If I had to call it anything, it would have to be quaint.  The town was small, a little suburb of the big city, surrounded on most sides by scrub and farm-land.  I had moved here a few months before because the city (much as I loved it) wasn't good for me.  It was expensive and noisy, and the pay wasn't covering my expenses.

To help pay bills, I had registered for a website where people posted free-lance work they needed done, and one job had been in the quaint little town.  After a while I was looking for jobs out here, I liked it, something appealed to me.

About the fifth or sixth job, someone finally asked if I was looking for work.  I said I'd be interested, and found myself supporting several town businesses.   It paid the rent (which was cheap out here) and kept me comfortable, but for one thing.

See, I have always enjoyed driving, and this far from the city, with its lights, you could really see the stars.  Many nights, I'd go walking around the town, or drive out past the city limits, lie on the hood and stair at the sky.  It was on one of these occasions that I thought I noticed sounds.  Foot steps, like something big was moving around.  Other nights, it was shadows flitting across the moon, or silhouettes blocking the stars.  I had no idea what it could be, and would usually discard these things out of hand, forget them, and get on with life.

But it kept happening.  One day I thought I saw something in daylight, a person-thing, but scaly, sitting on a rock past the edge of town.  I had caught it out of the corner of my eye, and it was gone when I turned to look closer...I forgot about it for days, except for an occasional nagging doubt  that I had seen something like that before.

Weeks passed, and it bothered me.  Was I losing it?  I had never seen a psychiatrist, but I was starting to think I should.  Hallucinations?  I had late nights, but I wasn't that stressed.  Was I?  I wasn't on any medications, I didn't do drugs, I didn't even drink.

I decided to sleep on it, and had nightmares haunted by lizard-men and gigantic flying dragons and all manner of other crazy things.  It was always at night, and always out of the corner of my eye, just faint enough to make me doubt and just real enough to wonder.  It felt like I'd been spotting these things for weeks, months, and some stop-gap in my brain dumped it all in one night.

Shaken, I got out of bed, staring at the numerals glowing on the clock across the room.  4:00 AM.  I took a shower to get rid of the cold sweat.  I hadn't felt...threatened...in this dream.  I wasn't even really sure what I was afraid of, but something about it scared me.

Saturday.  Dentist appointment.  What a way to spend my weekend, the tooth had been aching for a few days and x-rays said I needed a filling, maybe more.  I was sitting in the waiting area, trying to ignore the high pitched whine that had all the hair on my neck standing, trying to read whatever year old magazines there were in the baskets on the floor.  Some kid was standing in front of the TV, flipping channels.  I was gritting my teeth (pausing every few seconds as it sent fresh pangs of pain into my damaged tooth) because the kid only had about a 3 minute attention span.  The constant variations in the noise were making me edgy, harried as I was from lack of sleep the general anxiety of dentistry looming over me.

I watched him flipping through all the channels, all the cartoons and infomercials, over the top of some article about processors or horsepower or making a better casserole...I wasn't paying attention to much more than the silhouetted kid standing inches from the TV and hitting that channel button over and over and over.

I was about to tell him to turn it off when something on the screen leapt out at me, some cartoon character that looked very familiar, despite the fact that I hadn't seen it before.  It stopped me in my tracks, and I was about to ask him to flip back when someone tapped me, and I nearly jumped out of my shoes.  The nurse, saying the doctor was ready for me.  I tossed the magazine onto the seat next to me and went to face the drill...

Evening, heading home...the day had been spent with errands, chores, and a wad of gauze in my cheek.  Mumbling and drooling as the anesthetic wore off, I'm sure I looked quite impressive.  I was better now, gauze discarded and able to speak again, but the day had been long and tedious, hardly the break from work that I needed.  Standing on a street corner, someone had stapled a flier for "Second Identity" to a telephone pole.  I glanced at it before the "Walk" light came on.  Yeah, I could use one for days like today...

Didn't sleep well Saturday or Sunday, more bizarre dreams waking me up in the early AM...work Monday dragging as I struggled to stay awake enough to focus.  You know it's bad when your co-workers are asking if you're okay.  At lunch, I used the phone book to find the one shrink in town.  She was booked until that evening, she said, but she'd be able to help me out then.  I said great and headed back to work.  Time seemed to crawl by, and then I was driving to a little medical/business complex and taking the elevator up to the third floor to meet Dr. So-and-So, Head Shrinker.

So we talked.  At first I was a little shy about explaining what was going on, but she was patient, and I finally took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and told her about seeing weird creatures, dragons, large animals in town.  She seemed to take me seriously, which helped, as she took notes on her little pad.  When I finally wrapped up, I looked at her and waited for her verdict, sure she was going to call me crazy and have me carted off.  I was relieved when she didn't, and frustrated when she said it was just stress and handed me a prescription for something to help me sleep.

I left mad, and not even over her hourly rate...as I walked back to my car, I felt like I was being mocked.  I wasn't seeing things!  What I was seeing had to be real, in some sense, and I was going to figure out what it was.

That night, I was driving out of town, determined to see something again.  Past the abandoned section outside town (the one with the rundown farm on it) and out into the fields.  I killed the lights and engine, got out and looked at the stars.

I needed to relax, I told myself.  How crazy was I acting, driving out to the middle of nowhere, to see figments of my imagination?  I sat on the hood, feeling the warmth bleeding off the engine, the metal ticking, and tried to calm down, collect my thoughts, breathe deep.  I closed my eyes, and tried to clear my mind of any images relating to anything bizarre roaming around the town.

Breathe in...

Breathe out...

Breathe in...

I opened my eyes.  The stars shone brightly, the Milky Way glowing faintly, the lights of the town in the distance.  Heaving a sigh, I reached for my keys, determined to drive back to town, find a 24 hour pharmacy and take the pills or a blow to the head or whatever to get some sleep and be sane again.  I turned to walk around the car as a gust of wind slapped me, instantly dying down.  Hand on the door handle, I popped the latch.  As the door swung open, I caught something in the side-view mirror, outlined in the dark.  I turned too quickly, lost my footing on the gravel shoulder and went down to the ground in an avalanche of grit.  I managed to daze myself by hitting my head on the car, and sat there on the ground, looking at the vacant space in front of me.  Nothing there.

I was losing it.  The pharmacist filled the prescription, and a short drive and two pills later, I was passing out on my bed.  I think I had the same dreams, but the drugs kept me from waking up.

A few days passed, and I was feeling better.  Sleep helped, and the apparitions of my apparently diseased mind were fading.  I was in a good mood when I came to the street corner with the sign on it.  Second Identity.  Why not?  I was feeling adventurous.  I didn't even know what the store was, the sign was too tattered, but I'd been up and down the main street enough times to know it wasn't a "prime" business.  Wandering around, I eventually came to a side street, and a dark store-front bearing the name "Second Identity" in letters on the window.  The door rewarded me with a faint jingle as it nudged an old bell.

I have to admit, I was impressed.  I wasn't sure how such a small town could support a costume shop as apparently prolific as this one.  The stock must've ranged into the hundreds of items, and there weren't too many creatures I could think of that didn't make a hollow and deflated appearance somewhere.

The back of the shop (that I could see) was the counter, behind which, presumably, was the apparatus and space for making, repairing and maintaining these costumes.  There was a door in the wall, at any rate.  The shop-keep, who had looked up the moment I walked in was a smallish man...not short, but stocky.  Or so he seemed to me.  As I looked him in the eye, for a moment I felt such vitriol as I had never felt.  In an instant it was gone, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking.  I let the sleeve of whatever I was holding drop, and was about to turn to leave, and then stopped.

I was the customer, I wasn't doing anything wrong, short of appreciating his wares...  I glanced around for a "do not touch" or "you break it, you buy it" sign, but I didn't see one.  So I wasn't doing anything wrong.  I felt a little defiant now, as I wandered around looking at things.  If the old man wanted me to leave, he'd have to throw me out.

I don't really know what I expected.  "Costume shop" hadn't been my first guess, and now I was staying mostly out of morbid curiosity and to annoy the shopkeeper, and I didn't really have the intent to buy anything...or the budget, if these cost what any good costume did.  Nothing was tagged, and I was a firm believer in "If you have to ask, you can't afford..."

I'd made my way back to the counter and the shopkeeper, was about to turn and leave when one of the items on the counter caught my eye.  A mask, vaguely wolf-ish, white and silver furred...the face was a little too friendly for a wolf, maybe a dog or something.  It was a little dusty, and I picked it up, blew it off and ruffled the fur.  It was short hair on some sort of rubbery backing.  It was attached to the rest of a suit that was folded under it, and my lifting the head disorganized the pile.  I quickly replaced it, apologizing for disarranging things.  I looked over at the shopkeep (I'd been apologizing to the mask, mostly) and expected to see him enraged, using this as his opportunity to eject me from his store.  Imagine, then, my surprise at seeing him not only not angry, but watching me almost quizzically.

I hastily put the suit down and apologized, but he held up a hand for me to wait before vanishing into the back.  I considered leaving while he was gone, but like a train wreck, I couldn't look away despite my growing apprehension.

He returned with a box, placing it on the counter.  The lid had a seal, over which were the words "Second Identity."  Under, it read "Established in...Drethan...proprietor."  It must've gotten wet at some point because it was hard to make out the last name or year, and the seal was smudged.

I asked what the box was for, and the shopkeeper (Drethan?) told me that it was a better version of the costume on the counter, that he frequently had display models that took the abuse of daily display and kept nicer versions for real customers.  I explained that I was only browsing, and that I didn't have the money to pay for anything, be it the display or the deluxe model.  Drethan didn't seem perturbed by this (how could he be in business giving this away?  Didn't these take much time and money?) and insisted that I at least try it.  After all, he concluded, Halloween was coming and why not get in the spirit of things?

I stopped, puzzled.  Halloween was close?  I didn't have a calendar, but it suddenly seemed that he was right and I needed to have something.  All thoughts of argument fled my mind as I picked up the box, offering again to pay.  If not now, then to pay it off in time.  Drethan seemed to find this idea charming, if meaningless, and said we could discuss that later.

I'm not sure how, but the next thing I was aware of was that I was back in my apartment, putting the box on the kitchen counter.  I blinked a few times.  It suddenly occurred to me that what had just happened in the Second Identity was entirely absurd...I shouldn't have accepted this from Drethan, it was ridiculous...and how had I walked home in such a daze?  I was probably fortunate not to have been hit by a bus!  And what was his excuse about Halloween?  That was 3 weeks away, and I had never been one for costumes...

I glared at the box, as if this was its fault.  All I'd done was go somewhere I hadn't been, and now I had this...thing...on my counter.

Still, it had a strange lure to it.  The box wasn't sealed, per se...I could easily open it and look at the contents, close it up and return it, and Drethan would never know.  If I had to, I could get it cleaned and take it back explaining that I couldn't afford it.  Better still, why not take it back now and avoid the whole mess?

But something made me want to open it.  I just had to see it, that was all.  I mean, with how amazing the display models were, the "real" costumes had to be incredible, didn't they?

The lid opened easily enough, and I set it on the counter beside the box.  The mask was on top of the the folded suit, and I reached in to pull it out.  Again, it was the short fur on the rubbery material.  Just holding the shoulders and looking at the head and chest of this deflated animal, I felt that I had to try it on.  When would I get another chance like this?  For free?  The eyes were a magnificent icy blue, the muzzle slightly blunted.  The teeth I could see were canine, though the mouth didn't open.  Still, as I looked at it, it seemed like an old friend, someone I hadn't seen in a long time.

I shook the rest of it out of the box, and took it into the bathroom and the only mirror I owned, holding it up against my chest.  Either Drethan had a plethora of sizes in his back room (and was very good at measuring a person with his eye) or I was fantastically lucky as it looked like it would fit perfectly.

I held the suit away from me to look for a zipper or seam to use to open it and put it on, and realized that the fur had gotten caught on my shirt.  I let go of one of the shoulders to try and disentangle it, but the suit was stuck to my hand now, and taking on the consistency of taffy.  Try as I might, I couldn't shake it loose as it seemed to ooze from wherever it had touched me, gradually covering me in itself.

My first thoughs...I had lost it...the drugs, stress, something...I was in a nightmare and would wake up any second...  I even closed my eyes, telling myself to wake-up over and over in my head, and then opened them, expecting to see my darkened bedroom and the glowing 4 on the clock.

Instead, I saw the back of the mask being pulled up to my face.  As the back made contact, it grew warm and malleable, pressing itself onto and around my head.  For a terrifying few seconds, I was blind and I couldn't breathe through the material around my mouth and nose.  Then there was a second to inhale, and a world seen through two small holes...my face was inside the mask, and I watched helpless and immobile as it made contact.  Something was trying to get in my mouth, and I eventually surrendered as the mask fitted itself onto me.

I blinked, looking in the mirror, to see a grey and white...wolf?  Dog?  It blinked back at me with eyes that were not mine.  I licked my lips nervously, and a very canine tongue dampened a very canine muzzle.  I looked down at the sink, seeing hands covered in short, white hair.  I gingerly sent the instructions for one of my hands to turn over, hoping that maybe the "paw" wouldn't respond, inhaling sharply when it did.  I stepped back, looking at the rest of...

I swallowed.  Me.  It was the rest of me, I was wearing this thing, this costume and now this was me.

I had felt pain in my legs, lost in large part to my being so surprised and shocked.  It was gone as I realized that I was somewhere between standing on my feet and walking on my toes, somewhere between human and animal.  Immediately my legs began to tremble at the perceived awkwardness of this stance, and I focused back on the mirror to distract myself.  As long as I didn't think about it, it seemed natural and safe.  If I looked at my legs, I wanted to fall over or sit down.

I returned to an examination of this new person...animal...thing...  The costume had apparently wormed its way under my clothes, because the creature in the mirror was dressed in them.  I reached up to touch my face, very aware of how touching the black nose felt like touching my nose, how picking my teeth with the blunt claws felt like picking my teeth...and how the position of...my...ears was pretty exactly conveying how I felt.

I made a slow revolution in front of the mirror, and realized that the costume had added a tail hole to my pants.  How thoughtful.  I lifted my shirt, and sure enough, I was costumed there too...I just had to be sure.

And no where in my inspection did I find anything that looked like a zipper or any other mechanism for removing the costume.

"But would you really do that, even if you could?"

The voice was in my head, but it had seemed as though the figure in the mirror said it.  "Yes," I replied.  "Why would I want this?  What has happened?"

"Well," said the figure in the mirror, "you seemed like a match for me.  Drethan sensed it, as you prowled the store.  I was picking up energy from you before he even brought me out to give to you.  You wanted this, and now you have it."

"No," I said to myself, "that can't be right, because I hadn't wanted to be a...a..."

"You're somewhere between a wolf and siberian husky, if Drethan made me right.  And he did, because he always does.  You can't convince me you didn't want this, I'm still picking the energy up off you.  Somewhere deep down, you like this."

That shut me up.  I hadn't ever been serious about costumes, but I'd been using huskies for avatars and things forever.  A friend of mine had said that it was the breed I best matched, and I had adopted it as an in-joke between friends...

Did that mean I really wanted to be a dog?

"No, it doesn't...else I'd have you down on all fours and looking for Alpo.  You're exactly what you've made yourself, I just helped.  Drethan and I helped.  He's been a little anxious since you started snooping around."

I hadn't been snooping, I was just living my life here in the quaint town of...

"You were snooping.  You didn't know it, but the wards around this town that edit the memories of the citizens have been working on you almost since you arrived.  You have a bad habit of being in the wrong places, and seeing the wrong things.  Every time you went out to look at the stars or drive or walk, you seemed to stumble across one of Drethan's other creations..."

"One of his other...?" I thought.

"Yes, there are many of us.  All of them are people who wanted to be something else, either for a time or permanently.  The town is guarded against it, people here forget seeing 'crazy things.'  But something about you is different, and the wards had to go to work on you so quickly that they haven't been able to tune themselves to be effective yet.  Or something.  All that matters is, you were remembering what you shouldn't."

"Oh."

"Something magical has been trying to alter your memory, and because of your new arrival, it's been working incorrectly...you're still remembering things.  Not consciously, but you are.  Drethan had to make sure you were taken care of, so he's been trying to lure you to the shop for a while now.  Finally, it worked."

"Wait," I said, "...lure me?"

"Yes, well, he needed to get you inside one of us, so we could look at your mind and help him tune things for you, and see why you, of all people, were resistant."

"You were in my mind?!"

"Of course I am, and you better get used to it, because I'm going to be here a while."

I was starting to panic, and hyperventilate.

"Go ahead and make yourself pass out.  I don't need you awake to take you back to the store."

"Back?  Why did we have to go back?"

"Drethan suspected that you were someone after his craft.  I can tell him now that you're just unlucky.  Then he'll decide what to do with you."

Suddenly the thoughts in the back of my mind that I'd been having about enjoying the change evaporated.  I had almost considered that this wouldn't be so bad...but now this encounter loomed over me.

The tone of the voice in my head softened, "I am betting it'll probably be alright, once he is sure you're not out to steal anything.  But I need him to know now."  The change surprised me, really, because it was almost rude, then practically friendly, before being rude again.  I would've pondered this dichotomy, but I had more pressing concernes.

"I can't go out like this!"

"Everyone will forget they ever saw you.  Now, walk before I walk you."

It was an order, and I found myself leaving my apartment and making my way back to the costume shop.  The sign said closed, but the door opened as we approached, and I was once again inside the store...although this time I blended in with the merchandise much better.

Drethan seemed pleased to see me, and since fighting was useless, I followed him into the back room and sat on the chair he gestured at.  He began to ask me questions...or rather, he asked the costume questions, and I had to sit and listen as it controlled my voice to explain what it had learned, laying bare just about everything that had bothered me in the last few months.  When Drethen finally asked me a question, I was slow to respond because I was waiting for the costume to do it for me.  I shook myself and asked him to repeat the question.

"Would you," he started, "be willing to swear to me that you are not working for anyone?"

I nodded.

"Furthermore, you certify that you were just unfortunate in spotting what you did?"

Again, I nodded.

This seemed to satisfy him for the moment, and he sat back, studying me.  Then he asked if I liked it.  I wasn't sure how to answer, so far it had been a rather stressful experience, and I said so.  He nodded, and then almost apologized...saying that usually the costumes were possessive, but not controlling, and that in my case he had ramped up the costume to be both impossible to remove and far more controlling.

I blinked at the word impossible, and asked what he meant by that.

He explained that usually people were able to remove the costumes if they desired it, at least initially.  This costume, however, had been instructed not to let me go until Drethan allowed it, and any effort to remove it would probably be painful, and possibly fatal.

I thought I heard the suit make a little sound of shock.

How could I work, live, do anything like this?  Even the suit seemed a little upset, clamoring about how the energy was good, but that it wanted to be chosen, not forced.

Drethan seemed to contemplate my internal turmoil, and then calmly stated that while he believed me, he wasn't going to rescind that instruction until he was certain there was no ill will.  I thought I heard him mutter something about being arrogant in the shop as well, but I might've imagined it.  The end result, however, was that I was stuck.  He seemed to especially delight in the irony that this only worked because, on some level, I must want it.

I thought he was mad.  I didn't want believe it, but as I began to pull and tear at the suit, I started to accept the amount of control Drethan had over my fate.  Drethan and the costume objected, and eventually both restrained me.  I felt myself on the verge of panic induced tears.  This was all some bizarre nightmare...

What occurred next broke through my panic only because of how bizarre it sounded, as Drethan apologized for what was about to happen, that he had considered how best to get the time to study my purpose in town, and that he hoped I would understand.

Immediately, I was in a great amount of pain.  Teeth gritted and eyes clenched tightly shut, it felt like every part of me was being crushed, winched down.  I heard some animalistic sounds of pain, and felt myself writhing around on the floor.

--------

Now it's Halloween.  The little girl being escorted by her dad or older brother stops to look at me, where I'm leaning on the fence.  She asks him something, and he nods.  She reaches over the fence and scritches my head, and in that moment I try to stop wagging my tail and convey to her, her dad, any one of the dozens of people walking the streets, that something is wrong.

She pulls he hand back, and I drop back down from the fence, feeling the grass crunch under my paws.  I watch her go on, ringing the door-bell and shouting something.  Trick or treat, I presume.

The costume still talks to me, and I talk back, but nothing anyone else says makes sense.  I can't form words to speak...and I'm not sure if it's the suit or the new structure of my face.  The fence, which I could have easily jumped a few weeks ago, towers over me.  It takes all my energy to stand against it, and it hurts my back legs if I stand too long.

The suit has gotten a lot friendlier, it's tone has softened, and under better circumstances I probably would really enjoy the companionship that it brings.  We've gotten to know each other, and it's making this...challenging time...a little more bearable.  It pulled the name "Damon" from me to use as it's own.  Damon's conversation is a little limited, seeing as his consciousness only started a few moments before I took the suit home with me, but it's better than nothing and he's learning from the people that go by.

The suit tells me that when Drethan is sure nothing is amiss, I'll get to go back...he'll even help me "reintegrate" so no one asks why I was missing.  Drethan has said this, he's the only person I'm allowed to understand.  The conversations are a little one-sided, especially since when he walks me he uses a leash on a muzzle.  Anyone else talking to me sounds like the teacher in Charlie Brown cartoons...apparently part of Drethan's precautions, and to make it harder for me to give anything away.

The night is moving along, and the last trick-or-treaters are making the rounds, older kids with pillow cases swiping the "Don't knock, just take" candy bowls.  A couple threw candy to (at?) me, but I ignored it, uncertain how deep the transformation was or if chocolate would make me sick.

I gaze wistfully at the padlock on my run...the concrete pad, dog house, water and food bowls...by any standard that matters, I'm pretty pampered.  Or I would be, if I was really a dog.  I even have a pillow and blanket.  I found it hard to get comfortable on them for a while, adapting to having no thumbs, but I'm sleeping better now.  The nightmares have gone away, although waking up to be reminded of my "condition" always shocks me some.

The walks are nice.  Sometimes Drethan takes me to the edge of town and I can see the stars...