The Beast

It is here. That time. It creeps up slowly today. I rise slowly from my bed. I open my eyes and I see darkness all around. Nothing else.

I stumble around till I find the door. I walk outside. There are woods surrounding my cottage and they are darker still. I spot a moonlit clearing in the distance and run towards it. I stumble. I trip. I almost fall.

I strip off my clothes. There is a rush of blood to my head. I take a deep breath and sit down. Long, red grass surrounds me. I wait. I listen.

A steady chirp of crickets. A frog croaking party. A bubbling creek. Rustling grass as something feline passes through it. The sound of something invisible slithering away from me.

I have had experiences. I have done things. I am a librarian but I have done more than read books.

But, I do not know how this feels. How does someone else see this? What did they think? What came next?

I will soon travel. I will seek wise men and old fools and ask of them a cure. I have heard of clerics in Onsoop who deal with this sort of thing regularly. This curse.

Now, however, I must endure. I must suffer the ignorance. And the fear. The lurking fear that I actually enjoy this. This thing I have become.

Never should have touched that damned stone.

The moonlight hits me. I shift out of my own body. It works as The Inventor said it would. My essence has now been transferred momentarily to a construct from where I am free to observe my own body. The thing I have become.

My body stands up. It rubs its hands together. With glee. The face, my face, grins. A bearded, dark-haired madman stands in the middle of a forest. Naked in the dead of the night.

I panic. My body stands strong.

I experience a prickling sensation across my skin. Something shifts inside me. Something tears at my feeble mind. And I give up. I stop resisting the change. My senses sharpen. My body breathes loudly. It smells things.

A dead snake. A predator nearby. A fearful monkey on a tree behind me. A man’s clothes. Damp leaves. A metal thing. A wary ecosystem.

My body opens its eyes and I sneak a look. My forearms are rippling with some ancient force that seeks to rend them in two. The faint moonlight reveals impossibly furry paws where my legs should have been. Thick black fur sprouts out of me. There is a cracking sound and unearthly pain that soon gives way to the realization of new bones and joints and muscles and claws. My back and shoulders hunch. Uncomfortable anatomical changes abound. 

The beast inside my mind overpowers me for a moment and I feel hunger.

I fight it. Fascinated by the transformation and weakened by my feeble existence I submit to the beast. My fingers become paws. Massive black claws. The night becomes day to these eyes. Everything appears illuminated. A wet, sniffing nose looms infront of my eyes and I realize what I am now.

A predator like no other. The Glass People called it a wendigo. Half man- half bear.

All hungry. I drop down on all fours. My nose picks up the scent of prey. I grin, a lopsided monstrous grin. 

Food, good. Thinks the beast. It smells lively, leaping fish at a water’s edge.

I follow.