I look at them and they ignore me.

It hurts.

A heaviness in my chest makes it hard to breathe.

But I look at them.

Not with affection, mind you.

Nor even recognition.

For they are changelings, these . . . these things before my eyes.

Once so dear to me.

A vital part of who I was.

Of what I could do.

But they no longer listen to me. They do not care what I want. They are unwilling to move in any direction for me.

And it guts me to know that, while I am still attached to them, I recognize they are no longer mine. They have gone their own way.

Become warped. Crooked. Bent.

Strangers.

The insidious evil inside them has made them hard. Gnarled. Deaf and blind to the fact that we were once so in synch. So unified.

And the horror of watching them slowly become what they are today; how I ached that I could do nothing to stop their transformation.

And I look at them, now, trying to remember what they once were, and hating myself for not appreciating it more at the time.

But here we are.

Me and these . . . things.

These things that once were mine and brought me such joy . . .

. . . and now only bring me pain.

Damn the disease that turned my own fingers into these gnarled, aching, useless strangers.