Chapter Text
Alone, I haunt the late-night gloom, slinking between tree trunks on all fours. From beneath the branches, I can spy the Moon high above, glowing-shining-marvelous. It’s full tonight, or nearly so. The wind howls through everything, rustling the leaves and washing across my fur. It’s been storming a lot lately; it’s a miracle the Moon is visible at all with these looming, dark, rain-heavy clouds that’ll soon spill thick droplets and turn everything slick with mud. It’ll probably be obscured in the next few minutes, but for now it gives me precious scant light. This is a lull before the next downpour, and I’m enjoying it. The air smells damp.
I am not a normal human anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I count as one at all. Inside, I never really did, and maybe this change in me was always meant to happen. Growing up I always felt like I was something else compared to others, alienated, confused, out of sync with daily life while it seemed to work fine for everyone else. Late-diagnosed with autism at sixteen, I chalked a lot of it up to that, and honestly, that did explain a lot. Still does. But so does this: the externalization, the physical becoming, of every distinctly nonhuman feeling I’ve carried since birth.
My short tail flicks as I slow to a hesitant stop. I unsheathe my front claws and dig softly into the earth beneath my forepaws. My triangular ears snap toward every subtle sound. I can transform at will into anything, as long as it’s feline, and right now I’m a bobcat. Later, when I’m done, I’ll slip back to my two-legged shape like nothing changed. This is my nightly outing—no one ever comes here but animals, and tonight I’m one.