In the glass and steel towers of Candid Caribou Corp, where the air hummed with ambition and the scent of freshly printed contracts lingered in every hallway, there arrived a newcomer named Arielle. She stepped into the cutthroat world of business with determination etched into her fierce yet elegant features, ready to conquer whatever challenges lay ahead.
But Arielle was no ordinary young woman. Beneath her poised exterior, she harboured a longing to, just like a chameleon in the wild, blend seamlessly into the intricate tapestry of the company’s corporate culture. In meetings, Arielle became a cunning fox, her smile sharp as she shrewdly navigated the treacherous waters of office politics. During networking events, she morphed into the graceful gazelle, gliding through conversations with effortless grace and finesse which belied the turmoil raging within. And in moments of conflict and confrontation, she summoned the unyielding strength of a lioness or a she-wolf, her eyes ablaze with an untamed fire that left her adversaries trembling in her wake.
Arielle’s colleagues took her peculiar slyness as a given, their attention too consumed by spreadsheets, charts and presentations to be suspicious of her attitude; Arielle herself seemed to be indifferent to the ways her traits manifested themselves in various professional settings. But as her time at the company passed, strange changes in her demeanour became explicit, making her unable to turn a blind eye to them any longer. Arielle caught glimpses of her reflection in the polished surfaces of the office, her features shifting ever so slightly, a flicker of something primal lurking from beneath her skin.
It seemed as though the changes in her appearance were too subtle for anyone to notice. Fearful of being judged, Arielle kept her worries to herself, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease that gnawed at her from within. Utterly desperate to regain her sense of self, she delved deeper into her numerous animalistic personas – this paradoxical occurrence being some form of completely absurd escapism. With each passing day Arielle, acutely aware of the chaos of her transformation, felt herself slipping further away from the woman she once was, losing herself in a menagerie of borrowed identities. This is an interesting direction.
In the dimly lit confines of her apartment, Arielle stood before a mirror, her breath coming in shallow gasps as she watched the slow unravelling of her humanity. It started with a tingling, a sensation akin to a thousand tiny needles prickling at her skin. With trembling fingers, she traced the contours of her face, only to recoil in horror as she felt the first tendrils of transformation take hold. Her skin rippled and stretched, elongating into sinuous patterns reminiscent of a serpent’s scales. With a guttural cry, she stumbled backwards, her reflection morphing before her eyes.
Feathers erupted from her flesh like shards of glass, shimmering as they cascaded down her body. She clawed at her skin, trying in vain to halt the relentless tide of change, but it was futile. Her hands quivered as she watched her fingers elongate into sharp talons. She was slipping away, piece by piece, into the abyss of her own metamorphosis.
And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.
Arielle looked into the mirror one final time, and there, staring back at her, was a creature born of her own making – a monstrous hybrid of different animals, a nightmarish, grotesque beast. No longer Arielle, the naïve yet sly newcomer to the corporate world, but something else entirely – a creature of the shadows, a shapeshifter trapped between worlds, forever bound to the whims of its own ferocious nature.
The creature decided not to go back to work.
