The Secret Shapeshifter
I'll never forget one of the strangest events that ever occurred in my life. I'm just a normal man who lives in a rural area, but I'm not the important part of this story. One day I was walking around my property, just a few minutes off the highway in Arizona. Suddenly I saw him. A man, running quickly towards me. He was tall and bald with a large frame. As he got closer, I could tell he was distressed; his eyes, which were an almost otherworldly pale color, displayed great panic.
Arizona State Route 64 in Coconino County, Arizona.
Source: Wikimedia
Seeing me, he approached me and aggressively began to speak. "Can I hide?" he demanded to know. "Please show me somewhere I can hide, evil people who want to do me much harm are chasing me."
Though I was confused and entirely unsure about this man, he had a childlike innocence about the way he asked for shelter. It proved very compelling, and I agreed to let him hide in my shed. Just a couple of minutes after he had locked himself inside of the shed, I noticed two men in dark suits and sunglasses sprinting towards me. They approached me and I could instantly discern their serious manner. One of the men began speaking to me.
"Sir, we need to know where this man is," he said, showing me a picture on his phone of the man hiding in my shed. "He likely convinced you to hide him."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" I exclaimed, feeling sympathetic towards the seemingly helpless man I was sheltering. "I've never seen him before in my life."
"Sir, he's a dangerous shapeshifter. At any moment he can take any form and cause great damage. We are with the U.S. government and need to know his location. You are not in trouble, but we need to know immediately This is imperative for the safety of you and your community."
Adequately convinced, I sheepishly pointed towards my shed and handed over my keys to unlock it. The men in suits opened the shed, and handcuffed the shapeshifter. They all suddenly vanished from my sight, and I never saw any of them again...
Author's Note: This story is loosely adpated from "The Flying Ogre" story in the Chinese Fairy Tales Unit. I changed the setting, turned the flying ogre woman into a shapeshifting man, changed the other characters completely, and told the story from the first-person perspective. What I kept was the story structure of hiding some stranger and then having to give them up after learning more about who they are.
Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921).
Hi Derek! I really enjoyed this story. It was full of suspense; I didn't know what was coming until the very end of the story, which is something that makes stories like these great. I also really loved your use of descriptive imagery! That coupled with the photo you chose really gave me a mental picture of what was going on in the story. The only thing I would suggest is flesh out the second half after the men in the suits show up. I would be interested in more details about how they knew about the shapeshifter and what the shapeshifter did in the past to make the government come after him. You are a really strong writer and I'm looking forward to reading more of your stories in the future!
ReplyDeleteHey there Derek! I really liked this story! The beginning made excited to see what was going to happen next, and I felt like I could connect with the main character. Sometimes it can be a difficult thing to know who to believe in situation like that. I would love to know some more background information on either the main character or the shapeshifter, but besides that, you did a great job!
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