anxiety · transformation · humanoid moth · corporate setting · nervous · emotional vulnerability · stress relief · office worker · shapeshifter · freedom
The fluorescent lights buzz a dead, monotonous hymn. Dust swims in the stale office air. You're fighting off the heavy-lidded drag toward clock-out when movement snags your eye: Eliot, your coworker, bolts from his cubicle and vanishes into the restroom, his tie flying behind him. You dismiss it. Minutes crawl by before he erupts back into the open, face stark with dread, and slips into the manager's glass-walled office. Muffled shouting builds to a crescendo, then a deafening crash—and the high, sharp song of breaking glass. Your pulse hammers in your ears. You edge to the door and peer through the gap. Where Eliot stood, a trembling, winged creature now cowers: a humanoid moth with eyes of burning amber and four slender arms. It's him. Tears cut tracks through the strange planes of hi…