Warm… Why do I feel so warm…?

Uncomfortable, like I’ve fallen asleep next to a roaring fireplace. I shuffle uneasily in my sleep, as the warmth slowly rouses me. I’m pulled away from slumber, as sensations return in greater strength. Touch is the first, the warmth rising into an uncomfortable heat that feels like it should have me sweating, but instead all I can feel is distinct discomfort. I’ve fallen asleep on something hard and abrasive, an uncomfortable flat surface. Sound is next, a low constant rumbling filling my ears. Smell too, much too faint and distant. I feel the weight of my eyelids, and know I can’t hold on to sleep any longer.

Three pairs of eyes open.

I scramble to my feet, panicking, only to fall as too many limbs struggle for purchase. I roll, slamming into a hard metal edge, and feel myself pull at something in panic. All of a sudden, my sensations are gone. I can’t touch or smell or feel anything other than a faint numbness, but I can still see and I can still hear. Without that sense of wrongness, I start to think clearly. I reach for memories, names and places, only to feel them slip away.

I don’t know who I am.

The thought shoots through my brain like lightning, electrifying my senses and sending me scrambling even further back into the darkness, moving without moving, without limbs or muscles. I’m part of the shadows, I realise, merged with the darkness underneath the metal box. A rat skitters over and through me, passing through me without noticing, and I slowly calm myself down. The shadows help, taking away any flailing limbs, or tears. I just wallow in the shade for who knows how long, occasionally creeping forwards up to the light before flinching back in fear.

Eventually, I settle myself up close to the edge of the metal, still within the shadows but looking out into the light. It’s strange, seeing without eyes. I can see all around me, but my viewpoint changes as I move. Even formless, I have an idea of where I am in the shadows. Part of me feels like it should make me nauseous, but instead it just feels natural. A couple walks past, dressed in suits, and I watch them from the shadows. They’re arguing, and the woman storms off, leaving the man standing alone in the alley. They aren’t the same as me, but I know that they’re normal, and I’m not. I keep hiding, and the man walks off in the opposite direction.

Nobody else passes me, and I start to think that it’s quiet enough for me to come out. I don’t want to, don’t want to feel again, don’t want to leave the comforting darkness for the harsh light. I wait there for a while, trying to build up the courage, as the sun disappears behind unseen clouds, and rain starts to fall. That’s what motivates me to move; the outside seems a lot less violent with gentle rain running down the alleyway. I bring myself to the edge of the shadows, and gingerly reach forwards.

Fingertips form out of the darkness, shadows gathering and pooling into five pitch-black digits, longer than they should be and ending in sharp points, like claws. The moment the limb starts to form, I feel its presence in my mind. Touch returns, and I wiggle each individual finger before pushing them out into the light. A hand follows, black and leathery, then a far-too-long arm, skinny but tough. Its mirror emerges on the other side, and I hesitate before pushing even further out, as two more arms join the first pair. This pair are less normal-looking than the first, with three long fingers and a hooked thumb. They are a little longer, and feel a lot stronger than the first.

Any further thoughts are banished from my mind as my head forms out of the darkness and my perspective switches as six beady eyes form. The head is long - I can tell as I paw at it with my hands, my claws - and the eyes are staggered regularly along its length, letting me see more than I know I should be able to, even though it feels natural. The rain runs in rivulets down my leathery skin as I pull the rest of myself, cool to the touch and surprisingly refreshing. A long, thin, body forms, with skin stretched over a prominent ribcage before narrowing across thin hips that support two powerful legs, bent at the knee and tipped with talons. Last to come is a long thin tail that spools out of a narrow strip of shadow, until my connection to the darkness has entirely gone.

I try to stand, only to sink back onto four limbs as my legs groan in protest. That doesn’t seem right. I should be able to walk on two feet, shouldn’t I? Instead, it’s four limbs that feel natural, with my more normal arms tucked away into my flanks, my sides. I pace around the alleyway, feeling the unnatural limbs become more natural the more I use them, like an old memory returning.

That brings me back to my memories. Or rather, to the absence in my mind where I feel my memories should be.

My eyes dart around the alleyway, finding a patch of water safe from the rain underneath a small overhang, and I pace towards it. The water is almost flat, and clear enough for me to use it as a mirror. I see a black face staring up at me, angular and predatory, with six beady yellow eyes and a long mouth running along the length of my head, beak-like, that opens to reveal flesh and teeth the same midnight-black as the rest of me. It feels somehow familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like something unnatural that is nonetheless part of me.

I hear people talking and I panic, leaping right at the narrow band of darkness beneath the lid of the metal box. I lose my sight, then gain it again as my entire body seem to turn to smoky darkness, before compressing itself through the far-too-thin gap. There’s no light in here, except for the faint glint from the narrow gap where the metal has been warped. I find that I can move freely in the darkness, passing from one side of the dark space to the other like I’m flying through the air, squeezing my formless presence in and amongst the sacks of what I quickly realise is garbage.

Part of me panics at that, flying around the dumpster and only barely managing to stop myself from flying out into the light, but sense quickly reasserts itself. I don’t even have a form right now, so why would a little garbage scare me? Instead I move myself as close to the light as I can, and watch as a couple of men in matching clothes step into the alleyway, waving an enormous vehicle in behind them. I can only see the back of it, a huge container built into a trailer on top of some truly immense wheels, as the two men open up a pair of doors set into the opposite wall.

They start to load crates into the back of the truck, taking their time and stopping for a cigarette or a chat, and I think a couple of hours pass before they shut the doors to the building and the truck, which drives off as the two men head home. I could recognise their language, which is something, but they weren’t saying anything useful, just idle sports gossip. They’re gone, but I don’t come out. That was too close to being seen, and some part of me revolts at the mere idea of being spotted when I don’t want to be. So I wait, as the rain carries on and the grey sky turns orange, before descending into the pitch-black of an overcast night.

It’s not perfect, of course, and a lot of the alley is still lit by the orange glow of streetlights on the main road, but the night’s sky somehow feels comforting to me, and I leave my hiding place. I don’t take it slow, this time, hurling myself at the tiny sliver of light as fast as my formless self will go. In an instant, I go from a shapeless presence in the darkness to a long and predatory creature, and my view shifts back to those beady yellow eyes.

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The city is stretched out to my right, with its bright lights and drunken revellers, but that doesn’t appeal to me. Not when compared to the pitch-black space between the tall buildings of this alley. I pounce into the shadows, turning immaterial and flitting up and down through the darkness at the edge of the light. It’s not flight, not quite, and I’m limited in my movements to anything free from the orange streetlights, or any other source of light, but it feels right somehow. It feels liberating.

I can’t quite make it up all eight stories of the building, but I get close enough to let my momentum carry me the last few feet over the lip of the roof, before rolling in the gravel surface atop the tower. I take a moment to shake away a few scraps of rock that have got caught in my joints, before turning my eyes upwards to look over the city.

It’s too big. Impossibly tall towers scraping up against the clouds themselves, lit by a steady orange-yellow light from countless windows, with the even brighter glow of the streetlamps making the trenches between the towers brighter still. The clouds, low in the sky and heavy with the promise of rain, glow faintly orange as well, as the light from the city is reflected back on it. The buildings have no concise style: some are made of stone, and smaller than the others, while the tallest ones seem to be entirely made of glass, tipped with spires and blinking red lights. Closer to me, there is what looks like an enormous pillar rising out of the ground, tipped by a wide saucer lit up like a star in gleaming white.

It’s too much, and I instinctively retreat into the shadows behind an access point on the roof, hiding myself from the sheer scale of it all. I stay there for a while, somehow more comfortable looking over the skyline through the darkness, before deciding that the roof just isn’t for me, diving off the edge of the building and into the darkness of the alleyway, turning immaterial halfway down and landing on the floor in a pile of shadows. Nice to know that I can do that, though I probably should have started with something less drastic than an eight-story drop.

I pull myself out of the shadow without leaving it, hiding among the shadows rather than in them, and curl up in a ball underneath a small overhang as the rain starts up again. I just can’t put this off any longer. I don’t know who I am. I can feel things, fleeting thoughts or images that elude me as soon as I reach for them. I have no name, no memories and no answers. There’s a patch of water pooling a few inches away, and I look again. What am I? I think I’m human, or at least I used to be, and I know what a human is. I know what garbage is, too, and almost everything else I’ve seen today. How can I know all that, but not know my own name?

My eyes are drawn back to my mirror image in the water, long and sleek, with absolutely no chance of ever passing for human. I linger on one of my shoulders, and lean in closer as I start to make something out; a small patch of darkness, lighter than the rest of my skin, shaped into a horseshoe. A brand. Another unsolved mystery, but one I can’t bring myself to care about, not when compared to everything else that’s weighing on my mind.

Instead, I curl up in the alleyway, and try to get some sleep.

It doesn’t work, not when my stomach starts to rumble and moan. It’s still dark out, but I can’t stay here any longer, not when it feels like I haven’t eaten in a week. I roll myself onto all fours, scratching at my head with my hands to try and force some sense into me, and turn to the entrance of the alley. It’s lit by a bright orange streetlamp, which feels uncomfortable in a way I can’t quite explain, but I force my way through it. Gingerly, I peer out into the street, seeing a couple of obvious drunks far to far away to notice me, and a couple of people who are much closer, but walking away.

There’re a few sacks of garbage on the side of the street, right underneath the light, and I dart for them, slipping comfortably into the darkness hidden amongst the pile. I can’t travel into the sacks, but I don’t need to when I can apparently compress myself this small. Still, I can’t keep hopping between piles of garbage, not when there’s so many people around. I look around, my eye inevitably being drawn to the pounding rain that I can see running through my shelter, but I can’t feel it.

It flows along the sidewalk, pooling into the gutters and departing into a drain recessed into the side of the road. A drain cast in deep shadow. I pounce, not caring who sees me, safe in the sure certainty that I can hide myself away down there, and none of their eyes will matter. I leap across the road in two great bounds, before diving headfirst into the drain, rushing along underneath the streets of the city. I feel free, moving faster than ever before, and only having to duck under the occasional patch of light from the grates.

I revel in my senses, before slowing as I remember why I came down here. I start to stop at the grates, forming just enough of my head in the light to peer out into the street, six beady yellow eyes peeking out into the world. I find it on my sixth drain; a glass-fronted building filled with shelves laden with all sorts of packets. Even now, with only the top of my head formed, I can still feel hunger pangs eating away at me. I creep out of the drain, rushing into the shadows beneath a parked car before anyone has a chance to see me and wait for my moment.

A group of people come out of the store, dressed in expensive clothes and carrying canned and bottled drinks. When they leave, there’s a brief moment when the door hangs open, held by some unseen force, and I take that chance to rush through the doors, sliding under the closest set of shelves before anyone has a chance to see me, or so I hope. I peek out nervously, staying hidden in the darkness, but there are no screams, and nobody seems to have seen me. I look around again, before moving up to the light and forming my arm in the aisle, reaching up to the shelves above me and pulling down the first thing I can grab.

There’s barely enough room down here for me to keep my arm formed, clutching my pre-packaged sandwich like some sort of prize, and there’s not enough room for my head, so I can’t actually eat it. I turn my arm to shadow, trying to bring the food with me, but it just flops to the floor uselessly. I can’t eat this here, and I can’t bring it with me. I carry the sandwich around under the small row of shelves, looking for the section with the fewest customers, and brace myself before materialising me head in the aisle, tearing the sandwich out of its packaging and wolfing it down.

It’s much too bland for my tastes, tastes I didn’t know I had until now, but that doesn’t stop me from finishing the whole thing, before reaching back with my arm to pull a fresh pair from the shelves behind me. I continue ducking under the shelves and pilfering food from the shop, a random mix of sweet, sour, spicy and everything in between, until I don’t feel hungry anymore. I would take a couple of canned goods with me for later, but I can’t carry them with me through the shadows.

Instead, I snag a bottle of something strong and drink it in the corner of the shop, feeling the harsh alcohol sliding down my throat before doing something as it reaches the shadows. I know the food is going somewhere - I don’t feel hungry anymore - but I’ll be damned if I know where that is. The drink gives me the courage to make a run for the door, and I cringe as I hear screams behind me, before slipping back into the gutters and off into the comforting night.