Sleep was necessary. In all my adaptations, I had always required sleep. I could put it off, but the same effects as ever before would incur.

Which is why, going on a few days without rest and in constant evolution, I was getting a little tired. A regular bed was still on my mind, but at present, I would have to try not to be too cranky handling this problem.

The police were still outside, and I had decided to let them make the first move. The situation could be handled tactfully if they would just see it from my perspective. No laws were broken!

Just a lizard having a late-night snack.

The officer, of course, came through the doors with his weapon drawn, eyes bugging out of his head. Unable to emote, I turned my head slowly and spoke. I didn't want to spook him. "Can I help you, guy?"

His nametag said Terrance, I read. A fresh-faced young African American stood pointing his gun at me, bravely ready to slay a monster. "It's the police," he belatedly said, regaining his wits.

"Do you want a waffle, Terrance? They give them out for free here," I said, gesturing carefully for him to sit.

"I'm going to need you to come outside with your hands up, Sir," he told me. Almost stone-cold now, Terrance had really found his composure.

"With all due respect, uh... Officer. I really don't want to sound villainous, but that gun won't work on me. And I haven't broken any laws. I really just want to be left alone." Who said diplomacy was for fools?

He refused to lower his weapon, but he did take pause at my attitude. "You're disturbing the peace... Sir. We need to take you down to the station and see about your Hero registry and... any possible warrants."

"Talk about profiling," I snorted, again a disturbing and inhuman noise. "Just because a guy's a giant lizard doesn't mean he's committed any crimes. And I'm not on the Hero registry."

"Listen. If you don't cooperate, Sir-"

I cut him off. "My name is Creep, okay? Let me just lay out my perspective here... Could you maybe?" I motioned for him to lower his gun, this time insistently. Whether by fear or sheer confusion, he did so. "I don't want any trouble, but you've probably figured out I'm a draft dodger by now. I've been living in the woods eating bugs, so you see why I'm here. It's not villainy. If anything, it's kind of pathetic."

He stared off into space as if he was an exasperated parent questioning his life decisions. Options rolled past his eyes, I could tell, and none of them satisfied.

I continued. "We need to strike a compromise, okay? Neither of us wants like, a huge problem. That's not a threat or anything, I'mma just kind of walk away if you try to arrest me, honestly..."

He finally looked back to me, looming head and shoulders above him. We both knew this was the case. I was here by goodwill. Still, he wasn't completely convinced. "So what are you proposing... Creep?"

"I didn't break any laws, so you leave me alone. But I also won't go around scaring people into giving me free food. I will... get a fanny pack or something to carry my money like a normal..." human being didn't strike me as the right term. When too much time had passed, consternated about what exactly the word was, I merely left it there. "So yeah."

Officer Terrance looked back to his comrades outside, gritting his teeth before biting the bullet. Both of us were tired it seemed, and at the very least he saw that a confrontation would not go well. "Dammit. I've dealt with your type before..." He did a double-take across the reptilian exterior. "Well not exactly, but you know what I mean. I know you're not out here to hurt anybody. There are hundreds of Supers just in a city like this alone. Whether it's your religion or I don't give a shit, a lot of people dodge."

"I'm Amish," I nodded. Sleep deprivation was exhuming my inner asshole, apparently. A well-practiced reflex. Having been so deprived of human interaction, it was a conflicting sight on arrival, caught between familiarity and bad habits. For now, familiarity won.

Terrance didn't ignore my sarcasm. He pressed me."Watch your damn attitude. Neither of us may want a problem, but I'm ready to give you one if I think for even a second that you're a danger to this town. You don't just get to refuse the handcuffs and laugh about it. That's psychopathy."

I wanted to vehemently disagree. It was an offensive thing to say, but I kept my mouth shut. I wasn't fully back in touch with what was acceptable. None of this was in my wheelhouse, but I didn't want a problem. "I've been mistreated by people like you in the past and nothing I said helped. I'm sorry if my pessimism sounds like I'm callous."

"Don't test the situation. I'm trying to think this through."

"You know my side of it. I won't go back to the people that tried to kill me on a whim. So what's your side, Terrance. You think that's justice?"

He grimaced deeply. "I'm going to regret doing this... You have to promise me you won't keep causing problems like this, or I'll get somebody in here that you take more seriously. Okay? I don't want to do that. But I will if you make me. Stay out off the radar."

"I'll try my best." I shrugged despite the dread I felt at the prospect of encountering Maximal again. They couldn't be allowed to know I was alive. "I may just move on. I could be somebody else's problem."

Though cautious, he opened the door and I followed him outside. After calming his friends, Terrance had one last admonishment. "You may be lonely and missing society or whatever, but you can't go around scaring people. You have to know the limits of this world and meet them halfway."

I crinkled my snout. Why should it be my problem that people can't tell a regular lizard man from a Kizmet that wants to lay eggs in their corpse? Hardly fair, but my petulance could only be so haughty.

I stuck out my hand for him to shake and found some sympathy, deep down where I kept the childhood memories. "I understand. But I never asked for this, man."

Without hesitation, Terrance accepted the shake. "Everyone's just trying to get by, Creep. We can be better people by remembering that."

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Cheesy moralism aside, I appreciated the sentiment. No more stealing waffles. That was the lesson I took. In the future, I would respect the reasonable impositions of free trade. I may be selfish, but I was no thief, goddammit.

After that, I retreated to the woods. I stayed to watch the ensuing argument amongst the cops, which drug on. Under different circumstances, I would have been amused at their haplessness, but hearing Terrance convince them that no report was necessary, I felt slightly grateful. Likely though it may have been that he was avoiding paperwork, my interest was congenially served.

It was a wonderful exception to finally meet a figure of authority with an ounce of grace. I could see that he was a standout, surrounded by his partners. Not so taken by their constant need to exercise force. He didn't feel the compulsion to interfere, control, and annihilate risk like Maximal had. I would carry that knowledge with me.

I didn't wander far before lying down to sleep. The woods represented a step down from weightlessly drifting beneath the waves, sadly. It only served to motivate me the following day, however.

Having slept into the afternoon, there was not as much time as I would have liked. But, I had in mind the steps I needed to take. Since making my way back to society, my goal had clarified. It wouldn't be enough to simply waltz back into society. I had to return on the right terms if I wanted to fully regain the life that Supers had taken from me.

First things first, I had some reading to do. Since stealing a phone was off the table, one solution remained. If I was going to access the internet, I would need to visit an old friend.

Getting to my destination was not so easy in the daylight. I had a natural sense of stealth, and while there were always woods, it took major rerouting to reach the other side of the highway safely.

It was getting into the evening by the time I arrived. That old and dear friend marked by murals and a sad absence of cars was none other than the public library. The best thing my tax dollars ever created.

Confidence wouldn't be enough to silence their screams, I thought. If I was going to go inside, human interaction was a certainty. To avoid another repeat of the Waffle House, I had to take a terrible risk.

I had to become adorable.

And for that, I went through the arduous process of shedding mass. Down, until I was not only the size of a man but smaller. I continued shrinking until I felt mortified, and then I shrunk some more. No instinctual sense of praetorian threat could be allowed to stop my mission. Big scenes had to be minimized.

Coming up to the counter inside, the librarian actually failed to catch sight of me. I had to peer over the counter like a small child and wave to get her attention. "Ma'am. Hello, miss."

"Oh!" she jumped, knocking over a stack of books in the process. Unlike last time, though, curiosity was allowed to quickly overcome her fear. "My goodness!" she exclaimed. "What are you, little fella?"

To add insult to injury, my voice was obnoxiously high. "I just wanted to let you know I'm going to be using the library. Didn't want you to freak out when you saw me."

My pride in the plan's success only barely outweighed the annoyance of her excited decision that I was a young Super. Not only that but one deserving of pity. "Well don't you worry, we love seeing young Heroes like you in our Library, sweetheart." She was waddling out from behind the counter before I could stop her. "Why don't we just help you find what you need, hmm? I'm sure we have every book on Heroes that you could want!"

I sighed. "You don't need to-..." Yet, I realized that she did. The books I wanted would not likely be in my tiny little arm's reach. Under my breath, I reneged. "Thank you..."

I couldn't stay mad. While she was definitely confused, the Librarian assisted me in getting every book I needed without question. Why a cute rascal of a budding Hero such as myself would need so many tomes was simply not polite to inquire. After everything was said and done, I had the material and my nanny took her leave.

A successful test run of my devious disguise.

People would come and go, often stopping to gaze at the creature reading by the computers. Yet, no one said anything. No one had the gumption to be the first person to act like this was out of place in our world. At last, I had found some peace in the airconditioned comfort of civilization.

I did log onto the computers, and habit got the better of me. Every day for as long as I could remember, my schedule consisted of checking my messages and social media. Browsing time-wasting sites and binging podcasts. There was no way I could deny that part of my old self.

I wasn't stupid enough to try logging in to my accounts. I was way too fearful of Seraph's tech abilities for that risk. Instead, I settled for listening to one of the best podcasts, which I had fallen majorly behind in. There was a great backlog of content, among all my favorite creators. 

Having borrowed a pair of headphones from the public stash, I dared to lay my head down and let the sound flow through me. The drone of so many cozy nights alone in my car carried on in my ear. It was a little piece of home. Sure enough, I didn't stay conscious for long.

My dreams had not been human for some time. They were more like I imagined those of a dog's to be, yipping and flailing in their sleep. I saw the same old visions of flowering deserts, water carving canyons, and majestic birds in flight. Often, I identified with the animals I watched.

My nap ended before too long, though, and I was surprised to find that night had fallen outside. No one else was around, I saw, craning my groggy head. Not even the Librarian.

The books surrounding me were far from finished. Though I knew the 'how', they were supposed to teach me the 'why'. Without the right knowledge, I had such limited hope of achieving the look I wanted.

Just then, a voice came from behind me. "Oh my God," it groaned, and I immediately thought the same. "Creep, is that you?"

I turned around. Officer Terrance shook his head in disbelief where he stood there, and I tried to in vain to explain. I couldn't have him calling in Maximal, not when I was just getting started. "It's me, I'm just tiny and cute, now."

"You're hideous," he said flatly. "I got a call from the Librarian worried that a parentless frog-child had been left by itself and what do I find?"

I raised my finger at him and made a convincing counter. "To be fair, I made it hours this time before anybody had a problem! Hardly disturbing the peace, I'd say. Who's disturbed, huh?"

"I'm disturbed, Sir," the way he said it definitely came off as an insult. "You were supposed to be leaving town. I had to jump on this call so none of the other guys could get involved. Do you understand the position you're putting me in?"

"First of all, I never promised that. It was just a suggestion. Second, I can explain," I said. "These books are on evolutionary theory, you dig? My power lets me slowly change my form. You can start to put the pieces together from that." He only glared. Trying to get the point across, I vaguely imitated a monkey, cringing hard as I did. "It's chimps! That's my path back to looking like anyone else, so I can go back to my life before all this shit happened."

"Let me get this straight..." He incredulously inspected my books. "You want to recreate the process of human evolution, so you can go back to looking normal? This is what you're trying to do?"

"Yes..." He had such a way of making it sound stupid. I had to put it in more sensible terms. "So that I can go sailing! I can't get a job to buy a boat if people keep reporting me to the police. Not if I want to go... sailing."

Terrance clenched his jaw, flashing the white of his eyes as he tried to calm down. "Nothing you've done makes any sense." He spoke to me like I was crazy. "You've got the perfect power to dodge the draft, but you go harass people at a diner? Do you not get that I'm trying to save your life? Guys like you don't last in the war. My friend..." The thought seemed to drift away, turning his face back to icy and stern. "How can you think this is a good idea?"

"I dunno, I figured I could get pretty close to human with the right procedure..."

"I'm only going to tell you one more time. Don't let me see you again, not if you want to stay here. You had better be able to pull this off, because otherwise if you're not going to hide in the woods, you're going to be found out. Now, this is the last time I help you."

It chaffed, but he didn't deserve my grief. Not simply for being a cop. So I promised him this time. "You won't see me again. Not like this. I'm going to get my life back." I was sure of it.

Terrance almost smirked. "Then I guess... I wish you luck, Creep. I really do."