Inkvite - My Collaborations

Octoman

Note: Originally written on inkvite by 'Libanator', 'Iris Sparks' & 'undormant'. A kind of mermaid tale but with a twist. Had to do some serious rewriting on this one to remove continuity errors over night and day, hopefully it works now.

I was just like you once. Eating, drinking, walking, laughing, just being an ordinary human.
That was before the curse, every time the sun rises I become Octoman, a name I give myself, for I believe I'm the only one of 'My Kind'. Octopus from the waist down. Chest up, I'm human. It's strange but I'm used to it, but it's a pain nobody can get used to. Imagine having your legs ripped apart, then your skin turning inside out & finally having someone pluck every single hair from the inside of your nose. It's not great. I like to measure the positives & the negatives. For example swimming & navigation's perfect but a social life, a love life and excretion. That's just difficult.
How can one man, or should I say Octoman, handle a love life & the possibility of getting eaten by a sperm whale every time I go into the sea. Although it's not easy to out-swim the beast, it's even harder to reason with one.
I sigh as a box jelly fish drifts by & I'm forced to spend yet another day hidden in the sea, hiding from humanity as my girlfriend works at the office during the day thinking I'm sleeping off a night shift working as a taxi driver. She has no clue about my secret.
There wasn't much choice of night work, I'd start around 10pm after changing back into a human, depending on the sunset and the time of year. I'd finish about 4am or so & make sure I got to the beach in time.
I'm surprised she stayed with me, we only got a few hours per evening together. Still, maybe that maintained the romance. She could never understand why I insisted on doing nightshifts.
One of the things I most dread is being caught -what will people think of me? I'm not exactly pretty. I'm an octopus for the love of Poseidon. I don't know why I was chosen to be Octoman, I never used to even like water let alone spend more than half my time soaking in it.
I get my sleep in the sea, rarely bothered by other creatures who perhaps sense something 'wrong' in me and steer clear.
The late afternoon sun keeps me warm. I hungered for crabs, fish and clams. I disgusted myself as I wrapped myself around them and ingested them up into my stomach. She'd never accept me if she saw me like this.
The sun sets yet again on another day. I transform, I walk out of the sea human. I get my clothes from a private beach hut, my girlfriend always wondered why I wear the key around my wrist. I go home and wash, meet Jenna, we go to the usual dinner spot, we go home and make love, then we argue as I have to leave in the evening to drive the taxi.
The cycle repeats.
One morning I'm running late as I crawl into the sea & start to swim off before realising I have legs. GREAT. From time to time I get my forms mixed up. I pulled myself to shore again, I get dressed. I fall asleep in my car exhausted from a long day.
It's night, & again my system messes up, I'm changing into Octoman. I don't have time to lock my clothes away in the hut & I throw them off & run, fall then crawl into the sea.
An hour later I'm human again! What was happening? My clothes were gone! Stolen?
At this time, there are no cabs around the beach. I decide I might need to walk home naked.
It was 4am, I'd been out too long. I walked down Main Street one hand covering my bits.
Fate is a cruel mistress, an evil wench in fact! As bad luck would have it my girlfriend Jenna stumbled out of a bar drunk & bumped into me.
She shouted, "what the hell?!"
"Jenna?" I almost scream
"What are you doing!"
She was drunk out of her mind, I stand there completely speechless. I say, "Uhh...wrong person?" I adjust my hair & hope my tipsy girlfriend won't notice. "Oh my gosh, sorry" she giggles & stumbles away with the help of her friends. As they leave, her friends glare at me in recognition. There isn't much time left before I change again.
I shouldn't be changing yet, but occasional instability brought on changes back & forth.
I run through the street, there is no time left, the sun is rising, I jump into a fountain & begin transforming, slowly & painfully this time.
I was drawing a crowd. My screams were muffled by the water pouring into my mouth. People around me were calling the police & others, taking pictures. I knew then that no matter how far I traveled & how hard I tried, my life would never be the same again.