“YOU’RE… You’re…”

  The sound hit Lala’s ear drums with the shrillness of a rooster right in your ear for morning wake up. Her head whipped around and she was face to face with Cadie, her neighborhood bully. She turned, in total shock as Caddie was pointing her finger right at Lala, Her face almost as white as Lala’s.

  “I always knew! I always knew you were…” Cadie yelled “I always knew you were a freak!”

  Arribela stuck her hands up and shook them. Lala shook her hands, “No… no it’s a sickness.” Lala said, “It’s just a sickness is all. I’m ill.”

  Cadie came out of the closet. Lala rushed to put her beanie back on but Cadie ran over and pulled it off, “Your skin! It’s coming off. And your hair is going all white too!”

  “Please, Cadie,” Lala pleaded, “Please don’t do this. I can explain…”

  Arribela grabbed her hair and looked at it. Cadie was right. Under the immense pressure, her molting had started to accelerate. Her hair was lost its redness.

  “Who are you?!”

  “I’m Arribela! I’m the Arribela you’ve always known! I'm just sick!”

  Cadie squinted, examining the fear in Arribela’s eyes, “You are, aren’t you? This is who you’ve always been.”

  Arriebela calmed for a second. Had her friend recognized her?

  “A weird freak.”

  And then Cadie geared up for a big yell. Arribela rushed out of her seat to try to hush Cadie. She placed her hands around Cadie and Cadie yelled, “Don’t touch me!” She scratched Arribela across the face. Arribela fell back and her arms braced against the vanity. Her eyes looked at her reflection in the mirror. They were no longer the beautiful blue eyes she’d known all her life. The black in the center had flooded the rest of the pupils. And her face… Cadie’s scratch left four vertical marks that had begun to bleed. She had ripped some of the skin off. A large flap along her cheek was now falling off and under the blood revealed more of the gray skin that she had hoped wouldn't be seen.

  Cadie looked down at her nails, tufts of skin had been left on one of them. She stared at it and screamed..

  Arribela placed her hand over Cadie’s mouth. Cadie pushed her hand away and pointed her finger at the burgeoning changeling. She screamed, “A MONSTER! A MONSTER ATE ARRIBELA!!”

  The parents were in the garden when they heard Cadie’s scream from the bedroom. They charged into the house, working their way upstairs. As they approached Arribela and Marisola’s room, Arribela slammed the door shut and locked it. The parents banged the door.

  “Arribela!” Yelled her father, “Arribela let us in there! What’s going on?”

  “Oh, no!” Cadie said, “Now you’ve locked me in here with you! Stay away, FREAK!”

  Arribela pleaded with Cadie, “Please, Cadie. I’m not a freak. I’m Arribela.”

  Cadie told her, “I'm going to shriek until they come in here!” And so she started shrieking. Arribela covered her mouth again. Cadie once again tried to bat Arribela’s hand away but Arribela lifted her other hand. Cadie’s screams were still being heard through the hand. TCadie slapped Arribela and Arribela tried to regain control. They tussled, and they fell to the ground.

  “Just die already!” Screamed Cadie as Arribela wrestled on the floor. Cadie had gotten on top of her and started strangling Arribela. The strips of Arribela that were still human skin started to turn red..

  “I’m not… a monster… I’m… Arribela!” squeaked Arribela.

  Cadie tightened her grip around Arribela’s neck, “I… know.”

  Arribela’s hands reached out to anything she could grab. Her hand landed on a colored pencil that had fallen from her vanity. She grabbed it and attacked Cadie. The dull pencil scratched Cadie’s face and she backed away, screaming for help.

  Arribela’s father slammed into the door with his foot; he burst into the room with an iron in his hand. He, Arribela’s mother, and Marisola all walked in to see a creature with black eyes, white hair, and their daughter’s face half off standing over Cadie who was on the ground. Marisola looked down, to see a swatch of her sister’s skin at her foot.

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  “What!?” The father looked at both confused, “What happened here?”

  “Daddy, I-”

  “That thing killed Arribela!” Cadie yelled as she gripped her cheek, “That thing ate Arribela and it attacked me!”

  “What!? Daddy, no!” Arribela screamed.

  It was too late. Her father, her mother, and her twin sister all made their conclusion.

  “You… you ate my daughter?”

  “Daddy, wait!” Marisola creed out as their father struck Arribela with the hot iron right along the cheek.

  Arribela grabbed her face, the pattern singing into her skin. She looked at Cadie, still on the ground. Her eyes turned to the open window as an escape. As her father got closer, Arribela jumped out.

  “Get her!” Screamed her father. Her mother went to Cadie’s aid and her father flew downstairs.

  “She killed my best friend,” Cadie began to cry, “She killed one of my second best friends.”

  Arribela leapt over the window sill onto her roof. She slid down it and hung off the gutter. She dropped down and rolled on the lawn. When Arribela turned around she could see her father running after her.

  “You’ve come back! Haven’t you!” He said, “You finally came back to take my baby girl!” He yelled as he took the sharp iron and tossed it like a spear. It missed Arribela as she dodged into the forest. Her father picked up the iron as he continued his chase. She scuttered along the path, running for her life. She was chased after by her dad as she ran into the forest.

  “Aba-aba!” She screamed with her dad hot on her tail, “Aba-aba please!”

  Her father had caught up to her.

  “Dad! It’s me!”

  “I know it’s not.” Her father said, “I know…”

  He ran up and grabbed her, turning her around. He stared into the full black eyes of his little girl. He saw… despite the strips of flesh, the blood, the different hair.. He saw his daughter’s face one last time. He stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Arr.. Arri..” His face went from despaired shock to ignorant rage. He stood up. The log hit his head with a thud. Aba-aba was right behind him. She turned to her daughter and said, “Run! Down the river! Don’t stop until your morph is complete! Then… be whoever you want to be,” Aba-aba looked at her daughter’s freshly singed cheek and said, “Avoid burns if you can.”

  Arribela wanted to say something. Something to his parents or her sister or her biological mom. But she ran. How could she explain what happened? How could she, in her mind, dare to take up enough space to defend herself? Somebody who had always had this nagging feeling that something was off. That she was not who she was and others saw it more than her. That dreaded feeling that was proven correct.

  She was not quite right.

  As she escaped, she turned back one last time. Her mother, Aba-aba, called out to her, “Lala!” Her mother waved at her with tears in her eyes. Her father was right behind Aba-aba with the iron.

  He struck her and cried out “Arribela!”

  Lala’s mother turned back around and confronted her father, bashing him with the log, giving the young changeling a chance to escape. Lala kept running down the river.

  The first night was the worst. She did not feel safe to stop running for a good long while. Her legs ached and yet she continued. The sun fell and yet she continued. Her stomach was depleted and her throat were dry and she continued. Eventually though, when the moon was high up in the sky and her legs could continued no longer, she stopped. Lala finally washed her face with water… she managed to rest. She looked at herself in the river water, but the moon was not bright enough. Instead, the darkness only showed her silhouette in the water. In the darkness, she felt the flaps of skin left on her face and pulled on them with her fingers. As those tore off, she reached fore more. Then, she worked her way down. Removing her clothes as she tore off the last bits of Arribela and became Lala, washing away the blood in the river.

  She did not remember sleeping that night. She was too exhausted to sleep and to exhausted to remember waking up. Lala was in her full gray form as she walked around. She covered herself in the beanie she had and the clothes and the scarf and walked through town, covering herself to make sure nobody saw her. She had run over to the next town in the span of a day.

  Lala needed food. She stared at a fruit stand for far too long. She approached with the intention to steal. The fruit vendor saw her coming instantly, wagged his finger and said, “Not today.”

  “Sorry.” Lala turned around and attempted to find a different fruit vendor to steal from. Lala sat on a water fountain.

  She walked around, her stomach empty, her body weary. She had no money. She needed to steal. Just then, she gripped her fists closed and thought of Marisola. When she looked in the fountain. There she was. There was her twin, plus the scar. Lala took her beanie off and approached the same fruit vendor as before, tucking her scarf into her shirt and leaving the sweater at the fountain. Lala approached with a renewed sense of determination. She grabbed the apple and ran away with it.

  “Hey!” The fruit vendor called out and chased after Lala.

  Lala turned the corner, placed her beanie on and pulled her scarf up and placed her sweater on. The fruit vendor’s head popped up. He saw Lala facing away. He approached her and and said, “Did you steal my…” He turned her around. It was a blonde girl with a rounder face and different colored eyes. Her scarf covering her scar, “Sorry.”

  The fruit vendor walked back to his cart, calling the missing fruit a loss. Lala walked away, eating the apple.

  “I saw that,” A frail voice called out.

  Lala’s blood ran cold. She stared up at the old man with the large brimmed hat and the cane with a a hound for a head. He lifted his hand and swished it. Lala felt her body revert back to it’s changeling form.

  “I…I…” She stared up at him.

  “You’re a changeling?” The old man said.

  “No- I…”

  “No, it’s okay. You’re a changeling. There's nothing wrong with that."

  Lala's eyes began to well up with tears.

  "You're perfect.”

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