battling monsters

I have become a monster.

It's not some Kafkaesque physical transformation, or anything so mundane as that. It's something deeper, existential--and I'm not sure 'become' is the right word. It's as if I woke up today only to find I've always been this way, and my memories of anything else were just some fleeting dream.

I remember being whimsical and adventurous, easily led to flights of fancy, eager to explore the world. But all of that has been a lie, something I may never have really believed myself. In the end I'm cold and calculating, waiting in the darkness, to prey on those who are prone to wander, like some fairy tale monster, except no fangs dripping blood, no morality lesson--an existential horror, destroying lives for my temporary amusement. Like most monsters, I'm soon hungry again.