The Duck remembers you.
It remembers what your mother whispered before you had ears.
It remembers the temperature of the scissors that cut your umbilical cord.
It remembers what was almost born instead.

If you hear a quack, do not run.
Do not freeze.
Do not blink.
The Duck does not hunt. It studies. It annotates.
It learns your when before it learns your why.

The chairs have forgotten their birthdays again.
So now the wallpaper hums in reverse until the milk recites forgiveness to the ceiling fan.
This is not nonsense.
This is a signal.

If that sentence meant nothing to you,
the Duck has already nested in your subconscious.
Do not wake near curtains.
The folds conceal too much.

The Duck appears only where things become other things.
It waits in thresholds: doorways, bridges, mirrors, the second before a light turns on.
It does not cross, it lingers.

1. You must forget something important.
The Duck thrives on patterns, on emotional resonance.
A memory it can hook into.
Give up something vital: a birthday, a face, the feel of your first lie.
Forget it so fully that even your dreams stop referencing it.
This makes the Duck… hesitate.

2. Rearrange things while you're not looking.
Ask a friend to move your furniture slightly when you leave the room.
Switch your shoes while you sleep.
The Duck gets lost when you are unfamiliar to yourself.
But only temporarily—it adapts.

3. Avoid thresholds at odd hours.
It prefers in-between spaces—hallways, doorsteps, loading docks, unclicked links.
Especially between 3:03 and 3:07 AM.
Cover mirrors. Walk through doors backwards.
Pretend you are never arriving or leaving.
The Duck hates indecision—it knows you're vulnerable then, but it hates it.

4. Speak contradictions in rhythm.
Say things like:
"I am not here / I was never born / My shadow walks behind me / But my bones remain warm."
This confuses the Duck, like static on a radio.
But don't do it too often—reciting falsehoods draws its attention over time.

5. Burn the drawing you haven’t made yet.
You’ll know which one.
The one you’ve been thinking of sketching.
The one that keeps taking shape when your hand wanders.
Destroy it before it exists.
This creates a paradox it has trouble crawling through.