Introduction to Beast

I can feel it now, the slow descent into darkness, soon it shall consume me. What will happen then I don't want to know for it is worse then any nightmare I have faced before, as I know exactly what the nature of this torture is.

It started two weeks ago, up until then I had a nice chaotic life with very little happening in it except the occasional hostile take-over of some company or other. That's gone now, I suppose I am slightly happier that I no longer have to deal with that but what a price to pay, you see around two weeks ago I began the transformation and since then I have continued to fall.

It's not that bad actually, people don't care as much as you think they do, my boss fired me after five days, my friends either don't check or accept the mid-life crises answer and nobody would believe my son if he brought them developing Polaroid photographs.

It must be hell on my son, how exactly does one cope with the fall of the only one close to them? I myself can barely handle it which might explain why I don't see him as often, he stays over at friends or just comes home later, I know one day he will vanish from my life forever or I from his.

The emotional pain is not as bad as the physical, trying to sleep whilst my hands contort into paws or my face reshapes into a muzzle is almost impossible, painkillers are useless I think they'd probably kill me just now anyway. Even if they did help, sleep would only pull out the demons from my now primitive mind, it's not that I don't want to go running in the forest scavenging shiny bits of metal and chattering with other racoons, no in fact I would welcome this prospect as it can't be worse then this demi-human form.

There's hope, not for my body or mind but at least for my soul, it remains the same so far, I have yet to have a sudden urge to rake in the dustbins for food. This is my only glimmer of light that even when I have a stripy tail and mask, even when I can't remember how to operate the VCR but know instinctively that there is food over there, that still a small chink of me will remain and that maybe I'll be able to watch my son grow up for a little bit even make friends with him, if I can overcome my timid animal nature, and enjoy his company as my fall is complete and I forget that not only I had a son but that I ever had a human form.

That's what I feel, it's the slow descent into darkness that will eventually consume me and that I know there is no way back into the light.

(C) 2000 Microharf