I remember now. I remember when I had a normal life. I remember when I wasn’t a monster. I used to be happy. But now, all I know is fear. Fear, pain, loss, and sorrow. The road of how I got to this point is still foggy in parts to me, and some details have been lost to me.
The start of this story is distant, despite being only a few years ago. My mother moved to America when I was a baby. She had to leave her entire family and her friends behind in Ireland to get away from her abusive husband and father. And to keep me away from them so they couldn’t hurt me. We moved to Maine and I grew up in a rather small town near one of the military bases in the state. I grew up without a father, and my situation wasn’t all that bad other than that. We weren’t rich, but we had enough money to get by. I had a few friends from around the neighborhood, and we got into a fair share of trouble.
We would get in trouble for trespassing, and graffiti. Because of my accent, and my friends’ ability to nod along, I got us out of a great deal of trouble by saying “officer, we didn’t know this was private property! We thought it was just public woods!” almost every officer in town heard this, and after a while we learned how to not get caught. Throughout the years, we grew apart and made other friends. I however, did not. We stopped hanging out altogether and hardly ever talked. By high school, we seemed to almost ignore one another. The once bubbly and extroverted ginger kid from Dublin Ireland became that one kid who sits by himself at lunch in the library. I was alone with my books, and that’s how I liked it. My mother worried for me, and kept saying things like “if you stay alone your whole life you’ll never be happy.” But, I still preferred being alone. I didn’t have to go out of my way for anyone, or make plans. (There is nothing worse than day-of syndrome.) I just liked being alone. I was always into biology. So, that’s what I did with my life. I became a scientist that worked with animals. We tested medications on animals. We tested on the usual animals, like rats and other rodents. I got transferred into a different department of the facility where I worked after college. We were to test a certain medicine for weasels. No, not measles. Weasels as in the animal. I was feeding one of the stoats, (a.k.a short tailed weasel) his chunk of rabbit meat, when he grabbed it out of my fingers with his little needle teeth and his tooth grazed my finger. I thought nothing of it; we were supposed to prevent parvo in the animals, so the animals were disease free. There was no blood, no infection. I never told my superior because we were supposed to use tongs to feed them.
I regret not feeding that damn stoat with tongs like I was supposed to.
The changes I noticed were subtle at first. It started with small things, my night vision improved slightly, and the hair on my arms and legs grew a darker brown than the auburn red they already were. Then physical changes in me became slowly more evident. I woke up one morning with the far along looking beginning of a beard. Yes, I did already have stubble, but I woke up one morning with a good two weeks of beard grown. I was naturally, freaked out. I still went to work like normal. My coworkers didn’t talk to me much, and that was fine by me. My voice was suddenly pubescent again. Oh, the joy of voice cracks that nobody misses or wants.
Oh joy my ass.
I avoided conversation. I was a five foot seven man with a beard who just celebrated his twenty ninth birthday. With the squeaky voice of a sixteen year old ninth grader. Yay.
I was walking past the stoat that ruined my life and it spoke. It. Spoke. In perfect English. The tiny animal had a strangely deep voice. It wasn’t absurd, but deeper than you’d think. “Hey, you. Human.” It half sneered thru the cage. I stopped, confused and looked around. None of my coworkers were nearby. I ignored the voice, thinking I had just heard something.”Hey! Don’t go! Come back, mate!” now I knew I was delusional. Stoats don’t talk. And they aren’t British. I kept walking, continuing to ignore him. I went home as soon as my shift ended. I didn’t know what happened that day. Or what was next to come. The blue in my eyes faded to a deep brown. Thankfully the squeakiness of my voice had subsided for the most part. I had finally gotten past the beginning of the end for me. Winter had rolled around and the weather was getting colder every day. That was when my appearance went to shit. It got colder and colder, and my hair changed from bright ginger to a frosty grey. I was a twenty nine year old with white hair that I didn’t dye. Of course I had my own place at this point, an apartment. And like a good son I went to my mother’s for Christmas. I went to the house I grew up in, and when I arrived, I got a cruel awakening. I arrived and knocked on the door. She answered and said “whatever yer sellin’ I want none of it.” And closed the door in my face. I called out “Ma! It’s me, Wes!” the door flew open and she said “oh dear, you look so different!” My mother I realized upon entering the house was right to suspect I was not her son. I looked nothing like the man who moved out of her house three years prior. I managed to keep the beard I had under control, and it too had turned white in the cold. I took off the grey hat I wore and she gasped when she looked up to see that her son had bright white hair that needed a cut.
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