The Change-Up

Dear Diary
Yes, diary. It’s old fashioned as all hell to call your blog a diary these in this day and age, though there is some consolation to modernity in that I’m at least keeping it on a computer. I doubt the internet wants to hear about my goddamn life, and it’s not like I’m much of a writer, so it might as well be one.

My name is Elisa Cronenberg, age sixteen, typing to you on a computer taken from behind a Best Buy, with a Wi-Fi card taken from school, and Wi-fi leeched from some grandma’s house next door. Most of the stuff I have’s been gotten from dumpster-diving. Not that I have much of a choice in the matter.

Mom’s pretty much not-there. Well, she’s there, but she isn’t. Dad died when I was little, and she lost it. The only three ways I see her is sleeping after work, drunk after sleeping, and sleeping with strange guys for pay after she gets drunk so she can pay the rent. Whatever. I’ve been able to make my way so far.

Well, unless you count the spiders in my room. They keep quiet mostly. They’ve never bitten me once. I always heard that spiders were self-reliant, so we’re perfect company. Course, I don’t think they let their houses get this filthy, and I don’t think they have to dumpster dive to eat. So in that respect I’m a bit less than them.

God damn the walls in this place smell. I know it's not mold, I've smelled mold and it doesn't smell like this. It smells like burning tires and hair. Previous renters must've had a helluva second business going on. But I deal with it.

Well, that’s all for today. Unless you want me to detail every itch and callus on my arm, which I doubt you do. So yeah, tomorrow.

-Dear Diary-
School day today. Eugh. Everybody, or at least the everybodies who make the movies, talk about how school is a social pyramid, with the alpha-bitches and sociopaths at the top hitting those on the bottom.

But it’s more like a tank of starved pigs, bunch of fucked up idiots put together to rip each other apart to eat. It’s just that the runts are the first to get eaten. I should know, I’m one of the runts, the poor kids.

For example, there’s the fact that I spent fifteen minutes cleaning gum out of my locker’s lock today. Or the fact that . Or the fact that I spent another fifteen minutes taping my backpack together after somebody ripped it apart. Though, I don’t see why they’d bother vandalizing it. Damn thing is mostly duct tape anyway.

The Ramone sisters are the worst ones. They’re poor too, but less poor than me and a little more popular. One of them; the little weasel; tripped me as I was walking to Math class, and the other, the great hambeast, threw a wad of toilet paper in my face, wet and sticky with god knows what. Everybody else laughed, I got up and walked away. I’m used to it. Nobody’s ever helped me, the teachers don’t give a shit, so I had to help myself through the magic of apathy.

But, I at least had a good day dumpster-diving after school. Found a lava lamp and a pillow I could use to replace that moldy one I threw away last week.

God dammit, the callus is spreading, and it’s itching like crazy. I don’t think it’s a callus. I still have some Neosporin I nicked from the nurse’s office, I’ll rub it on there.

Signing off.

-Dear Diary-
Today I saw the boy again. Well, that’s not his name. It’s Gregor Bishop, I’d be dumb to forget it, but to me he is The Boy.

Guys don’t notice me much, which I’m not sure is good or bad compared to what I’ve seen of the other girls. It is kinda schadenfreuden-y to see a Ramone sister with a black eye after flaunting her boyfriend the day before.

But he’s different. He’s one of those people nobody really hates, the nice guy amongst ‘Nice guys”, the guy whose smiles always mean smiles. I’ve worked with him in class, once-or-twice. He’s the only one who ever listend to me. The only one who smiled when I talked to him. With that gorgeous face, those great blue eyes, that sweet...

Yeah, I like him. But I don’t think I’d ask him out. I don’t think I could ask him out. He’s the kid of some big-shot at Yoyodyne Corporation, and if he doesn’t politely let me down, his dad’d certainly let me down hard.

The teachers were eyeing at me all day. Well, eyeing me more than the usual “Watch out for the loser, she might go off” kinda way. Of course, I can see why. I used the Neosporin, but the callus, keeps growing. It’s a nasty shade of blue too, and it won’t stop itching. I was scratching like crazy every period today.

Though they didn’t look at The Boy when he was itching his neck the whole day. Typical. But I don’t blame him. Not sure if I transferred it to him or what. Well, at least it seems benign.

Dear Diary
Goddamit. I had the weirdest fucking dream last night, and all I can remember of it is the phrase “Blue Fire Before Dawn.” Feh. That’s surreal enough for my all of zilch readers, right?

It was little more surreal today in school. These two blonde-haired grinning idiots came in for yet another interruption to tell us about some bullshit at an assembly. I think it was in reaction to some scandal, some newspaper article the teachers were having a fit about. I can’t tell you the name of the group because, to be honest, they were so fucking boring the name didn’t register.

They were talking about poverty and homelessness amongst the student body. I know, I know, an issue that should be near and dear to my heart, but they were the typical “condescendingly babying white guys” (I consider my race to be “ambiguously brown if I haven’t told you already). They kept talking about how you needed to have “sympathy” for the “less fortunate” and “speak up” if they know of one of those “poor widdle disadvantaged uwchins” in their class.

The fucking hell they will you bullshit-selling piles of shit. I've lived long enough and poor enough in my ripe sixteen years of age (Shut up) to know that people like me are different from the rest of you because we are alone. We're loved by nobody, hated by a few, left alone by everybody else. That's not the way most of like it, but we have to learn to fucking live with it, because nobody's going to fucking help you.

Well, maybe "live" is the wrong word.

I only got that much, nobody else even listened. Well, except for The Boy, and he didn’t seem to like much of what he was hearing. Couldn’t really tell over that hoodie he was wearing. And I’m pretty sure nobody gave a shit about what they were saying, given that when I woke up (Yes, woke up) some asshole’d taped a picture of a cardboard box with the note “Go Home Freak!” on there. At least we didn’t have class.

The calluses are still growing. Thank god I wore a sweater today, even if it was a piece of shit. They’re a weird, shiny blue now, around my elbow and my left tit, and they feel like rocks now. Pretty sure it’s not a tumor, as I can’t find anything online about a tumor like this. When I tried to “lance” it with a knife (Don’t worry, I ran it under some hot water first), the knife bent.

At this point, I don't know what the fuck to think anymore.

Dear Diary
Fucking callus still itches, and now it hurts like hell. I can’t stop sweating either. I’m not sure it’s sweat though, thick, globby stuff. It's coming from my skin at least.

I can’t really concentrate anymore on my classes. Despite what you might think about my class and my whining, I’ve always been a pretty decent student. Not like I have anything else better to do as a social outcast, after dumpster diving for my daily whatever of course.

But the itching, the “sweat”, that pain, I can’t take it, always jittering around in my seat. Teachers have noticed of course, but after the first time at the councelor’s office, squirming and scratching and leaving that yellow sticky “sweat” (Which they apparently think is some sort of drug or whatever leaking out of my coat), they must've declared it a lost cause. I’ve always been a lost cause to them, this just gives them an excuse to care even less.

The fat Ramone knocked me down and tried to punch me out after school, as per usual every two weeks. She stopped after she saw I didn’t react. Her punches didn’t hurt me. She just ran.

There’s also something funky going on with The Boy. He’s always walking away from those groups he keeps standin’ in when they come by, always careful to keep them from looking at him, and he’s got his hoodie real tight so you can’t see his face. But I can see he’s not smiling anymore. And his hoodie’s weird and lumpy.

I just spit out a tooth. Just fell right out of my mouth, onto the keyboard. I can feel a few hairs falling off as I type this.

I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m scared.

Dear Diary-
It’s worse today. This “infection”'s now all over my right arm, thighs 'n chest, and the sweating’s getting worse, I keep feeling big phlegmy gobs of it all over. I’ve made do using Dad’s old clothes, but everybody still notices I’m hiding something.

The Ramones keep spouting their stupid insults, but they always stay a few feet away from me, always backing up as I walk closer. I’m too fucked up for them to pummel. Teachers won’t even look me in the eye anymore either.

Whenever I’m going for a “bathroom break”, I always spit up a couple of teeth. Always pull out a few more clumps of hair. I’ve had to take a lot of these “breaks”.

One time, I fell asleep in class, I had that weird dream again. I remember it, fields of roiling meat, strange fleshy towers and strings, lakes of tears. There was no blue fire, weirdly enough, just the words “Blue Fire By Dawn”, like a distant song, before the teacher rapped the ruler to wake me up. God knows if I’m going insane or if it’s something else.

The Boy now doesn’t even talk. He I wonder, did I infect him? Did I give him what I got?! God, I hope not. Don’t want to drag him down with me into this shit.

Only the spiders in my room now bother to touch me. Heh, maybe I’m becoming a spider…

I’m not sure whether that’s a joke or not. I can feel a sharp something poking from below the gums where my teeth fell out, and from my cheeks...

Dear Diary
God, I’m getting worried. I’m so hungry now, sweating like a pig, this phlegm rolling off of me in sheets. I ate the whole contents of a McDonalds dumpster, a tube of paste, a dead… something off the road. I can still smell the stink of it. Whatever the fuck it is, it'd been there for days. At this point I don’t care.

I once or twice considered calling Urgent Care, but I doubt Urgent Care would have anything to do with me. And if they did, it’d be to send me to goddamn Yoyodyne. No, if I’m going to die horribly, it’ll be on my own terms, as I’ve always done it.

Not that I was going to amount to anything anyway. I never could get a scholarship, so after high school it would’ve been one long slide to the grave. That’s the only reason I stayed, a little more time. Thank god it’s not a school day.

On my dumpster dives, I’ve improvised an outfit. I look like a stalker/flasher/creeper/pervert, but I don’t care. It’s better than looking like a horrible monster infectee, with the growths (Not calluses now, growths) all over me, itching and hurting and pushing.

So this is how it's going to end. You live alone, you die alone.

It's funny what you remember when you're dying. I just remembered the name of that bullshit group at school. It was "You Are Not Alone". But I am alone. I'm alone, I'm alone, oh sweet god I'm alone. And, at this time of my life, I don't want to be.

Dwar Duary

I cann barleyu mofve. The skin iss dgroeing over me likw a scagb. I fell so hoty. Feel Like Im dying. Iff anyfbody reasd this Plleasw Remewmber Me. Blkuse Fire Bewfoer Dqan.













Dear Diary-
I’m not gone. The worst is over. Thank Christ. Though I don’t know whether to thank him or damn him, with all the shit that happened to me.

I’ve been stuck in that tumor cuccoon for a few days, and I’m writing this about three hours after I got out. nobody came in once. Typical.

Everything’s covered in bits of meat/plastic/egg-y shell/tumor/whatever and that sweat. The spiders seem to love it though. It's sorta funny weirdly enough, seeing the little bastards goofing around in the broken horrible soul crushing disease-thing.

It's hard to describe how I changed. Oh, I still have the basics of a person, two arms, two legs, a head. But, I'm... monsterier. Claws, jaws, tail, big ol' tongue, bug plate-y things on my skin. I can hide it, but only just.

I'm still me though. At least, I think I'm still me. I'm still thinking like me. A new me, but still me.

I’m wearing the stalking flasher outfit now. Yes I call it that, har har har. Can’t go out looking like this. But, I don’t give a shit. They never cared about me before, fuck, they hated me before, so why should I care what they think now?

I dreampt of the Meatland again. “Blue Fire Before Dawn” again, as per usual. But, there was something different. Before getting there, I remember walking through a giant fleshy hole (Yeah, laugh it up), right on my wall. And it didn’t feel as terrifying this time. It felt like a whole new world to explore, somewhere that didn't hate me. I did, up and down, through meat hills and mouth valleys. I felt at home.

In other news, some of the spiders seem to be hugging the wall instead of my broken cocoon-thingy. More power to 'em.

I’ve never heard of somebody feeling so alive after a near-death experience. And, weird as it sounds, that's how I feel, alive. Like, if I keep goin', I'll find somethin' better comin' for me.

I'm going to look up more to see if this' happened to anyone else. Because if I got a new lease on life, might as well figure out how I got it. A mystery wrapped in a whatever and all. I bet that Meatworld's got something to do with it, and whatever. Maybe it's somewhere worse, some trap for dipshits like me, maybe it's somewhere better.

But after sixteen years of nothing, I can finally see something on the horizon. Something to change. And I'll tell ya, I'll do my damndest to reach it.

Dear Diary-
Back at school today. Nobody noticed my absence. Everybody’s staying away from me & makin' fun of me like they were before, teachers don’t like me, and I'm a non-entity to everybody else. In other words, everything’s mostly back to normal, other than that big thing.

But I don't feel like a non-entity. It feels weird. It's always been second nature to me to feel like a nobody, but feeling like a somebody who can actually do something has its perks. Well, it's all perks really.

I get around pretty well. Monstery bits feel like a second skin. But nobody seems to notice that, they’re too busy getting away from me in my creepy perv-o-suit. But I see that as a plus rather than a minus. Still can't believe the thing works so well to hide it, though I had to add a few things.

There's one big thing. The Boy was there. And he still had his hoodie on. But now he had big-ass goggles on, and a weird surgery mask too. And, more interestingly, the hoodie looked a lot less lumpy. Well, except for in the back. And now I've gotten to wondering...

Dear Diary,

You know, before now I would never have done what I did today. But fuck it, something big’s happening, I'm a bug-beast-lady-thing, and I'll be damned if I don't go for the gusto! Grab fate by the balls! Cliché number three!

I’ve always been so concerned with surviving and being a smug, aloof, goddamn bitch. I’ve been afraid far too long. So, I jumped the Boy after school.

No, not like that. Just pounced and grabbed. Is it technically pouncing? Whatever, I don't care.

I’ve been feeling a lot stronger after that change, so I thought it’d be easy to sneak up, pull off the hoodie, and see if he got the "What The Fuck Monster" virus.

But damn, he was harder than I thought. In the movies they make it look so easy. But dammit, when people get tackled, they fucking wriggle.

But I was a little stronger than him (ain’t that atypical), and I pulled the face-stuff off.

He just stared at me, with three eyes. He was scared, though I don’t know whether it was due to the crazy tall lady on top of him or the fact that I saw him like this.

If somebody told me “You are not alone,” I wouldn’t have believed it. I never did I’ve always been alone even before this, and I probably would have called you insane a few days ago if you thought I did.

But, I pulled off my disguise, the scarf, sunglasses, hat, and looked at him. Creepy-ass monster face to creepy-ass monster face. I brushed my claws over his horns. Then, for the first time in ages, he smiled.

He’s here right now. We have a lot of catching up to do.