Changeling

Behind me dogs were barking; pulling against the vine-like leashes held by their master. Their heavy yelps sounded out to me with a human tone as the dogs spoke in a forgotten language through their strained and salivating maws. The wolfish beasts were the least of my worries for their master looked like a great huntsman of legend mounted atop his steed. His silhouetted figure in front of the orange sun loomed across the black and lifeless moor.
“My son, why have you escaped,” mocked the outlined shadow that was cast across my hiding spot. I pressed my back into the muddy wall and my hair into the overgrown moss of the turf above. As the shadow approached, my swollen and naked feet slipped into the tar-like mud beneath me. Heavy breath swept over my hair; a mess of obsidian scales and teeth entered the corner of my left eye as I woke up.

I awoke before the sunrise. Still dark out, the sun peaked out between the trees and attempted to find its way to my window. The house was two stories tall in a small suburban neighborhood known as North Riverside. The neighborhood bordered on the edge of a vast forest of pines; a perfect place for a single father and his son.
Ann died in the same car crash that stole my memory. Her body was found pressed between the hulking car and a sturdy willow like a flower between the pages of a book. I was found unconscious lying off to the side of the road. The investigators could find no reason why my I was located so far from the crash. Must have pulled myself from the wreck and collapsed; they said.
Rick, my son, was spending the night at a friend’s house when the crash happened. He was at a friend’s house last night as well. I pulled on my jacket and walked down the stairs into the small living room. Its most noticeable feature was the mirror that swept over the entire eastern wall. Following my usual routine, I looked upon the mirror and inspected my tired and worn out expression from a night of bad dreams and little sleep.
My eyes played tricks on me from the dim light; my other self seemed to be angry and tired even when I forced a smile upon my own visage. I chuckled at how fickle the mind was as my reflection remained upset. Brushing off my jacket, I left the living room in search of some morning peace in my garden.
Roses are normally my favorite flower but this morning their fleshy and dewy petals draped over still sharp thorns. My constant working as a writer had neglected the moody plants. I walked around the garden examining the flowers and avoiding Ann’s art work. All of the art in the garden was made of a shimmering Cold Iron that brought a sick feeling to my head. My roses were left in the garden without water; they could wait till the sun was up.
I walked back into the living room and its judgmental mirror to sit back into the couch and rest my eyes. Movement outside. Deer usually avoid the forest surrounding my home.  I stepped back outside through the sliding glass door to find a few concentrated leaves swaying on a windless day. I slowly stepped over towards the trees, clueless to what could be in the foliage. A stange feeling swept over me as though I should leave this movement alone
I muttered words unknown even to myself and stepped back inside to continue my nap.

The dogs were no longer behind me. I had returned to the world of joy by sliding thorugh the hidden door beneath the murky water. I had broken through the thorns of old and escaped the dark wastes and blinding glories of the other world. My hands and feet rested in the soft tangible earth.
I did not escape the thief’s hands without losses and scars though. They changed me and warped me into a beast that I barely recognized; Horns on my head, strange pale green skin, and spider webs growing in between my hair. I could hide the scars but I was still without the two things that were taken from me: My life and my soul.
In front of me stood a house I had known from the days before I was drug away from my weeping and roseate flower. I pushed over small shining trinkets and tugged thorny plants from their homes to gaze upon my mirror image. I stepped into the home I lost those years ago.
There my changeling counterpart slept, deep in its slumber. I extended my fingers towards its throat.
I was picked up by the throat and thrown to the floor. In the reflection of the mirror, a twisted creature with my countenance looked down at me. Deer-like antlers stood up through the black mass of hair upon my double. His eyes were a strange twisting black. An evergreen colored hand outlined in an ashen gray connected with my cheek bones. I heard a strange sound like wood and small bones cracking.
“My life ended the night of the crash and that was where yours began,” the beast said looking into my green irises.
“He came and dragged me into his world and created you to replace me. You were left on the roadside to replace where I was taken from. Then he took me and set me with his beasts. There I stayed for a thousand years and I never aged…,” he began clenching his fists, “but I changed and that was when I finally saw his beasts for what they were. Their fate was my future if I did not escape.”
He reached down and took hold of my arm.
“I broke out of his cages and faced the beings of his world. They dressed as humans and followed the shallow stereotypes of humans but they could never have emotion: they are beings older than time, they operate by their own rules, and they view us only as toys and beasts to play their grim games with. But you already know that don’t you?”
My arm twisted and broke with the twisting motion of his hands. Pain shot up and let forced a howl out of me. I looked down at my arm through my bloodshot eyes.  Inhuman objects stuck out of my arm in place of bones and flesh. My bones were made out of wood, my blood was sap, my flesh was dirt, and the torn skin revealed itself to be frayed leather. My human body was mearly an illusion.
“You’re not human: Just sticks and lies woven into my appearance,” He bent over to look in my eyes, “but you have part of my soul.” And with that, hands covered my eyes. He pulled his still pale green hands away from my new wooden face and stepped out the door into the bright sunrise.
Gazing into the mirror, I discovered what he claimed was true. My body was constructed of poorly shaped twigs, hardened sap, dirt, and the bones of a small animal. I opened my mouth to reveal maggots crawling through the rotting wood that was my tongue. The only human feature that remained were my eyes, once green and now black with lack of the human’s soul. At that moment I began smiling through pulpy dead lips. My creator was near.
Outside, the sound of dogs overwhelmed the man's screams.