Skinwalker

She held my hand as we walked up the stairs together towards her dorm room. My heart was beating fast and I was understandably nervous, a part of my brain registering that I should be more worried that my hands might be sweaty or I should have worn more cologne, but I was so lost in the moment I was mainly just excited and happy. My knees even felt a little weak walking up the stairs.

Pulling my hand was Lisa, my long term crush, her long dark hair tickling past her shoulders to her upper back, her brown eyes meeting mine with a flirty electricity in them. Our first date had gone better than I’d ever thought it would, with her taking the lead and flirting and being totally comfortable with me. Even when I’d been goofy, she’d laughed it off and diffused any awkwardness like a pro.

I was really surprised actually; She had always seemed so proper, kind and sweet of course, but never overly flirty, and never really even that interested in me beyond the same kindness she’d extended to everyone else. I’d wanted her, and I’d wanted to enjoy my college life too without regrets, so when I felt I liked her I knew I had to take a chance and ask her out.

Now walking up the stairs behind her I knew I’d lucked out hard. Her pert ass filled out her tight skirt perfectly, and her thighs looked incredible moving up the stairs. She opened the door and gestured me inside. Stepping in, the room was a lot more disorganized than I was expecting, with clothes lying randomly on the floor, like she’d been trying on every outfit she had before coming out. It was really adorable actually, thinking about it.

Before I could turn around though, I felt something pierce my neck, like four pin-pricks sliding in. It actually took a moment to register just what was happening, a bracing cold seeming to pump inside those freshly burrowed holes, my muscles starting to tense up in my face and arms and legs as I buckled to the floor, landing face first in a pile of discarded dresses.

Lisa’s scent filled my nose, pleasant and floral, but doing very little to erase the fresh fear that gripped me suddenly, or the icy cold starting to creep into my skin.

“Oh Alex. You really are adorable. I think I like you more than anyone else I’ve met in years and years.”

Her usually sweet voice sounded so twisted, dripping in malice like that. I felt her hand close on my arm and flip me over quickly, seemingly much stronger than its slender appearance would suggest. I could see her free hand raised up, four strange and narrow spines emerging from her fingertips, punctured through the flesh and looking like alien syringes made of bone. I watched as they retracted back into her fingers, secreting a small droplet of liquid at the end which steamed when it hit the flesh and knitted it back together in seconds, leaving no traces of the horrors that had burst from them just before.

I was terrified. I tried to scream, but no sound would come from my vocal chords, a gooey feeling permeating them, preventing movement while still allowing breath up my throat. Lisa was sitting in her swivel chair, crossing her legs yet still giving me a glance at her black lace panties while she switched positions, clearly relishing the situation. Grasping my hand, she fished my phone out of my pocket and unlocked it with my thumb print, idly looking through my photos, messages, and finally browser history, eyes lighting up when she found something of particular interest. Her smile spread, taking on a lewd quality that looked so strange, yet undeniably erotic. For a brief moment my mind wandered, distracted from the immense terror of the situation.

“Oh, I was right to choose you.”

She laughed again. Stepping over to me and sitting on my lap, our crotches touching. I could feel her heat radiating, in stark contrast to the cold now working through me. It was far more pleasant than it should have been given the situation, but whatever had been injected into me was stopping the arousal I would have expected.

She flipped my phone around, revealing my secret shame; TG porn. My face flushed red, embarrassment overcoming me. I had tried to put it down and kick the fetish many times in the past, but no matter what, I kept coming back to it. I still had normal urges too, and I’d really tried now that I was in my first year at college to enjoy youth and live to the fullest, but I just couldn’t help going back to TG porn at times. The idea of taking over another body, walking around as someone else, especially someone completely different to me, was so intoxicating. And it was all fantasy too, so I justified it to myself by knowing none of it could ever be real.

“I think we can help each other out Alex.”

She leaned down, my eyes wandering to her cleavage unintentionally.

“I’m bored, you see, terribly bored. I want to have fun, but it gets a little old all on my own. I want someone who knows me for who I really am, someone who can join me on my little escapades. Someone like me.”

I wasn’t understanding what she was saying. Someone like her? What could she possibly mean? Lisa had plenty of friends, and guys were head over heels for her too, it’s not like she couldn’t have a boyfriend. Sensing my confusion, she started smiling again before continuing;

“I can see you’re confused. After all, I’m such a popular and pretty girl, right?”

Her smile widened.

“Well, I suppose the face I’m wearing is.”

She reached to the back of her head, feeling around at the base of her skull, before pulling. Her face distended like some kind of mask, it’s structure lost as it flopped down onto her chest. My heartbeat doubled at what was underneath.

It looked like a dull red translucent skull with strange, small floating eyeballs, surrounded by a wet blueish and similarly translucent skin. My eyes were wide and I no doubt would have began hyperventilating if not for whatever chemicals were keeping me glued to the floor. This monster slid out of Lisa, her form growing more and more like some kind of skin by the minute, as the monster tossed it aside. I got a better look as it did so; It seemed to be entirely translucent and permanently wet, like a strange translucent blue mass in a humanoid shape, collected around a stretched out system of dull red nerves, thin bony yellow spines moving around, adding a hint of solid structure to an otherwise amorphous form. It seemed reminiscent of the horrors one might find at the lowest parts of the ocean, creatures who have never seen sunlight and exist in ways unimaginable to humans. It didn’t seem to have a gender one way or the other, and its exact shape seemed to morph by the minute.

“Surprised?”

It asked, laughing. It no longer had Lisa’s sweet voice, rather a strange morphing one, that sounded a little like you were hearing it from under water.

“Now, where was I? Oh, of course”

The spines re-emerged from the creatures fingers, a sickening sight as I could see them moving under its translucent skin now, before it plunged both hands full into my chest and began pumping me full of liquid. I was horrified and tried to scream but still couldn’t, my heartrate hammering upwards as the edges of my vision began to change. Time started warping in my terror, and I had no idea how long it went on for before I began to feel weirdly content, a rush of dopamine settling in my mind as I felt ecstatic, a strange rush plying my muscles apart, like I had began to melt. I could feel my mind drifting off.

“Ah ahh. Before you sleep, and now that you’re nice and calm, I’ll explain a few things. I’m a skinwalker, something that probably shouldn’t be real, but is”

It leaned into my vision, it’s warped face seeming like a vision a lunatic might have, but the chemicals made me so complacent I didn’t care. It presented the spines for me to see again.

“Within our bodies are produced multiple fluids, which have pronounced effects on humans. Don’t ask me for any kind of science or history about us, because I know neither. We’re extremely rare, and for good reason. What I just put into you is a special thing I can only do maybe every decade, and in essence, I’ve just brought you into the world. Say hello to your Mommy and Daddy all in one.”

It leered at its comment, an unsettling smile that made me feel less like a beloved child and more like a tasty morsel about to be eaten.

“The other kinds produced though, are not so rare. Consider them the bread and butter of your new life, little skinwalker.”

At the implications of that I really should have panicked, but was too busy settling into the strange pleasurable malaise of the chemicals I could feel warping my body.

“The main one you’ll produce can turn people into skins. Slip them on however you please, you can always fix them up again. You can heal flesh of course. A secondary power. But you’ll mainly be interested in becoming other people. I’m certain it’s magical, or a science the likes of which I’ll never understand. But you can really take over their lives, their voices, even their thoughts and memories. Maybe it’s because what you’re sucking out of them is their souls. At least to borrow, of course. Another useful feature is the ability to restore a skin, and so restore a soul. Plenty of possibilities there too, as I’m sure you’ll discover. Finally, there’s you. Big changes. Us skinwalkers are driven much more by instinct that humans I’m afraid, and now that I’ve changed you, there’s no going back. Whether you want to or not, you’ll be compelled to take a skin. Maybe you could wear them only for a short while, try to fast without them before a binge, but sooner or later you’ll take one again. The longer you resist, the more your body will change to look like mine. Well, inevitably you’ll look like me anyway, but you might want to retain the ability to look human too. After all, once your human appearance starts breaking down, there really is no going back. And you hardly want to be caught looking like me on the street!”

It laughed, a guttural, inhuman laugh.

“You might be too cold out of a skin too of course. One of the side effects.. it’s just not comfortable being out of one. You’ll see. But hey, look on the Brightside. I’ve given you an incredible ability. You won’t age like normal. You’ll be able to live a thousand lives. You’ll be able to be anyone you want. The only price is losing who you are. And hey, I know your shameful little fetish secret too. Now it doesn’t have to be fantasy any longer. I’ve been watching you for years Alex. And now I’m more excited than ever to see how you’ll do. Nighty night!”

At that, I began to feel unconsciousness take me, a terrifying mix of thoughts coming to me, as the first side effect of this transformation made itself apparent to me; Strange, hyper vivid dreams for every night not spent in a skin.