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I see them.

Not as they wish to be seen. Not as they show themselves in mirrors, in smiles, in the polished glass of their digital reflections.

I see what writhes beneath.

The abominations they hide.

They move among each other, speaking with mouths that stretch too wide, their teeth pressing against their skin from the inside. Their hands twitch, fingers bending in ways they should not, too many joints clicking in secret rhythms. Their eyes—glistening pits that reflect nothing—turn toward me, searching, watching.

They don't know I see them.

They don't know that I know.

That under the layers of flesh, fabric, and fragile words, they are wrong. Twisted things masquerading as human, stuffed into the shape of something they should never have been.

They breathe, but it is not breathing.

They move, but it is not movement.

It is imitation. A grotesque mimicry of life, their every gesture a poor attempt at convincing one another they belong. That they are the same. That they are not monsters.

But I see the truth.

They are bloated with secrets, their skin stretched too thin over the horrors they pretend not to be. The stench of their deception burns my lungs, sours my stomach, makes my blood curdle in my veins.

I cannot stand it.

I do not want to be part of them. I do not want to hear their voices, to see their writhing forms moving too close to mine, to feel the heat of their presence pressing against my skin.

I do not want to be near them.

I do not want to be one of them.

I want out.

Alone, far from their suffocating charade, where their lies do not scrape against my ears, where their twisted forms do not leech into my sight.

But the world is full of them.

There is no escape.

Only the curse of seeing.

And the endless, unholy disgust.