This can’t be happening! There’s no way he was seeing this right! His mind must be playing games on him, using his nerves as paddles to bludgeon these bulging ping pongs stupid. Because there was no way he was actually looking down upon himself!
He leaned in closer to the window with a nervous quiver, feeling the chills of the glass run down his body in goosebumps. But there it was, there he was, heading down the sidewalk clear as the morning sun. One foot before the other in a carefree pace, his physical appearance complemented with the askew drapes of his clothing.
“Wha…wha-I…” He continued his vain attempts to communicate, the voice punishing him with these disgruntled hints of malice each time. But he couldn’t do it, not like this. For he’d never seen someone so scrawny, so meek and insignificant, be so terrifying!
The way he shuffled across carried a palpable atmosphere of menace. Each slap of his worn flip flops shooting needles of fear into his nervous system, nearly overdosing on shakes. And that face, his half dimmed eyelids beneath an unfocused brow, he was like a zombie! Oh god, this can’t be real! It was some horror freak show! An invasion of body snatchers! Any moment now, the creature would stop and turn towards him, pointing an accusatory finger. Emitting that earsplitting screech. He could hear it now, the single eerie note of the violin, rising higher and higher in suspense. Scratching his eardrums as he felt them fold.
Wait…scratching?
He slowly looked up to see that, yes, something was indeed scratching. His horn, which was making jagged marks on the glass as he leaned in closer. It was to that scrapping siren’s call the figure paused and turned his head in a flash of curiosity, locking eyes with his prey.
“Gah!” His jaws snapped down on the string, severing his only means of support as he fell backward to the ground with another hard crash. The chitin of his torso sounding a muffled crunch. Mimicked by the blinds as they hastily rushed to their full hang, shutting out the outside world. His body immediately got its stumps underneath itself and skittered over towards the darkest corner of the room. Away from the light…away from prying eyes.
His breath continued to run quick. Those sickly waves of paranoia crept up like a centipede. Every tiny leg tingling and warping his spine, forcing his body to curled itself into a misshapen ball of an attempted fetal. Nearly making him puke his guts out all across the floor in a massive spray. The best he could give were these spurts of green goo, seeping out from his fangs and dripping inside of his limbs many holes. Bubbling and swirling with a foul stench. It appeared this acidic shlop contained the last inklings of his sanity, as his body began to twitch and spasm upon their expulsion. His voice cracking from paranoid murmurs to manic cackling. Although with his current tone, the proper description would be maniacal.
“O-O-Oh, I think I get it now-yes! I’m starting to see the picture, the full picture…” He slobbered from an ever-moving jaw. Slowly stroking the teal film. “That’s exactly what this is, a picture! An illusion! A lucid dream happening all inside my brain! Yes…yes…I must be dreaming…sleeping soundly, like a baby…hehehehe…” He looked down to his stumps, through the gaping holes. “I must’ve passed out from playing nonstop, and now I’m just sprawled out on the floor. In fact, I bet I still have that stupid headset strapped across my face! Heh heh, how silly of me! Whew! That’s all well and good, but I think it’s time I…unplug for a moment and get back in touch with reality.” He exhaled a sigh of relief with an even more relieved smile. Bringing his front limbs up to eye level. “It’s been fun, you strange alien bug-horse-thing. I’ll be sure to introduce you to my therapist at some point.”
As the black cylinders inched closer to his face, he waited for the moment they’d collide with the headset and free him from this weird nightmare of being a weird night mare.
He waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Eventually, his arms did contact a surface. Unfortunately, that surface just happened to be his fully open eyeballs.
“OWW FUCK!” He shrieked in pain, thrown back into the wall and falling to the floor, writhing with groans and other noises associated with discomfort.
Those were solo acts. The duet came in the form of rage, with sheets from the other room yanked off in a furious sweep. “Dude, c’mon! What the hell is going on over there?” The voice shouted, planting his feet to the ground and stomping across the room.
He was unable to continue the call and response versing of their brand new song, as he was too busy fonding over his own instruments of movement. Studying them. Eyeing the smooth lines of the curves in contrast to the jagged edges. The strange rips of this tinted seaweed streaming from the top of his head and backside. Touching them. Each flickering of contact bringing up small gasps of slowly fading disbelief.
“This isn’t a dream…this is…I am real. I’m this thing. This thing is…me…oh my god.” He muttered with many sniffs, nearly on the verge of tears. Continuing to eye the body-his body-lying on the ground. Any average person would be considered insane if they gazed at themselves this much, attempting to exile any blemishes and stains that would taint their ever-precious egos. But he figured he’d have a pass this time around, given his peculiar circumstances.
“I don’t understand, just…why? Why is any of this happening? Why ME?” He pounded the floor with his hooves in anger, snapping the wood into splinters. He whimpered as he tucked them back underneath him. “Oh nononononono! Please don’t break! I already owe more to this place than I’m worth. I can’t pay for any more damages!” He started to panic once more, but cut himself off with a mental slap to the face and a steeled brow. “No, if anyone is going to pay around here…it’ll be him! I must find this bastard and figure out why he’s done this to me, even if I must squeeze it out of him. Then, I’ll get my body back! My life back!”
There was a few seconds of silence before he gave a slight cough.
“That is, I have to get out of here first.”
He shuffled his body around till he got his legs and…his other legs underneath him and attempted to hoist his figure upward with a huff. His footing was shaky, but in the end, he managed to get all four limbs secured in what could be considered a standing position in the middle of the kitchen.
The college dorm kitchen.
The compact, cramp, condensed college dorm kitchen. And he was now the size roughly similar to a draft horse.
And let me tell you, the very last place a draft horse would want to be located is the middle of a compact, cramp, condensed college dorm kitchen. Especially if the draft horse had only a foals knowledge of this strange niche concept of philosophy only studied by few in the ancient tongue of walking.
“Ok, let’s see. First, move this leg here, and-ouch!” He extended his left front leg, miscalculating its reach and smacking into the counter with a sharp sting. “Right, too close…just back up a little, and I should be able to-oof!” He reversed his rear until it rammed into the mini-fridge behind him, pinching his tail at the base in an all-new sensation of suffering. He turned around to fix the problem, causing the said tail to swing around. Sliding over the countertop and knocking many cans, boxes, and appliances to the floor. “Are you kidding me? I just bought that toasteeeeeeer-!” His limbs skidded over the newfound debris, making his whole body stumble upwards in an attempt to counterbalance. Stopping abruptly with a loud thunk, and an awful ringing in his head. He looked up to see his ever troublesome horn had firmly jammed itself through the ceiling, surrounded by cracks of plaster. He attempted to move his upper body and pull himself out, yet his front legs squirmed helplessly as they were suspended in the air. So instead, he started to thrust his neck downward as he slowly pulled the massive, jagged nail. He rocketed out of the ceiling, carrying its momentum and crushing his jaw on the floor, nearly impaling himself on his new fangs.
He growled in frustration, nursing the throbbing pain in his face, attempting to beat out the searing flames of humiliation. “This is ridiculous! I can walk around just fine on two legs; how can I have this much trouble on four? I literally have twice the support to balance on!”
Then again, he didn’t know much about horse’s walking-or should he say trotting-patterns. The most he knew about horse travel came in the form of using the W key to move the animals forward, and it would save you a whole heap of time when going to your following location on the massive map. Nothing more than dopey lines of code, locked into a set of predetermined motions as their owners kicked and yanked them across every escalating terrors of treacherous terrains. Never fed, never washed, never thinking. The only form of freedom coming along in the shape of a precarious rock, sending them flying into the air as their limbs, untamed and wild, rag-dolled over their figure. Those fleeting seconds of free will expanding into forever. Until they connected with the ground, and the master’s code would lull over their consciousness once more.
He clamped his eyes and shook his head clear. C’mon, Chris, you gotta focus up and get your head in the game!... Or out of the game…I don’t know! He looked back to the floor as his body laid lifeless amongst the rubble of morning routines and crumbled specks of insulation. Replaying those last moments in his head. Those being every moment since the cut at the sink, but mainly two very standout scenes: The green flame and the return of his voice.
When his human body…changed, to put it lightly, he took note of the very surreal manner it occurred. As the fire was raging, not once did it ever damage anything vital to survival. Hell, it wasn’t even hot! Something they’d be greatly disappointed in. All it accomplished was dissolving the thin layer of skin above his skeleton, frying the flesh into tiny green specs of twinkling ash.
Tearing from this figure beneath as if it were nothing more than that illusion he described earlier. A great deception of immaculate design, full of perfectly placed imperfections. What we often refer to as a disguise. And when the man across the drywall called to him, he was able to answer in his own words, feeling the exact vibrations rumbling from his neck. Much different from the ones he felt now.
He wondered…
What is wrong with me? No way I could actually pull off something like that. It’s too simple! There would be some kinda major drawback to that sorta thing.
…
Unless, maybe it is that easy. I mean, it may not look like my body right now, but it’s still technically mine, right? What if I just try something…to see what happens.
BANG BANG BANG
“Hey! Hey you! I’m talking to you, asswipe!”
He gulped loudly as he turned towards the dorm’s door. I guess now’s a good time as ever to figure out if it really is. He closed his eyes and began to think, envisioning with all of his mighty mind. The lines of his hands, every placement within the forest of follicles, and that unfocused look in his eyes. As the visage began to solidify, it was accompanied by the sparking and pops of an alien set of senses. Whatever this is, it’s gotta work!
More booms of what sounded like a dead body being hurled at his door, as the guy was now pounding with both fists. “You say you’re gonna let me sleep, then you start acting like a bull in a china shop! Open up, you motherfucker!”
...I hope.
“I know you’re in there…Open. This. DO-“
“Yeah?” He swung the door open, looking down slightly at his sleep-deprived aggressor. Intimidating as ever in sideways flannel shorts and an inside-out t-shirt. “What’s uh…what’s the problem?”
“What’s the problem? All your screaming, that’s the problem!” He stepped in closer, the frazzled fury flickering within his bloodshot eyes. “You better have a good reason for all of this bull…shit, what happened in there?” He slurred as he looked over his shoulder, eyes going wide as they rolled around his room.
He looked back in a pseudo-curious motion before turning around with a forced oh, that chuckle. “Oh! Heh, Mondays, you know how it is…always so crazy in the morning.” Ending it with a friendly, toothy smile.
Now it was his turn to miss his cue, as he stood there stiff, eyes continuing to bulge as he quietly mumbled to himself of the massacre of home furnishings. With each shuddering breath came this…taste was the best way he could describe it. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it billowing in the air with every passing um and ah from the man’s mouth.
As it glided over his tastebuds, it gave off the most peculiar feelings. It was cold, disoriented, as no one particular taste could process fully before bouncing around as it tried to escape between his teeth. But he clamped down on it, sucking on its shock…its desperation.
Fear.
“You feeling alright?” He already knew the answer, given the lack of color, but he decided to ask anyway to give off the appearance of genuine confusion.
The man’s face jolted up like he’d been zapped. “What? Oh-uh, it’s fine-I’m fine! Everything’s…fine, it’s just…uh…” He squinted as he looked up at him, head tilting slightly. “Just…the last time I saw you, I could’ve sworn your eyes were blue, not…green.”
He suppressed his surprise at the statement, composing himself with a cough. “Oh no, don’t worry about it, they’ve always been a shade of green. The sun has a habit of changing their hue from time to time.”
“Apparently it does…to the point where they’re almost…glowing.”
Another smile with a laugh. “Well, um…thanks, I guess.” Followed by a few seconds of intense silence a the two stood and stared at each other. He could feel the streaks of sweat going down his back, running underneath the skin. His left leg started to tap rapidly as the bones ached from the pressure stacked atop of them. His body posed on the door. “I think it’s best if you go back to sleep…now.”
Somehow, his eyes widened even more, taking on a glassy nature as his entire body relaxed from his prior anger. “Yeah…yeah, you’re right…I just need more sleep…I’ll go do that…” He responded almost robotically. He slowly backed up until he hit the wall behind him. Then looking over to his room, eyes remaining wide. Never blinking. “Sorry for bothering you…goodbye now.” Swiftly walking back to his room in a brisk pace. He watched as the door shut with a scarily heavy slam, followed by the brutal click of the lock.
He waited to see if the guy would return. When nothing happened, he slowly closed his own door and put his back to it. Releasing a sigh of relief, seeping out like escaping gas. Causing another spark that flashed the green flame around him, turning back into the horse creature.
“I can’t believe that actually worked…” Sputtered through his gasps for air. He slid down the door, immediately regretting it as the wings scrapped the worn surface of the door’s finish. He looked down to notice the clothes he threw on had burned up as well. “Only half worked, then. Good thing those weren’t any of my nice clothes.”
He slumped forward, looking over the squalor he created in his thrashing and panicking. Enough, I can’t live like this, I can’t BE this. I need to find this thing now and stop him before he does anything crazy. Before he tries to ruin my life! That alien parasite, who does he think he is? ME? He facepalmed at the thought. Yes, Chris, obviously he does.
Much slower now, he stood up and made his way around the dorm. Stumbling and shambling at a geriatric pace, as one would when saddled with newly rusted hooves. He managed to make his way to his bedroom, where he collected a few clothes thrown around the floor, spitting them all into one pile. Airing on the side of caution, he picked out an oversized hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. Large enough to keep him wholly covered without drawing anyone’s suspicions…and eyesight.
“If this thing’s trying to act like me, it must be trying to copy my daily schedule as well…” He thought out loud, sitting back on his haunches. “I don’t have any classes today, thank god, so I usually head up to the dining hall for breakfast. The time matches up as well. I need to tail it and figure out what it’s plan is. Catch him in the act, as they say.” He nodded to himself in approval, inhaling a massive breath of confidence as he straightened tall and proud.
“Alright then. I hope you’re ready, you sorry excuse for a double…” In another flash, he rose to his feet with a cocky grin. “…Because here comes a double double! MWHAHAHAHA!” He threw his head back in a spontaneous fit of wicked laughter. As if he was enacting some grandiose plan he laid the groundwork for years in the making. It really didn’t fit him.
“-HAHAH-ack! Argh-erm…ahem…wow, that laugh is scary. And grating on my throat…ow.”