text: Elyse Hardy couldn’t remember quite clearly the first time her mother had turned into the monster. After all, it had been happening long before she was born, and there were stories she had to hear second hand, from her much older siblings. Her siblings had described to her how she had been a tiny baby when her mother had turned into the monster while driving them to the store, and her siblings had jumped into action, pushing their mother to the side as she snarled and bit, and they managed to get the car to the side of the road, brother steering the car and sister pressing the brake. They had snatched Elyse from her car seat and whisked her out, where they all three stood sadly watching as their mother tore the inside of the car apart. Her fur standing on end, wiry like a porcupine’s, her snout wrinkled as her teeth bared, ripping apart the seats, mangling the steering wheel, and finally pawing at the windows, claws tapping frantically while the children backed up slowly. Her sister Myra had also told Elyse about an incident when she had been a baby, and would not stop crying. Maybe she had been hungry, or needed love, who knows. But her nonstop crying had triggered the change and their mother had become the monster. Myra had seen their mother change, the feet elongating and snapping to bend the wrong direction, the wiry black and brown fur sprouting from every inch of her skin. Her eyes becoming beady and black, her normally small, thin nose turning into a long snout. The teeth growing and showing as she drew her lips back in a snarl. The monster had stalked towards the baby Elyse, who was crying and thrashing on the couch. How the monster had opened her jaws wide, about to bite down. Myra recounted how she had run to her baby sister in a panic, sweeping her into her arms before the jaws closed, and how she had run into her room and barred the door, holding Elyse tightly while the monster thrashed at the door. There came a time when Elyse’s two siblings escaped for good. As soon as her brother was able to, he got accepted into college, and left home. Her sister escaped by moving in with friends. That left Elyse and her father, a quiet, timid man, when she was eleven years old. The first memories Elyse had of her mother turning into the monster were from early on in childhood. She could remember being strapped to the back of her mother’s bike, and her turning into the monster mid-ride, feeling herself and the bike falling over to the side, feeling helpless as she sat strapped into the bike seat, knowing she was falling, feeling the ground come up and meet her. She could remember once waking her mother up in the morning before school, terrified because she had not completed her math homework, and had no idea how to do it, and had no one to help her. She reached up and tentatively shook her mother’s shoulder, asking for help on the homework assignment. Her mother had immediately transformed, the bedclothes stretching over her as her body enlarged, claws growing out of her hands. She had whipped a claw into Elyse’s arm and dragged her onto the bed, snarling and snapping her teeth in her face. Hitting her with huge paws. It felt like almost as soon as it had begun, the monster had retreated back inside her mother, and her mother had simply let her go, and rolled over to go back to sleep, as if nothing at all had occurred. Elyse eventually grew up and was able to escape herself, finding a small apartment for herself, a job in a local factory. Life wasn’t good exactly, but it was something. She was away from the monster. Then one day her mother texted her, saying that she had gotten into a fight with her father and she wanted to come stay with her. Elyse knew from experience that it was likely her mother who had instigated the fight, that she had probably morphed into the monster, maybe even hurt her father, and now was trying to run from the scene. Now her mother was asking to stay with her. Elyse ignored the text and ignored her calls, hoping she would just give up and go terrorize someone else. Then she saw out her window a familiar vehicle pull into her apartment parking lot. Her mother’s Expedition. Her mother parked the vehicle and sat inside. Elyse was crouched below the window, peeking out and hoping her mother hadn’t seen her. The texts and calls continued. Elyse stayed hidden until a knocking began on her door. “Elyse? I know you’re in there, open up!” Bang bang bang bang. “You’re really going to ignore your own mother who is in need?!” BANG BANG BANG. Elyse could hear the change happening behind the door, and the banging turned into bashing. The doorknob shook. The walls rattled. Elyse cowered in fear, fingers grabbing hold of the carpet beneath her. Then suddenly she felt something shift inside her. It felt like her heart was exploding in a fiery wave. Heat spread throughout her torso and arms. Skin turning into scales, a spiked tail growing out of her tailbone. She rose in height until she almost hit her spiked head on the ceiling. She looked down at her hands that had become dragon claws. She huffed a smoky breath and moved to wrench the door open. Her mother stood before her, one-third of Elyse’s new height and size. She looked like a pitiful dog with mange to Elyse’s new, glowing orange eyes. Her mother snarled and bit at her legs, but Elyse hardly felt a thing. More like an annoying house fly than anything else. She kicked a huge scaly leg and sent her mother flying down the hallway, whimpering. Elyse stomped over to where she lay, a pile of fur. “Get away from here and don’t ever come back.” Elyse growled low in her throat and then shot a spray of fire just above her mother’s head, singeing tips of fur. Her mother returned to human form long enough to stare up at Elyse with tears in her eyes. She looked so pitiful and small in that moment that Elyse almost felt pity for her, but then she remembered the monster who had tried to attack her so many times in her life, who continued to terrorize her and her loved ones, and the pity disappeared. She watched her mother get up slowly and leave the apartment complex, walk to her vehicle, get inside and drive away.