Changeling
Winter has always known there was something strange about him - and not just his name. When a new student arrives with looks similar to him, he is instantly drawn to the strange new boy. But where this encounter leads is not something Winter had expected, for better or worse. (2017)
Featured on my oneshot collection Something Strange on Tapas.
Winter had always known there was something wrong with him - something more than just his peculiar nature name, of course. It wasn't that he didn't feel like "not fitting in" with others of his age: he did, he had friends, and in general he had a good, healthy social life for a 15-year-old boy. Rather, it was the way he looked that caused not only curious looks from other people, but also confusion in Winter himself whenever gazing at himself from the mirror: he had strong, sharp teeth (the dentists had been forced to polish them by Winter's parents, but Winter himself had refused them to be completely flattened; at that age he had thought his fangs were cool), his nails always kept growing in odd ways and he constantly had to cut them, and the texture of his hair was strange at best, feeling like animal fur rather than human hair.
What was even stranger, however, was the hair growing on his lower back, and what undoubtedly looked like a scar on his lower back.
Winter knew it was normal in puberty to notice hair growing in strange and often unexpected places the sex education classes didn't cover, but he had had this strange, white hair there as long as he could remember, and the same applied to the small scar.
Winter had often asked his parents about these and other strange things:
"Why are my teeth like that? Why do I have to flatten them?"
"Why is there fur growing on my lower back?", a question immediately met with an agitated response of "It's not fur, it's hair; your great uncle was the same."
He'd further ask about the odd shape of his ears, and the the scar on his lower back; about the nails and the way his hair felt, and the weird, small bumps on his head.
The answers always varied.
The strange, white hair was said to be an unspecified genetic disorder that ran in the family, but all the relatives with the condition were long gone by now. Likewise, the scar on his lower back was initially claimed to be a scar from Winter falling badly as a child. The bumps on his head were somehow related to his skull's structure, and the sharp tips of his ears were simply a remain from the more primal past of humans - it happened sometimes, with kids being born this way due to how their normally inactive genes were somehow activated in birth.
As younger, Winter would always play with the idea he was some sort of monster child who had then gone through surgeries to look more human.
However, such thoughts were quickly buried until logic and reason when he matured, and for a good while Winter had basically forgotten his odditions. Things changed when his puberty started: with the new changes his hormones brought with them, the strangeness of his body became much more apparent.
"Maybe you're intersex?" one of his school friends had suggested: Winter's strange medical past and secretive parents seemed to align with what he had read regarding the topic.
"No, no, that's not it," Winter had replied. "It's not like that; it's definitely different. I have read about it and I can't find myself relating to most of the things the books mention, let alone what people say on forums."
Things came to change, however, when a new boy arrived to the school.
He was a year older than Winter was, but although they weren't in the same class, it was easy to notice the peculiarity of the new student: he was tall, his ears shaped so similarly to Winter's it was almost uncanny, and when he laughed a row of almost predatory teeth could be shown.
All this interested Winter greatly, and a week later, during one lunch break, he sat opposite of the young man.
"Hi," he said as he placed the food tray in front of of the new guy's own. "Is this place free?"
"Uh, yeah," the other mumbled, somewhat awkwardly: he hadn't expected Winter specifically to come here and was a little confused.
"You're the new student, right? What's your name?"
"It's, um," the boy started somewhat awkwardly and paused, as if to think very hard. "It's Ethan. I'm Ethan. And you are...?"
"Winter," he replied and smiled. "I know, it's a weird name: my parents had strange tastes."
"I think it's cool," Ethan answered. "It's kind of otherworldly somehow, I like it."
Not wanting to teeter around the issue any further, Winter decided to risk it all and asked as casually as it was just possible for him in the situation:
"Speaking of otherworldly... I couldn't help but notice your teeth. What's up with them?"
Like out of instinct, Ethan covered his mouth with his hands and looked at Winter with an alarmed expression.
"No, don't worry, I'm not making fun of you!" Winter hurried to explain. "It's just that... Well, look," he then said and opened his mouth, moving his lips a little with his fingers to show his teeth in their full, animal-like glory.
"You have them too?" Ethan asked, eyes wide and blinking faster than what was normal - he seemed to be very particularly abashed by the sight. "Are you perhaps... " Ethan started carefully but then shook his head. "No, nevermind."
"Your ears, too," Winter continued, now intrigued by the reaction he had gotten out of Ethan. "They're kind of sharp, aren't they?"
"Well, yeah..." the other admitted.
"What about your nails?"
"What about my nails?"
Winter showed his hand and the sharp nails he hadn't cut off in order to show them to Ethan. "Do you also have nails like mine? They grow really fast, I usually cut them and file the tips of them to make them less sharp, but I couldn't be bothered lately. So many school things to focus on - you know, that sort of stuff."
Ethan hesitated for a moment, looking at Winter's fingernails and then his own.
"I cut and file them too," he finally said with a low, careful tone. "But they look almost like yours, although they don't grow all that fast, thankfully."
Winter was overjoyed upon finding someone who shared these strange traits with him, and as the curiosity got the better of him, he continued asking: "Do you have any other strange things?"
"Strange things?" Ethan raised his eyebrows.
"Like, well, um... Surgery scars, or something like that? Especially around lower back?"
Ethan was silent, looking at Winter with a strange expression the other boy couldn't quite read or understand. Had he spoken too much? Was Ethan weirded out? Gods, he shouldn't have spoken this much after all.
"Is there... something strange with your lower back?" the new student finally asked upon being silent for so long. "Like, anything?"
"Do you promise not to laugh?" Winter asked solemnly. "Or be weirded out?"
"I promise," Ethan said and raised his hand to make a gesture of a vow. "I don't think I have any right to make any comments about the bodies of other people anyway, no matter how strange."
"Good. See, I have a surgery scar there, but also this... strange white something, like fur? I don't really understand it, mum and dad just claim it's some sort of rare condition, but that's basically it - I can't find any information even online."
Ethan looked extremely thoughtful as he listened to this. Then, out of blue, he asked something Winter had not anticipated.
"Were you adopted? Are you the biological child of your parents?"
"What kind of question is that?" Winter snapped. "Of course I am! I have almost the same hair colour as my father too!"
"Hmm... If you say so," the boy replied and took a bite of his food he had momentarily forgotten to focus on. "I just wanted to make sure."
"Why?"
"I just... wanted to, that's all."
He moved the fork around his salad absentmindedly.
"Hey Winter."
"Yeah?"
"Do you believe in ghosts? Things like that?"
Winter shrugged. "Can't say I do."
"I see..."
"I mean it's not like I can't deny them either, but since I have never seen with my own eyes... I'm not that inclined to believe."
"What would you do if you did... see a ghost or something along those lines?"
The boy laughed nervously. "What kind of question is that?"
"Just answer," Ethan replied but looked away from Winter as he said this.
"I guess I would. I mean, if I can have a condition like this even though the rest of the world doesn't seem to even know it exist, then I guess I could understand a ghost or a demon too - it'd be strange, but not too strange, you know?"
"Gotcha."
Ethan stood up from the table, still half finished food on his plate.
"You finished?" Winter asked, not having even touched his food yet.
"Yeah. But Winter..." Ethan murmured, and once more lowered his voice. "If you want to talk more about that condition thing whatever... Meet me after school at the school gym."
Winter nodded obediently, and fast forward 3 more hours, he was standing inside the empty school gym. It was part of the main building so it was locked only when the school was also closed, and so getting inside was absolutely no trouble for him. Even better, it was also never supervised, so sneaking in was easy, and he had no fear whatsoever about getting caught by a teacher.
He walked around, the dimly lit room so dark he could barely see: the windows of the gym had been blocked with large, black curtains, and only the small holes time had bitten into them gave him any light to see around.
And then he heard Ethan's voice.
"Here, Winter! Let's go to the changing rooms, it's better there."
His voice was silent and raspy, and Winter felt something akin to anxiety rise from within him: just what was Ethan planning to do? Was he really going to talk more about this condition of what they both seemed to have? Or was he going to punch him and steal his money? Or assault him? Was that it?
Winter hit his cheeks with both of his hands to cast off such thoughts, and Ethan heard the slapping sound.
"Winter, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly.
"Nothing, nothing!" Winter replied and stopped hitting himself.
"You don't need to be nervous," Ethan spoke as he stepped inside the back of the gym hall, into the small stairway leading into the changing rooms. "I'm not going to murder you or anything. This is just the best place to talk without anyone interfering. And if someone does come, we are sure to hear it well in advance."
"You're absolutely right," the other nodded. "I would never consider you murdering me. No way."
They were now inside the changing room, and once Winter had closed the door behind him (making sure it was not locked, just in case), Ethan switched on the lights.
"Alright, look," he started, voice shaking a bit. "What I'm about to tell and show you is very, how do you say it... personal. So whatever you say or do, don't make a ruckus, alright? I'm sure you understand."
Nervous but perfectly understanding the concern of Ethan, Winter nodded. However, as soon as the other boy started pulling his pants down, Winter yelped loudly.
"H-hold on!" he cried. "W-w-what do you think you're doing?!"
"I'm not going to take all my pants off!" Ethan replied, flustered as he opened his belt. When his pants fell down on the floor with the belt clicking against it, Winter saw something so strange none of his earlier scenarios of what could happen couldn't even compare to the sight.
Sticking out from his back was, undoubtedly, a thin, blond tail. It was not particularly long but one couldn't have called it short either, and it resembled a lion's tail with a tuft on the top of it, except it was much thinner. Ethan then turned around to reveal his back and lo and behold: blond fur was growing just around the same place as where Winter had it.
"What's... the meaning of this...?" Winter finally let out after moments of staring. "Ethan, you're not pulling my leg, aren't you? This is not a prank?"
"It's not a prank," the boy replied and his tail twitched a little. However, probably feeling self conscious or maybe getting cold, he soon put his pants back on and hid the tail inside.
"What... are you?" the other boy finally asked, still staring at where Ethan's tail had previously been in.
"A changeling, I think."
"A what?"
"Did your parents never read you fairy tales as a child?" Ethan asked.
"Not really..." Winter mumbled. "So please, explain me..."
"Changeling is someone who has been traded to another child," the young man explained in a very a matter-of-fact way. "A troll mother takes her own baby and trades it to a human baby, so the troll raises a human, and the humans raise a troll. That's how it usually goes in stories. Sometimes it's the fairy folk too, or elves."
"So are you a troll?"
Ethan laughed and shook his head. "No, I'm a human."
"But humans don't...." Winter started, but decided not to say anything after all - he couldn't find the right words.
"I was taken from my human parents as a child by a demon mother. It's said that when you spend long enough with them, your body starts to change too to resemble them more. But this is all I can do - I don't have horns or anything similar."
"Then..." Winter started slowly, looking at his shaking hand he had rose over his face. "Then that means... I must be a changeling too?"
"If you grew with humans, it means you must be a demon child, unlike me, who is a human."
Winter put his hand over his mouth and stared at the floor so hard he could have made a hole into it through the sheer intensity of his pierce.
Of course, that'd make sense. It would explain the surgeries, the two lumps on his head that seemed to have grown in the recent years; the secretiveness of his parents and the fact that aside from the similar hair colour, Winter didn't have much else in common with his family or relatives. Granted, there were some similarities, but didn't most people have some? If you took a stranger from the street that vaguely resembled you and told someone you're relatives, surely they would find at least one similarity.
"It must be a lot to take at once," Ethan's spoke and his voice pulled Winter out of his haze. "But since you seemed to be completely left into the dark with this, I thought it'd be the right thing to tell you."
He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and then looked away.
"I thought there was a possibility that... maybe we were swapped or something, but then I remembered it would have required us to be the same age. And there is a year difference between us, right?"
"Y-yeah... I'm pretty sure I'm exactly the age my parents claim me to me; there were no secrets, hush-hushes or murmurs regarding that topic."
"So... What are you going to do now?"
Winter looked at Ethan.
"I don't know," he then replied and looked away from the changeling. "This is kind of a lot to take. When I came here... I, uh, absolutely didn't expect this to happen."
"Sorry about that," the blond apologized.
"It's fine, now I understand everything that has been puzzling me since I was a kid. But tell me, Ethan, what are you doing here if you were raised by demons?"
"I learned I'm a human only some time ago myself," Ethan admitted with an awkward laughter. "And so I wanted to know what kind of life humans really lead so I came here. Some of my demon friends came too, although they're in different schools - this one refused to take more in due to lack of space and resources."
He laughed again, but this time his cheeks reddened slightly as he continued: "It's not easy being a human, you know? I keep saying and doing weird things all the time; we look similar, but there are a lot of differences between how we and humans behave."
"Like?"
"Like, the demons I grew up with were really playful, in the same way cats and dogs are regardless of their age. Humans aren't like that, people my age are supposed to be much more collected."
"I'm not playful," Winter commented. "Even though it seems I'm a demon."
"It's not entirely biological - it's in the culture too. You have been raised to control your feelings and stuff, haven't you?"
"... you're correct."
"Then... do you prefer to live as a human, or do you want to find your biological parents and live with the demons?" the boy suddenly asked.
"I-I must think about it," Winter breathed. "It's all very sudden, and I'm perfectly accustomed to this kind of life, so I doubt I'd like to change the pace now. But... "
He took a short break and looked at Ethan before speaking: "But I'd like to meet my other parents, one day. Not now, maybe not soon, but some time... And I want to talk to my parents about this too and about them keeping it a secret."
"Sounds like a plan. But say, have your horns grown out yet?"
"No, just two bumps on the head. I was always told it's just my skull being weird."
"Hm, then you definitely want to get something done with them - they should grow out anytime soon. Usually even children have them but maybe the human influence has made you into a late bloomer..."
"O-oh great," Winter stuttered and instinctively touched the two bumps on his head, imagining them bursting out one day to reveal horns. "Um, does it hurt?"
"It might sting at first, from what I have heard - I never got any horns."
"O-okay..."
The two stood there in silence then, looking awkwardly at each other, then the floor and then each other again. Only Ethan's suggestion to leave finally broke the silence, and they both agreed their business here was done.
They sneaked out, made sure to shut off the lights and went outside through the backdoor, as the front door was probably already locked, and the back exit directly led them outside.
"If you want to, like, call or anything or just hang out, just tell me. I can give my number," Ethan spoke once they were outdoors.
"That'd be nice," Winter replied and took out his phone, and Ethan then proceeded to give his phone number.
"Do you like video games?" he then asked, and Winter nodded: "I'm not very good, but yeah, I do."
"Want to hang out in the arcade tomorrow? I can introduce you to the other demons as well - they're all really chill."
Winter hesitated, but only for a moment, and eventually nodded: "I'd love that."
"Great, it's a deal then. Tomorrow, after school, see you there!"
"See you!"
And the two parted their ways. Only then the entire situation where Winter now was in washed over him, and he had to take a hold of the nearby building's wall to keep his balance.
"I'm... a demon?" he thought to himself. "Those surgeries, those secrets, all those were to pretend I'm a human?"
Frankly, Winter didn't mind the fact his tail had obviously been removed as he wasn't very keen on the idea of keeping such a thing a secret. Nevertheless, the fact his parents had never told him the truth upset him beyond words: telling the truth would have saved him from so much suffering and agonizing over a body he certainly liked, but couldn't quite understand.
Once back at home, he would talk about all this. He'd make his parents tell the whole story so that Winter could understand the circumstances of his birth better.
And, the next day, he would meet with Ethan again and talk to demons... Those he was also one of, despite the fact the idea felt absurd at best.
"But Ethan is there," Winter told himself as he now kept walking back home on the silent evening road. "He seems like a good guy, he explains things calmly and so that I understand them too, and he seemed to be happy to be able to meet with me again."
He stopped and took a deep breath.
"What more, he wanted me to understand my circumstances, despite not knowing me at all. He put himself at risk by revealing himself to me, a stranger, just so he could reassure me and show I'm not alone."
Winter smiled, cheeks burning a little.
"I think he is a good guy, truly."