Metamorphosis

In the dead of night, a young professional in a four-button, double-breasted Armani suit climbs up the side of a looming cliff. The buttons of his suit grind against the jagged rock and his fluttering jacket exposes a thin, white, but not inexpensive shirt, which tears easily against the sharp edges of the crag. No polish will revive the once proud sheen of his shoes.

But the young man’s mind is set only on reaching the top of the cliff. He pays no attention to anything that’s happening to his body. He doesn’t notice the dirt seeping deep into his expensive, manicured fingernails. A tremble in his right calf warns that if he does not reach the top soon, no amount of willpower will stop him slipping off the rock face and tumbling like debris into the water.

Setting his teeth against the pain, he tastes grit on his gums. It’s an alien sensation. Don't breathe too deeply. Don't go coating your lungs with dirt. There isn’t far to go.

The cool wind has been sneaking into his shoe for a while and his sock, damp with sweat, lets his shoe slip off. Gone. It tumbles down the rock face, spinning in the air. A weak nail nicks, nicks, nicks against the rock-face until, finally, it too is shed. Its descent is much more graceful, fluttering down like a moth before disappearing.

The wind grows heavy with water. Raindrops spill onto his face, onto the rock-face, and onto the sea's face. Thunder rumbles from across the ocean and slams against the side of his rocky tower.

His hand reaches for more rock and finds only dense, cold wind. At last, he’s there. The top of the tower welcomes him with a smack of salty air. He’s made it.

But there is no time to waste. As he drags himself onto the relatively flat top of the crag he runs his dirty and aching hands along his abdomen. His hand meets the leather shoulder holster, cradling the most important thing in the world.

Clenched tight in his fist is the black handle of a beautiful, dark grey Smith & Wesson compact 9mm. Smiling, the man shuffles to the edge of the rock, resting the nose of the gun above his left ear. Looking down, the rain is so thick he can’t see the base of the crag. Of course, it makes no difference. He knows where he’s going.

Not a single thought passes through his mind when the handgun goes off. The explosion is so sudden and piercing it rips through the night before being swallowed by the wind and rain.

The journey down is short. The body smashes against the sea and, as if in retaliation, it sucks it under immediately. Blood, bone, and bits of brain pour into it, feeding it.

It is at that moment when the bullet hole becomes a makeshift birth canal. The dead man’s neck swells to a width passing both ears to accommodate a new pulsating force that is pushing through. Skull and face bones splinter as another head thrusts in and out of the old one’s cavity. An eyeball, dislodged and sinking, is quickly snatched up by an eel.

Two new eyes, black and huge under a thin membrane, finally open to welcome the first sting of seawater. A maw with teeth like an old woman’s fingers drinks long and deep through the ever-widening bullet wound until a fresh set of gills open and fan out. Two fins lined with poison spines erect on each of this thing’s cheeks, tearing through the insides of the dead man’s neck and giving it enough space to crawl out. Once its smooth dark body is free of the human cacoon, it kicks it away with a flick of its tail and watches the body sink peacefully to the ocean floor, arms floating high as if farewelling the newly emerged thing.

The creature swims forth, darting through the thick ocean with swift precision as its muscles tighten and adapt to its home. Its webbed claws tear through the water with great ferocity; its maw catches a quick meal.

And all around Earth this strange event is occurring. The world of the urban professional will slowly whittle away as the ocean bubbles with a hungry new race, eager to seize the world from those who have owned it for tens of thousands of years. The world of productivity, of economy, of humanity will soon be lost to the deep underwater.

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Credited to: http://darkandmagical.blogspot.com.au