Rebirth
#4 of Scraps of Story Scenes
a random scene of weird in a hospital lobby (cover art from unsplash)
Crizerp's exoskeleton grew translucent as the molt began.
Hold music in the lobby steadily kept droning on its ambient jaunt as the epidermis grew milkier and milkier and started to flake and curl musky slough spirals around Crizerp's very vulnerable body. The air on the newly exposed skin stung like salt in a fresh wound.
The swoops of the synth sound swelled in volume as the molting process continued. Arlondo the janitor made his rounds with a brush and pan to sweep up the shed skin, crispy with memories of who they once were. The Aswang Anole Lizard licked his lips wondering if he could get away with sneaking a crisp taste or two.
Nurse Baudelaire was dozing at her station. Her sloth eyes looked droopier than usual, and so did her flamingo wings. Not even dawn and her mind was gone. Headphones in her ears serenading susurrations of subliminal hypnosis files.
Arlondo slipped a spiral of skin into his mouth, right as Crizerp's eyes started to blink open and awaken. His mind was already wondering - what new form his slowly forming exoskeleton would take.
"You don't mind do you?" Arlondo asked as he shoved more shed skin and flakes of bone into his mouth.
"Not at all, Help yourself," Crizerp replied in a low, hiss of a voice.
"You're delicious, you know that?" Arlondo was brushing the skin flakes into his dustpan to help shovel them into his greedy, staring mouth.
"Yes, I lived an interesting life once. Something tells me that the stories that this skeleton will store will be much different." Crizerp sighed. The sound was almost forlorn as some deep sense of dread started to pound and ache in his head. Almost as if he could taste the bitterness of what life lay ahead for him.
He was wincing almost now, as the aswang janitor crunched away every last memory of joy from his prior life leaving behind only strife. With each of his gluttonous swallows, Crizerp felt his skeleton harden and crystallize and set its form. He shrank his body inside to adapt and adjust to the new norm. At least inside, with all his limbs tucked in close, he was warm. And the shell could weather and endure any storm.