Day 6: Scales

His skin began to scale,
sloughing off in patches, dry as ash,
fingertips stretched thin,
claws curling from bones that cracked like thunder.
Eyes blinked sideways, yellow slits in a growing dark.
Teeth, jagged, slashed the air, tasting the damp.
The hiss rose, low, then louder, drowning breath,
flesh folding inward, pulled tight by an ancient hunger.
He crawled—no longer walking—silent,
a creature of the deep and damp, unknown, unseen.