Chapter Text
While Susie may not have known she was a monster until she was thirteen, there were signs.
When she was six, mama took her to the bathroom to trim her nails, and frowned when the clippers refused to cut. After some wasted time and loud choice words, she pulled Susie hurriedly into a pet store to get professional assistance. The clerk and mama saw it as an oddity, but nothing more. They walked out of the shop with expensive dog clippers and called it a day.
Susie squirmed in her seat as mama brushed out her hair. The even strokes rumbled across her scalp, slow and st–
A snag and a yelp.
“Susie.” she scolded, “You wouldn’t be hurting this badly if you didn’t play so much in the dirt.” She went right back to brushing, handling the harder knots with her fingers, and Susie sighed. Mama always spoke highly of her hair when talking to the nextdoor neighbors, remarking often on how closely the two matched. Sure, Susie could see the similarities in the mirror, about the same length, though Susie’s hair was a touch of lighter brown. But there was something else, where Susie’s hair seemed wilder .
Well, mama kept brushing, the hair kept snagging until it didn’t, and the end result was a set of straight and matching dark brown locks.
Susie sat in the nurses’ office at the age of eight because she had fainted in the yard playing tag. It was only for a second, and the nurse was being far too concerned for such a little thing like that. Tag was the only yard game she found really fun, being able to chase down and play rough other kids without being told not to . She had to sit on the cot for sixth graders because she couldn’t fit on the one for kids her age anymore, she was just too big. The nurse told mama that a growing girl like her needed to eat more, something with which Susie wholeheartedly agreed.
After whole minutes of waiting, Susie swiftly took over the vacancy at the train table during the classroom free time. Shuddering with excitement, she grabbed hold of the yellow train, and forced it up onto a bridge, of which she shook ferociously.
“CHUGGA CHUGGA CHU- UH-OH!” She roared. “SUSIE-ZILLA IS HERE!”
She imagined the passengers inside screaming with fear, entirely at her mercy. A wicked grin grew on her face, and she held the train aloft and close to her eyes. She wasn’t entirely sure what came across her mind as she lowered the train to her jaw, widening slightly with anticipation-
“SUSIE!”
She froze, half-lidded eyes sharpening to the source, Darrell .
“That’s MY train, you... you!” he hissed, approaching the table. His mother had donated the table to the class, something he never quite got over. He snatched the train from a stilled Susie, appraised it, then scoffed.
“Besides, that engine’s obviously a turbine, and would not make a “chugga chugga” like you did, it would be much more like a “WhirrIRRRRRRR-aUGCkkh” he hacked out as the wind was knocked out of him, falling to the floor.
She didn’t really know what came over her. There wasn’t even any decision made there, something about the way he spoke made her body just decide to nail him in the stomach.
“Let me tell you something, Darrell.” Her fist was still balled, a dull ache echoing through her bones as it lowered to her side.
“Loud people piss me off .”
Susie was nine, Susie was strong, and she knew it. She was strong enough to take control of her life, at least at school. It didn’t matter, she thought to herself as she sat alone at lunch, that Jen and her cronies’ whispers kept tickling her ears during class, giggling about her stature. She was only able to pick out snippets, “fish-face” and “The Sulk” for instance. Cowards, she thought of them, because the only reason they didn’t say it to her face was because they knew what would happen if they did.
At nine-and-a-half, Susie came home fuming because Darrell had called her a vampire because of her teeth. Her stupid, giant, clunky teeth that felt too big for her mouth and were starting to hurt. She’d wake up in the middle of some nights in bed to the taste of her blood, red marks lightly tracing the shape of her mouth on the pillow.
Now that was the first time that mama looked at her, really looked, and saw . And she panicked.
Dad caught them in the garage, pliers clenched in mama’s hand around a long crooked molar. He yelled, she screamed, and Susie covered her ears while her mouth ached and bled.
She was ten, and dad was long gone. Not even the pet store could cut her nails anymore. The clerk recommended a salon frequented by monsters, to which mama cut him off before he could finish and ad-mon-ish-ed (her class’ word of the day) for even suggesting that Susie was a monster. He stammered, and the pair left the store in a hurry.
Susie woke up to the sunlight peeking through the blinds. Huh, she overslept. That didn’t really happen often, but since mom hadn’t called her out yet, she may as well make herself comfortable. She shifted herself to roll onto her back–
Pain.
All throughout her spine, it was electric. Her tailbone lit up as though it were on fire, and Susie gasped.
WHY WAS SOMETHING POKING THE MATTRESS.
Calm yourself, there’s got to be a–
WHY WAS SOMETHING POKING THE MATTRESS.
No, no. She was just different, like mama said!
She rolled herself the other way, snagging the bedsheet with... something on her arm? It was a rough pink patch she had thought was a bruise, but now there were rows of something jagged flecking the skin. It itched. Bad.
She brushed her body, discovering with horror that there were several such patches, on her arms, legs, body, and... face!
There was no transition for her between struggling with the bedsheets and bolting through the hall to the bathroom, she practically materialized there.
Susie wasn’t stupid, but it was a hard truth to hold, because “Susie” meant her , and she was not a monster! She had a human mom, a human dad (‘wasn’t a deadbeat, no matter what mom said. He wouldn’t leave for no reason’ the bad voice hissed), so she couldn’t possibly be one, right?
But the ivory fangs and glowing yellow eyes framed by groomed locks of chocolate hair disagreed.