Sometimes it pays not to be seen, especially if there are things that want to eat you or if you have to sneak up on things to eat them.  So this time on Nightmarish Nature we’re going to look at some of the creatures known for being invisibles among us. Some of these critters engage in mimicry, intentionally looking like other specific things, but a lot of them engage in camouflage, just wanting to blend in. In this segment we’ll consider both but focus more on the latter.

Buggin’ Ya

Some of the most notable invisibles are masters of camouflage in the insect world…  Moths and beetles that look like bark or dead leaves.  Mantids and other insects that look like leaves or flowers.  Those stick bugs and walking sticks that I’m not sure how to classify (are they some kind of weird relations to assassin bugs or their own thing?).  And my personal favorite, Umbonia Crassicornis, a type of tree hopper better known as the thorn bug.  And don’t even get me started on spiders and scorpions…  You could come face to face with pretty much any of these critters while mucking around in your garden and be none the wiser for it unless their movement betrays their location or you happen to scan the area with a blacklight before you dig in.  It’s jump scare central, for sure!

Leapin’ Lizards

Lizards and amphibians are also masters of disguise, often resembling their surroundings much like the insect world does.  Chameleons are celebrated because of their ability to change color to match their surroundings, but there are several lizards that do this, just not to that extreme.  Like anoles.  Take a trip to Florida and you’ll soon find that you’re being stared at by a lizard you didn’t even know was there, seeing as how anoles are everywhere and get into everything (one recently startled my mother after making its home in a hallway decoration).  You don’t even have to go to Florida, they range anywhere from Texas to North Carolina, and there are other lizards that range further north that do this as well.

Cunning Cats

All those coat patterns you see on cats and other ambush hunters aren’t just for show – the spots and stripes allow our feline friends to blend into their surroundings while on the prowl.  Sneaky sneaky.  This helps them to be the amazing hunting machines that they are.  Assuming they don’t raise the bird alarm and draw attention to their whereabouts.  Because birds do love to raise a stink when there’s a feline predator about, and we can’t say we blame them.

Aquatics

Then when you go underwater, you take it next level.  Camouflage is taken up a notch with seahorses, nudibranchs, and more that look exactly like random flotsam.  Some critters, such as Majoidea crabs, even decorate themselves with ocean debris to blend in.  And octopuses are like underwater chameleons on steroids that also utilize their surroundings to create a sort of protective armor that blends in, like when they carry anything they can grab to protect their squishy selves when sharks are about.  There are even true invisibles like shrimp, fish, and jellyfish that are actually clear except for their internal organs that don’t necessarily register with everything floating about underwater.  Even whales can appear to come out of nowhere depending on your angle to them to start with!

If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:

Vampires Among Us

Perilous Parenting

Freaky Fungus

Worrisome Wasps

Cannibalism

Terrifying Tardigrades

Reindeer Give Pause

Komodo Dragons

Zombie Snails

Horrifying Humans

Giants Among Spiders

Flesh in Flowers

Assassin Fashion

Baby Bomb

Orca Antics

Creepy Spider Facts

Screwed Up Screwworms

Scads of Scat

Starvation Diet

Alice

By Baylee Marion

Empty, breathless, deafening isolation. I was trapped in a single room for as long as I can remember. I was so young but still old enough to know that I shouldn’t have been locked in the attic. I had a mattress on the floor, a toilet, a bathtub, and raggedy stuffed animals that were supposed to provide a sense of comfort.

My days were spent pacing, singing songs I made up to myself, and scratching into the walls. At first, I carved images of myself playing with other children. To imagine how they looked was a challenge, but I was blessed with my own reflection in the glasses of water passed through the slot.

For what purpose my keeper held me was impossible to tell. He spoke to me sometimes, through the small slot only when I was asleep, or so he thought. He would read me stories, tell me about Alice and her tales in Wonderland, and though I didn’t know who she was, I began to believe she was my friend too.

When children grow older, they’re supposed to grow wiser. They are supposed to distinguish what’s real and what isn’t. Eventually, their imagination dulls, and they fall into a rhythm of routine, of work and dining and bonding with their loved ones. At least I know that now, but I hadn’t when I was still alive.

As time passed, I held dearly onto the idea of Alice and eventually, she became real. I wish I could tell you Alice was my friend. I truly believed she was. She began to visit me first at night, maybe formulated by the tales of the strange man. She would stand at the edge of my bed, whispering terrible things.

Eventually, she grew so real she could touch me. Perhaps I manifested her into my reality, or perhaps I was far more ill than I realized. Alice joined me in my songs; she was naturally talented. She could match any song without explaining the words, and her voice would pair a perfect harmony with mine. She would brush my hair, strands falling out in clumps. Apparently, I looked prettier without hair. So Alice brushed and brushed. Eventually, I could see my scalp in my glasses of water.

When I ran out of hair, she told me the dark spots in my skin were the reason I was locked up. She said that if I scraped them out of my skin, then I would be set free. You must understand, as my only friend, I believed every word she said. Friends always told the truth, even if it hurt them, right? So I did as she suggested because I wanted nothing more than to be free.

And to my amazement, she was right! Though my skin stung, my heart heaved with hope that someday I could escape the four walls that composed my world. When the drops of red fell, for the first time in my waking memory, the door opened.

The strange man was no longer faceless. He stood with a big bushy beard and thick eyebrows. His nose was as unremarkable as his hidden mouth. His belly protruded as if he had eaten enough for us both. He reprimanded me for listening to Alice, he urged me that Alice was not real, but she urged me she very much was.

My wounds healed, and Alice explained it wasn’t enough to be set free. I asked what she meant. She told me I wasn’t trapped in the attic at all. No, I was trapped in my body. The hair, the skin, the blood. It was all a cage that kept me from her and from freedom. If I could escape my skin, I would enter the real world, her world, where we could play forever.

I asked her how I could escape my skin when it was all I had ever known. How could I be alive without my body? She told me there were plenty of ways to escape myself. I could bite my tongue in half. I could pry up a sharp piece of floorboard and sink it into my beating heart.

I began to sob because I knew I would never be strong enough to do any of those things. I couldn’t simply strip the suit of skin off and become a ghost like her. The suffering of my misery was a familiar beast, but the thought of biting off my tongue seemed impossible.

But Alice assured me all was well. She said, “I will do it for you.”

I dried my eyes and sniffled. “But how?”

She giggled and replied, “I will switch places with you.”

My mouth hung open in shock. What a good friend she was to suffer the pain I couldn’t. I did not want to face her. The shame that I was sentencing her to the worst fate one could was too much to bear. I was supposed to be her friend. But my suffering was greater than my selflessness.

“Would you?”

She nodded. Lifting my chin under her fingertip, I met her gaze. She stuck out her pinky and gestured to me. I wrapped my pinky around hers, and instantly we switched places. I became a ghost and she became the shell that was me. My eyes could not believe what proceeded. Her hair had begun to grow, strands shining and beautiful, where moments ago I had none. Her skin had healed, no scars remained from the many nights my nails dug into them. In a flash, I became envious of the person she was, the version of me I should have been.

That night when she went to bed, the stranger came to the door to whisper stories. Alice snuck over to the small slot and began to whisper back in a language I have never heard before. The stranger, in a trance, opened the door and set Alice free. She waved goodbye to me as she left, the door wide open for her. I tried to follow her, but the door closed once more. I couldn’t escape. I was left in the attic, a ghost of my old self. I became Alice.

The End

Good news to my nonbinary pals – we no longer exist!

“But Brannyk,” you may be thinking, “what am I supposed to do now that I am no longer a real being? How shall I spend my days?”

Unfortunately, the government has not released a handbook for this occasion, so I thought we could brainstorm together.

BECOME A GHOST

There are some benefits to being a ghost, for sure.

No rent or insurance payment. No corporate job, no cleaning cat litter, no AT&T trying to sell you another line after repeatedly telling them that you just want to make sure that your autopayment is on, but they’re all like, ‘Why would you pass up such a bargain on a second line? Are you an idiot? Why wouldn’t you need another phone line?‘ and so you have to tell them, “Because I’M DIVORCED, ASSHOLE, THANKS FOR REMINDING ME OF THAT!”

Ahem. I digress.

Yeah, you may not be able to venture out, much like Adam and Barbara in Beetlejuice. You may need to put up with someone else crashing your place and moving around all of your shit. Or Ryan Reynolds trying to sell you Mint Mobile. Or some toxic couple taking your creepy doll that you spent years on trying to possess.

Or, my absolute biggest pet peeve, when you’re practicing for the ghost speed chair-stacking championship and the normies just don’t appreciate your cool skills.

But the advantages are that you get to stay home, watch tv, stack your chairs and hope whoever buys your house/visits your creepy woods/gentrifies your neighborhood is a cool person, too.

It’s a good choice, but has a lot of drawbacks.

BECOME A CREATURE

Look, if you’re not going to exist, go big or go home, I’d say.

Monsters are cool. They play by their own rules. Sometimes they cause havoc. Sometimes they come around and help people. Sometimes they work alone. And other times, they have a lot of friends. Sometimes they just need some affirmation. And sometimes they’re…in high school, apparently?

The cool thing is that they come in all shapes and sizes.

Monsters are generally misunderstood. Some have their fans. Others are hated.

So basically, just like people, except with more tentacles.

The only downsides are that you might be too big or too “ick” for some people (these can also be pluses), you may have a taste for human flesh (no judgement), or the biggest issue – there are too many choices.

You could get stuck trying to figure out what kind of monster you are. If you’re not into labels, it’s an absolute nightmare. Or if you’re like me, it’ll be like standing in Subway for 15 minutes trying to figure out what toppings and dressings you want while the “sandwich artist” is openly judging you.

I like the customization, but it can be a bit too overwhelming.

BECOME A CRYPTID

Hear me out. I know it seems a lot like the monster category, but it’s not quite.

Cryptids are weird and mysterious. They keep to themselves. They have people who are fascinated by them and post on Reddit about them. Some have people making documentaries about them.

They’re like monsters’ quieter cousin who reads books in the corner at family gatherings. They collect shiny things they find by the side of the road. Sometimes they’ll steal a peanut butter sandwich or two.

Ever so often, they might scare a human just by existing or by politely asking for their stuff back.

Each one kinda has their own goals and priorities. Their own hangouts and interests. But unlike monsters, they’re not looking to rock any boats-

Never mind, I stand corrected.

I like the freedoms of being a cryptid and also dig the cottage-core vibe I get from them.

CONCLUSION: LET’S BE REAL FOR A SECOND…

I know it’s hard right now. It’s going to be hard. You may not exist to some assholes, but you are real. You have real feelings and thoughts and dreams. You have a real future. You have real decisions. Real actions that affect this world.

You have the real ability to wake up tomorrow and choose to exist. And for whatever reason you choose. Use it. Ghosts and monsters and cryptids are powerful, just like you are, even when you don’t feel like it. They have a place in our human world, just like you do. You make this world interesting and important.

You are part of this world, you are real, and you are not alone.

The horror community is one of acceptance, diversity, creativity and passion. In these times, it needs to be. We need to rely on each other. We need to cultivate and protect each other, as much as we need to protect ourselves.

And it looks like I’ll be coming out of my own cryptid hovel I’ve spent the past few years in to remind you that. My job isn’t done. Not by a longshot. And neither is yours.

You exist to me. Today, tomorrow, and forever.

Be safe out there, friends.