Warning: This story contains violence, gore, body horror, and descriptions of eating a human being. If you do not wish to read about this, do not read further. Thank you!

I’ve never understood much of anything, but I still scrape by. Well, I say scrape by, but I’m doing pretty alright for the circumstances. I’ve just always had my life pitched to me as a struggle. A monster living with humans? Must be awful. Your caretakers died when you were just a boy? How terrible. You have to work a fast food job to help pay your grandparents’ bills? You poor thing.

Really, though, it’s not that bad. Of course, I do miss my parents; I miss them dearly. I think I was only six when they died, but monsters learn quicker than humans do. I think the general knowledge goes that we’re mentally twice our age? So I would have been mentally 12 then, so losing my parents was life-changingly devastating. I was in the car with them, too. I’m mostly over it now. I can talk about it without becoming a blubbering mess. Though, thinking about it now, I do remove more reckless drunks off the feeding list than any other offender. Anyways, after that I moved in with my grandparents up in Fifelthorpe. In fact, that made me very lucky for two reasons.

For one, they didn't check me for being a monster. I was mostly unharmed in the car accident. The authorities said it was because I was in the backseat, and most of the damage was done to the front of the car. Really, I was harmed significantly. My skull was fractured and multiple ribs were broken, puncturing my lungs. Luckily, my wounds were little more than scabs by the time medical professionals arrived. I think being a child victim of a car accident also let me off the hook easily, especially because I was roaring so much. They didn't prick me or nothing.

My second stroke of luck was when I got to my grandparents' house. I love them dearly, more than anyone else in the whole wide world. However, honestly and truly, my gran wears the worst perfume known to man, and she wears a lot of it. Apparently the effect isn’t as bad on human noses, but I’ve still heard some complaints from a human friend or two. To monsters like me, the perfume clogs our nostrils, and completely disables our noses.

“That doesn’t seem lucky,” you say, but here’s where it starts to. It completely overpowers the natural smell of monsters, and since gran wears so much of it, the smell sticks to me. Even my own monster coworker doesn’t know I’m a monster. How crazy is that?

I consider myself lucky, even if I don’t really know much. I live comfortably in a house with people I love, I have friends who I love to spend time with, and despite my job I have loads of free time, and loads of fun hobbies to fill it with. Tons of people in England don’t even have that first one. Loads of monsters can’t get a job at all! I was lucky my manager never pricked me! I asked about the prick and he said that “Monsters having jobs is the least of my worries.” He’s a strange man.

Last night, though, I almost thought my lucky streak had ended.

I usually never feed at work. It’s very irresponsible and dangerous, not to mention that I can’t be sure that my target is on the feeding list, so I could get in trouble with the Wolves. Nonetheless, I bent the rules a little bit. I hadn’t eaten in weeks. Winter is a terrible hunting time, as less people are staying outside on account of it being cold. I was feeling weak and sick, to the point that even my manager was starting to notice. So, when I took my break, I hid around in the bushes outside, waiting for someone who I thought might have been on the feeding list. At least, I hoped they were.

Thankfully, I found someone quickly, and after I brought it up to the Wolves earlier today they told me that she was on the feeding list, before scolding me about feeding without making sure. Scolding or not, I was relieved to know I didn’t hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. I hope her kid is in better hands now… Anyway, I dragged her behind the dumpster, and began to eat.

---

Tonight was my first night back to work. It was going well, nothing unusual whatsoever. Well, there was one entirely usual but still notable thing. A particularly rude lady came through, but I didn’t do much about it. I wasn’t hungry, so I didn’t feel the need to. Ronnie was on break anyway, I couldn’t do anything about it even if I was hungry.

Huey told me to go outside and find Ronnie. We locked the doors at 10, and he didn’t want to lock Ronnie out. He told me he was worried about Ronnie, and that he’d been acting strange lately. I didn’t notice anything different, but, then again, I don’t talk to Ronnie much. He’s in the back of the store and I’m in the front. I’m kind of glad about that. It lets me avoid his grandma’s bloody perfume.

I put on my new jacket Sara bought me this morning and head outside. The first thing I noticed was the smell of death. There was a fresh corpse nearby. I followed it, hoping it wasn’t Ronnie. If it was, we’d be under investigation of a monster attack, and I might have to uproot and leave town. My fears heightened as I homed in on the dumpster, where the overpowering smell of Ronnie’s perfume clogged my nostrils.

I hesitantly rounded the corner to see the deformed shape of a monster, hunched over the corpse of the rude young woman who had just left the store a moment ago.

The monster’s skin was a sickly pale grey, though its hands were stained red with blood. Its fingers were long and spindly, with glistening black claws at the tips. It was rather skinny itself. Along its spine, large vertebrae stretched the monster’s leathery skin taught over themselves, exaggerating its thin appearance. The monster’s head and shoulders were covered with thick, bushy, brown hair which draped halfway down its back.

I didn’t understand what I was looking at at first. I stared blankly at the scene ahead of me. Should I run inside in a tizzy and tell Huey? No, something told me that was a bad idea. Should I attack the monster myself? No, of course not, that’s an even worse idea, especially because of how weak I am at the moment. And, bloody hell, why does this monster smell like that infernal perfume?

Then it hit me.

“Ronnie?!” I asked aloud, perhaps louder than I meant to. The monster jumped up and turned around to face me. As soon as it saw me with its massive, beady eyes that jutted out from behind its hair, it began to cower and grovel.

“Oh, god! God, fuck, Maddie I’m so sorry!” It cried and stuttered. “I-I didn’t mean to hunt in your territory, I—fuck. God, I’m sorry, I haven’t eaten in weeks! I’ll go, I promise, just please please don’t kill me.”

I was too stunned to even register that he was speaking to me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I just stood there and stared. Ronnie was a monster? I always thought he was far too human. He lives with his grandparents, too. I thought he was their biological grandson. Was the whole thing a charade? No, of course not, it was all genuine. Ronnie was far too genuine for it to be a ruse. His grovelling was so distracting. I couldn’t think straight.

“Hey! Man, cut it out. Please, just, bloody chill out for a second, yea? Fuck.” I yelled. He stopped his pleading and I put my hands up to my face and took a deep breath. I had to be dreaming, right? Twice in one day? I thought Ronnie was human for as long as I’ve been working at Teddy’s. There’s no fucking way.

“God damn. You’re a bloody monster, aren’t you, Ronnie?” I asked, not uncovering my eyes.

“Y-yea,” The monster answered feebly, “I am.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I groaned and wiped my hands down my face. I looked up and saw Ronnie was still incredibly defensive.

“Finish eating. I just came to look for you ‘cuz we’re about to lock the doors. I’ll tell Huey you’re smoking.” I turned the corner and walked behind the dumpster, but another important thought hit my mind. I clarified, “I’m not going to hurt you if you don’t try and hurt me first. That’d be trouble for both of us. Got that?”

I heard Ronnie sigh in relief. “Yeah! Yeah. That’s great. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t start talking up to me.”

“Of course! Whatever you say!”

“Stop!” I growed, and he responded with a whisper, “Okay.”

I couldn’t think straight. I went back inside to tell Huey that Ronnie was smoking behind the dumpster. He said he didn’t know Ronnie was a smoker, making me realise the flimsiness of my lie. I cursed myself in my mind, but plainly responded “Me neither.”

Ronnie came back inside, a normal human, no blood, short hair, colourful skin. It was like nothing even happened behind the dumpster. He clocked back in, and when he passed by Huey, he asked Ronnie, “You smoke?” Ronnie and I both froze for a second. It was the longest second I’d ever felt. After a short bit of hesitation, he responded, “Well, not often. It’s been a long day,” which appeased Huey’s curiosity for the rest of the night.