After exchanging the dreary scabrous cloak into much smoother leather jacket and pants, I couldn’t really tell who I was looking at anymore. It was a human far too ethereal to be standing in front of me. Luckily, this was a dream.

It was hard to escape the fact that we spent all this time designing something that looks nice to me. And the way he was looking at me was a bit alarming.

“If you… uh. Get fringe, or toss some of the locks over the face like this, it wouldn’t really matter what expression you’re making.”

Meddling with the coarse hair brought me far too close. His eyes were a bright shade of red, frame far too still and nostrils remained eerily unmoving. I didn’t comment on that at all. Instead, my palms itched to get onto him. “I want you,” I said and clarified for the otherworldly creature wearing human face, “To touch, to fuck.”

Arms clasped on the small of my back. The mouth stretched into smile too wide and real monster poked through, momentarily dissipating the illusion of being just another man. My preferences and standards went out the window ever since I started making money, so weirdness did nothing to smother this attraction.

Yeah. Keep telling that to yourself, weirdo.

“Go ahead,” unpleasantly smirking lips told me and I kissed them. Even before I could wonder about trying to get under the new studded jacket and finding innards, one of his hands pulled the garb open to reveal more of a human’s body. My wanting hands waited for nothing, getting under and twinning around, grasping for that familiar feel of skin. It felt exactly like holding another man. I missed this so; something was off anyway.

Before I could start pondering too deeply, man with blond mane dipped down and took me in his mouth. My fingers threaded through the thick locks, wound around and pulled with the absence of thought.

Things I wanted to do to this man. Brutal, irredeemable things. And I could. In this dream I had all the power to. Somewhere in the periphery I saw person-sized cages. I knew without looking there would also be many different tools. I pulled on blond hair and yanked beautiful man off myself. I could-

I looked at my tangled hand that was crushing wavy strands which weren’t really hair but rather sensitive antennas. I let go and backed away.

“Fuck!” I shouted, biting on my fist. “I’m sorry,” I said and zipped up, ready to get away from here and never speak of this again. Glancing back at the demon, he still knelt where I’d left him, lips glistening. All submissive and pliable. Shook my head. Didn’t want this to be one of those dreams. Didn’t want to be one of those people.

“Can we go?” I snapped and left into a random direction. Exit showed up as if prompted.

“You didn’t hurt me,” monster rumbled with the previous demonic cadence somewhere behind me. But I knew I did, for I still remembered my crushed wrist from the instance before. “You flatter yourself thinking that you can.”

“It’s not about you, don’t let it get to your big head.”

Not wanting to go any deeper into that, I boxed up my irritation and smiled. This would end up haunting me for months but I was determined to ignore it in daylight. Looked back at the person silently trailing behind me and immediately missed the coiling horns.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Hey, so since you’re doing human thing, I guess I should go and be a monster now?” Yes, cultural exchange! Great idea. Perhaps I could even become creature so foul I’d harbour no feeling and remorse. That’d be the dream.

Before he’d said anything in reply, I sprouted copy of the horns he usually sported. They did not enhance the hearing. The growth did not stop until prompted either, and bony material was too heavy for my meek neck. I fell on all fours. My skeleton felt brittle and a tooth cracked under pressure. I thought it should have hurt all over, but there was nothing.

Reverberation of calm words kept me from plunging into panic. The discomfort eased gradually and I stood back up again. My heart was still beating to an insane rhythm, the only thing to attest to the ordeal I just breezed through. The distress was brief but felt so real.

My new ears were picking up another, much greater beat under my feet but I paid it no mind. The dream was doing its best to go down a darker path and I wasn’t here for any of that.

“Why stop there?” demon that he was, creature urged me on to keep trying and changing.

“Um, because I nearly died?”

“Sounds like you need more practise,” he bit back grittily.

I pondered and decided, “Okay, fair.”

Toying with my outward form was not remotely simple. After a while I began suspecting he was holding my hand through those. The more I dabbled, the clearer this fact became. I kept straying off-course but would always find my way back. Which was strange, because I had no idea what I was doing.

It took embarrassingly long to notice the shadowy guide perching at the corner of my awareness, but in the end there was only so much space in my birdbrain. How had I overlooked this massive presence looking over my shoulder in first place?

I thought I’d be angrier. Maybe I was? Or maybe this other person I was turning to was more chill.

When I repeatedly failed to wake up I had to face it – this was no normal dream either. Can’t say I was sad or mad about it. Perhaps weary and disappointed. Not in the least bit surprised. This was the sole plausible outcome for a while.

Would this new unruffled, unflappable guy want to spend an eternity floating around trapped in some monster’s head? I searched for the will to live. Couldn’t find any and after all, that was up to my puppet master. I went through all the prerequisite training to become a functional body part and hadn’t even noticed.

“I wouldn’t expend all that effort on a mouth,” monstrous speech rattled off nearby.

How sweet, I scoffed incredulously on the inside. “I see we’ve stopped pretending this isn’t what it is.”

“It is, and it isn’t,” he said as though that explained anything.

I swayed on a ledge of fake precipice, still hallucinating violently. Illusion of hardly probable landscapes never went away. Struck by an ingenious inspiration, vaulted headfirst into a ravine. No fear fluttered in my chest, although the visible light decreased with every passing second before disappearing completely. Was I about to go splat? I saw nothing, but these days much like my gracious host I functioned mostly by hearing. I could tell I was still sinking. There was no bottom.

Surrounded by darkness and beating of enormous hearts, I looked over my proverbial shoulder and felt dwarfed by the presence. He stopped hiding as well, or just waited to be properly faced. The being I was attached to was far too complex for me to even begin untangling. I couldn’t track his movement or even register the full size. I felt like imploding if I kept looking, so turned back into myself.

My perception told me I was still within a dream, but at the same time I could not tell if the crushing depths were real or imagined. How long was I even primed and functional? Being conscious was such a chore. Pulled in my exaggeratedly lanky limbs and curled up. I felt the cold emptiness of the abyss.

“Why do you feel alone?” monstrous hiss rocked the water I kept on sinking through, with no hope of ever seeing the surface again and I snickered. Truly. How ironic.

“So, this is your every day? Float around in the underwater currents?” I complained about my carefree existence and of wonders I was shown. “What do you do for fun?” Besides devouring the unsuspecting.

“Visit your world,” monster’s whisper echoed through the depths.

After all, it’s full of delicious entertainment.

“Taste is irrelevant. I don’t get food poisoning,” tone was firmer, clearer and somewhat closer. In fact, wasn’t it inside my head? It was, wasn’t it? Because neither I nor he spoke out loud. The fucker was casually perusing my insides. Nausea, disgust and wrongness twisted me inside out.

“You ate me!” I screamed my imaginary lungs out, feeling all sorts of angry and betrayed as if he owed me anything.

“No,” he rumbled in response without deigning to elaborate.

I gesticulated fervently towards myself, “Well, clearly!”

“I didn’t. All I’ve got of you are the damaged cells which I exchanged,” he said and before I launched myself screaming, spoke on, “You’re a copy I made.”

Indignation overtook righteous anger as the last memory I held before this hazy insanity was me screaming in altogether different way. He’d been inside me. Fuck, had he really just… copied me? As troublesome as it was to grasp, it wasn’t impossible. Hissed through my teeth, “That’s not deeper I meant or wanted!”

“I know that. Now.”

What a well-placed misunderstanding. Needless to say, I didn’t buy. Demon didn’t even try to be convincing. I rolled my blind rudimentary eyes as I imagined the smug asshole smirking for whatever reason.