It was unreal. Nothing made sense. Of course, he’d seen movies where an ordinary person had been bitten by a humanoid beast, or a very spooky wolf, and then became a creature of dread, but his life was no movie. What was happening was a sort of metamorphosis that spat in the face of the logic that governs this universe. Thick, course hairs were sprouting from every pour, illuminated only by a distant back porch light and the lustrous shine of the full moon. The concept of lycanthropy was one which he understood, could perhaps even justify. This situation was beyond that. He was losing himself in the transformation, becoming something new. His mind cloud and he was gone.
It was bright. A new day had dawned and he was alive, lying in grass trying to piece together what had happened. The dew was cold, he shivered. His bare skin had been exposed to this for quite some time, though how long, he could not say. He sat up. This was the tall grass next to his house, maybe a yard or two from where he was standing at the very end of his relocation. White. Black. The primal instinct to feed. What was he?
The days went by and the answer felt further and further away with each passing moment. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe he was drunk. He had drank several beers that night. Could budget brand lite beer really have such a profound effect on him? It certainly hadn’t before, and it was his Saturday drink of choice. New choices, better choices. That’ll do it. No.
The answer to this mystery did not come into reach until the next full moon when it happened once more. The moment he began he focused, watched, felt. It wasn’t the overwhelming surprise it had been almost a month before. He was ready. Fur. Yes, fur. And his face. It was bending, distorting, contorting into a something monstrous. No, not monstrous, familiar. What was it? If only he could think, think, THINK!
The tall grass. Again. No clue, no fathomable explanation. Another month. Torture. And after a week, inspiration! He was in his chair, the comfy but raggedy one positioned offcenter in front of his cheap 27” Insignia tv. The news was on and they were showing surveillance footage of a recent break in at the local somewhere. It didn’t matter. They knew what happened because of this footage. That did matter. He would set up a camera, or maybe just his phone camera and record himself. He would finally know what sort of unspeakable being he was becoming. And so he waited.
It was time. The camera was set. He was ready. The dip in his stomach, the tightening of his legs, his lung inflated, his neck careened, and he was gone. The freaking field again! Why was it always this field?! What was he?! The tape! He watched in horror.
Years had passed. Nothing changed. Same job in sales, same house in the country. He’d considered, for a time, seeing someone about his condition, or maybe even trying to profit off of it. He decided against this, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t ashamed. He knew what he was now. It didn’t effect anything. He was a WereZebra. He grazed, he rested, he roamed his lawn, and then he woke up. Sometimes he couldn’t get the taste of dry grass off his pallet for an hour or two. Sometimes, when the full moon fell on a weekday, he would have take off a day from work. That was it. Nobody knew. Nobody would ever know. He was a WereZebra, and he was alright.
