i dont even know anymore

"What do you mean, 'how have I changed?' That would be assuming that I was something in the first place. Like you and everyone else, I woke up to the world completely ignorant, but unlike you I came in fully formed with enough brain matter to know that I should have some idea of what the fuck was going on, but didn't. Since then, it's been a long series of people making assumptions and telling me what I should be.

To normal people, it's pretty obvious what I am. A monster. Yeah, maybe they can't see it right away, but I can tell what they're thinking. Every one of them, they take one look and get disgusted. Most are too polite to act on it, at least at first. But one of the first things I learned to read was the sound of human voices, the contortions of human faces.

Even the one who made me agreed with them. I remember waking up, the first thing I saw was the sky. Wherever it was that I'd been stitched up, I wasn't there then. I'd been dragged outside. Only after the pain shot down my spine, jolting my body back to life did I make any sort of sense of my surroundings.

I saw who made me. She was a lot like me, even in the state I was in, I could recognize that, the stitches and scars and scorch marks were much like the ones that marred my own body. Somewhere in my awakening mind I expected her to be happy. But there was sadness in her face, in her eyes. I didn't understand it then, but every word she spoke was laced with pity.

She stayed only long enough for me to get my bearings, relearn how to speak and read and move, but you know what? Even when I woke up one day and found that she had gone without a trace... I was kind of glad. Something roiled inside me, a neverending frustration, and her simpering had started to sicken me. If she hadn't left, I would have run off myself.

There was always talk of some kind of fire that powered me. Hell yes. I was -still am- a bonfire. Right down to my core I can feel it, something powerful that has to be nurtured and fueled. As time went on I learned more and more how to manipulate it, direct it to my will. I may be hated, but oh the power I have.

I started to walk.

I didn't even really understand where I was going, but the fire kept pushing me to move, to never stop learning, and I tossed knowledge into the flames and watched it flare up, consuming greedily. Nothing could stop me, not cold, not exposure, not hunger, nothing.

One night, years ago now, I had a strange dream. One that keeps echoing in the back of my mind even to this day.

I walked in a field of otherworldly statues, that turned to stare at me as I passed. Only their eyes were truly alive, wild, bulging things that contained within them an unimaginable hunger. They stood, hunched over like a pack of wolves, and once they were out of my sight they crept forward, stalking me.

At the end of the path stood a woman, nude and unmarred, her back turned to me. I kept walking, towards her, unable to stop to myself. She spoke, her voice sweet and coaxing even though I don't remember the words. It was her or the twisted, grotesque wolves that, by this point, were nipping at my heels, tearing bloody chunks from my legs. But I made no movement to stop them.

The woman turned and met my eyes and her skin fell away, around her feet like a cloak. Only her face remained, beautiful an immaculate even as exposed muscles twitched and bled. She smiled and spoke again, but fear, fear like I'd never felt before or since gripped my heart. Her words were, once again, lost.

But I couldn't run.

Sparks gathered at her feet, and soon she was completely obscured by flames, flames that were too bright to exist. They consumed the entire landscape except for me. Something within them flapped and shouted like a wounded bird.

This time,I understood what it had to say.

"Leave."

When I woke up, I didn't have to be told twice. It was a warning against... something. I'd really rather not press my luck and find out.