It all began when I was fifteen, during a summer trip to Shimla with my friends. We were high in the Himalayas, and I was the outcast-overweight, clumsy, always struggling to keep up. The weight of my body, the awkwardness of my every movement, felt suffocating as we climbed the winding mountain trails. Everyone else was lighter, faster, more graceful. But I was the anchor dragging us all down.
Then, something shifted. Midway through our hike, something caught my attention-something... unseen. At first, it was just a sensation, a creeping feeling, like the mountain air itself had thickened with menace. We were not alone.
The others felt it too. We heard noises coming from the dense, shadowy forests ahead, but when we looked, there was nothing. Nothing human. Our curiosity pulled us deeper. And then we saw it.
A figure, standing at the edge of the trees, its body twisted in a grotesque blend of male and female. It looked... wrong. Not just in shape, but in the way it was there-like it didn't belong in this world. My friends froze, their faces draining of color, the air thick with their screams. One by one, they broke down, crying, pleading for help, their voices lost in the wind.
The creature's gaze fixed on me. My bones felt cold, my heart raced. A scream, one that wasn't my own, tore through me. My legs gave way, and I began to run, but the others were faster. I was left behind-alone, trembling in the freezing cold.
I ran until I couldn't anymore. I collapsed into the darkness, suffocating in the deep, suffocating silence.
And then, it vanished.
I stood there, trembling, confused, and found nothing-just empty space. Darkness. Had I died? Was this hell? Was this the end of everything? The final chapter?
And yet... it wasn't. I woke up. Gasping, heart pounding. It was a prank-just a cruel joke. They'd all set it up to mock me. To humiliate me. They laughed. They called me weak, pathetic. They mocked my weight, my inability to run, to keep up. I could do nothing but stand there, my face burning with shame. I felt hopeless. I was hopeless
But something inside me snapped. I promised myself that I would change. I would transform. No more weakness. No more shame. I ran, I exercised, I meditated. Slowly, I shed the weight-physically, yes, but more importantly, emotionally. I became someone new. Someone... better. At least, that's what I thought.
I looked in the mirror, and it was like looking at a stranger. Was this really me? Could it be? The man in the reflection was everything I had dreamed of... and yet, something was wrong. The image felt too perfect, too... unnatural.I woke up again. Was it another dream? Or had I been living in one all along? I didn't know anymore.
It was then I realized-the creature had never left. It had become me. The one I had worked so hard to become, the "perfect" version of myself, was never mine. It was him. It was it. The twisted being from the mountain. It had taken over my body, my mind. It was me, but it wasn't. I don't know what I am anymore.
The world sees me now, and they scream. They call me a monster. A creature they've never seen before. A yeti, a Bigfoot. I don't even recognize my own reflection anymore. Am I cursed? Is this my punishment for wanting to fit in?
I thought I had found peace in my transformation, but now, I'm hunted. They search for me, trying to track me down. To drag me back. They think they can destroy me. But maybe I don't want to be found. Because, deep down, the isolation isn't as unbearable as the shame I used to feel. And if I can't fit in... perhaps it's better to be feared than mocked.
But I wonder-did I ever escape? Or was I just replaced?
I thought I could never go back. But when I turned around, standing in that cold, moonlit forest, there was a boy. Not the creature, not the thing I had become, but a boy-the boy who had always been there. The boy I used to be.
No, not just me. The boy who had watched from the shadows, the one I had left behind. The creature that had haunted The twisted, half-man, half-woman thing I had seen on the mountain? It was him-the boy who I thought had been mocking me. He was the monster. But then, who was I?
I stared into his eyes. And for the first time, I felt something-an echo, a memory. It was as though I was looking at myself, but... not. The boy-the creature-had been me all along.
And in that moment, I realized the truth: the creature never left. It wasn't a prank. It wasn't a curse. It wasn't a transformation.
The creature was me. And I was the creature. I had always been