Skin Walker - Part One

Laying on the couch I sit in silence, propped up on my arm as I stare down at the tiny creature stumbling and sliding about on my slick hardwood floor. The floofy ball of matted muddy hair slips and slides, the small kitten seemingly unsteady on it's own legs.

"Must be fairly young" I muse, the small dirty cat twisting to look up at me as water drips from it's filthy fur. "Aren't you buddy? Or maybe it's just the floors..." I continue, looking at the muddy paw prints that smear their way from the kitchen window to where the confused kitten struggles to stand.

It had only been a few minutes ago I had heard the scratching at my window, the sound being accompanied by a weak and somewhat off-putting meowing from beyond the glass. As rain patters at the glass I had first spotted the tiny fluffy cat on the ledge, the small thing having climbed the fire escape for some daft reason.

It was so filthy I could hardly tell what color its fur was, with dirt and mud clinging to it and only growing worse as the light rain turned the grime into a sticky mess. A set of large hazel eyes had stared at me through the glass, the gaze seemingly darting to the lock as it pawed at the wooden frame.

Of course I had let it in, the tiny muddy feline quickly and clumsily racing in and out of the cold. It had only taken a few minutes before it had made itself at home. Rushing to the sink with a painful looking stumble as it lapped at the dripping tap before eating from the scraps from the plate in the sink.

It seemed to move with a mixture of frenzied speed and yet without much in the way of coordination, my mind racing as to whether it needed to go to the vet. With each rapid burst of movement, be it stumbling and slipping or rushing to the next necessity to guzzle down, a small metal disc rattles against its makeshift collar.

A small bracelet seems to be wrapped around the cat's neck, a thin disc of pewter sitting as what seems to be a name tag. An image is etched on the front, an odd depiction of what appears to be two people vomiting into each others mouths.

Eventually I simply moved to watch it from the couch, deciding to use my phone to try and work out just what I needed to do with my new little visitor.

As the kitten staggers around the floor, its legs sliding out from under it with each step, it stare up at me with it's large and strangely expressive hazel eyes. For a moment I can't help but see some disconcerting flicker of intellect behind those eyes, the thought falling away the kitten mewls up at me before stumbling in my direction.

My gaze lowers down to the makeshift collar once more, the rattling of the metal catching my attention.

"Hey there little man... girl?... Maybe?" I muses, chuckling to myself as I reach down towards the cat. "Lets get that collar checked out, and maybe we can give you a... B... A..." I continue, reaching down slowly to the approaching kitten as I begin to spell out the dreaded word 'BATH'.

Suddenly, the eyes flicker with some semblance of intellect far beyond the ken of some newborn cat. As my hand reaches it's tiny torso it lashes out, biting down on my palm with its tiny fangs. For a second my skin seems to hold it back, only for kitten to bite down with all its might a second later.

"Fuck!" I shout, raising my hand away as the kitten rises up with it. Oddly enough, despite the tiny creature hanging from my palm, the kitten seems to no longer be biting down as it's teeth are simply stuck in my flesh.

"Does this thing have rabies or..." I hiss, my breath catching in my throat as I notice my fingers begin to writhe against my will. They seem to wither and wrinkle, the skin sinking in on itself as the cat seems to drain the very blood from within them.

My blood runs cold, though perhaps it is simply the lack of the stuff chilling me to the bone, my heart racing as I notice the kitten itself writhing as it seems to bulge and jostle at the end of my arm. I reach out with my free hand, grasping the cat as I try to pull it free. With each tug I feel my strength waning, even the weight of the growing creature seeming to overpower my weakening limbs more by the second.

I lurch up, my arms falling to my side like empty balloons as my legs quickly give way underneath me. I can hear my bones crunching inside of my, my vision soon fading as the eyes roll back and tumble someplace unknown.

Suddenly, I can see again. The world around me rock and shakes, my vision jostling constantly as I seem to be bumping into something. Everything is painfully tight, the already impossibly cramped space being fought for by some other person who pushes and shoves to vie for the precious room.

I feel the floor constantly slide out from under me, my body smacking into the ground without much pain as I try to stand on my own two feet.

A loud meow escapes my lips, not of my own volition. It bears a sense of anger and fear, the foreign utterance coming from whatever I was sharing the space with. Looking ahead I spot the muddy kitten, a screen and some subtle darkness separating us, the tiny creature's skin and fur crawling as something shifts and strains to be free beneath it.

Suddenly it hits me, the screen was merely the reflection in the television. It is massive compared to me, the towering device reflecting the tiny cat and the limp loose pile of skin and clothes sitting behind it. The disgusting mass of empty flush is completely hairless, eyeless and seemingly toothless, the pale pile looking more like a costume than anything else.

With each blink of disbelief I notice the eyes of the cat shift, the constant shifting in my vision being caused by some rattling inside the overstuff skull of this poor cat. The overly expressive eyes seem to shift after each or every second blink, rapidly changing from my bright blue to the hazel and back again as the shared body staggers about.

With a large heave I feel our bloated form lurch over, spinning around before collapsing next to the skin pile. Kicking and writhing in a panic I try to fight for control, soon finding my own voice having been diminish to simply a frenzied and oddly cute yowling of terror. Despite my best efforts we inch closer and closer, the other force guiding us far better than I could.

Finally, our head swings forward to cover the small bite marks as ur mouth seems to form an almost vacuum like seal. My heart skips a beat, the balled up and crushed organ being pinned further inside me as something begins to race out past my trapped innards.

My former hand bulges dramatically under the straining of being refilled, my arm soon following suit. A loud hissing grown soon begins o escape my former lips, the sound of crackling bones and snapping tendons soon beginning to fill out my now gargantuan frame.

The skin hangs loosely over whatever begins to fill out my old skin, a set of hazel eyes seeming to roll onto their sockets before they begin to dart around frantically.

As the skin fills out more and more, bulging and constricting over and over as though to pump the fleshy innards throughout the loose suit, my former mouth opens as it croaks...