Warning: This chapter is really bad, but hopefully, the rest will be better.
Changelings. They're those creatures that are swapped for human children as babies. There doesn't seem to be any real pattern to it, just that it's always one of three types (fae, were-animals, and supernatural), the child it's swapped for nearly always actually exists, they never remember a past life, having been switched at birth, and children have a hard time controlling their shapeshifting.
All of these things were true for a ten-year-old boy named Max, except for the last thing.
He was a supernatural changeling; a demon, who, in his changeling form had white horns, black wings, a black tail, and, when he got angry, black scleras.
His parents had no idea because he had learned to hide it not long after he found out.
Of course, people were still paranoid that their children were swapped with changelings, so Max's parents were suspicious.
He seemed to really hate salt, iron, crosses, and holy water.
At least, that was their story.
In reality, while the stuff about salt was true, iron didn't affect him and he had no way of knowing what the other stuff did to him. Really, either his parents didn't pay attention, which he was used to, or they just really wanted to get rid of him.
When the authorities showed up, they took him away. He was terrified of being killed, and everyone was more scared of him because they used a special collar to reveal that he was a demon.
He thought he was going to end up being killed, but the place he ended up at looked more like a summer camp, but with better shelters, maybe for winter? There were four adults there: a redheaded cervitaur, a dark-skinned faun, a ghost, born that way maybe? And an old man with a hook hand who was a zombie.
The cervitaur introduced himself as David, the faun was Gwen, the ghost was Jasper, and the zombie…
Max didn't learn his name, just that the other three called him "Quartermaster."
"And what might your name be?" asked David.
"I'm Max," said the child.
"What kind of monster are you?" Jasper asked. Max had been forced to wear a type of collar designed to force changelings to reveal their true form, but he used his claws to undo it.
"Does it even matter? All that ****ing matters is that you keep me from hurting the general public."
"Max, language," David said.
Yes, it does matter," Jasper said. "We legally have to keep a record of every monster here. Besides us four, but that's because they think we're humans."
Max decided to ask, "What happens if-"
"The whole camp is shut down, everyone here is killed for real, including you," Gwen said.
"…dem-demon…" Max was always told that demons were the worst kind of changeling.
"I bet the anti-monster facilities were harsh, huh?" David said. "Don't worry, you're safe. And if you don't want anyone to know about it, we won't tell anyone."
After that, they got Max situated.
A couple of days later, two more changelings ended up at the camp. They were blue-green werewolf named Nikki that was really hyper, and a harpy that was all about science and was named Neil.
They became best friends pretty quickly.
The camp, called "Camp Changeling" was probably going to take some getting used to, but friends might make it better.
Not that Max would admit it.
See? Told you it was horrible. This one was just exposition, though, so hopefully, the others will be better. Due to my level of confidence, though, I'm not gonna make any promises.