《An Unwilling Monster》Day 13

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I stirred to the sound of my breakfast delivery. Birds again, but not pigeons, judging by the tweeting. What day was it now? Thirteen? I hadn't slept a wink. Sleeping would require relaxing, letting go, and I knew that harpy-me would jump at the chance to take over the moment I slipped up.

I sprung up and jumped off the bed, a flap of my perfectly formed wings being all that I needed to snatch a finch from mid-air, bringing my foot up to my mouth before even landing and chewing it up whole. I repeated, again, and again. They'd given me three, but they were so small. I needed more! This damn prison! Who did they think they were, rationing my food, treating me like a caged beast? I tore at the walls, able to put scratches into the metal, but not tear through it like I knew I should be capable of. If only I wasn't so damn hungry! Again and again I swung, without getting anywhere.

No, this isn't me!

I'd slipped up. I'd let harpy-me seize control to grab my breakfast, and I could no longer take it back. I couldn't fight anymore; this body was no longer mine. No longer was I a human dealing with harpy instincts. 'I' was almost gone. The prison now contained full-blooded harpy, and 'I' was just a voice at the back of its head, a flickering candle that could remember what it was to be human. I shouted at harpy-me to stop, to calm down, but the newborn harpy was ignoring its human voice with far more ease than I had been able to ignore my harpy instincts. How easy would it be to just sleep, to let the flame of my consciousness go out completely, to let harpy-me do what it wanted...

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No, I refuse to disappear! I refuse to let my captors win!

I watched on helplessly as the harpy that used to be me uselessly attacked its prison walls. For hours it raged on, stopping only to feed each time another sacrificial animal was pushed into the room. I was a prisoner now, not just of this room, but even of my own body, watching its inhuman form act with no input from me. But I clung on and did my best not to panic. I had no idea what I could do from this position, but I still refused to give up.

I don't know how many days I spent, locked in my own body, able to see and hear but not act. It was a sort of horror I'd never even imagined. The only thing that kept me sane was the knowledge that, should this existence become unbearable, I could just let go and vanish. It was a small comfort, but ironically it was the option of death that allowed me to cling to life. Perhaps that had been all that kept me sane the past two days too.

Harpy-me apparently didn't need sleep, or even to use the toilet, and I lost count of the number of meals it had gobbled. In that time, I'd learnt that while harpy-me didn't understand language, it did understand emotion and pictures. Shouting 'stop' had no effect. Thinking of the idea of stopping, imagining harpy-me standing still, did have an effect, harpy-me briefly pausing in its rampage. That was... something. Not much, but better than nothing. Could I learn to control the monster? To get my body back, even if by proxy?

That was when, for the first time since my capture, I heard voices.

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