Darkness. Damp. The scent of decay clung to the air like an old, familiar companion.

He had always known the world through vibrations—the rustling of dead leaves, the distant tremor of approaching feet, the ceaseless whisper of skittering life. His mandibles twitched as instinct guided him to the next scrap of rotting sustenance, his legs shifting beneath him in perfect, practiced harmony. This was existence. This was survival.

Then came the shift.

A great tearing sensation, like being ripped from the husk of his old shell, and then—agony. It was unlike anything he had known before, not the quick, merciful pain of a predator’s bite, nor the slow decay of a broken limb. This was something deeper, something wrong. His body, once so attuned to the simple rhythms of the world, had become something foreign.

He opened his eyes.

Sight. True sight.

Not the vague impressions of light and shadow he had always known, but shapes, color, depth. The world stretched out before him in a horrifying, dizzying expanse. A ceiling loomed above—far, far above—rough and cracked. The feeling of being exposed, vulnerable, sent a shudder through him, but when he tried to scuttle away, his legs betrayed him.

Legs. No, not legs.

Pale, fleshy things twitched at his command, fingers curled like dying antennae. Arms. A torso. A neck. His body had weight now, pressing down against him in ways that made no sense. His chest rose and fell—not in the tight, controlled rhythm of a segmented body, but in great, erratic gasps.

Breathing. A new kind of survival.

He tried to move, but the clumsy mass of limbs only sent him flailing, limbs tangling against the rough fabric beneath him. He let out a cry—high, raw, and wrong. Not the dry clicks of his mandibles or the hissing of distress. This sound was wet, vibrating, human.

He froze.

No. No.

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Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

His body was not his own.

Time lost meaning as he grappled with his new form. His body had weight, his flesh ached with sensations he could not name. His arms—arms—trembled as he pushed himself upright, his head spinning from the sheer impossibility of it all.

He tried to crawl, the instinctive movement of a creature that had known only the comfort of the earth beneath its many legs, but his body resisted. He collapsed, his hands pressing into the surface beneath him—rough fabric, not soil, not bark. The textures sent shivers through his unfamiliar skin.

Everything was too much. The air felt thick, suffocating. His eyes, these horrible, clear eyes, saw too much, details he had never needed to process. And the light—so harsh, so unbearable. He turned away, seeking the comfort of darkness, but there was none to be found.

He let out a low, animalistic whimper and forced himself to move again.

Hunger.

It gnawed at him, sharp and insistent. His body demanded sustenance, but the craving was different. He was used to the scent of decay, the rich, pungent promise of rot. But now—now the thought of such things turned his stomach.

No. No, this was all wrong.

His hands—hands—dragged him forward. The room around him was small, cluttered. A nest? No, not a nest, something colder. There was something nearby—an object—flat, metal, reflective. His fingers brushed against it, trembling as he pulled it closer.

The face that stared back at him was not his own.

A human. A human.

Dark, unkempt hair. Hollow eyes. A weak, fleshy mouth. A face. His face.

He recoiled, scrambling backward as if he could escape the reflection. No, no, no—

He turned, breathing ragged, searching for something—anything familiar. His gaze landed on a plate sitting on a wooden surface. A simple, untouched meal. The scent of it should have been repulsive—something dead, something unnatural. But the hunger within him sharpened, demanding.

He lunged forward, his fingers barely managing to grasp the edge of the plate. The movement was uncoordinated, clumsy. The food fell to the ground, but it didn’t matter. He needed to eat.

The first bite was strange. Soft, lacking the crunch of a shell or the bitter tang of decomposing matter. His body rebelled, yet it craved more. The battle between his past and present raged on with every swallow.

This was not his food. This was not his body.

And yet, h

e was trapped within it.

His body would not let him forget what he had become.

The longer he remained within this human shell, the more alien it felt. The way his fingers twitched when he moved, the cold vulnerability of exposed skin, the weight of his own existence pressing down on him.

His instincts screamed at him to hide, to seek the safety of dark, enclosed spaces. He scuttled toward the corner of the room, pressing himself into the shadows. Better. Safer.

But the space was too open, too wrong. His mind, fragmented between what he had been and what he was now, could not reconcile the difference.

This skin, this shape—it was not meant for him.

He was forsaken.

Alone.

Lost in a body that was never his.

And the worst part?

He had no idea if he could ever return.

The door creaked open.

A voice—distant, unfamiliar—called out.

"Are you awake?"

He flinched at the sound, pressing himself deeper into the shadows, instinct warring with logic. He was exposed, too visible, his heart hammering in a way he did not understand.

Footsteps approached. The presence of another—a human—loomed over him.

A hand reached out.

Panic seized him, his breath caught in his throat, and before he could stop himself, he let out a sharp, chittering hiss.

The human recoiled.

"What the—?"

He knew that sound.

It was the sound of a cornered insect.

Of a creature that did not belong.

And now, trapped in this unfamiliar flesh, he was about to learn what it truly meant to be human.

Or, perhaps, to be hunted.