The body that I find most unnerving is almost certainly that of the Surinam toad.  They have one of the most disturbing methods of caring for their eggs that I have ever seen.  Many frogs and toads deposit and fertilize their clutch of eggs in a discreet location.  In contrast, the Surinam mating process involves sticking the fertilized eggs to the back of the female.  These eggs embed themselves in the mother’s skin over a few days, and remain there as they develop.  Eventually, they emerge from the female’s back as tiny but fully-formed toads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7b4spjXhw

I have trypophobia, which is the fear of/aversion to repeating patterns of holes.  http://trypophobia.net/trypophobia Normally, this does not seriously affect my day-to-day life.  I’m very fortunate in that my symptoms are not as severe as those of other sufferers.  However, there are certain skin conditions (particularly keratosis pilaris) which simultaneously fascinate and disconcert me.  If I notice that someone has repeating spots of this nature,  I find it difficult to pay attention to anything else until one of us leaves the room.

However, cases like those of the Surinam toad are an entirely different matter from a simple skin condition.  What truly horrifies me is when there is something living and moving inside the holes.  When I imagine an invading other in someone’s body, I’m gripped by a compulsion to just get it out.  Get it out NOW.

Metamorphisis

It was just another average morning at the apartment: Getting woken up at nine o'clock while the noisy roommates carelessly rush breakfast so the can make it to their nine-thirty classes.  Though waking up and rubbing my eyes did not feel the same for some reason.  As I got up to walk to the bathroom, I notice looks of horror from my roommates as I walk past them.  "Good morning to you all too..." I say as I walk past their stunning silence.

But once I looked into the bathroom mirror, their looks of horror made sense.  Even I was in shock from what I saw.  It appeared that my face had turned into that of a cat.  "How did this happen? What did I do to deserve this?" I kept wondering to myself.  I also began to question how I was to carry on with my life with such a drastic change happening.

As I walked out to talk to my roommates about what was going on, I got the typical boneheaded response from them, one being "dude, why the hell is your face a cat?".  "I don't know why my face is like this.." I replied. "what am I supposed to do?"  They all looked at each other after I spoke and then one said "dude, you're even talking like a cat now! no way so weird."And at that point is where I just lost it.  Not only was my face that of a completely different species but now I could not even communicate with other human beings.  I decided that I needed to cool down and get away from people so I decided to take a walk. 

Hoping that it would have relieved stress, my walk down Saint Paul Street only reminded me how much of a freak I had actually turned into.  Every person I walked by gave some sort of rude reaction.  People were staring, giving disgusted gestures and even yelling "freak" as I walked timidly and ashamed down the road.  At that point I realized I could no longer belong in such a society where everyone is so picky and only accepting to people who look as they do.   I walked back home and went up to my room, where I locked and trapped the door, where I planned to hide my cat like self for the rest of eternity.

My Metamorphosis

    I wake up. Everything seems normal at first, I drop down from my bed and slowly walk towards the bathroom to take a shower. Something seems different though, but I am unsure of what has changed. I shrug off the thoughts as I get ready to embark for the day. As I am about to leave I realize that my bag is lighter than normal. I inspect the bag and realize that my Magic decks are not there. After searching for some time, I decided to put together a quick deck and roll with it.
    As I wait for the bus to campus, I come across a friend and strike up a conversation. We start talking about the latest roster changes and balance changes to League of Legends. EdWard has rejoined GamI bit Gaming and is the news of the day.
    "So how do you think EdWard rejoining Gambit will effect the EU scene?" Says my friend.
    "I don't know, anything is possible" I reply. "That was odd." I thought, "That isn't something I would normally say, EdWard going back to EU will have a giant effect." I try to say these words and they don't come out.
    "What about the whole Garen vs Renekton discussion last night Dan?" My friend says, trying to move past my obvious ignorance.
    "I don't know, both of those champions are good, I say it's an equal matchup." I retort. "What am I saying, Garen stomps Lizard Wizard in the early game and any good player would be able to snowball that to a lane advantage." My thoughts are unable to come to words. I attribute this to the cold weather and am probably catching an illness.
    Finally reaching campus I find some friends that are playing a game of EDH and I ask to partake, excited to show off the new deck I quickly built. They agree and I revel my general, Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Everyone at the table starts laughing and questioning why I am even playing with them. At this point I realize what I have become. I have become a casual.

My Metamorphosis

It's just another day, there I am laying in bed dreaming peaceful things. But all of a sudden everything vanishes as my alarm clock goes off! The moment I open my eyes, I am looking at this overly obese person in the mirror, that hangs across from my bed... At first I can't believe what I am looking at. So in attempt to resolve the issue, I try to go back to bed. However, I get an itch on my right thigh. Desperately, I try to scratch at it. I soon realize that I have become overly obese! So huge that I can't move my limbs! Not only am I panicing about my self-appearance but the fact that the itch on my right thigh is growing unbearably!

I can't move anywhere. I am simply stationed on my, thankfully, comfortable bed. I lay there with my thoughts. How did this happen? Why me? Will this ever go away? What do I do now? All of these questions were forming in my head and I had a difficult time trying to resolve them. I couldn't reach my laptop or my phone because they were across my room. My last resort would be to call to my roommate, Taylor, to see if he could assist me. So I decided to do that.

I frantically began to yell for him. He stumbled out of his bed in the other room and asked what was wrong. I told him he would not believe what happened... Giggling from the other room, he soon came over and opened my door. Instantly he was overcome by shock. He asked if I was alright and how the hell did this happen. I being a smart-ass, told him I had no clue.

I then told him to grab my phone. He did so. When I had the phone I tried to call my parents at home. However I was so obese I couldn't even move my fingers! I asked Taylor to dial my home. When he did, he put it on "speaker" and tossed it onto my belly. After, he left to go make himself breakfast downstairs.

When my mom picked up the phone. I just blurted out anxiously what I had turned into. She asked if I was on drugs. I replied with a firm "no". I basically told her to come up to Burlington ASAP! After she tried to comfort me, she hung up and I laid in my bed awaiting the arrival of my parents...

While I waited, I thought how could my peaceful dreams on just another day, lead to a dreadful nightmare??? I just hope that if I go back to bed, that the nightmare will go away!

Metamorph: Ferret time

As I toss and turn in my sleep, I slowly become aware of something soft and furry nuzzling my face. Nugget. I slowly blink my eyes open. The little buttmunch is right up in my face so that he looks huge. This is my normal morning routine. Only... Nugget backs away and is still huge. What? I look up and everything about my room is off: the pillow is four times the size of my body, the desk looks like an impossible mountain to climb and my sheets seem to drown me. I reach my hand out, only I can't seem to bring it in front of my face. Huh? I swivel my head around only to find myself staring at my behind. My furry behind. With a tail. I scream  in surprise, only it comes out as a soft squeak. I can't seem to find my words.
Nugget prances back over to me and jumps on top of me excitedly.
"Mom!"
Who in the what now? Who was that?
"MOOOOM. Get up! Let's play!"
Nugget is...talking to me?
I take another look down at my body: long, lanky torso, short hands and feet, and a long straight tail.
I'M A FERRET! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Goddess be praised, I'm a ferret.
I jump and twist in the air, voicing my excitement. Nugget and I bound around my room, bumping into each other, knocking things over and generally being ferrets.
Molly hears the commotion and opens my door.
"Are you freaking kidding me?" Nugget and I laugh before running out the door between her feet. Molly sighs and swears under her breath before chasing after us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a day of funny antics, Molly lays down on her bed and Nugget and I curl up around her, settling down into sweet ferret dreams.

My Metamorphosis

I wake up to the sound of my alarm going off next to my head. I reach out to turn it off, and find that multiple limbs are moving towards the alarm. I freeze, not sure if I am still dreaming and lay for a second while the alarm continues to sound in my ear, staring at what should have been my one, human arm. Instead, dozens of little legs are suspended in front of my face. I lurch sideways out of bed in an attempt to escape whatever creature was suddenly in the room with me. As I roll off my mattress and onto the floor I realize that the creature is moving with me, occupying the same space as me. As I try to stand and escape, flailing my limbs in an attempt to get the creature away from me, I come to the horrifying conclusion that I am the creature.
Even as I come to this understanding I continue to thrash around desperately, refusing to accept the situation. How could this have happened? How is this even possible? I try to yell out, to get someone's attention and hopefully get help, but instead of words all that comes out is a weird clicking noise that I don't understand. This brings me up short, and I stop moving about so that I can fully assess the situation. I'm laying on the floor, and as I try to move myself into an upright position my body does not cooperate. I twist to the side to get a better view of my body and I see dozens of short, hairy legs poking out from a round and segmented body. As I gaze at this new body, my brain tells my legs to move, and the legs on the lower half of the body twitch and wiggle.
As I test the limbs of this new body I hear my roommate, Joyce, coming out of the room next door to mine and knocking on my door. She wonders if I'm alright, she had heard a lot of noise coming from my room. I panic, thinking her reaction to my new form, and try to call out that I'm fine and not to come in, but again the clicking is all that escapes my mouth. She continues to talk to me through the door, saying that she's coming in, and I try to back into the corner, trying and failing to make this impossible body unnoticeable. Joyce doesn't notice me at first, looking towards the bed, but as she looks into the rest of the room her gaze lands on me, and she freezes. After her moment of confusion and hesitation she wheels around and slams the door behind her, screaming to our other roommates about the horrible monster that is in Molly's room.

Metamorphobliss

It’s Wednesday, November 6^th. I wake up slowly; taking my time while every switch inside the cavern of my body turns on and breathes life back into itself. I refuse to remove the pillow from over my eyes and solemnly pray that if I can just stall my body from waking up for long enough I won’t have to face the trials of the day. My second alarm hisses at me to get up, and I allow my indignation to fizzle away because I know that I have to. I sigh a heavy and sunken breath and murmur the golden words that I say to myself every morning: “goddammit.”

I’m suddenly overcome with the abrupt urge to throw up. I remove the pillow from my face and wretch all over the western hemisphere of my bedroom. I feel slow, like molasses dripping through a microscopic hole. I feel weak like a body builder gone flaccid. My head is so empty that it hurts. I feel too lazy and demotivated to pick up my bile.

I look into the mirror near my bed. I stare at myself and realize that something is off. Something is wrong, terribly wrong, and my body is trying to warn me but all it seems to be translating into is vomit.  With every attempted cautionary synapse my brain chemicals send to me, my mind retracts further and further away from the present.

My eyes sink deeper into my head. Drool creeps out of the corners of my mouth and my brain remains wildly vacant.  I scratch my head. All I can think about how is how difficult and useless caring about anything sounds right now.

“Oh my god,” I think to myself. “No, no this can’t be.” I realize that I’ve turned into my worst nightmare: an idiot.

I scan my room. I look at the books, the posters, and the insights written down on the thousands of scraps of paper that I used to pull from every crevice I could. I rip open my notebooks, flip open my laptop, jiggle the mouse to my desktop and scan for something, anything that will spark a thought in my mind, but alas I’m a moron and I give up just around when I begin.

Everything is ugly and boring. The colors are dull, the books are dry, and the walls are stodgy. I know that I used to care about all of these things, but I just can’t seem to remember why.  All I remember is that I had gone to bed the night before dreaming and wishing for simplicity. I decide to give up on my responsibilities for the day and I crawl back into bed. “I don’t need to go to work or school,” I say to myself. “I know everything that I need to know already.” I flip on the TV and melt; ignorance is the ultimate bliss.

Metamorphosis

I was jarred awake in the morning by my alarm.  I blindly flung myself off of my lofted bed hoping that I would land on my chair.  I fell really fast and even though my foot hit the chair my muscles didn't want to agree with me. I fell on the chair hard and it broke underneath me.  I let my head bounce off of my floor and closed my eyes, not completely surprised that my chair broke.  Noticing that my alarm was still going I gave a shove to get up and hit my alarm to get it to stop.  It was then that I noticed that something was wrong....

I hit my head off of the bottom of my bed and when I opened my eyes, my alarm clock was lying in pieces on my desk.  Surprised by that, I looked at my hands.  I had two massive furry paws with big claws.  I looked at the rest of my body and my legs were also like this.  I dropped to all fours because it was significantly more comfortable than trying to balance on my hind legs.  It would appear as though I was a big bear.  I was extremely confused so I looked over to my roommate.  He had sprung up when I cam crashing to the floor. Then he just plopped his head back down into his pillow.  This happened before when he thought it was a dream.  I didn't blame him, I even thought I was dreaming.  I had to figure this out....

It was seven in the morning and I had gotten up in order to move my car and avoid a ticket.  Even if it was a dream, I didn't want to take the chance of getting a ticket.  I decided I was going to try to move my car, because if it was a dream it wouldn't matter anyway.  I needed my keys and my id so I could get back into my dorm.  The keys were easy because I could just bite the ring and have it hanging from my mouth.  The id was the troublesome part.  I decided to just grab that with my teeth too because I felt like I was running out of time to move my car. It was really unfortunate that my clock was broken, otherwise I would have been able to check the time.  I make it out of my room after a few tries.  Then all of the doors to go outside I just had to push so I just lumbered outside and to my car.

I had gotten to the point I hadn't thought of yet. Now I was in public. I was a bear, on a college campus, in Burlington, trying to move a car.  All of the traffic stopped as I walked out of the road to get to the driver's seat.  I had left it unlocked so I didn't have to mess with the key.  My car is pretty much already falling apart, and now I have bear strength.  I was hesitant because I didn't want to tear my door clean off.  Then I realized that I was just about as big as my car. I wouldn't even fit into it if I could get the door open.  I doubt I would ever be able to get the key into the ignition.  The thing was, I didn't want to get a ticket....  How was I going to stop them from giving me a ticket while staying alive.  At this point I gave up thinking it could be a dream because I was doing a lot of thinking and I hadn't woken up yet.  Added on people had probably already called the cops or something to report siting me.  I decided to get out of the road and laid down on the curb on the passenger side of my car to hide from the traffic.  I had to come up with something to do, and then I heard the sirens....

My Metamorphosis

I wake up to my biggest nightmare. Me.
How is this possible? What did I do in life to be punished so badly?I always did what my mother wanted me to do when she asked me. I always cleaned my room, bathroom, took out the trash, and didn't swear around my grandparents. Why was I being punished? Why do I have to have another problem in my life? I am disgusting. I am literally the thing I hate the most. No one will ever be able to see me again. I won't allow that to happen. If I am so disgusted, why would I make others look at me? I am going to move out in the country, where I can be alone. I won't have to struggle to hide, or be afraid of getting stared at and the best part is I won't even have to pass a mirror to remember what I am.

I know I must leave before others see me.
I try to sneak past my parents, but of course, like all of the nights I tried sneaking out in High School, they catch me because like any other morning, they are having a nice sit down breakfast.
"Selena, why are you in a rush?' My mother asked me.
"Are you serious?" I say confused. "Do you not see me..?"
My parents look at each other in confusion wondering why their daughter is acting so strange.
They both get up at the same time and come to console me.
Until they see me.
"OMG!" they screamed in unison. "How did this happen?"
"I woke up like this.." I muttered.

After bringing me to the doctors to see what could have caused the type of transformation, I start to wonder, what if people who liked me when I was normal, don't like me anymore. Am I really at a loss? Clearly if they can't stand me now, than they don't actually like me in the first place. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. If I am going to have to be like this, like the doctor said I might be, than I might as well take advantage of it's few perks, like the fame. A normal teenage girl turned into real life-sized creature. I would soon be on every cover of almost every magazine in the world. People would soon know my name. I would be the one everyone wanted to see and the one everyone wanted to talk about and talk to. A talking, walking, human, in a bug body.
At first I saw myself as a monster, but my vision was jaded. I am a cover story.

The Metamorphosis

It was the night before the big paper was due. The big paper analyzing Kafka’s Metamorphosis story. I was sweating because I had been slacking and hadn’t finished reading the story yet. Yes, I knew it was due the next day but let me tell you, I am one hell of a procrastinator. So having finished the paper at 11:59—with one minute to spare before canvas had a big red LATE stamp on my turned in assignment—I meekly crawled into my cloud of a bed.

The next morning came way too fast. My 11am alarm rang like it always did and I almost smashed my phone in an attempt to turn it off…like I always did. Except this time my hand came down a little more forcefully than it usually did. Upon further inspection my hand was a little more hairy than it usually was as well. At this point I was a little confused as to what was wrong, but nothing could have prepared me for what happened next! I ripped back my sheets to reveal—the most shocking unbelievable thing that I had ever seen. A long shriek echoed out of my lungs. It went on so long that I didn’t even realize that I was making a sound anymore. A loud crash of my door shook me out of my tremor as my roommate stared at me. She also screamed but in a much higher pitch than I just had and ran out of the room with her hands in the air.

I had become a boy. I gingerly poked and prodded my body that was squished into tiny hello kitty boxers and a not-so-oversized tee shirt. I couldn’t believe it. I slowly got out of bed—the mattress groaning under the extra weight that I had gained—and walked to the mirror. My mouth dropped open. “Hey well you know, at least I’m a good looking guy!” I thought to myself. But what was I going to wear to class?

Chris, my boyfriend, had taken for ever to come over after I had texted him telling him, "it was an emergency and if he didn’t come now with at least 3 different outfits I would probably die.” (A little over-exaggerated, I know.) I opened the door and to my surprise he didn’t look very surprised.

 All I got out of him was a “hey babe, you look different. Are you wearing makeup today?”

Dumbfounded I stared at him. “Uhh.. Chris, I’m a dude.”

“Oh, that’s why you wanted me to bring the clothes then huh? Well I don’t know how to make outfits because I usually just put on whatever is clean but here ya go,” he said as he handed me the bag of clothes.

I scrambled to put them on. And looked at my reflection in the mirror again. Better now that I wasn’t in size 00 pink boxer shorts, but still not me.

Chris looked me up and down again, “Well, at least you’re a good looking guy?” he offered, shrugging his shoulders.

I punched him and he retracted “Ouch” he said. I was a little stronger than I thought I was. I smiled and threw another *light* punch. I thought to myself as a slight smirk crossed my face, “you know? This may turn out to be a little more fun than I had originally planned.”

My Metamorphosis

I hear my phone's alarm go off and attempt to reach over to shut it off. To my surprise my body feels foreign and won't cooperate with me. I look down and what I see is not me. What I see is not human. What I see is the body of an insect.

I immediately try to scream but no sounds come out, at least not human ones. Just a faint buzz. I look down at my disgusting body along with my tiny forearms and legs and try to figure out what to do. I have class soon but that is the least of my worries. How can I continue living my life as this...this thing. I try to get out of my lofted bed but it is a very taxing task. I eventually use momentum to roll myself off the edge of the bed but I forgot how high I was off the ground. I close my eyes and brace for impact but a weird instinct kicks in. I open my eyes to find out that I'm hovering above the ground.

As I am accessing my current situation I hear a knock at my door. It’s my roommate telling me to get in the shower now or ill miss the shuttle to campus. We have the same class so we usually warn the other if one of us oversleeps. I can’t reply to him and he starts to yell telling me to get my ass out of bed. My door is not looked so he opens it to find a large insect hovering in the middle of the room. All I see in his face is shock and he doesn't say a word. I land and try to stumble my way over to him to try to communicate but he runs away in fear. I just stand on the floor of my room and wait and sure enough he comes back and I make an effort to try to give a sigh of relief. But when I see what he is holding I freeze for in his hand is a bottle of Raid and he is pointing it right at me.

My Metamorphosis: A Furry Paw

I awoke one morning and realized that I had been changed into a cat. I lay there curled up in a ball with my legs wrapped into my stomach and my tail gently swooping around. My whiskers tickle my face as I scrunch my nose and look down at my new body, four furry paws and all.

I stood up and tried to on two of my feet, now paws and realized that I needed to use all four paws. I stretched and cried out in terror because I suddenly had the urge to lick myself. What is happening to me? Am I dreaming? I looked down at the floor, which was quite far away because my bed was very high from the ground. I was scared to get down in fear that I would not be able to work my new four paws correctly. I did not want to cause any damage to myself. It was already 7:15 and my sister would be getting ready for work soon. I was supposed to be watching Connor, my nephew all day. How would my family react to my new body? What would they say I thought to myself? Suddenly I heard the faintest knock on my door.

I tried to speak, but only meows came out. I wasn’t sure what to do. I pounced off my bed onto the couch at the foot of my bed and scampered towards the door with my tail in the air. I now faced the dilemma of how I would open my own door. I did not have hands I only had paws. I would not be able to reach the door handle anyways now that I was so short and unable to walk on just two feet. I began scratching at the door with my claws that were quite sharp in an attempt to get the person to come into my room.  

The knock gets louder and more frequent. My sister must be worried about me. “Linda?” my sister says loudly. “Are you awake? I have to get to work?” My sister slowly opens the door to my room and steps on my tail. OUCH! I meow extremely loudly and run and hide under the bed. My sister follows me and grabs me. “Sorry kitty, have you seen my sister?” I begin to speak in cat voices and she seems to understand me. She continues to hold me as I tell her what happened when I awoke that morning. She stares into my big blue cat eyes and smiles. I am shocked at how calm she is being about this considering I am no longer human. She pats me and I begin purring loudly. I’m a little embarrassed by it because I feel very happy just being held in my sister’s arms. My sister and I continue talking and soon enough my nephew, Connor awakes and runs into my room screaming. My sister picks him up and explains to him that I am now a cat. He begins crying and says, “No! That is not Auntie! That is a cat. Auntie has glasses.” My sister and I begin to chuckle. I lay there in my sister’s arms curled up in a ball wishing I was able to comfort my nephew. I am no longer able to give him a hug or help him color. I begin to cry at the very thought of this because I love my nephew and I always want to be there for him. However, it seems impossible when I am a cat and he does not believe that I am his Auntie. Suddenly, my nephew reached up to pet me and tears were in my eyes. He said, “I love you Auntie, even if you are a cat.”

My Metamorphosis

I awake with a jolt. My eyes tried to open, but something felt off. Why couldn't I see? Wait, its just still dark outside, the sun hasn't risen yet. I try to fall back asleep but can't shake the feeling that something is not quite right. Maybe I just need some coffee, I think to myself, but as I start to roll out of bed I realize that I am doing just that, rolling. My mind is flooded with questions: When did my bed get so big? Why am I so hungry? Everything looks so big and scary. As a fall to the floor my mind finally registers what has happened. I have become a chihuahua. Panic sets in as I hunt for my own pet chihuahua. What if I have become him and he is gone forever? Luckily, moments later, he too tumbles out of bed, just like any other morning. 


I am completely at a loss for what to do so I decide to start of my morning like any other, maybe it will make things normal again. I scurry into the living room, my little claws clacking on the wooden floors. "Ah Chicken my queen!" my roomate says, picking me up. Damnit he thinks I'm our pet. As a open my mouth to shout out, I think for a moment and stop myself. My roomate is talking about making me breakfast? and I don't have to walk anywhere? Maybe I'll keep my mouth shut a while longer... 
My roomate makes me a little cocoon blanket on the couch and goes to make me breakfast. Instantly, I am once again filled with the fear that I am being watched. I try to look around but my eyes can't see much. Suddenly our cat comes up around me, slowly, like he was stalking his prey. My body involuntarily starts to shake and I am ready to admit defeat. But then he returns, with a dish full of food for me to devour and picks me up to safety. My ears perk up as I hear my name being called and I watch my roomate walk into my room. "Huh?" I hear and I realize that he has seen our real chihuahua. My mind races as I try to make excuses for my sudden transformation but the jig is up. He has pieced it all together and is now coming into the living room calling my name. I admit defeat and reply back, surprised how average my voice still is. The cat too is surprised and runs away in confusion. Unsure of how to continue our days, we decided to consult our other roommate. "AHHH TWO CHIHUAHUAS??!!" she says"Nope" I say, and she promptly falls to the floor in shock.

My transformation

            I woke up one morning feeling very strange. I looked around my room and everything looked the same, I felt very confused. When I looked down at my body I was shocked. I was covered in black fur! I began to freak out wondering what had happened to my body while I was asleep. I continued to explore my body and I found that instead of having two legs and two arms, I had four legs with tiny little paws at the bottom. I stood up and walked over to the mirror. Oh my god. I am a cat. A black little fluffy kitten. My initial reaction was to be terrified, but I was too cute to be mad. I needed to figure out how to tell my parents about my transformation and my professors that I would be missing class.
          My door was locked and shut so I had no way of getting out of my room. I began to cry for help but only sounds of faint "meows" came out of my mouth. On the other side of the door I could hear my two cats Moon and Midnight scratching at the door trying to help. At that moment my mom opened the door. She looked down and said "huh... how did we get a third black cat?" She started petting me and talking to me like I was a baby....it was at that moment when she looked into my eyes and realized it was me. I had big brown cat eyes that looked almost identical to my human body. She started to scream because she didn't know what to do. She immediately called my dad into the room who decided to pick me up and cuddle me. My dad said " Jodi, this is Libbys new form and we have to accept her as she is. Maybe one day she will turn back into a human". I couldn't tell if I was dreaming or if my dad was really high on something...No one should EVER be this calm about their daughter turning into a cat! My brother Mitch heard my parents arguing and slowly made his way around the corner of my room. Meanwhile I am still sitting in my dads arms, purring loudly because I feel safe. Mitch looks at me and then looks at my sobbing mother, then at my dad. My dad said "Ya...Lib turned into a cat. I think the best option we have here is to accept her new body". Mitch responded by saying "I am going to grab my bb gun...this shit is weird". I began to panic.
       When Mitch left the room my dad immediately hid me in the hallway closet and told me not to speak. Moon and Midnight were freaking out with their tails puffy and eyes bigger than I have ever seen before. After like an hour of sitting in the dark closet my dad proceeded to bring my a bowl of cat food.....um no. I started to hiss at the bowl and my dad soon discovered that even though I had the body of a cat, there was no way in HELL I was going to eat that nasty food. My dad left to get me something different. I sat there upset wondering if I was just imagining all of this or if I would forever be a cat. At that moment I heard Mitches voice and his footsteps coming towards the closet door....oh no.

Mutant Bear Mascot Swarm

I cannot stand the feeling of saliva.
It has to be the nastiest thing on the planet. I know it is an essential for our body to digest food and keep our mouths moist, but it is disgusting.
Being licked or seeing it makes me have the urge to blow chunks. I don't know what it is about it but I can't help, but be grossed out. I doubt there are things as nasty as saliva. Blood I'm cool with doesn't faze me same goes with other bodily fluids, but the thought of saliva compared to those touching me are a thousand times worse.

Mutants

For the longest time I had never been really scared by horror movies. I had seen many with gore, ghosts and psychological twists, but nothing that left me saying, "Wow I'm legitimately scared." I think these feelings come from the far fetched nature of most horror cinema. I felt like this until I saw the most fucked up movie of my entire life, The Hills Have Eyes. I will never forget how uncomfortable and anxious I felt during and after this movie. The mutants in this movie are absolutely horrifying and the combination of these deformed mutants with rape scenes and gruesome deaths makes for a bone chilling film.

I'm not afraid of zombies or other humanoid monsters, but these mutants freak me out. They're so human-like and at the same time extremely alien. Their disfigured bodies and cold attitudes are very unsettling. I believe my fears stem from their actually appearance and all of the elements that surround them. It's like taking Sloth from The Goonies and giving him the mindset of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. In other words an absolutely terrifying combination. These mutants origins are also not far off from real life historical events. Take Hiroshima or Chernobyl for example. In both tragedies people were got radiation poisoning and gained many deformities. This real world aspect contributes heavily to the creepiness of the devilish mutants of The Hills Have Eyes.

The Elegy Of Emptiness

This... thing...
    I would have to say that this is one of the few things that deep down scares me, and it's origins are reasonable. One of the more famous creepypastas (short stories people write to try and scare people) is simply titled BEN. BEN is the story of a guy who buys a copy of The Legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask and unnatural things happen to him while experiencing the gameplay. For a large majority of the time, he (the player) is walking around the game normally... except, there is no one there. Not a single person is there, there is no sound playing, it's just him... alone. Just this alone is grounds to be creepy enough, but after some time, this statue shows up, put of nowhere, right behind you. It then keeps following you by teleporting to where you are standing. Faster and faster.

The reasons why this is frightful for me seem to be very broad. The statue is a symbol for the story, which in itself is scary. But I think there is also a deep down fear of being alone and the only other thing in your life is a former shell of yourself. Another reason I can come up with is that the statute itself is creepy. I mean, look at it, it just stares at you and doesn't do anything back.

Coyotes and Bears...

I've had my fair share of close encounters with potentially dangerous wildlife while growing up in Maine and living in Vermont as well.  I wouldn't say that I'm terrified of wildlife but I have seen animals gang up and attack other animals first hand.  The most prevalent types of attacks I've seen, or heard were done by rabid coyotes. Whenever I go home during the summer months I lay in bed at night and can hear them howl right in front of my house, sometimes outside my own window.  Their presence is actually pretty intimidating, especially when they travel in packs.  I remember one time I was walking home late at night and heard something running through the woods surrounding my house. I went inside and then heard pack of coyotes howl repeatedly and also the screams of another animal getting attacked.  I looked out the window of my living room and saw probably ten frail, rabid looking coyotes circling a small possum.  They were literally 25 feet from where I was standing inside. I was just outside probably fifteen minutes before they came through the woods and onto my dead end street.  That was definitely a scary experience just to see that many coyotes THAT close to my own home, brutally killing another animal. I've had other encounters when I've been outside in a friend's backyard and one ran up toward us and growled.  All I could see were its eyes and that was enough for me to believe that it was definitely not a dog.

An animal that I'm afraid of that I haven't actually seen in the wild, I'd have to say that brown bears are absolutely terrifying.  Not only are they massive killing machines but they can run faster than the average human, and climb trees effortlessly.  I've always had nightmares where I'm in the woods with people and we run into a brown bear.  Part of me wants to see one just so I can see how big they actually are, but another part doesn't because for some reason I've always been so afraid of them.  I love the concept of bears and I think they're really cool animals but if I ever met one by myself I'd probably freak out. I'm not a hunter or anything like that so I couldn't see myself trying to kill one at any point in my life.  My uncle has actually killed a black bear before and that thing was pretty big too.  It really puts into perspective how small humans are in comparison with animals.

Paranormal

I am not even sure if this one is allowed, because it is definitely controversial whether or not it is a real body... but I have always been slightly scared/fascinated with ghosts and paranormal things.  A lot of people would argue that this type of thing isn't even real, and I might even be one of them.  Thinking from the perspective of someone who argues that they are definitely real- a ghost is mostly just a mind/spirit.  They are represented to have a body, but without any normal properties of a human body.  The "spiritual bodies" are known to "take over" and inhabit normal human bodies though, in which case it would be impossible to say that they aren't a real body.
It's really fascinating to think about the concepts we learned about with mind vs body and everything, and try to figure out what is going on when someone becomes "possessed." Is a separate mind and body coming together to form one?
I have never personally experienced anything like this, and it is kind of hard to believe something is real if you have never witnessed it.  I see movies all the time, though, that do a good job of putting paranormal things in the realm of possibility.  It might only add to the fright/fascination not knowing if they are indeed real or not.  I want to say I would lean towards saying they aren't real if someone asked my opinion, but nighttime a graveyard or a big old house would still give me the creeps.

MARILYN MANSON

This Guy: Marilyn Manson. I find myself more disturbed than frightened by him, but nevertheless Marilyn has always stuck in my head as someone who I feel rather uncomfortable looking at. It's easy to see why anyone could be traumatized by his appearance. He might as well have a giant tattoo plastered on his forehead that says "Hail Satan". I remember watching some of his music videos when I was younger--definitely nightmare material. Now that I'm older however, I've learned that Mr. Manson is one of the smartest individuals I've ever experienced. He is well spoken and opinionated. For him, Marilyn Manson is a musical image and now I see just how genius it actually is. He is still freaky as hell though.

                                           

  Dead Bodies

         The main body that I don't like is a dead one. I would say its because it brings the fear of death into your mind. In scary movies seeing a dead body always leads to the protagonist shrieking in fear as they know that the danger is real. That is why dead bodies are somewhat frightening to me as I have seen family members and friends pass and seeing them in a casket is always an un-easing thing for me. I think this could best be related to the walking dead when people see their family members that are zombies they want to think they are alive and okay but they aren't. When I go to funerals especially when you kneel beside the casket I always expect the person to jump up at me and say boo. Its an uneasy feeling where you are constantly expecting something to happen but it doesn't. At the same time it is upsetting to think about it often as you can picture your face on the person this body is frightening due to the fact that it is not just scary or creepy in itself but it is symbolic of death and the loss we will all feel. The most frightening aspect is that you cant kill or destroy this symbol like you could a spider or an animal in your room. It stands for the greater fears of losing loved ones and in turn dying yourself it is the most frightening body to me because it stands for the inevitable one thing we have no control over and that is death. Therefore I think the most frightening body would be a dead one due to its foreshadowing that we are all doomed to die and become nothing and this to me creates an uneasy and upsetting feeling as we all know we are going to die but most of us ignore it and get on with our lives yet this is a bone chilling reminder that no matter how successful we are we will all meet the same end.

                           -James

Slipknot

Growing up I had a neighbor who I would hang around with everyday.  We had about a solid three year gap between us me being the young one and very naive to the world.  Anyway my neighbor was really into metal/hardcore music which I was never really to fond of, but being the little guy of course wanted to fit in with him and his friends and tried to get into as well.  I remember one day asking him for good music to look up and the first thing written down was "slipknot".  So at home I google the name and click on a website then all of sudden pictures like above are posted all over some eerie dark background with dark music playing as well which of course scared the crap out of me.

Even today looking at pictures of the people dressed up for this band freaks me out. Every aspect to the appearance seems just seems malicious and I have never really been one to be freaked out by masks, but just the photos I have seen of them all I find hideous and disturbing.  It was one thing in the 70's and 80's where the lead singers would paint there faces all up and wear crazy wigs, but I just don't get where the look of violence came from. 

Zombies

I wasn't sure at first what do write down for this blog post because my first instinct was to write about some kind of insect but I can usually deal with them.  So I had to really think about what kind of body I find frightful.  In the end I came up with Zombies.

In particular, there is a certain type of zombie that creeps me out the most.  These are the zombies that move slowly and that can take any amount of damage and are still coming after you.  The kind of zombie that you can only hope to escape by running away from.

It's that determination to kill that scares me the most about these types of zombies.  There bodies are literally falling apart but they won't give up.  They are decomposing and just want to eat your brains.  I also don't like to think about the fact that they were capable human beings like I am now and that they were either brought back to life or infected by something to make them these unstoppable creatures.

The Horror!

It's Halloween. I see blood, fake or real, and it doesn't bother me. I see spiders, snakes, goblins, witches, clowns, zombies, you name it, and I am straight-faced and nonreactive to each and every spirit of the night. I'm a horror movie buff and I absolutely love gore. Nothing conventionally frightening has ever really seemed to get to me.

There are however, three oddly specific,dreadfully nontraditional, and idiosyncratic fears that I have. I'm going to write about all of them because while each one triggers the same rigorous fear response, there are three very separate places that the fear derives from and each relates to a different one of the five senses.

1. Number one is not a body, but something that a body does relating to sense of smell. This is by far my greatest fear, and people around me commit this act frequently because in any rational psyche this action would certainly not induce fear. I don't even want to say what it is because it gets me so worked up, but here goes....

Hand sniffing.        


    Oh.                     My.                           God.


I might get sick from just talking about it. I couldn't put a picture of it above because if I google image hand sniffing, you will not be seeing me in class ever again on account of heart failure and brain combustion.

 I freak out when people sniff their hands, and I mean freak out. I have run screaming from rooms and when I was younger it used to make bile rise in my throat but I have gotten better at my reaction, however it does make me completely nauseas and anxious. I have tried to get to the bottom of why it makes me so scared for a long time, but I haven't ever been able to fully figure it out. It makes me anxious, sick, frozen, disgusted, and terrified.

I'd rather have Jason Voorhees chasing me at lightning fast speed with a rusty machete sticky with the blood of all of the other teenaged girls he had just slaughtered than have him chasing me at lightning speed with his hands cupped over his nose and sniffing.

People have asked in the past if it has to do with cleanliness and I think that part of it does, but it doesn't seem to be that simple. The fear of people with dirty hands (hence why Jason was a perfect example, because his are probably absolutely filthy) smelling their hands makes my fear multiply rapidly, but it still bothers me when people smell their freshly lathered antibacterial soaped up hands.

I have always been slightly odd about scents. I have come to realize that I have a heightened sense of smell and make a lot of connections and correlations based off of aroma. In particular, I have a hyperawareness of the smell of bodily emanations and it sounds extremely strange, but I can smell things on people. I can smell if someone had been drinking the night before even if it's not flowing off of them. I can smell if someone hasn't taken a shower, I can smell all of the different perfumes, body washes, shampoos, lotions that someone is wearing, etc. I mean, I'm not hound dog, but I am more conscious of smell than most people I'm surrounded by. If you ask me to describe the scent of something, you'll get an answer that is very complex. For instance, if you ask me what the classroom we normally have Bodies class in smells like, my answer would be vacuum bags, new balance sneakers with minimal wear, the antibacterial lemon-scented lysol that comes in a spray can, rubber, jacket pockets, and vienna sausages.

So I'm weird about smells. And I mean sure, hands are covered in gross, gross things. We use them all day long for basic functioning and communication. At any given moment, there are all kinds of disgusting germy creatures living in the cracks of your hands. It's repulsive to me to want to smell everything those hands may have touched throughout the day even if we are, by nature, not repelled by the fetid scents our own bodies produce. Hands are also kind of scary to me because they're like little people. When you take away someones hands you remove mass amounts of function. I would call my hands my most important body part, aside from my brain. I used to have such a strong fear that someone someday was going to chop off my right hand (my dominant hand) and then I would only have my left hand and of all the things I wouldn't want to have to learn how to do once I lost my hand, writing would be number one. So, I taught myself to write with my left hand just in case and am now ambidextrous. Let's pray that I get to keep both of my hands though.

So, there's something about hands, aromas, and germs that pool together to make me so fearful of this innocent act. Someday I'll get to the bottom of it, but for now I just have to pray continuously that I don't catch someone in the act.



And to all you hand sniffers out there, you're sick.




2. This next one is also not a body and relates to my sense of sound. Remember back in grade school when it was cool to have velcro sneakers and everyone begged their parents to buy them a pair? Well, that period of time was one hellish nightmare for this girl. Not only do I hate the sound of velcro to the degree that most would associate with the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, but it actually scares me shitless. I can handle velcro in small doses depending on the amount of wear to the nylon strips, but extended velcro sounds make me tense up and panic. It's not even so much that the sound is so horrendous, it's more so that it makes me feel, well, like I am covered in syrup. It also makes me feel like I cannot move. So basically the sound of velcro makes me feel frozen and sticky. Oddly specific reaction? Yes. Why this reaction? Once again, not a clue. It very well may be that I detest the sound so much that the only way my body can react is in fear. All I know is that it makes me want to curl up in a ball in a dark closet and pray that the echo of the velcro monster doesn't find me in there. I am also realizing just now as I wrote that last sentence that I have a huge fear of being covered head to toe in syrup.

Although I survived the velcro shoe phase, I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to completely stay away from this:

If velcro shoes weren't excessive enough, they had to go and invent a velcro wall that people wear full body velcro suits to jump onto.

Ugh.


3. Okay, the last one is an actual body. My initial fear response related to my sense of sight, but quickly escalated into much more.

Here goes:

Condoleezza Rice.

I know what you're thinking: how incredibly rude of me. After all, she was the first female african-american secretary of state but I promise I have my reasons.

I am the youngest child in my family and the only female. I have two older brothers, one of which really, and I mean really, liked to screw with me. He's almost five years older, so picking on his innocent adolescent baby sister became his favorite pastime.

Mind you that I was a very innocent, honest, and virtuous little girl that was sweet as pie and believed every outlandish lie that my brother fed me for a long long time.

I was roughly 10 years old. My brothers bedroom was right across the hall from mine. This had never posed itself as a problem, until one night while I was sleeping my door pushed open and it woke me up. I popped open my eyes in time to see the outline of my eldest brother's figure before he killed the power to my night light. He had made sure to shut off every single light in the house so it was pitch black and I did NOT like that. I hated the dark and I hated not being able to see. I jolted up in my bed and pulled my comforter up above my nose. I knew he was in my room but I didn't know what he was doing. He suffers from severe epilepsy and I thought at first that he was about to start having a seizure because he wasn't saying anything and he was behaving oddly. Just as I went to go screaming and panicking down the hall to my moms room, he said "Don't freak out. I'm here to help you. There's someone after you. I'm going to tell you how to handle her but I promised her that I'd keep the lights off."

I was so confused at this point. My eyes were bulging, but I could make out his form better now that the lights had been off for a few minutes. He sat down on the end of my bed and he said "We don't have time for questions, so you need to listen to my every word Katherine. You will not have the opportunity to ask me anything because I will need to disappear for my own safety as soon as I finish telling you what is about to happen."

As you can imagine, I'm freaking out at this point.

So what he said went something like this:

"Condoleezza Rice came into my room a few minutes ago, and she said she wanted my soul. But, I told her it was too black and that she wasn't going to be able to use it. Condoleezza was not happy about this, but I told her that you were indeed very innocent and that she could take your soul. She gave me thirty minutes to come and warn you of her arrival in your bedroom and so I could say my final goodbyes to you. You're such a good sister giving up your soul for me and being so calm about waiting for your impending doom. It was nice knowing you. I'll be sure to take good care of Ivan (our dog) for you. Oh, mom and sean (my other brother) said goodbye too. Okay. Times up. I need to get going. Bye Katherine."

He then proceeded to take both of the lamps out of my room and barricade my door shut so I had no available light.

Yes, I woke up in the morning and I still had my soul (or at least I think did), but I completely believed him. I was freaking out all night long waiting for Condoleezza Rice to show up in my room and kill me. I was mortified for weeks. He kept telling me that she was delaying her trip for a number of reasons but that she would be there when I least expected it because I had somehow pissed her off.

He ran with it for months, and he would print out pictures of her and tack them all around my room and would just put more up if I took them down. It took me way too long to realize that Condi was not coming for me. The story was not real, but the fear sure was.

Brothers.

Either way, her face scares the pants off of me not only because of the memories it triggers, but she is actually kind of scary looking. She is a very powerful and intimidating woman. She has beady shark eyes and a constant aggressive look on her face. She is certainly not someone I want sneaking into my room and stealing my soul, that's for sure.