Archive of Our Own ^beta

     Stepping through the double-doors – one of a few sets leading outside - the bright lights of the cinema lobby transitioned to the bleak darkness of clear night when I emerged outside. I felt an unmistakable shiver up my spine as soon as the inescapable cold struck my senses, penetrating the light-grey zipped-up jacket covering my torso and dark-grey jeans surrounding my lower half, ruffling my messy head of black hair. I had been the last to leave the auditorium, staying inside the building for a short while as the individuals I sat with during the movie went their own way or formed groups, standing around the lobby to discuss what they had just seen, sharing their thoughts on it in such a naturalistic fashion as though it were all automatic. Between friends, colleagues, and family, it seemed that each person remaining inside as I left had someone they could talk to, someone that they could be with and share what was on their mind. Even if it had to do with the filmed experience they had all shared together, concluding mere moments ago. Everyone had a place to go as I stood off to the side, watching the scene play out as though it were preordained, standing alone as the odd one out, disappearing into the scene itself. I was the lone theatregoer who had much to say, yet had no one to say anything to. Before the pangs of isolation could truly suffocate me, I made my way to the exit, shakily breathing in the cold air as I promptly began to take my first steps outside.

     Once again, it had been another night of unbridled loneliness, spending my time out and enjoying the little interests that tried to ignite feeling in my frayed soul. As I typically did when venturing out, I chose to visit another cinema, to try and immerse myself in yet another world that felt far distant and perhaps even better than the one I was stuck in. With every other time before it, seeing another film in a different venue than usual, while initially sparking emotion within me – of seeing a new locale and different people - died down in due time. Tonight, however, it felt nearly nonexistent, as though I sat in an empty, enormous room for three hours and felt nothing. In the faintest sense, it reminded me of home. No matter how many people I find myself in the midst of, whether in sharing an experience of supposed lingering emotion or in the most general of public spaces, where opportunities for connection are no longer viable, I felt just as isolated as I did on my own. There was no sense of belonging, no sense of connections being made, despite the yearning for such breaking me down overtime. I perceived myself as unnoticed and unrecognized, seemingly my fate until the end of my time, wandering this world invisibly so, seldom recognized and far removed from the rest of the beings surrounding me.

     The sounds of my shoes skimmed against the dirtied concrete sidewalk, being the main form of noise that reached my ears. Everything else around me, from the verbal speaking of passersby, the cars that drove along the road, and other distant sounds came and went, yet all seemed faint to me. I carried on walking the streets of downtown, surrounded by buildings letting out cold, towering intimidation from their stances, with only my shadow as my sole accompaniment, while rows of streetlights projected down their yellow glow onto me; trying to instill a sense of bright enlightenment. They covered me in their lights, attempting to warm my cold, touch-starved form across the harsh shadows that remained between their intermittent positions. I was supposed to get back to the closest station, to take me back to a home of reclusiveness and mixed emotions. It was already late into the night, with the moon beaming down onto everyone and everything below, yet I chose to take my time in heading back, basking in the true independence that I felt some measure of during my time out; untethered just as prominent.

     Walking along several city blocks, my exhaling breath visible from the low temperatures around, my mind went back to its silly little trickery, further instilling the thoughts that often roamed it. Across my existence, I slowly started to see the world in a never-ending devolving state, the likes of which disillusioned me, not wanting to accept what I was expected to fall in line with like every other individual. It didn’t help that it felt as though my life ended before it could truly begin, at the hands of other humans of both personal and far-distant connections, collectively leading us to where we are now, and myself in a ravine of refusal and unacceptance. Having emerged from what I had been through, across social, societal, familial, and so-called reality-based means, I felt like an exponential shell of what I could have been; of what I once was. Now, I wanted no part in it anymore. The need to flee this devolving place became commonplace within my mind, knowing that I could not lose the shred of distinct being that lingered by pledging myself to a neglectful and unfulfilling fate.

     My memory felt barren, repression and loss no longer feeling separate within me. The exiting from adolescence felt eons behind where I currently walked, lingering in my own, endless purgatory that had worn me out. Deep-down, I believed in the need to descend and escape from this very plane of existence. I no longer wanted to push through from the irrevocable conditions I found myself in, using these nights of escape and reprieve to try and feel something otherwise. Of all the thoughts that swirled in my head, it was the ones of company that caused holes to appear through the impalement of my heart. From where my thoughts and feelings had gotten me into, companionship was all that I ever truly yearned for. But for as long as I could remember, all I had to keep me company was my shadow, following my every trace wherever I went, ensuring that I would never be on my own. In this unending noise of detrimental thinking, one final thought made its way to the surface of my skull, myself nearly choking from happiness as the words to it formed: If I were to shed my skin and enter a new one, I would feel truly free from this wretched place.

     BZZZZZZZRRT!!!

     Breaking away from my spiraling train of thought, I heard the loud, sudden sound of buzzing static in an alleyway to my right, sputtering at first as though it had been birthed unto the world. Its stark appearance in the middle of the subdued nighttime air of downtown caused me to look up and freeze, leading me to look all around my surroundings. Not a single other human stood nearby, my eyes seeing only city scenery and those bright, angelic streetlights hovering over me in their fixed positions. The sound persisted, myself unable to precisely determine its source from where I stood, for its frenzied release of static projected itself with a volume that seemed far heightened than any other noise around me, no matter how near or far they were. This audible presence magnified itself through unseen means, alarming my senses as I looked over at the alleyway to my right; a dozen feet wide with two structures on each side of it. Like an ominous fork in the road, I stood before the rest of the continuing sidewalk, with the alluring alley branching off from it, staring at me, slowly beckoning and pulling me towards it as static invisibly emanated from it.

     Swallowing my fear to the best of my ability, letting pure curiosity take the helm, I began to turn myself towards the alley, taking a series of sturdy steps into it. With each movement made against the paved ground, my mind was overcome with a growing sense of confoundedness, hearing the noise grow louder as I approached it, yet its source remained invisible to my eyes. Its paradoxical nature only persisted as I progressed into the heart of the alleyway – a faint source of light from one of the nearby streetlights managing to reach as far out as the many steps I walked into it from the sidewalk. By the time I made my way into this beast’s proverbial belly, the sound had amplified itself, encircling me with harsher tones and boosted volume, practically screeching at me while attracting no other attention, as though it only reached my ears and inflicted itself upon my senses. My heart skipped a beat, pounding frantically as the seemingly-innocuous action I chose to take overwhelmed me, the static intensifying, swirling around me in an unbreakable loop, crippling my sense of hearing as I stood, my legs beginning to feel weak from this unending onslaught.

     I let out a series of low grunts, every one of them washed out by the awful sound of static as I had no choice but to cover my ears, using each of my palms to tightly seal both respective orifices. I closed my eyes in tandem, hoping for this bizarre occurrence to pass while I stood still for a short duration. The pulsating of my heart echoed through my internal walls of flesh and bone, vibrating in my head as much as the static that persisted in its efforts. I tried to slow down my breathing, hoping to relax it by some measured semblance, but the sound of crunchy static carried on, changing pitch as though it came from a radio being tuned to the proper station. This unofficial stalemate commenced for numerous seconds, coming across as an eternity for myself and the dread that encompassed my form. Sooner or later, though before a full minute could pass, I started to sense a throbbing sensation from my head, worse than any headache or migraine I had ever endured. Still doing my best to stay standing amidst the unfolding chaos, I could have sworn I felt warm liquid slowly ooze out from my ears, feeling the same liquid temperature begin to coat my palms. Before letting more time pass, I knew I needed to see what was going on.

     As I fearfully removed my hands from the sides of my head, facing the piercing noise head-on, I discovered two near-circular bloodstains; one on each palm. Their bright red complexion glowed in the dim light above me, which began to flicker to my added-on surprise. Still bearing the crushing blow of this unnatural headache, I turned around in a staggered motion of footsteps to face the street, witnessing every streetlight outside of the alley flicker all at once. As they briefly dunked the street in and out of darkness, the sounds of static became further distorted, screeching higher and lower in pitch in interference from the lights and their disruptive nature. Soon enough, the flickering appeared to subside on its own, allowing the area to regain its beams of light, including the alley where I stood. Seeing this pass in due time, I turned back around to the alley, being met with a startling sight, no matter its small appearance. Sitting on the cracked pavement, a cathedral radio greeted me, saying not a word as its station changed on its own accord, the dial on its front moving without any clear contact made with it. I flinched, taking a sudden step back from its startling manifestation. Without coming any closer, I eyed the ancient equipment, noting its near-century-old composition, comprised of a wooden dark brown exterior. Where its speaker should have been instead bore a bright striking red, glowing stronger than any of the streetlights behind, bathing me in its colour akin to a spotlight right in front of me.

     Simultaneous to its sudden presence, it became clear that the radio was the source of the same static plaguing my senses, pouring out of its components, assaulting me head-on with its sound. With its origin becoming visible to my eyes, it doubled-down on its output, spewing the awful sound and covering me in its audibly ear-splitting grain, forcing myself to cover my ears again. My teeth found themselves gritting upon each other, doing so as the static forced its way inside me, penetrating my sense of hearing despite my defenses. Blood continued dripping from my ears, droplets falling through the air and splashing onto the ground below, two tiny puddles on each side of where I stood. My firm stance against the ground began to buckle, my body swaying slightly – back and forth, side to side – the firm use of my legs wavering from the grating noise as my eyes darted around, trying to make any semblance of sense from this ongoing ordeal of unnatural occurrence. Without turning around, I noticed the streetlights flickering again from behind, crunchy static interfering with it for a second time, hastily altering from high to low pitch frequencies. I could not bring myself to turn around a second time as I had mere seconds earlier, finding my lower limbs numb to the control that my brain once granted. I tried to force myself to move one foot before the other, but all that granted me was an increase in the radio’s volume and a sudden slip of my foot against the pavement, sending me down onto it, right before the radio.

     In tune with an especially loud emission from the devilish radio before me, the loud sheen of static corroded my ears, sending me into physical and mental anguish as I collapsed onto my knees, hitting the dirty, brittle ground beneath where I just stood. Upon them bashing against the sturdy surface, I fell forward again, nearly toppling onto my torso and face if not for my hands, instinctively removing them from the gushing blood they protected with ultimate futility, the stains upon my palms having engulfed them entirely. With as much quick thinking as I could conjure, I planted both palms onto the ground, now on my hands and knees, head hanging low, bowing before this mysterious radio. I could not fathom my stance in its current position, breath heaving intensely in the torment of my body and mind breaking down - more than it had ever done before in the face of this infernal radio spewing its red spotlight and screeching upon me.

     Barely able to retain my strength, static piercing me in every which way, my joints began to twitch and my muscles convulse, blood boiling from within my walls of skin. I nearly buckled inward, fully dropping onto the ground if not for some innate endurance that lingered within me, keeping me on my hands and knees. Whether it was of some bare willpower of my own or an outside influence of invisible origins, I could not tell. The increasing intensity of my blood’s temperature bubbled inside my flesh and bones, such internal movements reflecting on the outside of my body, with skin bulging all over me. Unable to hold it all in, I was forced to let out my ongoing pain, taking the form of loud, unrestricted screams, pulsating through my overwhelmed hearing and into the nearby area. A bare sliver of my being had belief that I would be discovered; that someone would come out and either get a better look as to what that godforsaken noise was all about, or to try and help a disillusioned soul as I. Despite such a thought, the primary question, doubling as a counterthought, rose in my weighed-down brain as this persisted: What human in their right mind would come and help me? To them, I was a shrieking banshee, unable to stop myself from putting the agony coursing through my innermost being into unending sound, echoing through the streets and absorbing into the houses, buildings, and complexes nearby. No one would dare risk themselves to help me: A small, miniscule fraction from the ceaseless sea of endless humans.

     Without realizing it, my pain-induced cries briefly gave out as I still screamed, silence lasting only a few seconds, granting me the briefest of reprieve from my unfathomable ordeal. Coming back in place of them was a sea of sound that was never meant to fall out of a human’s tongue. My screams no longer sounded human. They had shifted inorganically, much like the strong tugging feelings in my throat and voicebox, resulting in a brief outward protrusion from the former, emitting nothing but radio static in the same manner as one would upchuck the undigested contents of their stomach. The crackling sound poured from my maw, my head barely finding the strength to look up, only to be met with a sight stranger than everything else that had occurred thus far. Forming and circulating the radio and I, the static took on a visible form – scrambled grey matter that fell from both it and my mouth - floating into the nearby air to swirl around us, its remnants lingering all over the alley; static everywhere. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but with everything else going on with and within me, it could not have been anything remotely close to a trick of the senses.

     With my voice glazed in radio static, it continued emitting from within me, feeling the prolonged jolts and convulsions affecting every part of my form, my nerves electrified with agony. Writhing on the ground while on my hands and knees, I could feel my internal temperature reach a critical point of intense heat, wondering if my blood would melt through my body and pool onto the ground where I knelt. Before I could realize it, however, I felt every bone, every muscle, every inch of skin, let out a loud crackle of radio static, penetrating my eardrums, bewildering me from the mere idea that my physical form itself seemed to emit static on top of its other sources, thus leading me further down this descent into distortion. Barely lifting my shaking hands from their planted positions, raising my torso a small extent from its bent-over state, I discovered the bloodstains that had stuck onto my palms were turning darker, forming thick, pitch-black stains that spread across my entire hands, strong heat emanating from them, almost ready to burn through the flesh below. Their coverage stopped at my wrists, extending along them like thin blots of ink, these appendages of mine changing in this manner as though something dark festered from the stains, shattering their once-normal properties and converting them into something inhuman.

     Both palms slammed back onto the ground, unable to stay upward for long in this droning pain as my torso bent back down, my entire self quivering from unnatural harm. Simultaneously, two dense trails of pure black blood began to ooze from my eyes like tears, staining my face as these streams descended each side of it, dense drops slowly joining the puddles below. All the while, a small trace of the same substance appeared from the corner of my stretching smile – uncontrollable as I remained in place - its very taste stimulating, keeping me conscious despite a hollowing sensation growing internally. From there, blood began to ooze from between my teeth, the composition of all these streams being far thicker than that of human blood. The dim overhead streetlight beaming down on me firmly showcased its sickly-black complexion, but I hardly reacted to it; too focused on the enrapturement of pain to realize the change. I never felt such emptiness before, feeling the substance leak out from me. Yet it persisted, feeling myself enter a paradoxical state of being drained and still conscious. Whether due to this persisting blood-loss or other mysterious means, my tan-coloured skin began to wash away, being replaced by a far-paler complexion that made me appear withered and ghoulish. The colouration rapidly spread across my body from top to bottom, leaving no inch of skin the same as it was before in only a matter of seconds.

     My head of messy black hair began to shift on its own accord, a good portion of which fell to the ground from being invisibly cut. Every strand remaining adjusted itself in a similar manner, fashioning into a different style as my vision stayed obliviously focused on the pooling mass of blood and hair beneath me, converging together into a hazardous formation. The bulk of the hair on my head’s top took on a shorter appearance, covering much of my forehead while being brushed to the side. On my head’s sides, however, the hair that normally surrounded my ears and formed short sideburns grew and lengthened considerably, hanging down to where they nearly reached my chin. Right before they could cover my ears, a fresh jolt of pain hit me on both sides of my head, as if I had been shot twice there. I grimaced as both ears receded into my head, submerging deep into my skull where they no longer took any physical form upon my body. In a swift instant, I could not sense their presence on my form anymore, hearing nothing for several seconds aside from the same radio static spilling out of me, granting me no escape. Replacing my ears, two fluffy, hair-based protrusions of bright red and dark black began to push and bulge from the tops of my head; each one sticking out by at least several inches, becoming my new source of hearing as it too shifted about. Suddenly, I no longer heard from the sides of my head, but from the top. The sounds to which welcomed my new place of hearing was nothing more than the same static that let out from me, melding with my screams to form one united amalgamation of repulsive audio.

     Between these animalistic ears, a pair of antlers promptly sprouted, each one breaking through my skull and out my skin, black blood leaking from my head. They emerged as tall as my new fluffy protrusions, their ends splitting off into long U-shaped extensions before halting in growth. While my ears were replaced with a foreign pair, my hair finished lengthening, promptly dying through mystifying means. Almost all of its black colouration on each strand – intertwined with a scattering of silver ones – converted into the same bright red as my new ears, only sparing the couple of inches of hair hanging at the sides and back of my head, cut inward by the same amount to form a series of flapping protrusions that brushed my pale skin. Amid it all, I could only stay fastened to the ground, my insides flaring up like the fires of Hell itself boiling, the skin atop my torso moving about as though it were a bubbling cauldron. Nothing was spared as I was forced to feel every shift, contortion, and protrusion that my once-feeble form made. Intermittent darting of my eyes revealed the nasty sight that continued, seeing my body bulge and twist around internally, pushing my skin outwards in nearly every varying direction across my torso and limbs, as though a swarm of insects had invaded me from within. I could no longer command my body how I wanted to, leaving me unable to try and alleviate these internal shifts of mine, rendering me to whatever fate I was well on my way to meet.

     Red-tipped claws grew at the ends of my fingers, the colour spreading on each digit’s upper half, emerging as pointed ends with vast power. They contrasted heavily against the visceral black that inked the rest of my hands down to my wrists. Sharpness presented itself immediately from these altered digits, evident from the instinctive dragging of my hands toward me, scratching against and leaving long marks imbedded into concrete. Cracks formed against the ground as well, my hands pushing against it, trying to keep me from fully collapsing onto it. At the very bottom of my physique, both feet contorted from within my shoes, flesh from the toes and much of the appendages merging together, leaving me without any. In their places, two growths pulsated out from where the upper halves of my feet once were, feeling hard and rigid as opposed to the soft flesh that was once there. This unknown mass proceeded to push against the tips of my shoes, the material bulging outward, struggling to hold in what formed inside until it tore open, creating a rounded hole from split material. There, tapping against the concrete in their stark forms, a pair of hooves – as red as my ears and hair – blossomed into prominence. Directly underneath them showed hints of my feet coloured akin to my darkened hands and wrists. The bulky, pointed appendages stretched out from their once-confining places within my footwear, growing a few inches longer until they stopped, fully developed upon a physical mixture of human and inhuman traits.

     Deep into this ordeal, a sudden pang of strength ran through me, a sensation powerful than anything I had ever felt before. Feeling resolve to break free from the pain engulfing me, I pushed myself off the ground, first with my sharpened digits, followed by using my knees and all four limbs. As I stood back up, the sudden awareness of my altered feet startled me, looking down in my hazy vision scattered with static to see bright red and pitch-black appendages instead. Unable to get a clear look at them while stumbling from standing on them for the first time, my legs buckled inward, leading me to fall back down. Too late to use my hands and cushion the impact, I fell directly onto the front of my body, my arms stretched outward, back in front of the glowing radio. My face smashed against the concrete as I let out a grunt – landing in the pile of blackened blood and hair, the sound of impact obscured by swirling static. Pressing hard into my face, the sharp cracking sound of a broken nose and its fresh bending echoed into my senses. In its wake, a gush of pitch-black blood poured out from it, adding to both the puddle that nearly blended into the cracked concrete below, and the number of orifices leaking the same substance.

     My head turned to its side, still laying against the concrete as I tilted it upward, the mystic radio’s ethereal glow reflecting upon my pale face. I tried to move where my intact feet once were, hoping to disregard the bewildering sight of their alterations, but no such movement was sensed. Only the blind flailing of hooves tapping against the city soil made itself known, the sound nearly submerging in the cesspool of static inflicting my ears. All the while, my body continued warping, walking a fine line between human and animalistic. A fluffy, stubby, yet sizeable deer-tail sprouted from behind me, breaking through the top end of my jeans right upon the lower end of my back. In its formation, the newly-birthed appendage sported a distinct pattern of colours upon it: Red, with strokes of black and white at its tip and along its sides. A quick glance back in my distressed state of mind gave me the immediate thought that there was no other being in this world with a bodily feature as that, let alone any of the other vast shifts commencing all over me. Soon enough, it began to absentmindedly twitch on its own, sticking out from the smooth skin right above my behind.

     Just as my head turned back from glimpsing this tail, a sharp throb of pain pulsated from my core, echoing like waves across the innards of my body. A cascading cacophony of guttural, tearing sounds echoed from inside me, rendering me unable to move as my form continued to pulsate, intensifying with each one until reaching a threshold of no return. I felt my hooves and hands being grabbed by an unseen force, barely lifting me above the ground as they tugged and pulled on all four limbs. Going unseen by my eyes, breathing heavily at the same time, I felt myself slowly being stretched thinner – my spine pulled considerably longer - while inexplicably shedding whatever semblance of body weight lingered inside me. All of that mass vanished in the blink of an eye, sucked out of my body through unseen means, rendering my skin saggy and overstretched for a brief duration before being corrected in the midst of being stretched taller. As it went on, my attire did not stretch, exposing more of my pale complexion from my stomach to my lower legs and arms, no longer being able to cover my lanky form. Most prominently, an unnaturally elongated, shriveled-up torso manifested, sporting next-to-no visible width or mass along my stomach. These unseen appendages added more onto my already-considerable height, making me surpass the average length of a human to become something far taller.

     From here, more of my body contorted all over, the snaps and crackles of shifting bones and rearranging organs driving my mind to the wildest brink of insanity. I feverishly twitched in this held-up state, uncontrollable in this unending pit of anguish. In tandem, my entire being grew larger in scale, outgrowing the size of any human on this plane. Deep grunts released from between my smiling teeth, my body sensing every part of me taking on new, altered proportions. The roundness of my head disintegrated, crushed inward as it was melded into a new shape. In its place came a thinner formation, my chin stretching out into a pointed end. Lanky and triangular proportions graced my body, distorting me beyond what I had endured up to this point. Opposite to my rail-thin torso, my chest contorted outward, taking on an angular appearance while both shoulders were molded into pointed mounds, sharp edges that could cut like a blade. My neck stretched longer, inches instantly added to it, propelling my head further upward. It bent to the right, forcing my head to tilt in that very direction. Following suit, all four of my limbs underwent similar lengthening, the withering flesh in them now barely taking up any space inside the sleeves of my shrunken jacket and legs of my jeans.

     All of my fingers stretched outward, each joint and chunk cracking and bending in a zig-zagged manner as they were made longer and thinner in a mere matter of seconds. Even the claws that came into existence atop them grew alongside them, turning into far more formidable weaponry of the body, able to slice and wound as they pleased. My back reflected the outward triangular shape of my chest and nonexistent width of my midsection, spine pushing against the skin from inside me, its increasingly-exposed state staring up at the night sky. With this distortion of my proportions and scale came the loss of my clothes, no longer able to clothe the inhuman form I now bore. None of it could linger on my enlarged, skinny body any longer, promptly tearing off of me bit by bit. Both jacket and shirt tore into tatters, accompanied by jeans that once fit me well. The remains of my socks and shoes burst off my enlarged hooves, while my pocketed possessions revealed themselves. In no time at all, scraps of fabric and miscellaneous items fell onto concrete, scattered across the nearby alleyway, some of them falling into the growing puddle of blood and hair. In the wake of their destruction came the full exposure of my naked body, showing off the entirety of my altered skin tone as I felt myself fall back onto the ground, having been stretched to the intended limits of those invisible hands.

     Having lost nearly every physical aspect of my appearance - bestowed with an onslaught of new features - there was still the matter of my face that remained the same, albeit not for much longer. With my head laying on its side, my bent neck greatly titling it to the right, I could not bear witness to my face’s distinct restructuring, sensing its features shift and mold into something far removed from human expression; my senses coming in and out of focus from its transformation and the continual misery reverberating all over me. My nose straightened itself with a resounding crack, the sound of shifting bone impacting me like being bashed in that very spot. The blood pouring from its once-broken state ceased, its remnants having dried underneath where it ran upon my skin, across and around my lips and down my sharpened chin. I let out another groan from the feature fixing itself as it then shrank in size, forming a petite, pointed nose that raised itself closer to my eyes, making room for what was to come. My eyes and their sockets enlarged themselves, at least doubling in their quick pursuit of taking up more space upon my face than they ever did before. Their hazel colouration and the pure white surrounding them were swiftly replaced with red eyes and thin, black, vertically oval-shaped pupils, both circular irises a brighter red compared to the maroon and burgundy plaguing both my scleras and eyelids respectively; the pair of striking colours washing over them much like my skin had in taking on its paler appearance.

     Throughout it all, no matter how hard I tried, I could not stop smiling. A fixated grin firmly inhabited my face, nearly every tooth showing across every step of this utter distortion I unwillingly experienced. Once the rest of my face settled down into their new attributes and proportions, including a set of slight bags under my eyes, I felt my mouth being tightly pulled as though it were being remodeled, horrifically stretching into a wicked smile: A curved, triangular shape that took up over half the space of my face. Immediately following it, every single one of my teeth twitched and throbbed, practically pulsating before they too underwent their own changes. Every single one of them – from the very front to hiding all the way at the back of my mouth – grew larger, their square formations reshaping themselves into severely-pointed triangles. Both top and bottom sets were enlarged by over thrice their former selves, all while their glowing white complexion faded away, swapped out for a rotten yellow with the same shine that gold possessed, leaving no tooth the same as it was before. As if being forced into the smile I carried across the brunt of this ordeal proved strenuous, the widened rows of large yellow teeth nearly curving around my entire face – my mouth’s ends as high up as my eyes – brought exponential agony to the permanent expression deeply carved into my appearance, forced to grin with no way to stop or even swap it at all.

     Still laying against the cold floor with intense internal temperature, scars of immense lengths began to deeply embed themselves into the skin all over my body, leaving no singular part of it unscathed. At least, from what remained relatively close to the normalcy I once possessed. Once they all made their literal marks upon my form, a small X-shaped scar carved itself into the centre of my forehead, forever embedded upon my flesh, slicing into it with a quick frenzy. It was with this final incision that led to the gradual easing of my inflicted pain, the sight and sound of swirling static dying down simultaneously. As both slowed down, so too did my breathing, its ragged nature falling into a more relaxed rate, all while realizing that it sounded different, my purely organic voice no longer present. Now, none of my former traits in size, stature, and mass were left intact by this unholy transformation, leaving me with thin, enlarged, and greatly-exaggerated proportions from head to toe.

     As firm consciousness was regained, free from the torment that inflicted every part of it and my physicality, I began to stand up, pushing both boney hands and their claws into the ground to help me get back up. After a few trembles in doing so, I stood back up, this time firmly on two hooves instead of human feet. I embodied the very essence of escape and rebirth before my eyes, staring down at what I had become with help from the larger, accumulated puddle of blackened blood beneath me, displaying a full reflection of my altered face and head. Both beaming eyes of glowing red widened from this frightening sight, glued to them for several stern seconds before breaking free and proceeding on. Despite the trouble I stumbled onto with these new hooves, I managed to stay upright upon them, my longer legs subtly quivering as I looked down at myself. At eight feet tall, I had the form of a giant in this world; now a plane that I truly had no place in. I observed the plethora of exterior traits that morphed into exaggerated ones, raising my scar-riddled arms out in front of me, tilting my head and realizing how much my neck bent to the side, alongside my flopping ears. From top to bottom, I sported dangling arms and sharpened claws, a tall stature and slender legs, a triangular pair of shoulders in addition to a chest of similar sharpness, minimal mass all across my slender torso and every limb, a pointed chin and fluffy ears of red and black, antlers that stuck out between them, a head of frizzled hair reminiscent of both ears - permeating with a strange neatness, topped off with large crimson eyes and an ever-present smile of bright, alluring yellow. Forming a panicked look with my glowing eyes, both clawed, elongated digits of mine felt this frozen smile with an everlasting warmth, pulling at it and the skin around it to no avail.

     Before I could even try to think past this severe situation, a swarm of screeching radio static poured itself directly into my head, leaving be my altered body. I quickly clasped both sides of my head with my hands, partially bending over, grunting with this strange voice of mine as its innards violently throbbed, feeling as though my mind were being squeezed into a messy pulp of fleshy remains. In a steady, scattered execution, memories poured out of me like the blood leaking through my eyes and teeth, joining the dark black pool on the ground below as they eroded from within. The way back home, my dwindling hopes and aspirations, the few humans I had been bound to by blood and other’s relationships with, the pain I had been forced to bear internally, the fears and habits and loves and hates and ideas and guilts and desires and feeble emotions. All of that which was once a part of me no longer existed. Memories that once held me back melted away, dissipating from the body that once was, making ample room for what rightfully should have been there from the very start.

     In their places, decaying memories of a man I had never been instantly flooded my head, sweeping away my own in a formidable wave, erasing me from the inside. Memories of murder and bloodshed, instability and madness, charm and chatter, radios and hunting, and far more took hold of me. Many songs and showtunes from a decade I was never born in, too many to count determinably so, filled my head to the brim, nearly overflowing with the rest of the foreign information that made its home inside my warping mind. An era that I had once been unfamiliar with, a dazzling decade followed by a deep depression, nothing getting in the way of my brightened demeanour with merely a smile. Power far from the reaches of humanity melded with me all over, bestowed with ancient abilities that made me a force to reckon with. All the while, an urgent desire of hunger overcame me, twisting thoughts into craving a peculiar diet, intent on getting my hands on a far-fresher, far-redder source of blood and raw meat. With these age-old memories and knowledge, the final internal sliver of my former self vanished for good, slipping from the vessel I once inhabited, leaving me with a new body and mind, complete with a tainted soul that found warmth in the body I once lived, breathed, and operated, completely dissolved from existence.

     No longer my former self in body, mind, and soul, the corrupting static that filled my head vanished, leaving me to take in my surroundings. My bare, scar-riddled skin bathed in moonlight, my glowing eyes staring at the towering buildings around me, unrecognizable from the cities I once lived and roamed in. The persisting cold no longer afflicted me, nor the dark clouds and muddled cityscape, for I saw blue skies above me, no matter what laid ahead, looking at the world through these new crimson lenses. And yet, despite losing myself to this everlasting demon, a strong, ancient power coursed through every fibre of my being, enticed excitement brimming inside and out. After taking in the surrounding scene, I looked down at myself, quickly realizing my lack of clothing, plus the scraps of cloth and unknown belongings on the nearby ground. Here, taken aback with surprise over this indecent act, I took verbal notice of my current situation, fully revealing the chipper trans-Atlantic accent I now possessed, sounding as though spoken straight from a radio, permanently encased in a layer of static.

     “Great heavens! How did this happen?” I uttered with shock, knowing such a severely scandalous display simply would not do. “There is no way I can remain this bare any longer.” The distinct snap of my red claws upon my inky right hand echoed through the alleyway, as a swirl of red magic manifested right in front of me, still facing before the glowing radio. Stains of dried black blood upon my face and body vanished in an instant, cleaning myself up, albeit still tasting the substance on my pale-purpled tongue. Out of thin air, an outfit reminiscent of decades past materialized, fitting itself all over me as though it possessed sentience, wrapping itself around my thin form. A long, torn tailcoat and accompanying shirt appeared first, floating for a minimal duration before adorning itself onto my damned flesh, tight against every inch of me.

     The former, comprised of a dark red material of sublime silkiness with thin lines of brighter red vertically running all around it, felt familiar to me; my go-to attire after so much time. It further accentuated my pointed shoulders and nonexistent torso, covering the entirety of my neck, triangular chest, and thin arms, both limbs barely taking up any space inside their sleeves. Each one sported crimson, with a bright red fabric at their ends spanning a couple of inches in width, circulating the sleeves’ ends right above my wrists. Crimson lapels with a white trim were present on the coat’s front, alongside a large bowtie with black sides and a circular red middle, perfectly fitting at the centre of my lapels while around the bottom of my elongated neck, resting right above my clavicle.

     The latter, just as glossy with a greatly-bright-red colour, bestowed with a thin black stripe running down its centre and a second horizontally intersecting it, entered underneath the coat, hardly being seen aside from its place upon my torso as the tailcoat covered nearly the entirety of my upper half. Holes riddled the bottom of the coat’s patterned fabric, brushing against the back of my legs, nearly shredded apart as though the garment was pulled straight out of the grave I had been buried in. Below both articles, a pair of fitted pants fastened themselves upon me, doing so with perfect snugness. Whether by coincidence or a perfect fit, my tail stuck out from behind my bottoms and one of my tailcoat’s holes. At each pant-leg’s end presented a red trim a couple of inches wide, much like what rested at the ends of my sleeves, in this case above both my ankles. Covering up my freakish hooves were a pair of black dress shoes, the tips of which were coloured the same bright red as found elsewhere on my body. Four markings of the same colour spread across the underside of the footwear - two short lines where my heels were, and two longer ones along the upper half – resembling deer hooves similar to what I possessed. “Now this is much better!” I happily let out, no longer naked.

     Even with my body clothed, a few notable accessories were still missing, conjured up promptly after. Enveloping my hands akin to a second skin, a pair of gloves quickly wrapped themselves around, stretching down to where my hands’ inky complexion ended at the wrists. Staying true to much of my attire, the majority of their fabric was coloured black, save for the upper halves of where my claws were, as bright, searing red made itself known, much like the sharpened digits themselves. A monocle of black edges and a glass red centre found its place upon my face, located just below my right eye. It too shone in the light of the moon and the nearby streetlights, glimmering much like the rest of my red-covered self. Lastly and vastly important compared to the snazzy suit and accessories attached to me, a long microphone manifested, floating in the air until my right hand clutched it from its centre. Spanning nearly half the same length as my eight-foot-tall frame, most of the mic was comprised of a long, thin rod of black. At its top beared the microphone itself, its top and bottom halves coated in white and black respectively, sporting an eye of bright red atop the lower half alongside a base for it to stand on in the same colouration, its back half shrouded in a shell of the same red.

     “Testing, testing… can you all hear me?” I spoke into the microphone, bringing it close to my yellow-toothed mouth and tapping it with a right-handed claw. A few seconds later, an audience’s worth of enthusiastic applause poured out from the device, bringing an added couple of inches to my wide smile as I moved the mic a few inches away from my mouth. “Wonderful! It is great to have you all back.” I elatedly responded, before bringing my attention to the surrounding alleyway, looking down at my shadow and back up. My left hand gravitated onto my chin, knuckles rubbing it as I briefly pondered to myself, questioning aloud in unison. “Now then… where has my devilish other gone?” Speaking in a more welcoming tone, I beckoned for this presence to come to me, turning myself around from where I stood in the alley as I did so. “Come on out, old friend. You do not need to hide here.” Seconds passed with no results. The wait never became a concern to me, however, for I knew it needed time to bring itself out in a new world such as this.

     Before the passage of time could prolong itself to the point of tedium, my shadow soared to life, taking over the one that protruded from my towering form as it rose upward, becoming its own entity against the wall to my right. Sporting a twisted smile of its own alongside a pair of eyes all in a bright blue hue, the rest of its form a black inky blot, the shadow’s spiraling eyes looked to me, portraying a look of curiosity as it glanced up at its surroundings. “Welcome!” I spoke in greeting, facing toward the wall it hovered against. “Good to see you again.” The shadow looked back at me with its sly eyes, wondering where the two of us were. “Do not worry about our whereabouts. We have ourselves a new stage to walk upon, full of entertaining possibilities.” I briefly explained, my smile widening at the thought of it. Suddenly, a grumble emanated from my shriveled stomach, causing me to lightly place my left hand atop it, my torso thin enough to easily wrap it around. “Do forgive me for this rude display.” I told my shadow, reacting to the noise with fondness. “Come to think of it, I am quite famished.” I added, hunger creeping up on my senses, yearning for something raw and scrumptious.

     Turning away from my shadow, I crouched down in front of the red radio that had stayed in place since appearing out of the blue. With reliance on the lower half of my left arm and the middle where it connected with its upper portion, I scooped the radio off the ground, bringing it up with me as I stood tall again, the device nestled against the left side of my chest. With both hands full of cherished valuables, I turned back to my shadow. “Come now. There is much to do. Souls to steal. Minds to corrupt. Bodies to feast upon~.” I spoke in increasing fervour, as my eyes changed into radio dials of glowing, flickering red. Under such entertaining thoughts, my antlers grew outward, splitting and branching off as they stretched sideways beyond the edges of my head and a good foot above. Once their growth died down along with me eyes ceasing their radio-like appearance, I let out a hearty chuckle, leaning close to my shadow as I spoke yet again to it. “The night is young, so let us make haste and act upon it, my dear companion. After all, it is only you and I who have the company of one another.” My shadow nodded in agreeance, soaring alongside me as I began to take my first steps after being fully clothed and adorned, the tapping sounds of dress shoes echoing from their firm contact with the pavement.

     In the midst of walking with my tethered companion, looking out to the modernistic sights that were far beyond what I once knew in my own life, I could not help but gleefully ask myself “I wonder what kind of entertainment this world has in store for me?”, before leaving the alley whence I was reborn in, ready to absorb and enjoy the show that surrounded me. There was nothing left of the broken, dispirited human that no one truly knew. Taking its place in body, mind, and manic soul was the very being that should have been there from the very start, who belonged in this body and whose original soul had been remolded into this ideal form, fully aware of what it was without ever knowing its former self. Said former self, absolved from modern affliction, while its new form only sank deeper into sin, here in time stood the beginning of something new for me and my shadow, in circumstance and in feeling. Eternally existing through this dead, ancient shell of inhuman flesh, free to roam where I pleased and with no restraint. Nothing could break me down any longer. With my shadow in tow, I proceeded out from the other side of the the alley, entering onto the closest sidewalk, waltzing off into what remained of the night to explore what the human world had now become.