Overstressed

"What in the world am I supposed to do?" Oswald thought.

He knew his better vision was active, and that his eye color had changed since dinner. His hand grabbing the arm was immense compared to the minute before. The vertiginous sensation invaded his mind.

'It's happening again!' He thought, seeing everything from a higher place.

Out of habit, to check if he had fever, his hand reached his forehead, but that's when he noticed how ugly it was. His nails, yellowing, one after the other, thick like leather and pointy.

The hair on his forearms seemed darker, longer, and covered his skin down to every first phalanxes.

What struck him first was the pain in his shoes, they were old, worn out by his many excursions and the kilometers he ran with. His feet felt too big to be contained in such a tight space, yet they were not swollen at all.

His calcaneus, bone shaping his heel, pushed out of its socket, urging its owner to kneel down.

His heart rate wouldn't stop increasing, unable to understand what was happening to him, he couldn't help but become more anxious with each second. In his little agony, he was lost in thoughts, he stared at the incomplete moon, asking the giant beauty over him a simple yet complex question.

"Why?"

Two golden globular eyes, almost popping out of their socket stared at the moon until the pain stopped. Their shape allowed Oswald to see from a much wider angle.

The skin at the top of his nose was stretched, nothing moved at the top of his forehead, but the tip of his nose went up by a little, his nostrils enlarged vertically, distorting his face with a involuntary, sharp smile.

Down his spine, where the hideous outgrowth was, more vertebrae spurted at its bottom, along with his femurs, the size increased of few centimeters and re-equilibrated his balance.

Only a slim air stream escaped his mouth, a silent wail that was bone chilling even to him.

He felt tight in his cloak. He wanted to get rid of it, but, his mind still ablaze from his encounter, he knew he had priorities.

When the pain ceased, he looked at Tom, worried about the angle his arm had. The wolves nowhere to be seen, he ran to the village, his hood on the head. They both needed a doctor, Tom wouldn't wake up... Thankfully.

The village's famous healer knew only plants for small internal injuries such as sore throat and ingrown toenails, but his was his sole option.

He reached the house, avoiding anyone's sight before knocking the doctor's entrance door down. He avoided hitting his head on the terrace by a hair's width.

'That'll do.' He thought, leaving Tom behind before going back into the forest, he patted his pant and belt, and understood there was no weapon available on his way back home.

Halfway, at last, he noticed.

The many colours, noises, and parasitic effects his senses caught every night spectacle he witnessed were nothing near attenuated. All of his senses were more alert than ever, the mess he patiently stared at until now made sense.

While he ran through the forest, he could avoid the trees with much less efforts, the muscles on his legs were thicker, the heel that propelled him forward before was incomparable to the complex articulation he had now.

And that thing down his back, it moved according to his momentum, was it a tail? It was as appealing as a hairless dog.

He reached his house in seven minutes during which he had no time to wonder, his mind was strained by the overwhelming flow of information provided by his senses already.

He saw, on his way, the places where he had been like a flaming blaze. His urine sure smelled bad.

Now that he reached his house, saw how narrow was his door's frame, he almost ripped off the door's handle.

"Mother!" He shouted with a voice that couldn't possibly belong to him.

His mouth's anatomy had changed as well, a hand on his face and the other on his throat, he wanted to make sure Meryl was wrong.

'I'm not a wolf shaped monster. I can't be. This is ridiculous.'

He had no snout, but the many sharp teeth he had in his mouth made his jaw a little squarer than usual. The beard he had was thick and scanning his chin was a hard task. The trachea he breathed with was larger too, its base started lower than average, the many veins in it pumped blood non-stop with a nigh strangling sensation.

"Mother?!" He shouted once more, making his brain deny how different his voice was.

The small woman was hiding behind the stairs, she observed quietly the monster in her house. Tears ran down her cheeks. 'Why is my family tormented?

"You're not my son! Go away!" She desperately yelled.

It was more than enough to make him go, he refrained from asking her help, because he knew she was afraid, the wrinkles on Meryl's face said it all.

He had no reason to stay, even though he needed comfort, calm and time, he couldn't force anyone staying next to him. The distorted features his body had were out of the ordinary and, because it was an offence to human anatomy, Oswald decided to run away from his place.

'Mother is right, it's not me. This body doesn't belong to Oswald.'

He stood, lost in the forest, he contemplated to moon one last time before his thoughts corroded his mind.

Seeing it akin to a costume, he plunged his fingers in his torso, and pulled in two different ways, discovering rows of bloody muscles under. A second tearing howl shook the valley.

The wound closed in less than a minute, there was no trace of it, only a hairy torso with no fat covering perfect muscles.

Impossible to separate his real self from the costume.

The constant 'it's not me' thoughts that clogged his mind led him to a wonderful idea. With his hood covering his pointy ears and forehead, he went to fetch a branch with a specific shape, then he ran to Ruth's house.