The moon hung low in the sky, a pale disc casting long shadows across the dense woods. John McCallister trudged through the underbrush, the leaves crunching beneath his worn boots. The night was eerily still, only the occasional rustle of a branch or the hoot of an owl breaking the silence. A seasoned hunter, John had ventured into these woods countless times before, but tonight felt different. There was something in the air, something unsettling.
He first noticed the creature near the stream, crouched low, its body barely visible in the dim light. At first, he thought it was a deer, its silhouette hunched as if drinking from the water. But as he crept closer, his rifle at the ready, he saw it wasn’t an animal he recognized. The thing was humanoid, its limbs long and spindly, its skin pale and mottled like decaying bark. It had no visible face, just a smooth, featureless surface where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. His breath caught in his throat.
Before John could react, the creature bolted, its limbs moving in a jerky, unnatural rhythm. Instinct took over. He fired. The shot rang out, loud and sharp in the stillness of the woods, and the creature stumbled. He ran after it, his heart hammering in his chest. It was fast, but wounded, leaving a thin trail of dark blood on the ground.
When John finally caught up to it, the creature was collapsed near a fallen log, its breathing ragged. It tried to rise, its limbs shaking, but it was too weak. For a moment, John felt a strange pang of pity. Whatever this thing was, it was suffering. But the hunter in him pushed the thought aside. This was a trophy, something no one had ever seen before, something he could study.
John wrapped the creature in a thick net he used for trapping game and hoisted it over his shoulder, grunting with the effort. It was surprisingly light, its bones seemingly hollow, like a bird’s. The walk back to his cabin was long and arduous, the weight of the creature digging into his back. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching him, though every time he turned around, the woods were empty.
When he finally reached his cabin, the sky had turned a dull gray, dawn creeping in. His wife, Evelyn, was still asleep, their two children, Ben and Emma, tucked in their beds. John dragged the creature down to the basement, locking the door behind him. The room was cold and damp, the stone walls lined with old hunting trophies and equipment. He placed the creature in a large metal cage, securing the lock with trembling fingers.
The thing inside was motionless, its breathing shallow. John stared at it, his curiosity piqued. What was it? Where had it come from? He decided he would figure that out later, after he got some sleep. As he turned to leave, he thought he saw something flicker out of the corner of his eye. A brief shimmer, like light reflecting off water. He turned back, but the creature was still. Just his imagination, he thought.
Over the next few days, John visited the basement often, observing the creature from a distance. It didn’t eat, didn’t make any sound, just sat there, occasionally twitching or shifting its limbs. But it was changing. Slowly, its form began to shift. First, its limbs grew shorter, its body more compact. Then, its skin, once pale and featureless, started to take on a more human-like quality. John watched in horrified fascination as it began to resemble him—its face gaining features, its body mirroring his own.
At first, it was uncanny. The creature, now a grotesque imitation of himself, would stand in the cage, its head tilted to the side as if studying him. John felt a chill every time he went down there. It looked just like him, but there was something off. Its movements were too stiff, too unnatural. It didn’t speak, only mimicked. If John scratched his beard, it scratched its chin. If John yawned, it mimicked the action, though no sound came from its mouth.
John kept this discovery from his family. He didn’t want to scare them, and truthfully, he wasn’t sure what to make of it himself. Days passed, and the creature continued to evolve. Its mimicry became more precise. It began to walk like him, even adopt his mannerisms. One night, after spending hours watching the thing pace back and forth in its cage, John realized something that made his blood run cold—it wasn’t just copying his movements. It was learning.
Then came the day when everything began to spiral out of control.
It started small. Evelyn began acting strangely. She would stare at John for long moments, her eyes blank, as though she didn’t recognize him. Their conversations became stilted, unnatural. The children, too, seemed off. Ben would sit at the kitchen table, his eyes wide and unblinking, his hands resting limply in his lap. Emma stopped playing with her toys, instead standing in the hallway for hours on end, silent and still.
John’s unease grew. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt like something had shifted in his home. It wasn’t just the creature in the basement—it was his family. They were… wrong. The way they moved, the way they spoke, it was as if they were imitating real life, but not quite understanding it.
One night, as John lay in bed next to Evelyn, he noticed her breathing was different—too shallow, too deliberate. He rolled over to look at her, and for a brief moment, her face seemed to shimmer, the edges blurring like heat rising off pavement. He blinked, and she was normal again, her eyes closed, her breathing even.
But John couldn’t shake the feeling that something was horribly, irrevocably wrong.
The following morning, he went down to the basement, his heart racing in his chest. The cage was empty. Panic surged through him. How had it escaped? Where had it gone?
He rushed upstairs, his mind reeling. Evelyn was in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, her movements slow and methodical. Ben and Emma sat at the table, their expressions blank, staring straight ahead. John’s skin crawled.
“Where’s the creature?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.
Evelyn turned to him, her face calm, her eyes too bright. “What creature, John?” she asked, her voice eerily calm. “There’s nothing here.”
John’s heart pounded in his chest. He stumbled back, his head spinning. Was he going mad? He had locked the creature in the basement. He had seen it. But now, everything felt like a twisted version of reality. His family’s faces shimmered again, just for a moment, their edges blurring like before. He blinked, and they were normal once more, watching him with unnerving calmness.
He stumbled out of the house, the cold air biting at his skin, but it did nothing to calm the growing fear gnawing at his mind. He paced the woods outside his home, trying to piece everything together, but the more he thought about it, the more fragmented his memories became. What had he done? Was the creature still out there, or had it already replaced them?
That night, as he lay in bed, the horrifying realization hit him with the force of a freight train. The creature hadn’t just replaced his family. It had replaced him.
John sat bolt upright, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He looked down at his hands, at his reflection in the bedroom mirror. His skin—was it his? His hands felt foreign, like they didn’t belong to him. His face looked like his, but it was… wrong. It shimmered in the low light, flickering like a mirage.
The creature had mimicked him, absorbed him, taken his place.
He wasn’t John McCallister anymore. He was the shapeshifter.
In a panic, John—or what was left of him—ran from the house, his thoughts unraveling into a cacophony of confusion and terror. As he raced through the woods, his body shifting and contorting, the truth clawed its way to the surface. He had been the creature all along, the real John long gone, his essence consumed and erased by the thing he had captured.
Now, as the new John stumbled through the darkness, it realized there was no escape. The creature had taken everything—his life, his family, his identity. And in the end, he would be nothing more than a hollow imitation, lost in the skin of the man he once was.
The creature’s mimicry was complete. It was John now, but deep inside, something else lingered—a fragment of the old self, screaming silently in the void, trapped forever beneath the shapeshifter’s skin.
And the worst part? No one would ever know. The creature had won. It had taken his life, and there was nothing left of John McCallister to reclaim it.
Want to read a bit more? Find some more of my writings here-
Book Review: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
Echoes in the Dark: A Poem About Missing Someone at Night
Discovering Mexico: Fun Facts, Culture, and Why It’s More Than Just Tacos and Sombreros
I hope you liked the content.
To share your views, you can simply send me an email.
Thank you for being keen readers to a small-time writer.