The black metal of the visor slowly, piece by piece, folded in on itself with microscopic square tiles. Objectively, I knew that there was some stupidly advanced physics beyond current human science behind what my body was doing, and yet... to my eyes the way tiles would fold in on its neighbor which then continued to fold away, it was as if I was looking at some cartoon or movie with special effects at work.

It was difficult to change back, to regain my humanity. Difficult, certainly... but doable. What proved slightly more difficult was control.

To control my [biological neuro programing] reactions so that I wouldn't change in public. That I didn't change my hands in reaction to bumping against something, or recreate the visor at the flash of light or loud sounds, such as when a thunder cracked in the distance.

There was also the urge to protect myself by simply letting the transformation run wild and reshape my body to my needs and inherent limits. Which seemed odd to me, that my abilities had limitations. Even if I didn't know what they were, only that they existed.

Thus did I sat in the darkness of my living room and practiced. To control myself. To limit my reactions to what I used to be able to do normally and only that.

...

...

I could only acknowledge that this would take some time as the visor reformed at the flash of a nearby lightning bolt followed by the crack of thunder.

Eventually, the sun rose and I gave up and simply went to sleep as the pre-dawn light drove away the darkness outside and filtered pass the curtains.

What sleep I got, if it could be called such, was restless and filled with dreams that I could not remember fully, in truth. What I did remember when I woke up in the afternoon was the vague impression of liquid darkness and things squirming against each other, of impossible thick strands twisting and pull against each other, and sibilant voices hissing out words and phrases I could not understand.

Still, given the trauma of yesterday, it was only natural and perfectly normal that my dreams were nightmarish. After all, dreams came from the subconscious mind as it cleaned up the memories of the events from one's waking life. Or so I've heard.

And yet, waking up at noon brought no respite. I simply woke up tired, oddly sore, and wanting more sleep. And yet, I had much to do, many miles to travel, and so very many many things to do.

.

.

The visit to a downtown internet cafe was essential. After all, I wasn't crazy enough to research up what I was on my home computer. Certainly, I hadn't been visited by the Suits or Homeland Security or one of the myriad dangers to a Freak, but that didn't mean I should make it easy for them to hunt me down.

True, I was low on money, but it wasn't a huge expense to rent a computer for an hour or two, with its internet access.

Everyone knew that back in eighty-two, there had been an incident during one of the nuclear tests in may in Nevada. Something about a tower of light from the test site, it was after that, that the first of the Freaks showed up.

The names used by various nationalities varied, from Freaks in the US, to Grotesque in parts of Europe, to Machine or something like that in Japan. All based on the fact that they, or rather we, looked utterly wrong and only became worse as we developed with time.

This was the face of superman, an inhuman thing that mixed chrome, bone and flesh into a unified whole and far too many crystalline eyes that never blinked.

At first, they were rare. Nothing more than an urban legend that was spoken of, but unseen and unheard. Never verified.

Then, someone caught one of them on camera, and they became the stuff of legends, media sensations. The next in thing to hunt down, to examine. To bring to the light of day.

The media succeeded too well in this, far too well... and they passed from the tabloids to the front pages of newspapers, and to topics on the news, and discussions around watercoolers. It wasn't much of a surprise that they would become things that frightened the soccer moms. Where once video games and RPGs were the work of the devil and the cause of violence, now they blamed the Freaks.

Because they were more than human. Inhumanly beautiful and grotesque at the same time, unclean things that had escaped from the subconscious of humanity. At first, no two looked alike. And indeed, until the rising of the Suits, there were none who looked alike.

And yet, despite the beauty that some of the Freaks could and did possess, there is something at the heart and core of their nature that repels humans. They possessed impossible, wonderful, horrific shapes and powers. They are undeniably and unspeakably Other. Their number grows in the dark.

And the public fears them.

It mattered not that the first few who showed up were heroes, who saved lives and thwarted crime. That there were those who agreed to be examined by the various powers that be, the governments. The more that was known, the more fearsome they were in human imagination. For every one who was studied, there were ten or more who stayed in the darkness of night and continued to do as they did.

There were divisions in the government set up to handle the Freaks, to recruit them, to terminate those who were disruptive to society as a whole.

Now, that I was one of Them. It was the government I feared. It was the Suits I feared and hoped to never meet. The government would 'just' conscript me or kill me. But some of the things I had discovered in the internet was more worrying... the notion that I could be subsumed into a hivemind, to become another piece of something inhuman controlled by another... there were fates worse than death, I discovered to my sorrow.

So caught up in my musing and search on the internet, I didn't pay as much attention to my surroundings as I should have. Or I wouldn't have missed the young lady who sat in the computer next to mine. Her crimson suit was immaculate and crisp, its hue brought to mind the words cherry red. It was that flash of red that got my attention when she spoke.

"Hello there, you seem like you could use some help."

Despite how attention grabbing her suit was, she appeared absolutely mundane from her dusky skin to her absolutely normal hair perfectly cut just the right length and style to draw attention to her face.

The smile that she had was one of amusement.

And yet, I had to wonder at the sunglasses she wore indoors.

.

Grotesque MaShin
Worm AU