Get away!

No, no, no! You can’t do this to Grace!

The thoughts rang out, harsh and clear; resonating all the more powerfully as I knew their purity contained everything left of my morals.

I stumbled back, the panic I felt inside manifesting totally in my body language as I began going for the break in the bookshelves that would take me out of this study area and away from temptation.

“Alex…??”

Grace seemed so confused and upset at my outburst, totally unable to understand.

“Uhh, Grace, sorry, I, uhhhh… got a text there! A sudden emergency, I have to go!”

I tripped a little before I picked up speed, desperation carrying me just out through the gap and amongst the bookshelves.

I’m so sorry Grace…

She looked so hurt as I’d started leaving. I knew Grace was a sensitive girl, prone to overthinking, who’d been trying to say something deep that’d been on her mind. She’d probably be left cycling through the worst assumptions of why I’d left so suddenly; blaming herself, maybe seeing it as some kind of rejection, or who knows what other negative reasoning might haunt her.

I had ****.

No matter what terrible reasons she came up with for my departure, I knew none of them would come close to how dark the truth really was. To her, I was the guy who’d reached out to her when she was down, her first friend who’d helped her grow in college and start meeting some friendly faces. I reality, I was the monster who’d mind controlled and derided her while I wore her bully, before turning her into a skinsuit and wearing her in turn.

Self- loathing and self-pity alike boiled in my head as I shuffled to the library exit, pulling my hood up to disguise the sickly madness that had consumed my countenance while thanking God I was able to find the entrance at all.

I had the sneaking suspicion that if I ran into anyone at all in a secluded section of the library, my skinwalker side would have turned them on sight and I would have been leaving this library in a very different skin than the one I’d entered in.

I can make it up to Grace! What I did back there was an emergency, I had to leave! I couldn’t have resisted even another minute in her presence, not like I am now… I have to do something about this!

I needed something, anything at all. Maybe it was like being a werewolf on the full moon, maybe my monstrous urges were linked to some positioning of the stars or some astrological body? Maybe I could wait it out, go home and lock myself in my room until I felt better? Apologize to Grace tomorrow, or the next day, or whenever I felt solid in my intent not to use my powers on her?

Another part of me suspected these powers were less like being a werewolf, and much more like being a vampire. I haven’t “fed” in a long time, and now I was suffering greatly for it. If that was true… I wasn’t going to get any better with time. If anything, I might just get worse; increasingly more feral until I completely lost my senses and hunted the first human I could. Certainly, if I resisted for much longer I knew I would start to truly look like the monster I was inside, and then I wouldn’t be able to be seen in public outside of someone else’s skin.

If I could just get better somehow, then I could start looking for a cure. I’d do it for Grace, so I could be a good guy for her. If she was on my side, I could do anything! And best of all, she’d never need to know about what I’d done; never need to know about what I was becoming.

I was glad of my hood as I walked through the rainy streets. Showers had been coming down frequently today and had left their mark, small rivulets of water streaming by the gutters and puddles, gathering in low parts of pavement. I tried to avoid them as I walked fast and without direction, keeping my head down and trying to avoid looking at anyone, lest I try something, or they realize the dark truth about me. My hands stayed stuffed in the pockets of my hoodie; fingers a little stiff with the spines protruding, unable to be retracted.

I feared they may stay drawn until used, or if they could return to my fingers at all it would only be because they knew their stealth would be rewarded with a fresh skin very, very soon.

What am I going to do?? I have to get home, lock myself away, anything until I feel okay again!

But… there’s always another way too. Taking a skin would appease my skinwalker side…