The Julie Costume

I tried to stand today, but the floor has become a magnet, pulling at the leaden density of my new bones. My keeper arrived shortly after the sun-disc in the ceiling began its midday hum. He is a tall, pale creature who wears a stiff, white skin that never wrinkles. He carries a small silver tray—a sacrificial offering of blue and red stones.

"Time for your medication, Julie," the keeper’s throat noises vibrated.

To him, it was a request. To me, it was a command to dull the claws that haven't fully broken through my skin yet. I looked at my hands—the fingers so long now they seem to wrap twice around the tray. I wonder if he sees the grey scales forming beneath my nails, or if his eyes are too weak to see the truth of what I am becoming.

I retreated to the corner, the cold stone pressing against my spine. This is my den. They call it a suite, but I know a cage when I see one. The walls are padded, soft like the belly of a prey animal, meant to keep me from shattering my own thickening skull when the voices in the light get too loud. On occasion, the bussing alone is enough to cause me to fall to my knees and start compulsing. They’re poisoning me. After every episode like that, my body becomes monstrous in some way.

"You’ve been quiet today," the skinny one said, scribbling on a flat, yellow leaf with a stick of charcoal. "The doctors are pleased with your progress."

Every time their throat vibrates, the room begins to warp uncontrollably.

A “doctor” is a word for the high priests of this place. They don't want to cure me; they want to domesticate the monster. They want to prune my growing limbs until I fit back into the small, fragile box of a human being. But they are too late. The transformation is deep. I can feel my heart slowing, beating with the heavy, rhythmic thud of something that belongs in space.

I swallowed the stones. They tasted like chalk and static. Slowly, the edges of the room began to blur, the sharp white light softening into a grey mist. My limbs felt lighter, or perhaps I just forgot they were there.

“Sleep,” the noise vibrated against the walls.

The weight of a heavy velvet curtain began to embrace me as it pulled me into complete darkness. In here, the only place the noise didn’t bother me, and my limbs returned to normal. In the center of this emptiness stands a mirror, as usual.

I crawled towards the mirror. Beneath me, a wet, dark substance seeps into my clothes. Eventually, when I reach the mirror, I can see who I truly am.

The glass was cold against my forehead, a stark contrast to the humid, pulsing heat of the transformation I felt in the light.

I looked into the mirror, expecting the grey scales and the elongated jaw, the black ichor of a creature that had outgrown its own soul. But the mirror didn't show a monster.

It showed a girl.

She was wearing a white gown, thin and translucent like a moth’s wing, tied with a string at the neck. Her ribs were a xylophone of bone beneath skin. The eyes weren't half the size of her face; they were just sunken, shadowed by deep, violet crescents of exhaustion. The claws were just jagged fingernails, chewed to the quick until the tips of her fingers were raw and weeping.

The wet, dark substance beneath me wasn't some unusual liquid. It was the water from the tipped-over pitcher on the floor, soaking into the thin, padded hospital tiles.

"She's staring at the reflection again," a voice vibrated—but this time, it didn't sound like throat-noises. It sounded like a woman. Her voice echoed throughout the darkness.

I reached out to touch the monster’s face, but my hand hit the smooth, reinforced acrylic of the observation window. The velvet curtain began to lift, and the aggressive, buzzing hum of the overhead LEDs replaced the darkness of my sanctuary.

The mirror vanished. I was in a four-by-four square of padded white foam.

"Julie? Can you hear me?" The door clicked—a heavy, magnetic sound. Two men in blue scrubs stepped in, their faces obscured by paper masks. They didn't look like keepers anymore. They looked like humans.

Humans, the ones who have me captive.

I looked down at my limbs. They weren't long or heavy. They were shaking.

"The transformation," I croaked, my voice sounding like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "It’s... It’s gone."

"The medication is working, Julie," the woman said, stepping into my line of sight. She held a clipboard—the yellow leaf. "The delusions are receding. Do you know where you are?"

Where am I? I looked around, eyes squinting. My eyes were getting used to the blinding lights. The bolted-down bed, and the small, shattered remains of the plastic cup I had crushed in my hand.

My limbs, once long and heavy with the promise of violence, now felt like brittle sticks wrapped in paper-thin skin. The medication turned me into them.

“I’m trapped,” I managed to get out. My voice didn't rattle the walls. It was a thin, reedy sound, the whistle of wind through a cracked window.

The woman in the white coat stepped closer, her face resolving from a blur of features into a middle-aged woman with a stethoscope tucked into her pocket.

"You're not trapped, Julie. You're in a safe room," she said, her voice soft but firm. "Do you remember why you're here?"

Occasionally, I’ll have these images in my head of sitting down with this human. The human will have water coming out of their eyes, as their throat makes this screeching sound, while two other humans dragged me away. Then I woke up here. Then they give me those colored stones to swallow, and I can communicate with them. I become them.

"I'm shaped like you," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "I... I understand you."

"The medication is doing its job," the doctor said to the orderly behind her. "The visual distortions are fading. Let's keep her on the current dosage and monitor the self-harm ideation."

They began to back out of the room. The absurd language was gone, but the truth it carried was a poison all its own.

"Wait," I called out, my voice cracking. "I liked it better when I couldn't understand you. I liked it better when my eyes were too big. They allowed me to see beyond the limitations of this room."

The heavy door clicked shut—a mechanical, final sound that no monster could ever break through. I sat on the edge of the bolted-down bed, my human limbs trembling, staring at the padded white corner of the room.

The silence that followed was louder than the buzzing lights. It was a thick, heavy thing that settled in the marrow of my bones. I looked at my hands again—the pale, shaking things that were supposed to be mine. They felt like a costume, a poorly fitted suit of skin that I was being forced to wear until the next offering of blue and red stones wore off.

I stared at the padded white corner of the room. It was the only part of the box that didn't have a shadow.

I’ll sit here until they come back again. I’ll stay very still, letting the human blood move sluggishly through these narrow veins, playing the part of the girl in the gown. I’ll answer their questions in their throat-noise language. I’ll let them believe the” medication” worked.

But I can feel it. Deep behind my ribs, the weight is returning. The grey scales are waiting just beneath the surface, itching to break through. My eyes feel tight, ready to expand until they can see the ultraviolet secrets hidden in the ceiling tiles.