It is happening...yet again. The never-ending pain...the eternal
dark feeling of my soul rupturing. What can be worse...?
It never fails...

I go through changes - like no mortal mind and body should endure.
Many a time I have gone through this, and many a time more it's
always the same with little difference...save for the pain.

It's only natural that it starts at the core...

The marrow deep within the bone, boils as blood floods their
chambers. The hard calcium stretching, bending, twisting to no
ends. They shatter, splinter...mending back to establish a new
alien structure. Muscles ripping, repairing...tightening,
loosening...shrinking, growing...creating new mass...
And the skin...so much by the skin. As the bones reform, the skin
must as well follow. Thinning, showing the dark, twisted
blackish-blue veins beneath. Thickening, forming a harder shell
over the tissue matter. Stretching across new lengths...

And yet, still more. Always, there is more. It never stops there...

Thick, course hairs, sprouting across the flesh, washing quickly
over as the sea across a beach. Covering virtually every inch of
the body of mine, save where the cartilage of my nails have started
to slender - to sharpen into deadly weapons. Nails, which can cut
deadlier than any knife could...capable of ripping other tenderness
to shreds...

Strange that, the stretching of even my rib cage around my heart, or
the instant growth of a tail that isn't to be there...holds no
effect as that of along my facial change. The jaw, starting by the
mandible, simply stretching...pushing against slowly growing skin.
Incisors slenderizing...few molars breaking to create more of
what's known to as canines. Those, themselves...the original true
instruments within this mouth begin to slightly thicken, the points
growing nearly thrice what they should, overlapping upper with the
lower.
The pain of simple lockjaw pales to this agony, when the muzzle
seemingly locks into an open gap, as if a yawn...except letting -
in actuality - a silent, howling cry.

As the muzzle forms, so changes the placement of the ears...sliding
back, while still stretching further up. The flesh becoming
pointed, flexing...till they swiftly draw back with the tilting of
my head to the misty starred night sky.
My eyes, once normal white spheres touched with the color of
chocolate brown...they shift inside, after seemingly rolling
further into my skull. The irises stretch, blotting out the
whiteness, taking on a deep sapphiric color. Irregular
self-dilating pupils expand, then shrink, unknowing which to become
in the scattered feel of moon shade light - while yet draining my
sight to dark shades of gray.

My distraught body doubles over in pain. I am still standing, but
bent to my knees. My left arm, as it builds it's new shape,
clenches at the churning stomach. Even so, the claws at my abdomen
match what is being held to my face - fingers pressing in hopes of
reverse pressuring the agonizing strain. The deadly talons glide
across the now furry skin, wishing to just rip through...to claw
away the inflaming mass.

While everything else occurs, much the same develops below. Of how
the spinal twists and stretches, creating more vertebrae that
pierces through the skin down at the rear. At first it's only
exposed hardened calcium; soon after the skin grows, enveloped
further by a wave of course, bushy hairs. With a seemingly mind of
its own, this new appendage for a tail swings freely, pulsating in
spasms with the rest of this wretched body...

Contrary to some, the kneecaps stay fairly as they are. They merely
pop, shattering to reform for a new structure of use. Even the
pelvic remains all but untouched, merely a shift of placement, and
stretch of build - an allowance for the newly shaped legs.
The only part to change most now is of the feet, themselves. What
bones were constructed previously...reform their ivory shapes into
a bent structure, a forcement to have me stand upon the balls of my
feet. The heel rips to the sky, arching well above the touch of
ground; my balance never waivers though, the aforementioned tail
acting as a counter measure.

It's a strange, but very painful feel...of how the largest toe
seems to just shift positions, wretching away, to stretch up to
match placement with the inner ankle bone - bone which has inched
it's way to an awkward half-foot extra of length. The blackening
nail from this new placement there simply severs its way through
the skin, creating a twisted hooked knob.
The other toes wish to curl against the ground, stressed by
tribulation, but they find it next to impossible. The once
clear-white nails join the transformation, becoming formidable
instruments of rendering death...digging deep against the parched
earth. Skin that was once smooth, now hardens into ebony pads, that
all but cushions the crushing weight contained high above them.

And now...as the pain finally begins to subside...I begin to
straighten. As my torso arches upward, the perspective of senses
change. The world seemingly takes upon itself an altered feel.
Things seem smaller than when I last opened my eyes. Contradictive
to what may be known, my vision doesn't remain in gray tones.
Reality's sharpness becomes heightened with a powerfully vibrant
array of colors and details.
The smallest pin-drop becomes a clear, tinkering sound to the ears
- able to be heard even amongst a torrent of noise.
A collision of seemingly infinite smells bombard my nostrils, which
flare open. However, in a slight amusement, even the first small
inhale can cause a quick sneeze.

With the end of agony, the mentality of my mind settles once again
as well. I become calmer, more focused, alert. Idly, the ears will
shift back and forth, like radar, picking up the surrounding
sounds. The black knob of a nose lifts towards the skies as it
sniffs out new aromas and scents. Eyes barely squinting in the
darkness, seeing further than the average human.
Knuckle-Crack-the-Bone takes on new play, as the differently shaped
fingers flex and curl at periods, working out kinks. A twirl of the
neck cracks at the vertebrae, along with the shifting of shoulders.

-

People - normal people - consider those like myself a monstrosity.
We're not, really. Those of us who've come to make of equal lives
of mortality, share in the same of humans in either of our forms.
It's those who are spurned, or take too much to heart the hatred of
our kind, that we can seemingly be vicious.

I'm kneeling, this time of own will, before a lakeside. I stare
down at my changed face, blinking back at myself with vibrant blue
eyes.

Yes, I do contain an abnormal animality form that could deem me a
demon. I have strength that even the strongest human could only
ever dream for. I have razor sharp instruments that are the most
lethal of any weapon...
But I'm not brutal. I'm not some thriving lunatic on a rampage for blood.

I'm just as any other would be.
And as I stare at myself, I can feel the shed of a tear, coursing
its way through the short hairs of my muzzle. Before it even falls,
I close my eyes, lifting my face towards the ivory shine of the
moon high above my head.
As my body now rises once again, my back arches, palms fisted upon
back-stretched arms. I focus my mind, drying quickly any sorrow my
heart now aches upon.

My dark lips split, showing seemingly glowing white teeth, as I
feel the rumble within my throat.
Slowly, but intently, I let go a long, saddened howl.

...
Some howl for pleasure, others for communication, and others just
to make noise.
...I cry, for the humans who'll never know.

Like I said, they call us monsters, yet we hardly ever lift a
finger against humanity, or their living.
They hunt us out of fright, forcing us into hiding. They fear what
they don't wish to understand.

However, thankfully, a few do.
As my muzzle drops down from the sky, a pair of soft hands reaches
up to caress and stroke along the course fur. My eyes view before
me one human who has excepted me for who I am, for what I become.
It's for her I continue to thrive through my agonies.
Without her, I'd have lost my mentality long ago.

She's my humanity, my reality. I call her my love, and she returns it.