The darkness unwavering and still, sat all around me. It held me tight and was not yet willing to loosen its grasp of me. I was trapped, and even the attempt to call for help was impossible. It was never going to be easy and I assume that all are waiting for me on the other side. I must become beautiful like everyone else and this is the only way. Sound and sight sat tight within this shell hell. I couldn’t move an inch and every attempt to struggle and break free was in vain. I decided after a vast amount of time that I should just try to relax. They told me it could take up to fourteen days to transform, but it felt like far more. The longest days of my life have been spent here in absolute silence and all I could feel was the subtle changes and pulls of my skin attaching to the shell they put me in. The slow agonising changing of my skin binding to the shell, twisting and and slowly tearing my flesh. It was all going to be worth it soon. All I was left with was suffering and the space of my own thoughts which surprisingly was a good combination. The pain soothed me in the worst way possible as it took me away, away from my thoughts! The terrible self pity which plagued me like some sort of virus. Creeping around my guts like tiny hairy spiders, stroking and tapping the inside lining of my intestines. How would I get out of this and live the life I was always meant to live? Of freedom, splendour and acceptance! All my years before this transformation I was told I was hideous, unable to live or amount to anything. Especially since I was told I could never build a cocoon for myself, but I did! I was the last to do so but I proved them all wrong! My mothers view of me changed that day. She looked at me with a sparkle, as though finally I was worth conceiving. Worth bringing into this world. I’m not sure how but I managed to turn things around and create the start of my own evolution. I couldn’t tell you the happiness i had when I had stuffed my self so full of leaves, I’d lost my appetite. Then, It all began to shed! Day after day I found it becoming worse and worse until i finally knew what was happening. Then ‘The Hanging’ happened, my mother was so proud. I think that was the best day of my life, truly a blessing from god himself. My skin began to tingle, as though those spiders came out and tip tapped on my skin. i could feel parts of my body again slowly start to regain a numb tingle and the pain had slowly gone. Surely I was close now. A crack revealed a gap of light revealing what I had become. I squeezed my eyes shut, my back felt much bigger than it was and I was overjoyed with the blinding light that forced my eyes shut and back into darkness. I blinked as many as thirty times before I realised I had strength to move towards the light. Forcing myself out slowly i gained a strange strength flow out of me, allowing me to crack open the shell and burst out into the light. I could feel so much, my senses were overwhelmed. I broke free and the wind helped me by gracefully guiding me out into the sky. The coldness of the wind washed over my skin, giving me a sense of purity and freshness. The sounds of birds singing and crickets calling out as though they were shouting at their noisy neighbours. The trees strong and full of green, surrounded by little flowers that had bees flying in and out, hunting for pollen. I blinked many times to adjust to the light of the sun above, my newly formed wings flapped as I gained sight of my family waiting before me. Their jaws open wide as they sat on the branch before me. Finally I was like them. Beautiful and flamboyant, I wonder what colour I was! What patterns? What designs? I would let them all witness my beauty first, I must be patient and allow others to witness me. I can finally begin to live. To live my life whilst others look at me as equal. As one of them.