How on earth does one start talking about something like this? Its so...personal that expecting other people to understand it in an impersonal way is perhaps asking too much. And yet I want to do this. I need to do this. There is this burning passion within me to simply try and help other people explain my unique form of madness. Is it madness? Maybe...it would be easier if it was and it most certainly would be simpler if I told the right people about it. But yet...yet that is giving up and perhaps there is a purpose to this. Perhaps there is a reason behind all of the confusion that comes with my personal gift. Or maybe its that deep down I secretly like having this condition that has been thrust upon me for unknown reasons. I do not know, and for now you do not even know what I'm talking about.

Lets change that.

Some days its all rather simple and clear. 

I awaken to find myself as myself for just a moment. Its a strange feeling to be able to simply be; at least it is in my world. In the back of my mind I know in a way that this simply cannot last and I await in this mixed feeling of trepidation and excitement. 

What shall I be today? 

As if I had any real choice in the matter. 

The real question is how many things will I be today?

I stare down at my hands in the predawn twilight with a small bemused smile. Whatever causes what I go through hasn’t quite begun to kick in yet. Perhaps it will be an easy morning for once...

After another moment of lingering beneath my covers I cast them aside to greet my natural body before me. Its rather simple compared to what I tend to go through...pale, slightly out of shape but nothing too horrific, and rather male. A young adult male of indeterminate post high school pre collage age. Quickly I sweep a leg off my bed and then the other. So far, so good. I take a couple of steps, looping around the foot of my bed as I approach my door only to have everything come tumbling down.

Its the most peculiar sensation this strange mixture of pressure and compression...yet there's a stretching too. It hits me first in my left hand like a few droplets before a massive summer thunderstorm. I know this feeling...this sensation...and yet every time its so very alien. My hand convulses almost, spreading out without my consent or ability to retract it back in. A sort of numbness tries to spread across my hand but yet...yet numbness isn’t the right word as it rather fills my hand with sensation. Touch. Realness...this solidity that I don’t know unless I'm going though something like this. 

Perhaps that’s why I love it when this happens so much. Why I feel so hollow when the normal days drag out for what feels like an eternity. Why the world literally truly looses color to me and sounds deaden before they reach my ears...perhaps its why I haven’t told anyone for the fear of this going away brings a fear that my very world would vanish to only be replaced by this...this monotone of everything.

I stare for a moment as the shadows between my fingers seem to thicken...to expand...and for a moment even change color before it fades. I try to move my fingers and yet they all seem to move together as if they were one. This weight begins to fill my hand...this sensation of detachment from myself grows...and in the void there it is replaced by a moment of infatuation and interest in whats happening to me. I can feel my digits melding on that hand. Becoming thicker...longer...heavier...bigger... 

At least that’s what it feels like.

Visually I only get moments of serendipity to this odd sensation. And that, in and of itself is a rather new development. For years when I underwent these events it would simply be sensations and part of me wonders if this progression is one of madness...or perhaps in my dreams an advancement of something good.

For a moment I can see...a color, a light gold or perhaps a silver...Or I can see how much my fingers have changed into the thick digits of a massive paw. But yet here it is again a hand...just a simple hand moving in ways a hand shouldn’t. I can feel the air across its entire mass and as I brush it against the bedpost I can feel the sensation...even as my physical hand doesn’t grace the post. This paw...this spectral paw does and against its pads I can feel the grain of the wood... Even after six years of this every time it happens it fills me with this childlike wonder...Is this real? Could it be real? In the end it is real enough...sometimes too real.

Similar sensations assault my other hand in a rush of change. I stare at both of them for a moment as they flicker in and out, both of them feeling so many pounds heavier on my body. Perhaps that would be all for today...and if it were, it would be enough. Enough to make me smile...to make me simply feel alive again as I slowly begin to feel this sensation creep up my arms. Its warm against the pre dawn darkness...against this cold it is a loving embrace. Slowly and with trepidation I move a limb up to my face and rub it against a cheek...Or rather the outline of the limb that is coming into focus against my face. For a moment I feel nothing and then...then I feel the soft embrace of a fur coat against my flesh. 

 What...what is this? Why is this? How? 

Do these questions even matter? There ones that perhaps I've stopped caring about and only ask out of true habit. One of the few people I truly discuss this with simply cant understand how this is still strange to me after all these years. How...something that is in and of itself routine, can lack the monotony of such a process. Yet...to me it is still magical. Its still strange. It is still new...and until I started to grace this keyboard with my thoughts very private. 

I can feel just how heavy these new paws are...or perhaps old paws masquerading in the shape of two hands. It takes all my willpower to leave the bedside banister and take another step forward towards my bedroom door. Yet...yet I don’t get very far at all. This heaviness is simply unbearable and my balance...my balance is so much worse then normal. And after a few more steps I fall forward onto the old worn carpet. There is a type of instinct to this fall which I have experienced before...a dance that I have come to learn oh too well. I land with a sort of grace unto my hands, stopping my head from slamming against the ground from this sudden fall. In a way I expected this...and yet every time it happens it catches me off guard.

My body feels like its stretching now...its not...painful but I can feel my bones pop and twitch in a rather uncomfortable fashion. In moments I am laying on the ground in a fashion that someone normally isn’t supposed to be able to do. Yet I only linger in this position for a moment before I stretch without my own volition, bones creaking and cracking gently as I feel my feet begin to twist and expand much like my hands did. Growing bigger whilst staying the same...my chest following suit as it barrels out...and my entire body start to expand...

Its such an odd sensation of being disassociated from your very height, from your very size. You physically know where you are, where your head is and where your shoulders spread out to and just how large you really are. Yet coupled with this strange condition you have you also sometimes get this vivid shadow sensation that overlaps your entire form. Its quite difficult to walk around, even on two legs feeling a good foot or two taller then you really are, ducking here and there for no apparent reason to anyone by yourself. Because at times when you do hit that head you don’t have against some low hanging fixtures it really CAN hurt...as strange as that sounds. 

Warmth spreads across my entire body where once there was nothing but the chill of a sunless purple and red world of shadows. Its there...yet its not, and I can see it, I can see me flickering to and fro out of existence lingering for but a sweet moment before vanishing. This...fur...this massive form coming into being...

And then I feel the reason for why I started to sleep naked in case I woke up in the middle of the night with one of these episodes. 

Imagine as close as you you can get to uncomfortable without being truly painful. I'm not saying it always is painless...sometimes its truly excruciating but now...now its just this unbearable pressure trying to escape my back...forcing and prodding and threatening to explode out of my flesh...I want to scream, but I cant...words wont escape me as I arch my back, stretching as far out as I can go before...

Before relief.

I can feel them grace the side of my bed and my desk...these massive wings now sitting upon my back. Its as if having two arms...or perhaps hands that are massive sitting upon your back able of doing the strangest motions... these...livid light things...wondrous and capable of so much sensation. 

On top of my head I can also feel my ears flicking through my hair, sounds crisp and clear now...so very very real...behind me during my episode with the wing's a tail has slipped out, curled around my lower section now...Everything for a moment is so crisp, so very real...so detailed...visually there...I see myself, an aspect of myself one that I am more familiar with than perhaps my normal body. This sound caresses my new ears, a rhythmic one that I realize is coming from myself, a wonderful purr. 

I slowly stand on fours, able to balance myself this way rather well and take a step forward with my new paws. The pads beneath them digging somewhat deeply into the carpet...I take another...and another...

And that's when a shiver slips through my entire form. 

So this wouldn’t be the only thing today.

I reach up trying to wrangle the doorknob to my room with hands that are and yet, not there. My form brushes against the walls that clearly are not built for a creature of this size, for a sphinx...and thats when the cool sensation increases. It knocks me off balance, my tail suddenly gone as I fall onto my back. The shivers increase as my fur seemingly fades away, my size decreasing. I can no longer feel my wings against the carpet or my side against the distant desk. 

This cold sensation continues to assault my senses as I feel the last of my fur melt away. It gives into a dry cool sensation and experimentally I run my pawed hand against my chest where it is coldest. There, prickling against now bare flesh is the feeling of coarse...and then smooth...and then coarse... so dry and cold. 

Scales I realize...quickly spreading across my entire body. And as I touch the strange small discs with my hands the paws seem to melt away  with the rest of my form. Grasping at the opportunity I quickly stand up, forcing my body out of the sudden shock and pull the door open. I dart into the nearby bathroom and take a glance at the mirror. 

There I am, normal. Brown hair, light hazel eyes, a few freckles...and yet for a moment the world shifts and my face is covered in strange scales, my hair now long and pitch black coming down to my shoulders and then...

Normal. I tilt my head, blinking a few times to recapture it before I slip into the shower, trying to warm my freezing body. Ice cold. Covered in scales...All I want to do is sleep...relax...mm..maybe get a bite to eat.

And then water hits me. Warm lovely water.

Melting all of those lethargic thoughts away as well as the scales. I let out a soft sigh as I lean into the hot water that slips around my form. A smile graces my lips as I simply embrace everything simply melting away. Normal again, at least as normal as one can be...

After a few moments I slip out of the shower, drying off and then...as I look down I feel a weight on my chest. My hair feeling so much longer then normal...my features more delicate...warping back to normal here and there but mostly solid.

Ah, well there’s normal and then there’s normal. 

-Yes, this is a pretty accurate account of some mornings for me. Sometimes nothing happens, other times I go through countless forms like a hurricane. Its my best attempt at describing it, wanting to share my madness with the world. I don't understand it, I don’t know why but Its there. Its something I feel. Its part of who I am. And I thought it could make for an interesting change for what I usually write. Most days I flux in and out of a sphinx or a kitsune, hence my name. Its been stable lately, but every once and awhile I get a day that’s...much more insane. I may write more of this later if I need to. I hope you enjoyed me sharing.