Become Your Fursona

I turn off most of my systems, after I struggle back to my feet.

It’s not something I can do automatically. I wasn’t born as a robot, you know. And when I was human, I couldn’t tell myself to make my arm go to sleep. My “internal computer” was me. I would’ve had to learn meditation to control autonomic processes.

Making my new computer do that feels like meditation. It’s not like the way my desire to move is translated to movement. I already know what it feels like to move. This is more like imagining the color orange, just the right shade, and focusing on it for seconds. The menus and dialogues feel dreamlike and ethereal, as they float in front of my vision. I find myself slipping, unable to concentrate, and realize that I’m still distressed.

I give up on trying to think my way through this, and pull open a furry panel on my arm. Sam embedded a touchscreen in it, a phone of a different design than my company makes. Some nameless third-party thing; I can’t see the logo. But it works. I tap through menus carefully, underclocking my processor, turning off GPS and telephony systems. My fingers are shaky, but not as much as when I was organic.

I still have apps running in the background — the guide to the con, a game I was playing. I tap on “kill all,” and don’t feel any different afterwards. But I should have enough power to get back upstairs.

Walking’s slower than usual. It doesn’t feel any harder, but I move like I’m swimming in mud. I have to hold my arms out to each side, and concentrate to keep my gyroscope steady. My tails stick out like balancing beams. I wonder what people will make of me, if they see me. I left my conbadge upstairs, but everyone knows who I am.

Five more meters to the elevator.

I’m thinking about what just happened, in that room. I’m not trying to, it just comes to me. I feel like it shouldn’t be that important. It takes me a minute to realize that people aren’t supposed to be able to do that, and as soon as I realize that I know I’m in shock. If I weren’t, I’d be thinking straight.

Was it some kind of trick? A new program, or something, that made me see him that way and feel myself like that. These generic-brand computers get viruses and things sometimes. Nothing like my father’s Pomegranates.

I shake my head, slowly, after I lean on the wall next to the elevator and press the “up” arrow key. It wasn’t anything like that. I know what being organic feels like. That was it.

Two girls step out, talking and laughing, as the door opens. They see me and seem surprised, and I instantly perk up, waving and trying a little too hard to act in-character as I scurry past into the elevator. I barely keep my balance, and have to put out one hand to grab the railing. The door closes, and I lean against the wall again, letting out my breath. I don’t have any nerves to be on edge with, but I’ve got to calm down, or I won’t be able to think about all this clearly.

The elevator car is silent, and it takes me a moment to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing. One of my tails taps the button for my floor.

It takes me another five minutes and one more “low battery” warning to make it the rest of the way to our room. I wave my arm at the door, and the light on the lock turns green. I open it and hear snoring, and realize that I cannot see anything because I just turned off my night vision.

I’m not going to wake Sam and Lena up. I shut the door behind me and step carefully towards the red light on the wall near the floor, the light where my charger’s plugged in. I hold out my hands in front of me, trying to balance, and one of them bumps into something sharp. I hear fabric tear, but I feel no pain.

I remember Sam brought a computer that she was building, so she could deliver it to someone here at the con. I remember telling her not to do that. I am not mad at her, though. She’s always insisted on paying her way. She says that she’ll pay me back, someday, for helping her start her own business. I keep telling her she already has. She won’t listen.

Everyone’s still snoring, except me.

I pull my hand back out of the case, and feel it where it is ripped. Not too big of a deal. If I have to, I’ll just wear gloves for the fursuit show tomorrow.

I sit down next to the wall, and feel around for the charger and the bottles of liquid coolant that I left beside it. Then I plug in the charger and down an entire bottle, feeling the cold liquid go down my throat without swallowing. I feel comfortably full, and alive.

I sit there, in the quiet and dark. In minutes, my mind’s drifted off into daydreams.

* * *

“Lena, can you give me a hand?”

On one of the beds, the thin-faced girl with light hair shields her eyes and squints up at me.

It is light outside. I am done resting, and have been working on mechanical parts for awhile. It is tedious work, partly my fingers are not as nimble anymore. But also because I am currently missing a forearm.

It occurs to me that that’s not what I meant when I asked her for help.

Lena sits up and gets her soulcrystal pendant out of the nightstand drawer, and puts it on carefully. Then she checks the time on her phone. “Agh, it’s twelve already … how could I sleep in that late?” The blue-green gem around her neck flashes with annoyance.

“Sam and I were careful not to wake you.” I am sitting at the table, the one that used to have Sam’s computer parts strewn across it. They’re gone now, and I’ve moved it between the beds and the picture windows, so I can use the natural light from outside to see what I’m doing. There are parts spread out in front of me, including two different versions of my left hand and forearm. One is the furred hand that got scratched, last night. The other matches my orange fur, but is armored and plasticy, and ends in a thing like a rounded gun barrel.

Lena sees what I’m doing, and crawls across the bed to take a look. “Isn’t that … ”

“Yes, my weapon mount.” I nod at it. “You may recall it was damaged at last month’s furmeet … ”

“Oh, right, the-”

“Yes. I am trying to fix it.”

Lena watches me work, for a moment. Then she gives me a worried look. “What happened, Claris? Did he hurt you?”

“I don’t know.” I tighten a screw with one hand. “The more I think about what happened last night in his room, the less it makes sense to me.”

Lena swings her legs over the side of the bed, and leans over the table towards me. “Do you want me to call the police?” she asks. “Whatever it was, if it wasn’t consensual, then-”

“That’s not what happened,” I interrupt, without raising my voice.

“Oh.” Lena sits there, quiet, watching me work.

“Can you help me with this?” I ask.

“Oh, uh, sure, one sec … ”

I wait for her to get out of the bathroom. Then I tell her what to do, and the extra pair of hands makes the repair work go faster. A few minutes in I remember she hasn’t eaten breakfast (or lunch), and I wonder why she hasn’t gone down to get something yet. Then I realize she’s very worried about me, and that it’s because I’m acting strangely, and that I’m acting strangely because I’m still in shock at what happened. And she doesn’t know what’s happened yet.

I decide to tell her, from the beginning. “Rone’s a Nahar,” I say, without looking up from my work.

“A kitsune?” Lena asks.

“Is that what fox-spirits are called in Earth cartoons?”

“In anime, yes.” She nods. “Um … ” Lena fidgets.

“Yes?”

“What do you mean by that, exactly?” she blurts out. “Is he, like, an Otherkin, or something?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What did he do, Claris?”

“Physically transformed the both of us into anthropomorphic foxes.”

I installed an app, awhile back, that lets me see when others have heightened emotional response by detecting their breathing and temperature. I turned it off last night, and forgot to turn it back on. But even without it, I can tell that Lena just tensed up, and is starting to sweat uncontrollably.

“Pass me that wrench.”

Lena can’t seem to be able to bring herself to. “Claris … this isn’t funny. What did Rone do to you?”

“I told you.”

There’s another long, uncomfortable silence, during which I realize that I’m just as scared as she is. Somehow saying it made it more real. I start to have flashbacks, and I shake my head to clear it.

“He has nine tails,” I go on. “Somehow he detached one of them. It was like that part of his power went into me and changed me.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Lena’s voice shakes.

“What part of it doesn’t make sense?” I ask, but I know that she understands what I’m saying.

“All of it. Is this a joke?” Lena stands up. “Because if it is, I’m not in the mood for it. I’m worried sick over what actually happened to you, and I don’t want to be taunted like this. You know how much this stuff means to me.” She’s starting to tear up.

I remember now that she told me something like this. How she said she was saving up for the surgery, and I offered to pay for it but she passed, because she was waiting for the techniques to be safer and the results to be more realistic. Waiting to look like an organic version of me.

“Now either tell me what really happened last night, or I’m going out to get breakfast.” Lena sniffles.

I try to think what I can say, that won’t cause her to leave immediately. It’s hard, because I know I need her support.

“We’d been talking by email,” I say, turning to look at the wall so I don’t have to see Lena’s face. “He had the strangest ideas, about souls and metaphysics. His parents never had his soul crystallized. They didn’t think it was natural.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see one hand go to the pendant around Lena’s neck.

“I don’t know why I kept talking with him. I certainly didn’t agree with him. But I wasn’t offended, either. He accused me of being an imitation of organic life; I thanked him for the compliment. He went on about the things only ‘persons’ can do,” I make the air quotes with my hand, “and I told him what it was like to be me.”

“It sounded like he just wanted to argue,” Lena says, hesitant.

“It was a fun argument. I enjoyed it.” I pull the phone out of my first hand and embed it into the weapon mount, locking the clasps into place one-handed. “I was already planning to meet up with him at the con. I wanted to see what he thought once he saw me in person. But he had other plans.”

I tap a button on my phone’s screen, and it reads one of Rone’s emails aloud in his voice. “I’d love to catch up with you there,” his voice says. “But actually, I had something to show you instead. How would you like to find out how being a real, living fox feels?”

Lena is shaking again. I tap on the button to stop playback, and look up at her.

“I don’t have a recording of what happened,” I say, “because I couldn’t record at the time. I was seeing through eyes like yours.”

“It was a trick,” Lena whispers, trying to convince herself.

“Yes, it was.”

Lena almost chokes. “What?”

“Whatever happened to me last night was a trick of some kind. I was led into a situation where I did not know what would happen, and had something shocking done to me without my knowledge or consent.” I’m glad I decided to talk to her about this out loud, because now that I think of it like this it’s obvious why I’m still traumatized.

“I don’t know what he did, or how he did it, or what it meant,” I go on. “But I didn’t like it, and I don’t like him, and I’m going to find him and let him know that. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that it didn’t happen to you instead.”

Lena starts crying again. I get up and spread my arm-and-a-half for her, and she hugs me tight, shaking and burying her face in my furry shoulder. My indicators show that it causes some physical stress, but I am okay with that. This is what I was made for.

“There’s something I was going to tell you,” Lena whispers, while still holding on to me.

“What’s that?”

She catches her breath for a moment, then swallows. “Guess who Sam’s delivering the computer to.”

“Oh no.”

She just nods, quickly, her eyes squeezed shut and watering.

I let go of her, then give her a hand. A weapon mount, to be exact. “Hold this still so I can attach it,” I told her. “Then call Sam. We’ve got to get to her before he does.”

“What is he going to do to her?” Lena asks, her hands shaking as she tries to hold mine still.

“I don’t know,” I say, as the weapon mount clicks into place. “But I don’t plan on finding out.”

I didn’t realize how hard flying would be.

It wasn’t the flapping that was hard. It was the soaring. Hawks … we make it look so effortless when we’re in the sky, gliding and circling overhead. But there’s so much to learn, so much to practice. How to angle your wings just right into the wind; how to recognize updrafts and take advantage of them. How not to get battered downward in storms, and how to recover from a fall before you panic or hit the ground.

I had a lot of learning to do, still. And I didn’t have the upper-body strength that I would’ve if I’d spent my whole life doing this, nor was I as small or as light as most hawks were. I figured that something had to have changed about me, to let me fly at all … maybe I’d gained some muscle or hollow bones, or maybe it was the same magic that kept people from seeing me for what I was. But whatever it was, it hadn’t made flying effortless. And after a minute or so, I was gasping with exertion.

I was still in “fight or flight” mode, and since there wasn’t anything for me to fight I had to keep flying. But I was at least a hundred feet off the ground, over streets and suburban houses, and it was disorienting to look down at them — partly because of the height, and partly because I could see things so well down there. I could read license plate numbers on cars, and newspaper headlines from bundles on doorsteps. It made my brain think I was right up close to them. Then I realized how high I was, and it felt like whiplash.

The wind was blowing across my earholes, and pressing my feathers close to me. It felt like riding a bike downhill for the first time, with all the wobbling and pedaling that entailed. I wanted to stop, to find someplace to land, and I remembered all the hawks I’d seen perched on telephone poles. But I didn’t have that kind of control yet, and I imagined myself getting tangled up and electrocuted. Even if I somehow managed to land on such a tiny perch, I didn’t see how I’d be able to take off again. Not without a running start, and a jolt of adrenalin like the one that I’d had when I started.

I scanned the ground below, my lungs raw from taking deep breaths of cold air, trying to find a good landing spot without getting vertigo. I didn’t want to fall in a heap on someone’s yard, and I didn’t want to splatter across the pavement, either. But that left me with few options, and I felt myself start to lose altitude as my wings became stiff and sore.

Finally, towards the edge of town, after five minutes or so of flight, I saw a cafe-style restaurant in front of a vacant lot. I angled towards it, turning my wings slightly, then harder as I saw that I wouldn’t make the turn in time. That caused me to drop sharply, and I flapped my wings in a panic to keep from smashing into the roof, before touching the ground with my claws and stumbling and rolling across the grass. That lasted a second or so, and then it ended with me face-up and one of my feet splashing into a muddy creek. Drips of brown water flew into the air, and landed on me and my beak.

I couldn’t move. I could only lay gasping for breath, feeling like my legs had turned into pain and my wings had turned into lead. I had to close my eyes, because of how bright the clouds overhead were. After a moment I realized the creek was ice-cold and yanked my foot out of there, but it felt like it was frozen already, and I shivered uncontrollably beneath my jacket.

I was a wreck. For a moment, I felt pathetic that it’d ended so badly. I felt like a pretender; a human with feathers attached. But deep down, I knew that was not the case. And when I imagined myself as a nonhuman hawk, doing the exact same thing and landing the exact same way, I realized it wasn’t pathetic, and knew how I’d feel if I saw it.

Then I remembered that’s me, and I gasped and squeezed my eyes shut ‘till they started to water. All I could think, through the pain and exhaustion, was “I flew. I’m a red-tailed hawk, and I flew with my own wings. I’m one of them now, and I know what it feels like, and I flew, I really flew … ”

I cried as soon as I started gasping for breath again. I couldn’t help it.

* * *

As soon as I could get up and walk, I trudged into the restaurant I’d crashed behind and made my way straight for their restroom. I probably spent half an hour in there, cleaning myself up at first but then making faces in the mirror. Somebody came in while I was doing that, then walked back out just as quickly. I don’t know what he saw.

What I saw was myself, for the first time. My clothes were torn up and my feathers were ruffled and dirty, but I was a real, live hawk. And after the whole flying thing, I was a little bit more accepting of how I was now.

I didn’t look exactly the way that I’d pictured myself, in commissions and artwork and things. I wasn’t wearing “Arrow’s” medallions … I wasn’t sure what I looked like without clothes on, the way he was normally drawn, and wasn’t willing to find out right there. But somehow, just seeing what I actually looked like made this seem more real, and less threatening. My life wasn’t over, I wasn’t being hunted down by anyone, I wasn’t even that bothered by my wingfeath-

“Sir.” The woman from behind the counter peeked inside and knocked on the door, at the same time.

I had been holding my beak open wide to examine the inside of it. “Hrh?” I asked.

“Sir, there are people lined up to use this restroom. If you need to use the showers, there’s a Quiktrip across the road from here.”

“Turh uh-” I stopped and closed my beak, trying to process what she’d just said. Then I saw how disheveled I looked. She doesn’t see me as a hawk. She thinks I’m a homeless person. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was.

“Okay … ” I said. When she stayed there in the door, I followed her out. There were what looked like a dad and a couple of kids waiting in line behind her, and the youngest one looked up at me and stared.

I wondered what she saw.

The rest of the place was a bit shabby, more of a “family restaurant” kind of place than a chain. It had a counter, with bar stools and salt shakers and napkin dispensers. I ordered a hamburger, and the staffer who’d ordered me out of the restroom didn’t bat an eyelash. She just called back my order to the person behind her in the kitchen, and that was that.

I sat there on one of the stools a few minutes, hearing the sizzling grease in the kitchen and the traffic drive past outside. Kicking my bare feet, hearing the claws click against the metal.

There was a sign on the truck stop across the street: “NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE.” I read it as though it were right next to me. Then I looked down at my clawed feet, and flexed them. Couldn’t she see I was wearing no shoes? Or did she care?

There was so much I still had to learn.

I reached to get out my phone and gasped, wincing and fighting back tears as my taut muscles protested. I’d probably pulled everything in my arms … in my wings.

I tried again, more carefully this time, and realized that my phone was probably shot too. But there was a chance, I thought, slowly pulling it out of its pocket and bringing it where I could see it. It might still be able to-

It turned on.

I tapped it awkwardly for a moment, clicking my claw against the touchscreen and trying to unlock it. Then I realized that wouldn’t work, and slid my knuckle across it instead, then rapped it on the email app’s icon.

Using my phone’s slide-out keyboard (and generous spellchecker), I claw-typed a message to Jen. It was short, but it took a long time to write it, and not just because my claws slid on the buttons:

Sorry for leaving you there. I saw what I am, and I couldn’t face it. I’m okay now. I’m feeling better.

I flew.

I tapped “Send” and looked up, as the parent and kids filed out of the restroom and towards the front entrance. The one who’d stared at me kept doing so, looking away from her dad and her hand in his. I arched my feathers, and tried to look impressive.

I saw her say something to her dad as he helped her into their car, but I didn’t know how to read lips.

I tapped on the online payment app, as the nonchalant server brought me my hamburger. It smelled warm and wet, but I couldn’t smell grease or ketchup or anything; just steam. Somehow that didn’t make it any less appealing, and I tried not to let it distract me as I tapped out the dollar amount for a donation to Katherine Sato. Maybe that would help her with her rent.

Finally, I reached up to the counter — my feathers brushed one of the napkin holders aside while the server was watching me, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care — and scraped the bun and the condiments off of my burger, before picking at it with my beak. I did it without thinking; it was just all I was interested in.

Someone else came in while I was eating, and I slid my plate away from him and held one of my wings over it, my feathers fluffing out threateningly. Get your own, I thought, as my beak got tasteless grease smeared across it. But inside my crop, the meat was warm and delightful, if a bit dry.

Needs more juice, I thought. Lots more.

As I cleaned myself off with a napkin, and paid the nonchalant server my tab, I remembered that I would need some kind of indigestible matter for my crop … something to grind up this meal with. Would a few of the bones work? Could I crunch them to bits, in my beak? And what would happen if I changed back to a human … or could I, anymore? How long had I been this way?

First things first. After my dishes were taken away, I got up and limped out to the parking lot, trying to hide how sore I was. Trying to look as truly awesome — even if beat up and scratched — as that raptor I saw in the mirror was. As I felt when I realized I was him.

Finally I got to the side of the building, and knuckle-tapped the screen into dialing one of my contacts. He didn’t respond the first time, so I tried again. “Come on … ”

* * *

“QUIVERSHAFT, ARROW,” the LCD screen reads. Beneath it a light on the handset turns on, as the phone rings.

Elsewhere in the house, food is sizzling on the stove, the shower is running, and a four-way PS3 deathmatch is going on. Rock music and explosions drown out the phone where it sits, plastic figures perched next to it, Dungeons and Dragons books and boxes of Magic: the Gathering cards piled on the bookshelf beneath it.

The phone rings a third, then a fourth time, before playing a recorded voice: “Please leave a message after the tone. *BEEP*”

There’s a sigh on the other end of the line. “Keys?”

Down the hallway, the shower turns off.

“Keys, wake up already and pick up the phone.”

Gray sunlight shines in through the window, onto the rumpled bedcovers next to the bookcase. The bed is unmade, but unoccupied.

“Look, Keys … ” Arrow sighs again. “Remember I told you I was starting to feel like I was my fursona? Well, I know why now. And I’m not telling you this because I’m trying to push you farther over the edge. I’m telling you this because of what you’ve been going through. I think I know what it is, and I think I can help.”

The plastic figures rattle on the shelves, as a deep bass explosion sounds downstairs and male voices cry out in triumph.

“There’s so much I want to tell you … ”

Outside the open window, a small blue-and-white bird lands on a tree branch and chirps.

“ … so much I feel like I have to tell someone, before I go nuts. If I haven’t already.”

Down the hallway, there is the sound of a door opening, and someone whistling as he walks out.

“I should talk to Jen, I kinda left her hanging … ”

Something clicks, on the phone, and a faint voice speaks past the receiver. “What?” Arrow asks. “Who are-”

There’s a clatter, and then the phone cuts out.

Inside the house, a silhouette peeks his head in the room, then goes to the phone and picks up the handset. He dials a few buttons on it, and listens.

Outside, the bird flies away as two massive, taloned feet land on the branch, leaning forward as they grip it. A winged shadow falls inside the house, and the figure looks outside and stares.

To be continued in Lunarkeys’ commission …

“Keep this pressed to your chin.”

“Okay.” I held the gauze pad to my face.

“I need to get bandages and disinfectant … ” Jen was tapping notes into her flip-phone. Either that, or texting someone. “Do you want me to get you anything?”

I shook my head, and winced.

“Okay.” She nodded. “I’ll be right back.” Then she left, and I was alone on the bench, facing into the empty park. The park where I had just soared.

I hadn’t asked Jen what it had looked like. I hadn’t asked what she’d seen me as, and if I’d actually flown but just convinced myself that I had. I didn’t want to ask. My knees were still shaking, and my heart was still beating fast …

… but not as fast as when I’d thought that I might be a bird.

It took me a moment to realize what that meant.

A couple of robins landed, on the grass just across the woodchip playground lot. They took off when I jumped to my feet, waving my arms around, trying to feel my wings. I couldn’t anymore, and my heart started pounding harder, just like that day on the submarine tour. The day that I became sick with horror because something had just changed about me, and I didn’t know what’d caused it or how to return to normal.

But isn’t this normal? I thought, as I kept waving my arms like an idiot. Trying to feel anything.

I took my coat off, still keeping one hand to my chin, because it was way too warm for me now. Then I checked the sleeves, feeling them up and down for the slits Jen had mentioned might be there … the ones that would’ve had to be there, if I had just flown. But there was nothing, not even a loose feather.

I sat back down slowly, shaking. Knowing my mind was playing tricks on me, but not sure which part was the trick.

Isn’t this what you wanted? The thought came unbidden. You asked for a cure, so she gave you one.

You said you weren’t ready. So here you are.

I buried my face in my arm, my shoulders convulsing, and hoped that I’d stop crying before Jen got back.

* * *

I’d almost settled down when I heard her sit down on the other end of the bench. Something clattered next to her, and I heard her talking to someone else — I guess she’d run into one of her friends.

I couldn’t make out the words. I was listening to my phone’s music player, the volume turned up on noise-canceling earbuds. My chin was in my hands, and my eyes were closed as the cold breeze rustled my hair. I didn’t say hi or look up; I couldn’t. I didn’t know when I’d be able to.

I could feel her presence there, though, as the silence grew thick between us. I wondered how long I’d be able to sit there … how long she would let me be. I remembered the soaring, the feeling of flight, and willed myself to accept that as a gift and not worry about whether-

“Hey.” She’d raised her voice.

I pressed pause and looked over at her, then blinked.

That wasn’t Jen. She was wearing a different-colored coat, and her voice sounded younger. Besides that, she had a pair of crutches beside her, although her foot wasn’t in a cast.

She coughed and called me by name, and I stared at her for a moment. “Um, yes … ” I said. Where had I seen her?

“I’m Kae,” she said, hesitantly. “My girlfriend and I were on one of your tours … ?”

“Oh, right … ” I tried to kickstart my tired brain, make it go back to ‘friendly guide’ mode. “Er, how did you like it?”

“It was nice,” she said. “But, um … ” She coughed, and looked up at me. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?” I noticed the gauze was sticking to my chin, and quickly put up a hand to hold it there. “Uh, yeah, I just … ” Scraped myself on the playground equipment? Got hurt while attempting to fly? “ … cut myself shaving,” I finished, lamely. Hoping it didn’t look bad enough that I sounded ridiculous.

She was quiet for a long moment, looking away. Then she said “Do you wear a mask when you’re giving tours?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I wasn’t sure that I’d heard her right.

Kae started rambling, still looking away and gesturing with both hands. “Hokay, this is going to sound totally nuts, but if I don’t ask you now I’m going to regret it later. See, my girlfriend and I thought we were seeing things in that sub … ”

“Seeing things?”

“ … like, your face. It was different, okay? We thought you were wearing a mask or something.”

“Like what?” A bird mask.

She fumbled with words for a moment, before saying “A bird mask.”

My heart started pounding again.

“See, that’s why I didn’t recognize you at first. But then I thought ‘Wait, that does look like him when he started the tour,’ and I took a couple minutes to work up the courage to ask, right? Because I wanted to know if you’d really put on a mask and stuff during our tour, or if my girlfriend and I are both going nuts. ‘Cause we’ve started seeing things … ”

“Things like what?” I tried to keep my voice steady, and began sweating hard beneath the coat I’d put back on.

“Well.” She fidgeted. “On the tour, it looked like you had tailfeathers … ”

I felt them bunch up behind me, where I was sitting on the bench.

“And these big, long primary feather things, coming out of your arms.” She made sweeping gestures with her hands, and I could feel them growing right there, coming out of my forearms and brushing my legs. I froze, unable to move or to control my breathing.

“And I mean, I know this sounds crazy.” Kae sounded a bit more high-pitched now, and she was talking faster while still looking out at the park. “But if we seemed distracted on the tour, it’s because we were trying to figure out what was going on. And, I mean, we saw your feathers get oily when you brushed up against the metal … ”

I could see my feathers. I started swearing inside my head, over and over. Until I was just thinking weird nonsense words watching my brown feathers sway in the breeze, through the gashes cut in my coat-

-a puff of down from it blew past my face-

“- and we could hear your claws click on the deck plates and everything. Then you started wearing the mask, or whatever, and I sound like I’m out of my gourd, don’t I? But I’m serious, I don’t take any weird stuff … not usually … and I just wanted to know if we’d gone crazy, or if you were pulling one over on us, or if some expired cheese messed us up or something. Okay?” She turned to look at me.

I had feathers, and a beak. I could feel my handclaws and footclaws, and see my shoes kicked off on the playground, and remember leaving them there as I flew. I remembered tearing the holes in my coat, and my jeans, and struggling to fit my feathers in clothes without breaking them because this can’t be happening and I am supposed to be at work right now.

I remembered breaking down crying, and trying again, and being late for work the second day in a row. And picking the vegetables out of my sandwich at lunch, then setting the bread aside too, then throwing those things away and just standing there at the trash can watching my hand. Watching the light shine off claws, and scales, and feathers. Watching and not letting it be a part of myself, unwilling to let it, scared to death of it, as scared as I was right now. Waiting to forget, to be distracted, as an avian heart pounded inside me like a machine gun.

I remembered the looks on people’s faces as they saw me, and I knew that they knew there was something wrong. But they said nothing, and I said nothing, and it was like we were all just trying to ignore it. Until two girls holding hands came in on a tour group and one of them was a black wolf, standing on her hind legs. And I tried not to notice, I tried not to stare, I tried not to realize what it meant. But I couldn’t, and I got more and more nervous, and I started to feel strange …

… and then the school group came in for their tour …

“Look, I’m sorry,” the wolf said. She held her handpaws up, looking away, as her tail thumped the bench beside her. “Just forget that I ever existed.”

I can’t, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t stop staring at my hands. Couldn’t tell why she couldn’t see what I was now … couldn’t tell if she saw herself. Couldn’t ask her what she saw. Couldn’t ask her if she knew.

All I could do was keep breathing fast, and hearing my heart pound, and sweating, and thinking nonsense mantras in my head as I felt my feathers rustle. Felt my claws touch my scaly palms as I clenched my hands into fists, and began shaking.

I can’t deal with this … My heart drowned out all other sound, and the world became a blur as my eyes began to water. I can’t-

“Hey,” Jen said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

She and Kae gasped as I jumped off the bench, ran into the breeze and flew. Beating my wings hard and taking off of the ground, clearing the trees and the buildings beyond. I heard car horns honking, and pigeons scattering, and saw my shadow on the rooftops, but it didn’t matter because I was so scared and I had to get away.

Even though I knew that I couldn’t.

“This is ridiculous.”

I was standing on top of the wood-and-metal playground equipment at a nearby park. Behind me was a wheel attached to the wall, one that didn’t seem to do anything. And in front of me was a five-foot drop, where a slide went down to the ground.

Jen stood beside it, grinning up at me. “Yeah, it is! So what’re you waiting for?”

“Um.” I looked down at the dirt of the playground, and out at the trees and the buildings beyond. “I don’t know.”

“Just think happy thoughts … ” Jen spun around in circles, her arms stretched out to each side, as though she were a child herself.

A woman was walking a dog, on the sidewalk, and trying her best to ignore us. “ … right,” I said, sideying Jen.

She didn’t say anything else, so I held my arms — my wings — out, and tried to prepare myself. Could this really be it? Did I just have some secret desire to fly, and if I took care of it then this problem would go away?

Only one way to find out, I thought. I closed my eyes, and jumped.

I landed in a heap, just past the slide. Jen laughed, and I jumped back to my feet and brushed the dirt off myself frantically. I felt like my wings were dirty, and the fact that I couldn’t see how dirty they were just made things worse. “Not funny,” I said, swiping my hand through the air and feeling it brush off my feathers.

“I know what you need to do.” Jen was giving me a coy look.

“Oh?”

She held out her arms again, and flapped.

I rolled my eyes, but she protested. “I’m serious!”

“Hawks soar,” I told her, still cleaning my wings. “They don’t flutter.”

“You have to flap your wings to gain altitude, though.” Jen folded her arms.

I sighed. “Fine,” I said, and climbed the stairs back up to the slide. I was careful not to bump my wings on the side of the playground equipment.

One embarrassing leap later, I was in a heap on the ground again, for the second it took me to get up to my feet. “Told you,” I said, brushing my wings off again.

“Maybe you really do need to think happy thoughts,” Jen mused, one hand to her chin.

I ignored her.

As I climbed back up, sniffling in the chill air, something occurred to me. “How does this even work?” I asked, holding my arms out. “I’m wearing a coat, for goodness’ sake. These aren’t invisible wings, they’re imaginary wings.”

“Sometimes the change is all in your head,” Jen told me. “People have been known to have ‘phantom limb’ sensations before. But in a yokai’s case, you might see and feel yourself for what you really are before the physical changes start. And sometimes you only start to realize what you are after you’ve already been an animal for awhile.”

My heart turned cold, and I started to sweat. “That’s impossible,” I said, trying my best to believe it. “I’m wearing clothes that I couldn’t if I were a hawk.”

“Or when you wake up and realize what you are, you might also realize you’ve got slits cut in them for your wings and tailfeathers. That you blocked out the act of making, because it wasn’t a part of your human life.”

I swallowed.

“Do you want me to take a picture of you with that app?”

I shook my head abruptly. “No. Please.” My heart was pounding. “I … can’t.”

“Okay, then.” She folded her arms, and watched me.

You know she’s right, my conscience told me. You know that there’s something to this.

“Then what should I do?” I asked myself, in my thoughts.

Just accept it. That’s the only way you’ll get through this.

My heart was still pounding, so hard that if those had been actual words I wouldn’t have heard them. It seemed to be going extremely fast, and for a second I wondered if I had a condition of some kind. Then I remembered that birds’ hearts beat much faster, and it jumped at that. I had to lean against the wall for support.

Oh man, I thought. Oh man.

“Are you okay?” Jen asked.

I nodded at her, with my eyes closed. Then I shook my head.

“Do you need any help?” She sounded worried.

I just shook my head again, quickly, trying to get myself through this. Whatever “myself” turned out to be.

I didn’t want to be a hawk. Not now, not in the real world. Not in college, not at my job, and not here in front of Jen. I wanted to be one in my world, the one that I dreamed about, where it was okay and not weird to be like this. Where it was just something you were, and not something you had to accept and accomodate. What was the point of being able to fly, when you had bills to pay and college loans stacked on top? And when you couldn’t actually fly anyplace without explaining how you’d gotten there?

What was the point of these wings at all? Where was the freedom? Where …

I slumped against the wall, clinging to it and sliding down to the floor. I felt trapped, shackled, claustrophobic all of a sudden. My wings brushed all up against the platform, but I could barely feel them.

Jen gasped. “Do we need to get you to the doctor?”

I shook my head, barely hearing her words. I knew how the hawk in me felt, now … I knew how I felt. I felt like I was in a cage. I felt like the whole world was a cage.

Just once, this new voice in me begged. Please, just once.

I nodded, slowly, rising to my feet. Holding onto the wall for support, and digging my claws into it. I didn’t look, but I brushed my hand over it afterwards, and I could feel the mark.

Jen said nothing as I stood there, holding my arms out, facing into the air with my eyes closed. I remembered what it looked like. I didn’t need to be able to see … it would just make this harder.

I imagined — I felt — the feathers on each wing, and the claws on my hands and feet. I felt them grip the wooden platform, and squeeze into my scaly palms. I could feel the wind rustle my headfeathers, and play over my beak. And my tailfeathers twitched, as I prepared to jump.

For an instant, I “knew” it would not work. But I set that aside. I chose to. I wasn’t jumping off of a cliff, or a second-story railing. I was only five feet off the ground. If this didn’t work I’d be embarrassed, not injured. So I could afford to keep my eyes closed, spread my wings out …

And fly.

It happened so fast. I was flapping my arms (my wings), and I realized I was supposed to be on the ground now but I wasn’t. And my heart was racing, and the wind was rushing past me, and I wasn’t touching anything, I was flying and I was in the air and it was only my wings that were holding me up. Then I realized it’d been a whole second and I was going to run into a tree, so I opened my eyes …

… and fell to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Jen asked, running up to me. And I wasn’t; my knees had been skinned, through my pants, and I was wiping dirt and pine needles from my chin where I’d faceplanted. My hand came back with some blood on it, and I looked down and saw my hurt knees, and then they all started to sting.

I was still gasping for breath, still remembering the rush, still feeling the beat of my wings. Feeling my arms start to cramp. But I nodded to her anyway. “I’m okay,” I breathed … “I’m okay.”

And inside of me, my heart was still soaring.

Continue reading in part 3 …

They’re after me.

If Carol had ever been human, she was not anymore. She ran through the dark woods, weaving past twigs and branches, stepping over roots and leaping past puddles. There was no thought in her mind but that she was being chased, and she needed to get away.

She’d thought she had lost them … hadn’t thought anyone would be able to pick up her trail after she flew. Had there been police reports? Phoned-in sightings? People carrying cameras, down on the ground when she’d jumped off the ledge? Maybe she’d been on the TV news.

Maybe that’s why the people she’d seen, whose yards and schools and businesses she’d run past and flown over, had been giving her those looks. Not so much of fear, but of pity.

Maybe I am possessed, she thought, as she shook water out of her hair and tried to catch her breath. But if that was the case, then she was the possessing spirit, and had always been. And their “exorcisms” would kill her.

What do I do now?

Carol offered a quick prayer in her heart, to the God that she’d always prayed to. Begging him for help … hoping he’d listen to a soulless animal. Then, clutching the stitch in her side, she set off again, going as fast as she could.

Not two minutes later, she was caught in an enormous spiderweb.

* * *

She’d gotten to near the edge of the valley, looking out on the trees and the old highway beyond. There were very few cars out there, and the ones that there were had headlights and windshield wipers on. No one would see her … not if she flew overhead.

Maybe there’ll be a homeless shelter in the next town, Carol thought. Or just someplace dry. She took a deep breath, trying not to shiver, and shook the water from her face. Then she took off, wind rushing past her ears, flapping her wings to push herself farther from the ground. They were cramping up, but she made them keep working …

… until they twisted and tangled all up, along with the rest of her. She screamed, though it came out more like a canine yelp, as she was caught on what felt like a sticky net. It felt like tiny steel cables, and it stuck to her like duct tape. With the side of Carol’s face pressed close to it, she could see that it stretched all the way across the narrow valley.

She struggled, writhing frantically, not willing to find out who or what had made this. But her wings were caught, stuck at an odd angle, and she wasn’t strong enough to pull them free … not after fleeing for miles. Not in the rain, and the dark.

Then Carol felt the web shake beneath her, as something else climbed towards her. She couldn’t turn her head to see where it was, she could only fight, and struggle, and panic, until-

“Hold still!”

Carol yelped again, as what looked like a dog’s face peered down at her from above. It was glossy black, with blood-red tufts on its ears, and it had four eyes above its muzzle.

It also had a female voice. Resonant, and alien-sounding. “Do you know how long we’ve been trying to catch up with you?”

Carol tensed up, as she felt sharp objects pricking her wings. Then she heard a snap, and another, and realized the webbing was being cut from her. “N-no … ” she said, starting to shiver with fear and cold.

“It was all over the news,” the creature went on, her face out of Carol’s view. “Both when you jumped, and when you ran. They interviewed some teacher from your school, and he came off as a complete jerk.”

She crawled in front of Carol’s vision. Carol could see four spidery legs coming out of her back, moving lithely across the web, and a fluffy tail that kept twitching and freezing in place. But the creature also wore a backless top and cargo shorts, and was using her sharply-tipped legs and some kind of tool to shear away webbing from Carol’s limbs. “What are you?” Carol asked.

She grinned and held up one hand, while her legs continued to work. “Don’t worry, I’m not an eldritch abomination. I’m a lawyer!”

“That’s even worse!”

The dog-spider laughed. “Like I haven’t heard that before!” She cut one of Carol’s arms free, then held out her hand. “Name’s Shi Maria. I’m a wereism advocate.”

Carol shook her hand hesitantly. Then the adrenalin haze cleared a bit, and she remembered something. “I think I’ve read your blog … ”

“Cool.” Shi Maria grinned.

“And you’ve been trying to … catch me?”

“To catch up with you, really!” Another snap, and both of Carol’s wings were freed. “We pulled up to try to talk to you, earlier, but you ran as soon as we stopped the car.”

“I think I remember that.” Carol facepalmed. Then she looked up. “You’ve got a captive audience now, if you wanted to tell me something.”

Shi Maria bark-laughed again, then looked down at her with two of her red eyes. “I wanted to offer my services!”

“Your services … as a lawyer?”

“Yep. Your case is high-profile enough that it’s in the public eye. We’re going to force a hearing over your institutionalization, and we’re going to charge your school with religious discrimination and failure to abide by federal accessibility laws.”

My institutionalization. “Am I going to have to go to a-”

Shi Maria put a hand on her shoulder, and it was soft and warm. “I can’t promise you won’t have to go there. But I can promise that we’ll get you out as soon as possible. They can only hold you for three days without a hearing, and with everyone watching you they’ll know better than to do something stupid.”

Carol continued to shiver, even as fatigue caught up with her and her words slurred. “Three days … I don’t know if I can do that … ”

“I’ve got a psychotherapist friend who might be able to help,” Shi Maria said. “We’ll see what he says, and if he can keep you from having to go there. Okay?”

“ … okay.”

* * *

It was a half-hour later before they finally got her to the ground. By now there were a few others watching, both humans and weres, and they winced as Carol landed on her foot wrong.

It took them a moment to help her up, since it was still raining and the grass was slick. But finally Shi Maria and one of her friends started helping Carol, one under each shoulder, to the car they had parked on the side of the highway.

Shi Maria was going on about court cases, and hearings, and trial dates. But the light was on in the car up ahead, and it looked warm and dry. Carol relaxed a bit, letting them carry her weight, and allowed herself to feel safe for once … to feel okay being herself.

“You’re going to be alright,” Shi Maria said.

Thank God, Carol thought, and she did. Then she fell asleep in their arms.

Ring … ring …

Liz pulled her car up to the curb, headlights shining on somebody’s mailbox, and rolled down the window. It took her a moment to hear it, under the drone of cicadas and crickets.

Ring … ring …

She leaned over to the passenger’s seat and tapped the touchpad to wake up her notebook, then double-checked the map on the display.

Ring … r-

She pressed Cancel on her cellphone, and the ringing stopped.

Liz climbed out of her car, and walked up to the tree planted up past the curb. Wood chips clicked under her feet. On the other side of the tree, she saw a glint of metal and glass, and reached down to pick up the cellphone that had been laying there. The screen was cracked, but the stickers on the back were unmistakeable.

She cupped a hand to her mouth, and called up to the tree. “Carol?”

Liz thought she heard something in response. “Carol!” she tried again.

“Yes,” Carol’s voice called back, irritated.

“Carol, are you alright?”

“I appear to be.”

More cicadas, more crickets. Liz glanced across the well-manicured lawn up at the house, making sure that no one had gotten up to check on them. The lights were still off.

Liz looked back up into the tree. She couldn’t see anything. “What happened?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

“Carol, what happened?”

An exasperated sigh. “I p-shifted into something that flies.”

Gears turned inside Liz’ brain. “You jumped out a window-”

“Yes.”

“And as soon as you did, you took off?”

Liz couldn’t hear what Carol said, but it sounded like grudging acknowledgement.

“Carol, that’s great! Why don’t you fly down here now, and we’ll head home together?”

“I can’t.”

A dog started barking, somewhere down the street in one of the fenced yards. “Why not?”

“Need clothes.”

As soon as Carol said that, Liz imagined her getting ready for a date and lamenting not having anything to wear. Then she thought of what would happen if she sprouted wings all of a sudden.

“Carol-” The dog started barking again as soon as Liz talked. She raised her voice to be heard above it. “Carol, there’s nobody out here! They’re all asleep!”

“Just get me something to wear already!”

Now Liz was exasperated. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Find something.”

There was a rustling from up in the tree, and a couple of chips of bark landed next to Liz. She was sweating with the humidity and the excitement, and it took her awhile to think. “Alright,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Carol muttered something in response.

Liz set Carol’s phone back down next to the tree. “I’m leaving your phone here so I can find you, okay?”

She said nothing.

Liz hurried back to her car, and pulled away from the curb just a little too fast. The wheels screeched as she tore out of the neighborhood.

The dollar store was closed, but the nearest big-box store was still open. Liz went in on autopilot, trying to unfreeze her brain enough to decide what to do once inside. The smiling people on ad banners seemed unreal, and at the same time more real than what had just happened.

She grabbed a shopping cart and started walking fast down the clothing section, looking through clothes without knowing what she was looking for. Nothing was designed for winged, human-shaped creatures … or weres at all, really. She could think of some outfits that might work, but they’d stopped selling them at the end of summer.

At the end of the clothes department was a display that had bathrobes, bath beads and shower gel set up on it. Liz grabbed up both of the bathrobes on display and stuffed them into her shopping cart, then headed to the checkout line and paid with cash, hastily pocketing her change and receipt.

The drive back to the suburbs took too long for Liz’ comfort. She passed a police car on the way, and had to slow back down to the speed limit. Finally she came to the right spot, got out of her car, and dialed Carol’s cellphone just to be sure. It rang.

“I’m here,” Carol called down.

“I’ve got … something,” Liz said, and ducked back inside her car for a moment, coming back with an armful of terrycloth. “What should I do with it?”

“Set it down on the side of the tree opposite from your car. Then go back inside and turn off the headlights.” Liz had to strain to hear her.

“Okay,” Liz said, and carefully set the bathrobes onto the woodchip pile. “Your cellphone’s on top,” she said, picking it up and putting it on them. The cracked screen was still on, and bright.

“Turn it off,” Carol said, just as it automatically went back to its locked state.

“I’m going back in the car,” Liz said. “Just knock on the door when you’re ready.”

Carol didn’t respond.

Liz climbed back inside and shut the door, then turned the headlights off. A second later the overhead light went dark. After that, Liz could hear rustling overhead, leaves shaking and twigs snapping. She wondered if Carol could climb trees very well. She wondered if she had become an animal that could.

It didn’t sound like it. The rustling continued for what seemed like ages, suddenly noisy at times and then halting again. It stopped for a minute when a light turned on over a garage down the street, but when nothing happened it continued.

Then Liz heard a wooden stumbling sound, and a crunch of wood chips beneath feet. She looked away as soon as she heard that, even though the closest streetlight wasn’t near enough that she would be able to see anything.

The crunching was quieter for a minute, as Carol presumably tried her clothes on. Then it started again, and Liz could hear footsteps coming closer. Finally there was a knock on the window, and Liz toggled the auto-unlock on her car door.

The passenger’s side door opened, and Liz’ heart stopped as a monster out of a horror movie sat down next to her. Its leathery wings got in her face, as it tried to situate itself, and Liz panicked and fought them off before they folded back into place.

Liz made herself take a closer look, as it slammed the door shut. It was wearing the bathrobe backwards, tied with a sash below the wings and another around the waist, and it looked awkward and out of place. It sat on the edge of the seat, not bothering to buckle its seatbelt, squirming to find a place for its ratlike tail to go and trying to keep its wings folded in. It kicked its bare feet at the trash on the floor, and Liz could see claws and reverse-jointed heels.

It turned to look up at Liz, its eyes glassy and animal, with a long muzzle studded by whiskers. Enormous ears swiveled towards her, on top of a face that looked part canine and part rodent, its jaw hanging open as it panted. It did not have Carol’s glasses, and if it still had any of her clothing it was hidden under the bathrobe. Liz wanted to see something recognizable in its face, but couldn’t.

It looked away, as the lights dimmed. There was a long, uncomfortable silence, and Liz could hear its breathing over the crickets.

“Thanks,” it said.

“Any time,” Liz said, and realized she was scooted up next to the door.

“Is the store where you got these still open?”

“I think so,” Liz said, and tried to sit herself down properly. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been up in that tree for hours, and I need to use the bathroom.”

“Ahh,” Liz said, still looking at its silhouette.

It turned to look at her, and its eyes glowed the way that a cat’s does. “Are you going to start the car?”

“Oh, right, right … ” Liz did so, and began pulling away from the curb.

“Hurry,” the thing next to her said, and gripped the sides of its seat.

* * *

Liz watched the thing come out of the car, and followde her up to the building. The rest of the shopping center was closed, so they had to go in the store’s main entrance.

She was afraid that someone would stop the thing next to her, but nobody did. A couple of people stared, from a distance. It ignored them, and moved surprisingly fast up to the bathrooms, so that Liz had to hurry to keep up. After that, she stayed outside. It did not sound like anyone else was in there.

The bathrooms were next to the $1 discount section. Needing something to occupy her nervous brain, Liz scanned over the merchandise without really looking at it. There were black and orange plastic spiders, rolls of streamers, and old horror movies with DVD cases half the thickness of a normal one.

Halloween was coming up, wasn’t it? All of a sudden Liz felt like she was in one of those movies, and the contrast between all the movies she’d seen and her waiting outside there for Carol made the world seem surreal. The adrenaline in her system did not help, either.

So many movies, Liz thought. So many portrayals of wereism. It’s captured the imagination, hasn’t it? The thought that your best friend could suddenly become a monster … She shivered. I was so young when Brandon changed. I never thought Carol would follow him. I wish I’d known …

Liz looked over her shoulder.

She didn’t go berzerk, like a wolf or a dangerous predator would have. She tried to kill herself. That’s how badly this has affected her. She’s handling this even worse than I am. To suddenly become that … that … She shivered again. I can only imagine what I’d have done.

I’ve got to help her. The thought made more sense than anything else that night had. She might get better, and she might not. Either way, I’ve got to help her.

Liz thought of movies, cartoons, TV shows where someone had changed into something else, and his or her friends had been able to look past the outward appearance. She grinned nervously, as she realized she’d just done the same thing. Carol is somewhere inside that thing, she told herself. And I’m going to help her.

A flushing sound from around the corner, then running water and blaring blowdryer. It cut through Liz’ train of thought, and for the next minute or so all she could do was stand there and wait. Finally, the thing — Carol — came out, and Liz made herself look at her.

She didn’t seem so threatening, in the bright light of the store. Her fur was matted and messed up, and the bathrobe still had the tags attached. She adjusted it, before looking around at the store as though seeing it for the first time.

Carol was taller now, Liz thought. It was probably the way tahther feet were shaped.

“Are we ready to go?” she asked.

A pause. Then, “Do you want me to get you anything?” Liz blurted out.

Carol blinked, and so did the eyes on the creature she was. “Huh?”

“Snacks, DVDs, a new phone … some actual clothes … ”

It looked away, and for the first time Liz could see Carol beneath, in the way that it hesitated and became lost in thought. Finally it said “No,” and closed its eyes. “Just take me home, please. I’m exhausted.”

“Alright.” Liz held out her hand, and for a long moment Carol did nothing, as her eyes were still closed. Finally she opened them, and looked at her questioningly for a second before seeing the proferred hand. Slowly, Carol took it in her own, as though she was not sure what it was for or why she was being offered it.

Her claws were dull, the fur on the back of her hand was scratchy, and the pad on her palm was thick and leathery. Liz squeezed it, to reassure her, and she tensed up and did not squeeze back.

They walked back out to the car, and Liz finally let go when they got up to it. She let Carol get in first and get situated in there, before climbing in the driver’s side and starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot. After that, they drove home in silence, as Carol curled up in the passenger’s seat and dozed off.

* * *

Liz finished unwrapping the sausage into the sizzling pan, and stuffed the wrapper into the trash before looking up. Carol had the second robe on this morning, and looked like she was having a very bad fur day.

She squinted at the sunlight coming in through the kitchen windows, and yawned silently, closing her jaws with a clacking of teeth. Then she looked at the clock over the stove, which read 10:30. “I’m up early, aren’t I.”

“Yes, you are, and your brunch isn’t ready yet.” Liz picked up a fork and messed with the scrambled eggs in one pan. “You should still be able to eat sausage and eggs, right?”

“I’m a scavenger. I can eat anything.”

She stood there watching Liz cook; or, rather, watching what Liz was cooking. Watching, and smelling deeply, nostrils flaring. Liz glanced over her shoulder at her. “You’re not going to start drooling, are you?”

Carol bared her teeth for a moment, then walked out into the living room.

Liz gave a sigh of relief, and started mixing in the rest of the ingredients. She heard the television out in the other room turn off, but didn’t mind, as she could barely hear it over her cooking anyway.

It wasn’t long before breakfast was ready. Carol sat down straddling the back of a chair, so that it wouldn’t be in the way of her wings. Liz set the pans of sausage and eggs down on the table in front of Carol, then went to go get her a plate.

Carol looked down at the food, her eyes widening. “Is all this for me?”

“You’ve had a long night, and a long day yesterday.” Liz set the plate down in front of her, along with silverware, and scooped generous portions out onto it. Warm egg and sausage and spice smells filled the air as steam came up out of each pan.

“I’m fairly sure I can’t eat all of this … ”

“We can, uh, save the rest for later.” Liz went through the cabinet looking for something, then came up with a styrofoam bowl. She set it down on the table, and started to get out the cereal.

“Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“It’s okay. Eat up.”

Carol said a quick, silent prayer to herself, as Liz moved around her to get the milk out of the fridge. But then Brandon pawed open the unlatched door that led outside from the kitchen. Liz closed it shut behind him as he trotted over and sat down next to Carol, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“He’s worried about you too,” Liz said.

Carol sideyed him. “I think he’s just hungry.”

He nuzzled Carol’s arm hard at that, and she reached around and scratched him on the back of his neck. Then she got up and put some of her food into his bowl, and he nuzzled her again before running over and chomping it down.

Liz watched, but said nothing, and went back to eating her cereal.

Carol watched him too, for a moment, before looking up. “Aren’t you going to ask me what it’s like?”

“How is the food?” Liz asked, before realizing that wasn’t what Carol had meant.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, and took her first bite. “It actually tastes kind of funny, though … ” She swallowed. “Kind of bitter.”

Liz began to sweat. “Well, your nose is a lot more sensitive now … ”

“Yeah, I’m probably going to have to get used to it.” She looked up at her glass of orange juice for a long moment, before taking a careful sip and dribbling sticky juice down her chin.

“So, er … what’s it like, physically being an animal?” Liz asked.

Carol dried her fur off with a napkin. “Well, aside from my face and my feet everything seems to be in the right place … ” Her tail swished, and she looked up at Liz expectantly.

“And?”

“And, mentally, I don’t feel any different at all. I’m nervous, and scared about what’s going to happen, and mad at myself for giving away the fact that I was an animal and letting this happen to begin with.” She indicated herself. “But I don’t feel like my personality’s changed or anything.”

Liz’ spoon hovered over her cereal. “Why are you telling me this?”

Carol took a deep breath. “I guess because you always tried to reassure me by telling me I was different from Brandon.”

The collie looked up, at this.

“And by different,” Carol said, “I mean ‘not an animal.’ As in a non-human one. But I am one, Liz … ” She looked down at herself, and gestured helplessly. “More than one, it looks like.”

“I can see that.” Liz took another bite of cereal.

“And I always have been.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Liz asked.

Carol sighed. She looked down at the food on her plate, which suddenly didn’t seem very appetizing. “I’m not sure.”

“Aren’t you going to eat anything?”

“I dunno.” Carol shifted around, trying to get comfortable on the chair. “Why do you ask?” Behind her, in the hallway, Brandon laid down next to his food bowl and swished his tail sleepily.

“I, uh-”

The doorbell rang. Carol’s ears perked towards it, and her tail held still. “Who’s that?”

“That’s, uh … ” Liz was sweating a lot.

Somebody knocked on the door.

“Liz, what’s going on?” Carol looked up at her, from her nearly untouched food. Then she looked back down at Brandon. He always got up and ran to the door, whenever anyone knocked. But now he was just laying there, sprawled out with his eyes closed. Breathing slowly and rhythmically.

“Carol, I can explain-”

“You’re trying to drug me.” She stood up. “You’re trying to have me committed!”

They both turned to look through the window behind the kitchen sink, as two men in white coats brushed past the bushes beneath it. Heading towards the back door.

Carol bolted, jumping over Brandon and trying to outrun them to get to it.

“Carol, wait-”

She flung open the back door just as they got there and elbowed her way past them, running another couple of steps before taking off into the air.

Carol lay there for what seemed like forever.

People walked right around her. People coming in and out of class. Most of them gave her a wide berth. One person kicked her, and another stepped on her tail. She did nothing.

Carol’s mind hadn’t changed, which confirmed her suspicion that she’d been an animal on the inside all along. Her body had only gone partway, though, which was the way that it happened for so many weres. She was still wearing her clothes, and her thoughts didn’t seem strange to her at all. For someone gone catatonic, anyway.

I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead. That was all she could think for a long time, even when she was kicked. She felt the press of the concrete next to her face and her side, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Her body was completely limp. All of her prayers, all of her memories seemed so far away.

After awhile she started to pray in her head, but the words she used weren’t really hers. They were taken from the man that she’d heard in class.

This is what she said:

God, I’m sorry I took that sweet child of yours. I’m sorry that I possessed her. I know that I’m an abomination and I don’t deserve my own life. You can have this one back now. Please take it.

The tears started to return. Didn’t you hear that man? He cast me out in your son’s name. That means I have to come out. I have to come out and let this poor girl live her life. Please, God, let me come out! I’m begging you!

I don’t want to live this life anymore!

She cried again, laying there on her side, for five minutes straight. Then she choked on her own tears, and reflexively sat upright.

Carol coughed and coughed until her airways were clear. It forced her to be aware of her own body, and it took her a long time, shaking her out of her reverie. She felt like she’d just woken up.

When Carol finished she gasped for breath, and wiped off her face on her sleeve. She stopped when her arm hit her muzzle. Oh man.

The tears came back all of a sudden, and she squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth, fighting them back. Her face was shaped differently, and she could feel it, and the thought made it harder to hold the tears back. Help help help what do I do now? What should I do? What should I do …

She took a deep breath. I have to get up and see just how bad it is.

Carol stood up on reverse-jointed feet. It felt strange, and she held her arms out for a second to balance. But her long, whiplike tail swayed and stabilized her, and she slowly lowered her hands. They were covered in thin, grayish fur, and weren’t shaped right.

She kicked her unused shoes aside and headed towards the restroom. No one was there in the hallway. The lights were turned off, but the sun was shining outside. She could hear people moving inside one of the classrooms she passed, but aside from that, nothing.

She was uncomfortably aware of her breathing and movement. It wasn’t unpleasant; just different. Everything felt different, inside and out. She felt a strange feeling like homesickness tightening its grip on her insides.

Carol pushed open the door to the restroom, and turned on the light. Then she rounded the corner where the wastebasket and paper towel dispenser were, and stopped in front of the full-length mirror. Her breath caught in her throat as that feeling reached up and strangled her.

That’s not me.

It was wearing her clothes.

That can’t be me.

It had a face like a dog’s crossed with a rat’s … or maybe a possum’s. And it had a lighter build, and strangely-shaped legs, and a hairless tail that whipped from side to side in abject terror.

Oh please, don’t let that be me …

Carol felt weak all of a sudden and dropped to her knees, leaning up against the mirror and breathing fast as a panic attack took over. Her face plastered next to the glass as she fought to control her breathing, taking longer, deeper breaths, doing it consciously and ignoring how strange it felt to be breathing through nostrils so far away from her eyes. She focused on the sight of her nose out in front of her, treating it objectively. Letting it be there, and letting herself breathe.

It’s not mine. It’s not mine. It’s not mine. It’s just there. It’s just there right in front of my face.

After a minute or two had passed, and her breathing had settled down, she started to be uncomfortable with her position. She settled down to sit there on the floor, leaning up against the mirror, her legs sprawled to one side and her arm in between her face and the glass. She looked into the mirror with the eye on that side of her head, and saw the face of a frightened animal, its glassy eye nervous and wet.

She felt sorry for it.

* * *

A half-hour passed, as Carol tried to come to terms with herself. She washed her hands and the side of her face that’d been pressed to the floor with soap, and messed up her fur in the process. It took her forever to dry herself off. Her cellphone rang while she was doing that, but she ignored it, and didn’t even check the display when she was done.

It seemed so far away. Everything seemed so far away. Everything, except that strange creature in the mirror.

Now that it was here, she found that she wasn’t afraid of it. Either that, or she was so scared that she had become numb to it. She actually almost liked how it looked, and she tried out different poses and facial expressions in the mirror. Swishing its tail was especially fun, even though part of it was still sore. Watching the thing in the mirror was like watching a zoo animal.

And that’s what it is, she thought, still unwilling to think of herself as it. It doesn’t look like a possessing demon to me. It just looks like an animal. An animal that happens to be shaped like a human being.

That’s funny. Animals aren’t supposed to be shaped like human beings.

She grinned at the mirror, feeling happy and traumatized, silly and in shock. Giddy, lightweight, and detached, and covered in so much cold sweat that she felt like she was thirsting to death. Her grin looked like an animal baring its teeth, and getting ready to snarl at her.

“I think animal control should take care of it,” she said, slowly, still feeling lightheaded. Her voice sounded like she was chewing taffy, or recovering from a bad headcold. “It doesn’t belong on a college campus. It belongs out on the street. So it can get roadkilled, just like all the other possums. Run over with a pickup truck. We’d better back up and run over it again, just to make sure that it’s dead.”

The “grin” on that thing in the mirror widened, as Carol’s insane giddiness deepened. “Y’hear me, boy? Git out and check on that big ol’ possum. We’s eatin’ well tonight!” She laughed, and it sounded like barking and echoed inside the closed bathroom. She had to stop after a second of it and wince, and the ears on that thing in the mirror flattened.

Carol saw the thing in the mirror cringe, and instantly hated how helpless it was. And she remembered again what others would think of it, and how she was supposed to feel towards it.

She smiled smugly, and walked over and put her finger up on that mirror. “You don’t deserve to be here,” she said, feeling snide and superior and terrified and threatened. “This is the girls’ room, not a litterbox or a backyard. And this is a Christian college, not a kennel or I-85.

“You don’t deserve to be here.” Her eyes narrowed, and she lowered her hand and glared at that thing in the mirror. “Do you hear me? You don’t deserve to be here! You’re not cut out for it! You’re not even a person! I hate you!” Tears ran down the sides of her face. “I hate you!” she screamed, and it made her ears hurt. “Die!” she screamed. “Die!”

She wrestled the front part of the paper towel dispenser off of its hinges, and beat the mirror with it till it cracked. Then she flung the front part across the room, and it hit the wall and bounced off with a loud plastic clatter.

That thing in the cracked mirror was not dead yet. Four of its siblings mocked her, gasping for breath in the windows above the sinks.

Carol looked down at the pieces of glass on the floor, thinking about it for a moment. Then she stomped over to the door, flung it open and ran out into the hallway, looking for the stairs to get to the top floor. Looking for an open window.

* * *

Carol stopped at a water fountain on the way. She was sweating so hard she was thirsting to death. She got her face all wet just trying to drink from it, though. It wasn’t designed for creatures like her.

She stalked back towards the bathroom to dry her face off, but saw from behind someone entering it. She immediately took off the other way, running as hard as she could. She threw herself onto the pushbar for the door to the stairs, and vaulted up the steps three at a time, the side of her face still cold and wet. Carol slipped as she tried to round the corner at the next landing, and fell and touched off the floor with her hands, taking off at a run up the next flight of stairs.

Finally she got to the top, and wrenched the door handle and flung it wide open. She ran down the hall past quiet teachers’ offices and a waiting room of some kind, all the lights turned off except for green LEDs on the front of computer monitors. Then she stopped in front of the window, and squinted out at the sunlight.

She could barely see out there. It was just as well.

Carol wrestled with the window for a moment, before undoing the latch at the top of it and then yanking it upwards. It only budged an inch, and she took a moment to catch her breath before pulling it upward another inch.

Her cellphone rang again.

The ringing drove her to fury, and for a second she thought about throwing her cellphone down to the sidewalk far beneath the window. But it wasn’t open far enough yet. She took her cellphone out of her pocket, opened it up to take the call and then clapped it shut again, before throwing it down to the floor. It bounced.

Carol spent another minute or so strugging with the window, as chill, wet air came in through the opening. Finally she got it open all the way, and sat on the windowsill looking outside. It really looked like a nice day out there. The sky had fluffy white clouds in it, and the leaves on the trees ringing the parking lot had already turned red and gold. The lot itself had only a handful of cars in it, and she didn’t see anyone out there.

She sat there for a while just looking outside, arms wrapped around her knees pulled up to her chest, sitting dangerously close to the edge. Then she remembered something, and reluctantly swung herself inside to pick up her cellphone again.

Carol flipped her cellphone open, and the screen came on. It looked alright.

She climbed back onto the windowsill, and pressed a button on her cellphone.

“You have … one … new message,” it said. “First message-”

She pressed another button.

“Message deleted. End of messages.”

She pressed cancel and then fumbled with it for a second, trying to look up a number. She had claws now, and they were unfamiliar to her. She couldn’t feel which buttons she was pressing all that easily, and the buttons on the keypad were indented outwards, making it easy for her claws to slide around them. Now that she was sitting back up on the windowsill, Carol just wanted to throw the stupid thing outside. But she couldn’t. Not until she’d fulfilled her promise.

It rang once before Liz answered. “Carol?”

“Hi, Liz,” she said in a monotone.

“Carol, are you alright?”

She didn’t answer.

“Talk to me, Carol. I’ve been trying to find-”

Carol shifted the phone to her other hand, after wiping the sweat off its pads. “Remember the promise I made you?”

Now Liz was silent.

“Just calling to let you know.” Carol stood up on the outside of the windowsill, still holding the phone up to the side of her face and using her other arm to balance. Her tail swayed through the window behind her, like a balancing rod, and she squinted as the sun came out from behind the distant clouds.

“Carol … ”

“Thanks for letting me stay at your house.” The whole sky brightened, and warm red light highlighted Carol’s fur and the tan wall of the building. She turned to look away, eyes watering but only with how bright the sunlight was.

“Wait.” Liz sounded shaken. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.” She leaned her elbow against the side of the building. “Let’s talk.”

“Carol, why are you doing this? What happened?”

“I p-shifted in class,” she said, still in a monotone.

Liz was silent for a moment. Then, finally, “Is that why your-”

“Yes.”

“Your voice-”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re still-”

“What part of that didn’t you understand!?” Carol stopped leaning up against the window so that she could hold the phone closer to her face. “And what do you mean, still? I’ve always been this way, Liz. Always. Now I just look it on the outside as well.”

“Okay,” Liz said. “I believe you.”

“About what?”

“That you’ve always been this way, inside. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

“Really.” Carol saw her dull claws gripping the phone, with the eye on that side of her head, and she imagined herself using them on something.

“Yes. I should have listened to you.”

“And done what?” The dog-possum gave the parking lot an impatient look.

“We could’ve gotten you help-”

“Help?” she screamed. “At an institution?” Carol laughed hysterically, a loud barking noise that echoed throughout the whole lot. Her sensitive ears heard a clatter from her phone’s speaker, and it sounded like Liz had just dropped her cellphone.

There was a pause, as Liz picked it back up. “Carol, please listen-”

“No, Liz. You listen to me.” Her sides were soaked with sweat, and she found herself leaving her muzzle hanging open in between sentences. “Do you know what they would’ve done to me there? They would’ve done the same stupid thing that these people here did.”

“What did they-”

“They exorcised me! At least, they tried to! They told me I was a demon possessing one of God’s sweet children, and that I had to be cast out in Jesus’ name. That’s what they said, Liz. I’ll never forget it.”

“Why-”

“Because I was changing into a monster at the time!” Carol screamed it at the top of her lungs, surprising even herself, and it echoed just like her laughter had. She heard footsteps pounding the sidewalk below, and voices talking to each other, but she tuned them out.

Carol took a few seconds to catch her breath. “That’s not what I meant,” Liz said, and it sounded like she was crying. “I meant why did they exorcise you.”

A pause. “You didn’t tell them that I had Animal Syndrome?”

“No, Carol. I told them nothing.”

“Then they must have picked it up from the fact that I spoke up for weres. Or the way that I did it. Heck, maybe they just picked up on my ‘scared animal’ demeanor. Isn’t that what predators do? They look for the weak and the sickly ones, and they grab them and wrestle them to the ground and rip all their guts out!” She practically strangled her cellphone, holding it in front of her face so that she could shout at it.

Liz was crying, on the other end of the line. It made Carol want to cry too, and she did. She heard the voices still talking down below, but no one was calling to her, and there were no sounds or movement coming from inside.

“That’s what you are,” Carol said, through her tears. “You’re all predators. You prey on each other, and you prey on animals like me. And you tell yourselves that we’re soulless, or demon-possessed, or just evil, so that you don’t have to worry about feeling our pain.”

“I feel your pain, Carol! And I want to help you!”

Liz was still crying, and Carol was too. “No, Liz.” She shook her head. “I believe what you say, but you don’t really want to help me. You just want to exorcise me.”

“Carol, I don’t even believe in-”

“Of course you don’t, I know already, you don’t believe in their kind of exorcism. You believe in science’s exorcism. You think that they could use pills and restraints and electrocution and beatings and torture and threat of death to get the awful animal-ness out of me, and you see it as other and you think that it’s making me sick. But the animal’s not making me sick, Liz, the animal is me. I’m the animal. And I’m not possessing this body any more than you are ‘possessing’ yours.”

Liz said nothing. She just continued crying.

Carol heard running footsteps, inside the building. “There’s only one way to separate my soul from my body, Liz, and I’m going to save you the trouble of trying to do it for me. Goodbye.”

“Carol, please-”

She closed up her phone, and tucked it into her jeans pocket. Then the door to the hallway opened, and without looking, Carol pressed her foot-pads onto the edge of the windowsill and leaped out into the air, arms wide.

“You’re only the second anthro I’ve met … ”

Joshua put his head down, grinning and embarrassed. “I’m not sure I’m ready to think of myself as an anthro yet. I’ve only been one for a couple of days.”

We were climbing the stairs, up towards Sam’s apartment. Our footsteps and voices echoed. “Do you think I’ll … uh … do you think you’ll ever get used to it?” I finished.

“You know, it’s strange … if all I had to worry about was how I felt about it, and I didn’t have to worry about getting stared at, or kicked out of church and things, I think it would be pretty sweet.” He turned around and looked back at me. “And I mean, I know that not everyone wants to be an anthro. But for me it was like … ”

“ … a dream come true,” I finished.

“You could say that!”

I couldn’t help but grin to myself. It felt so surreal, and amazing, to hear someone else say what had been in my heart for so long. Somehow it made it seem real, even natural.

Plus, he had a really cute fluffy tail. It tickled my nose while I walked behind him, and that made me grin even more.

We were quiet for a moment, as he opened the door on our landing and we both went inside to the hallway. It was narrow, and one of the doors was open. I got a really quick glimpse of someone looking up from his newspaper and giving us a weird look, and I hurried past.

“So, uh, yeah … ” Joshua said quietly, once we got past. “I’m starting to get the feeling that most places aren’t designed for people like us, and things are going to be a bit awkward until we can learn to change back.”

“It’s like you’re ‘in the world but not of the world,’” I ventured.

“Yeah, kinda! I think we’ll manage, though … ”

That “we” scared me. And as we got up to Sam’s door, I started to feel nervous. It’s like, I was mostly okay with who I was right now, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to be him in public. Around other anthros. Joshua was okay, and Sam was okay, but the thought of being with those people in general was still scary to me. Even though I knew now that I was one, and had always been.

It’s okay, I told myself, as Joshua knocked. You know Sam, it’ll be alright, you can relax …

A short, blue-and-black-feathered bird answered the door, and looked up at us with glassy eyes. “Can I help you?” he (she?) asked, as I sweated under my fur.

“It’s Josh,” came Sam’s voice, and I heard footsteps head towards the door. The bird stepped aside as she pulled the door open, and Sam and Joshua hugged each other for a long second. “I’m sorry,” they both said, at the same time, then Sam laughed. “It’s okay,” she said. “You told me over IM already.”

“I’m still sorry,” he said, grinning sheepishly and putting his hand behind his head.

“Come in!” she said, guiding him towards the living room. I could see other humans and anthros in there already, eating snacks and playing on one of her game consoles, but I hung back. It was like I just couldn’t make myself … it felt like I was back at my family’s house, and I was scared of whatever might happen.

She saw me then, and I looked away. But she’d already started to step towards me, and pretty soon I was being hugged too, eyes closed and holding on tight.

“I was so worried about you,” she said, letting go and stepping back a bit. “When they closed the door on me I thought … I was afraid they were going to kill you,” she said, talking fast. “I called the police, on my cellphone. But they told me-”

“-that they couldn’t come,” I finished. “My dad was on the police force before he taught Institute. They look out for each other.”

She blinked. “You mean they’re corrupt?”

“I guess, if you want to call it that.”

But Sam was already back in the kitchen, setting more bowls and bags of snacks out, and I followed her. “I TFed to cat form and looked in their windows. It looked like you were still breathing, but no one was moving to help you.” She looked up at me. “I’m sorry, Lawrence … I really don’t know what’s normal sometimes.”

“I know … ” I looked down at the snacks instead of at her.

“I stayed there a few hours before heading back. You’d given me your home number, so I was going to call and check in on you the next day, and see if you wanted to come back and stay here. Then Joshua called, and asked me to come over and change him, and I didn’t … ” Her ears and tail drooped, and she looked down. “I didn’t know.”

I hugged her, and she hugged me back, tight. She scritched my back, and I scritched hers hard, as I realized it felt good to hold her. I wanted to stay there for longer, as she rubbed her head up against my neck, and feel her and love her and tell her how much her help had meant to me. But then-

“Hey, Lawrence!” Joshua called out, and I jumped and pressed myself back against the fridge, scared that someone had noticed. Scared that I had been caught.

But he was smiling, and he waved to beckon me closer. “C’mon and try this game out!” he said, holding up a controller.

My fur settled back down, as I looked over to Sam questioningly. “Go ahead,” she said, scritching the top of my head gently. “I’ll be over there in a minute.”

So I sat down next to these nice humans and anthros, and played games and talked with them, and … this is kind of the weird part. But the whole point was to meet other anthros and furry fans, right? To hang out with those people.

But they didn’t seem like that when I was there. They just seemed like people. And after I’d been there a little while, I forgot that I was a lemur. I mean, I didn’t literally forget, since I still had the ears and the tail and all, but it’s like … that was me. I was me, and those were a part of me, and I didn’t have to worry about being an anthro. It wasn’t a secret, it wasn’t something to be ashamed of, it was just who I was. And my long ringtail got stepped on a few times, but people also admired and played with it, and I thought that was really cute.

Towards the end, when most of the others had left, Sam sat down right next to me and used my tail as a scarf, giving me a playful look to see if I approved. I felt the same way that I had when she’d sat next to me back in my tent, but this time I enjoyed it. I smiled up at her, then my eyes lingered on her smooth, furry legs for a moment, before we leaned on each other’s shoulders and held each other, scritching each other’s backs gently.

I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe she was attracted to me, in her purely romantic, asexual way. Maybe she was just naturally cuddly, because she was a cat. Or maybe she felt like I needed some more reassurance … heck, maybe she wanted to be reassured that I didn’t hate her after all that.

But we stayed that way for awhile, just being there with each other, even though other people were around us. And while it wasn’t as … involved, as what Katelynn and her friend had done in private, it felt so good just to feel her there close to me. It really did.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re-” Sam was cut off, by the two furs in front of the TV cheering and high-fiving each other before getting back to their game. She just smiled, at me and at them.

“Um … ” I fidgeted. I didn’t want this to end, but I wasn’t sure what to say.

“Yes?” Sam looked up at me.

I squirmed. “Er … would you like to come by and visit, tomorrow? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Who’s that?”

* * *

“I’m calling to report a missing person.” Laurence’s mom paces her house’s front yard, her cellphone in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. She’s quiet a moment, listening.

“Yes,” she says, and pauses.

“Laurel Williams.” Another pause.

“Don’t give me that bull-” She stands there a moment, her eyes narrowed at the phone. “What do you mean, it hasn’t been twenty-four hours? It’s been days since she was supposed to come … home … ”

There’s a familiar engine rumble, from down the street.

The person on the other end is still talking. Laurence’s mom presses “End” on the touchscreen and puts out her cigarette, then looks up as his truck comes down the street towards her house. She’s already walking briskly, and is right at the curb next to it as it parks.

Two anthros get out, one on either side, and Laurence’s mom considers them while they’re doing so. “So, which one of you is my offspring?” she asks.

Laurence just runs up and hugs her, and she hugs him back, tightly. She’s never been held by an anthro before, and the fur’s a bit tickly on her bare arms. But she doesn’t mind. After all, he’s her son.

“Laurel. Amber. Williams,” Brother Pratt intones, with eyes closed and head bowed. “By the power of the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood, we seal this anointing upon you.”

His hands are on Laurel’s head. Olive oil drips from between his fingers, and mixes with the blood and vomit on the ground. His companion beside him helps hold Laurel still, despite her seizures, as the girls all around fold their arms reverently and try not to peek.

The ambulance has been delayed. Nobody thinks that she’ll make it.

“At this time, we pronounce a blessing upon you.” Brother Pratt sweats bullets, as he tries to feel what to say. “Sister Williams, know that your Heavenly Father loves you and cares about you, despite whatever choices you’ve made … ”

A cat meows, somewhere nearby.

“And while our wrong choices can lead to bad ends-”

“Stop the blessing!” Sister Powers shouts.

Brother Pratt looks up, startled. He sees an orange-and-white tabby cat sitting on Laurel’s stomach, and thinks What, for the cat? But then he sees the blue bands glow on Laurel’s and the cat’s shoulders, and he jumps, standing up all of a sudden and shaking. He wipes his oily hands off on his shirt frantically, and checks all over his arms for any sign of the blue glow.

Beneath him Laurel’s chest flattens, her shoulders widen, and her face turns into a golden-furred lemur’s, as a fluffy ring-striped tail curls out behind her until it touches Brother Pratt’s shoes.

Everyone looks on in horror, as the cat nudges Laurel’s face and curls up beside him. He rests, peacefully, as Brother Pratt has the nervous breakdown that will send him to LDS Family Services for the third time.

* * *

I got out of Sam’s car, and leaned on the roof after I shut the door. I felt like I’d thrown up half my body weight in the last 48 hours, and my knees were still shaking when I tried to walk.

She came over and took me by the elbow, to help me. But I wasn’t looking at her … I was looking across the street, at my family’s perfect house in the Provo suburbs. The sprinklers were on, the lawn was green, and my truck and the minivan were in the driveway. My dad’s car wasn’t there, though, so at least that was one less parent to worry about. For now.

“Are you sure you feel up to this?” Sam asked. She was in human form, and wearing a modest t-shirt. I would’ve been human-form too, if I could get my body to change. Could get it to do anything besides be sick over and over.

“I don’t know.” I felt like I didn’t know anything anymore. Except for one thing: What I had done was wrong.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, one hand on my shoulder. And for a moment, I remembered how it had felt when I’d asked her to change me.

Then I remembered bishop’s interviews, Conference talks, Young Women’s lessons on purity. Licked cupcakes, soiled handkerchiefs, boards without nails but with nailholes. The peace that I’d felt in God’s holy temple, when I did proxy baptisms for the dead, and the awful guilt of knowing that I’d never be able to go back.

I remembered being slumped in my chair with the door open, after my dad took my laptop from me. Hearing my stepmother’s crying echo through the stairwell, and knowing that I was the lowest scum in the universe.

I sighed. “Yes, I do.”

Sam helped me across the street. I had to lean on her most of the way. But when we got up to the doorstep, I rang the doorbell and then stood up straight, on my own, to face the music.

It was a Janice Kapp Perry arrangement. The sound came out of the living room speakers, as my stepmother opened the door and blinked at me.

“There is beauty all around, when there’s love at home … ”

I stood there, red-faced under my fur and ashamed, too scared to even look up at her.

“There is joy in every sound, when there’s love at home … ”

I knew that she was ashamed of me. I knew-

“What do you want?” She sounded scared and suspicious.

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know.

“Peace and plenty here abide … ”

Sam coughed. “Mrs. Williams, your stepson wanted me to drop him off here so that he could talk to you.”

“Smiling sweet on every side … ”

I glanced up at her face, and saw shock and absolute horror. “Laurel … ?”

I nodded, too scared and ashamed to do anything else.

“Time doth softly, sweetly glide … ”

I stood there for what seemed like forever, frozen with fear and with guilt, as my stepmother’s face slowly twisted with agony. The tears came out before the sound did, and she started to shake before she actually cried.

“Mrs. Williams … ”

She made the most awful, agonized sound that I’d ever heard, before turning and running back into the living room.

“ … when there’s love at home!”

I numbly stepped in after her, watching as she took random things from the tables and shelves and flung them across the room.

“Love at home … ”

The “Good Shepherd” statue of Jesus and one of his lambs, smashed to pieces across the fireplace.

“Love at home!”

The framed quote from D&C 88, about making a house of order.

“Time doth softly, sweetly glide, when there’s love-”

The stereo stopped playing, when my stepmom threw her Salt Lake Temple miniature at it. Half of the building rolled next to my feet.

By now tears were running down my furry face, and the triplets were up there crying with us. They were pleading with their mom and tugging at her arms, trying to get her to stop. She just screamed and buried her face in her arms, sobbing and letting the family portrait fall to the mantle and crack.

“Heavenly Father hates me!” she cried. “All the work that I’ve done, all the fasting and praying to make things right, and my daughter comes home as an animal!” Her voice squeaked.

There was no feeling at all in my arms or legs. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. I couldn’t even turn my head to see if Sam was still there. The triplets were clinging to my stepmom now, staring at me like I was a stranger to them.

She kept crying as my brother came up from the basement stairs. My brother, whose last conversation with me had been about how anthros freaked us both out. “Alright, what’s all the-”

He stopped, and took in what was happening. Then his eyes rested on me. “Who are you, and what have you done?”

“That’s your sister!” my stepmom cried. “That’s Laurel!” I could only stand there, frozen in terror.

There was a long pause. Then: “Oh no, it’s not.” And a second later I had my head cracked against the wall, before being wrestled down to the floor.

“What have you done with my sister!” he shouted. “What have you done with my sister!?”

“I-”

He decked me across the jaw, and I tasted blood. Then he hit me again and again, as the triplets screamed and hid behind their mom. It looked like there were six of them by the time he stopped hitting me.

“Somebody get this trash out of here,” he said, standing and walking away. I just lay there motionless, next to the shards of the Salt Lake temple, hearing my stepmother cry in her chair. A minute later I also heard smashing and clattering noises downstairs, and realized that my brother was destroying everything in my room.

For some reason, I didn’t care anymore. The physical pain blended with the emotional hurt and rejection, and I lay there and let it soothe and numb me. Promising myself that it’d be over soon.

This is my fault, I thought, and I deserve this. It became a mantra. This is my fault, and I deserve this.

I kept repeating it in my head, as the smashing and clanging and crying continued. Salt tears and metallic blood ran into my mouth, as my lips were too swollen to stay shut.

The world had already started to blur before I closed my eyes.

* * *

“Get up.”

I was groggy, and wasn’t sure what was going on. But it was dark all around me, and there was a man standing over me. Had I died? Was that …

“Laurel, get up.” It was my dad’s voice.

I sat up, then immediately clutched my head as it started to hurt. My swollen lip throbbed, and the top and the sides of my head were sore even to touch.

There were lights on elsewhere in the house, but he didn’t have them on in this room, as though he couldn’t bear to see what I had become. He didn’t offer me his hand as I slowly stood up, leaning against the wall, and he looked away from me as he spoke. “Your keys are on the mantle,” he said.

I nodded, gently, and winced.

“Your biological mother is still out of town. I’ve printed out directions to the homeless shelter if you need someplace to spend the night.”

I closed my eyes, still leaning against the wall, and sighed.

“Take some food, get what things you have left, and go. May God have mercy on your soul.” His voice shook, and he took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes.

I dragged myself into the kitchen, squinting at the light. My stepmom was in the dining room, watching the TV news. “ … committed suicide,” the announcer was saying, “after his friends posted pictures of his gay sex acts onto Facebook-”

She changed the channel to KBYU.

They were having one of their roundtable shows. The words blurred together as I picked things out from the pantry and stashed them in a paper bag, one that it took me two or three tries to unfold. It felt surreal … it was like being home, and being unwelcome in somebody else’s house, at the same time.

Halfway through I heard my stepmom crying, and the world blurred as my eyes started to water too. I just grabbed up a few more cans and hurried back out to the foyer, leaving the bag by the door as I ran downstairs to my room.

Somehow, deep down I thought it’d be just like I’d left it. It had always been my sanctuary … the one place where I could stay there all day with the door closed, and read and pray and destress. I don’t know how many times I’d hurried there to escape from my stepmom’s crying or my family’s arguments. I don’t know why I thought it would be that way now.

My breath caught as soon as I turned on the light. My chess trophies were in pieces. All the furniture had been overturned, and the papers that’d been on my desk were strewn all over the clothes that I’d left on the floor. I saw my TV cart and the game consoles next to the door, but I didn’t see the TV itself, until I looked up and saw it next to a hole in the wall. The screen was cracked.

I turned around, and saw myself in the mirror that covered the closet door.

I don’t know if you’ve ever looked in the mirror and not recognized what you saw. It’s like there’s a split-second where your brain tries to identify who the other person is, before your conscious mind tells it it’s you. In my case, my brain told me That’s one of them. That’s one of those people.

He was wearing second-hand clothes from the D.I., and he looked like he’d just been beat up. It was probably one of his lovers, my brain said. You know they do that kind of stuff in his lifestyle.

I looked up at his face, and he looked back groggily. Drowsy and uncomprehending.

Then I looked down at the destruction all around him, in the mirror. And I clenched my fists. You killed me! I thought, glaring at him. You killed me and ruined my life! How could you!

My vision blurred with tears again. “I hate you … ” I whispered. “I hate you I hate you I hate you!” I dropped to my knees and put my hands to my face, but it hurt; and the shock of feeling my new face made me pull my hands away and cry into my sleeves instead.

I stayed there a long time, crying and sniffling into this person’s clothes, surrounded by the life I’d used to lead and knowing I’d never go back to it. Forgetting the pain, forgetting the guilt, forgetting the fear and frustration. Remembering only the family, and the good times, and the promises that had stretched to eternity.

At one point I was leaning up against the mirror, gasping for breath. And I’d just wiped my tears away, and I saw this frightened male lemur’s face right next to mine, and I knew That is me now and I killed her.

That was when I died. That was when Laurel got replaced with Lawrence. And Lawrence felt horrible for having taken my life from me, and wished that he could give it back. For my sake, and for my family’s.

My father killed a man once, when he worked on the police force. It took him years to work through the guilt. His anti-depressants are still in the fridge.

I realized, as Lawrence, that I knew what he’d felt like now. Because there was no way to get back the person I’d been. There was no way to give back my parents’ daughter, and my brother’s sister, and make the person who’d lived in this room come back to life. There was only me, and the sickening despair that I felt over what I had done.

I didn’t want this! I pled with myself, my claws tracing down the mirror. I didn’t mean to do this to you! I’m sorry, Laurel! I’m so sorry!

We can choose our actions, Laurel said, her arms folded in my mind, but we can’t choose the consequences of those actions. Obeying God’s laws leads to happiness. Disobeying leads to death.

In desperation, I thought But it’s not my fault! I’m not the one who told your brother to beat you up and destroy your room. I’m not the one who told your parents to disown you! They only chose to do that because … because …

Because they were obeying the counsel of God’s chosen leaders, Laurel’s ghost finished for me. And I remembered the General Conference talks, about how parents should not “enable” their transgender or transspecies children. Should limit their interactions with them, and especially keep them from influencing the rest of the family. No matter the cost.

Obeying God’s laws leads to happiness. Disobeying leads to death.

I nodded slowly, eyes squeezed shut. Knowing what I had to do.

* * *

Looking back on it, I wonder if there was any way that someone could’ve stopped me.

Like when I came back up the stairs clutching my suitcase, filled with Laurel’s stolen toys, and saw her dad still standing there at the fireplace with his head in his hands. I told him “I love you, and I’ll see you at church tomorrow.” Was there anything he could’ve said that would’ve made a difference? What if he’d said “I love you too?” What if he’d even nodded?

But no. “Just go,” he said, pointing at the door. “Get out of my sight.” So I did, while fighting back tears.

What if my mom had come back from her trip by then? Would we have stayed up all night and drank coffee and talked? If I’d cried on her shoulder, and said I believed her that Mormonism was hateful, would she have hugged me and waited ‘till later to judge? Or would she have just said “I told you so?”

Maybe it would’ve helped if Sam had been at her apartment that night. Or if she’d come back in the hour that I waited there, ringing the buzzer and pacing the apartment building’s lobby.

Maybe if she hadn’t left me, when I was laying there moaning in pain.

I spent most of that hour praying, in my mind, and asking Heavenly Father what I should do. And when he didn’t answer, I drove to the nearest Church meetinghouse, and parked the truck there for the night. If God wouldn’t answer my prayers, I thought, in a daze, I’d wait until tomorrow and hear from his chosen leaders.

After all, I didn’t want to miss General Conference.

Continued in part 2 of An Enemy to God.

Or, continue reading in this story.

“Is it alright if I sit down?”

I was frozen in place, too scared to nod, to scared to speak to this naked anthro who’d just changed right in front of me. I couldn’t even look up at her, but the change kept replaying in my head and it made me feel warm and uncomfortable and I wanted to see it again.

She sat down, a few feet away from me.

“I heard the last part of your prayer,” she said. “Do you want me to-”

“NOi’mokay!” I jumped to my feet and started pacing in nervous circles around the clearing, keeping my head down and trying not to look at her.

The cat sighed. “Sorry.”

I’m not looking at you, I’m not talking to you, I don’t want to be here, please go away … My brain had locked up. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t face the other girls back at camp. And besides that, I couldn’t believe this was happening. I felt like I had right before I’d watched all those videos … knowing I was going to, but trying to convince myself otherwise.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked.

“No.” My voice shook.

“Is it because of what happened, or is it something I did?”

I said nothing, and kept pacing.

“Look, I just wanted to help. You’re the only one here who’s opened up to me. Everyone else just seems fake, like they’re only saying what they think I want to hear. And they sound so happy when they talk to each other, but then they say mean, hateful things, about people they know nothing about. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how they’ve been shunning you.”

I can’t say anything, I thought. If I say anything, I’ll give in.

She sighed. “Is it because you’re a lesbian?”

I stopped.

“Why you’re uncomfortable right now, I mean. And maybe why they’ve been shunning you.”

I swallowed. “No,” I said. “I’m bisexual. And I’m very attracted to you.” My voice cracked.

“Ah.”

I started pacing again, feeling my heart pound like never before. My legs were unsteady, and I wondered if I’d just pass out.

“Would it help if I said I’m asexual?”

My mind went blank. “You’re-” I coughed, and swallowed again. “You’re what?”

“Asexual. My orientation is ‘neither.’”

I actually turned to look at her, staring blankly at her face. “So you don’t-”

“No.”

“And you’ve never-”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh.”

My brain was so scrambled right now, I just blurted out what I was thinking. “Not even when you’re in heat?”

“It’s uncomfortable, but not in that way.”

I sat back down next to her, dazed. My heart was still pounding, but it wasn’t because of attraction anymore. Not because she was any less cute, but because the possibility of anything happening had just vanished. And it hurt.

“Do you need a hug?” she asked.

I accepted it, and cried into her shoulder fur as she put her arms around me. I’d lost so much in the past few minutes … including an incredibly kind, beautiful person, who I hadn’t realized that I’d felt so strongly about. Blue rings glowed around her neck, but they didn’t crawl onto me, and I wouldn’t have let them right then.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “I’m not aromantic. I just don’t know if I could see myself in a relationship with another girl.”

“I don’t want to be a girl,” I whispered, mostly to myself.

“Do you want me to-”

But I had already let go of her, and clasped my hands in my lap again. “It’s not natural … ”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam’s ears flatten. “So it’s natural for a bisexual, transgender boy to grow up hating himself, but if someone accepts him for who he is then that’s just sick and wrong.”

I stood up, holding my hands out at her while looking away. “I’m not going to argue about this … I’m not going to be persuaded to live a wrong lifestyle.”

Sam folded her arms. “Oh yeah, watch out for us asexuals trying to convert people. You might suddenly lose your libido and go join a convent or something.”

“Or start TFing naked in front of people.”

I heard her tail smack into the brush as it swished. “If you know a way to carry a full outfit on you as a cat, then you let me know, okay? I didn’t know you were attracted to girls, I just wanted to help-”

“You wanted to spy on me!” I whirled around and glared at her. “And … and get me to live your transspecies lifestyle!” It felt so much better to pretend that it was her fault that I wanted it. It let me feel angry with her, instead of guilty.

“Because that’s just so much worse than being a self-hating, self-righteous jerk!” Now she stood up and glared back at me, her fists clenched and her fur bristling. “And don’t you tell me about ‘getting others to live my lifestyle.’ Not when you’ve got fifty freaking thousand missionaries going door to door to try to convert other people to yours.”

“I wish I was one of them!” I shouted, tears blurring my vision again. “I wish God would call me and give me the Priesthood and let me teach other people the Gospel! I wish my Primary teacher had helped me prepare, and it was expected of me instead of just … just … like tossing me a bone in case I can’t get married in time!”

“Huh?” Sam gave me a weird look.

I had to fight to control my breathing before I answered her. “Sister missionaries aren’t automatically called to go on a mission at the age of nineteen. They can choose to go at twenty-one, if they’re not married by then and they feel that God is okay with it. They don’t get the Priesthood, and they stay out for eighteen months instead of two years.”

“So basically, you’re a second-class citizen in your church because of your biological gender.” She flicked her tail at the brush again. “At least you don’t get drafted, like the guys do.”

I glared at Sam, breathing through clenched teeth and trying to think what the most hurtful thing I could say to her was. I hated my life, I hated myself and I hated her for reminding me of that.

Of what I had learned so painfully.

* * *

The bishop is moralizing at Laurel, telling her about the life that God wants her to live. Where she will give up on her foolish desires, and marry a returned missionary and become a mother in Zion. And in the next life they will go on and have worlds without end, and her offspring will fill those worlds and she will have glory in it forever.

Laurel says nothing. She can’t bring herself to. She just sits there, red-faced, holding back tears, as her father pronounces a death sentence on her.

Not on the Laurel sitting in front of him. On the Laurel who asked her Primary teacher why she wasn’t allowed to sing “I Hope They Call Me On A Mission.” On the Laurel who found out about TF at age 8, and prayed that God would let her do it because she knew she’d like it a lot. On the Laurel who played outside with boys, got crushes on girls, and pretended that she was an animal, all before she reached puberty.

On the Laurel who’d watched those videos the other night, and let herself believe — just for a moment — that someday it’d happen to her.

All the things that she’d hoped for, innocently prayed for when she was little, are being taken away from her now. And the Laurel who loved them is dying, stabbed in the heart by despair, as the Laurel in the bishop’s office watches her death throes in shock.

Suddenly, she is gone. And the Laurel sitting there in her church clothes slumps backwards, silently, as all of her strength leaves her.

“You have so much potential,” her father tells Laurel. “If you only knew how much your Heavenly Father loves you.”

Laurel imagines her overweight, hypertense stepmom, bearing children for all of eternity. And she knows that she will be joining her soon.

Her father removes his glasses and wipes at his forehead. “I’ll speak to the high council, and arrange for a Court of Love to meet with you. For now, that will be all.”

* * *

“It is a privilege to serve my Heavenly Father and his Church,” I told Sam, through clenched teeth. “He has promised me blessings beyond anything you could imagine, if I just set my stupid selfish desires aside and follow his prophets’ teachings!”

She said nothing, so I went on. “I know this Church is true!” I shouted. “I know we are led by a prophet of God! I know he wants me to stay home and not go on a mission … ” Tears started to come to my eyes. “ … and become a wife and mother and give everything I have to him! Everything!”

Now I was crying openly, as Sam continued to watch. “I don’t care if I never find out what TF is like! I don’t care if I have to marry young, or not go to college, or become like my stupid stepmom!” It was getting hard to talk, through the tears. “God knows me better than I do myself! And his plan is the only way I can be happy!”

I was down on my knees crying into my hands, as Sam came over and put her hand on my shoulder. Her pawpad was warm and soft.

I knew what she ought to say next: “If God’s plan of happiness is so great, then why are you miserable?” But she didn’t, and I was grateful to her for it. I couldn’t have taken it. She didn’t try to change me right there, either, but I wished so badly that she would.

I sniffled. “Please, just go away. I don’t want to be like you,” I lied. “It’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s unnatural! If God had wanted me to be a … a golden lemur, he would’ve made me one!” I had to tell her. I wanted so bad for her to change me, and she couldn’t unless she knew what species. “And if he’d wanted me to like girls, then he would have made me a guy!”

“Just like in nature?” Sam asked.

“Exactly!” I looked up at her, my vision blurred.

“Well, there are a ton of gay and lesbian couples in the animal kingdom who need to have a word with him, then. Because he apparently messed up while creating them.”

I clenched my fists, frustrated. “There aren’t any animals who turn into people!”

“Yes, there are,” she said. And I immediately knew what she meant by that.

My face turned red, and I started to sweat even harder than when I’d confessed my attraction for her. No wonder she’d been so naive. No wonder she didn’t seem to care about being naked in front of me. Her claws traced down my hair and my spine, gently massaging me like I’d petted her as a cat, and I wondered how long she had been like this … and which, if any, her “real” form was.

Then I realized I knew what mine was. And it was like a switch had been flipped in my head, one that I couldn’t turn off.

“But I don’t want to give up God’s blessings … ” I thought, trying in vain to unflip the switch as Sam stroked my hair.

It doesn’t matter, I realized. You’re not the kind of person who can live like that. You never were.

“But my dad promised me!” I thought back to myself. “He told me I could become … become … ”

You’ll never be worthy by their standards, I realized. No matter how hard you try, it will never be hard enough. Your only options are to lie your way through, the way Katelynn does, or to accept that you cannot do as they ask.

My shoulders slumped, but my heart pounded hard as I listened to my conscience lecture me. It hurt so bad to admit defeat. “I’m supposed to let Jesus give me the strength to obey … ” I pleaded inside, as Sam scritched my back in silence.

When did Jesus ever help anyone follow the rules? my conscience asked me. He never helped those who make rules. He never helped those who set themselves apart as “holy” and looked down on others because of that. He only liberated the oppressed.

You are oppressed.

And then suddenly, I wasn’t anymore.

I saw myself as the boy I was, as the anthro lemur I was, who was scared and in pain and had been trapped for so long. And I’d finally been given the key to escape. “Change me,” I whispered, before I lost my nerve.

“A male golden lemur?” Sam asked, as though she’d been expecting this.

“Yes. Please.”

“Alright, then,” she said. “Hold still.”

I felt her kneel down and press herself close to my side, and wrap one arm around my shoulders while the other took hold of my hand. Even though I had my eyes closed and braced for it, I could see the blue glow of her bands through my eyelids, and I could feel them crawl onto me from her shoulders.

I had a moment to wonder how the changes would feel, but when they came they weren’t painful or blissful or anything. They were just there, all inside me, especially my gut. And they seemed to take a long time. I found myself thinking Yes, please, faster, before-

“AHA!”

It stopped, while it was still inside me. Before the changes had reached my skin.

Bright lights hurt my eyes, and I opened them to see flashlights shining on us. “I knew you’d sneak off and try something like this!” It was Katelynn’s voice, and I could see Sister Powers’ silhouette next to her but for some reason they seemed far away, and even my heart wasn’t beating fast. I couldn’t feel it. “What do you two have to say for yourselves?”

Sam stood up, and the girls gasped at her. A moment later I stood up beside her, but I staggered as the world spun around me, and Sam reached out to steady me. I still didn’t feel scared, even though I knew I should be. Just really uneasy, like that feeling you have when you’re looking down at a gaping wound. Right before the pain registers.

Somewhere in the back of my brain, I knew they were asking me something. I fished for a response as the world started to blur. “I … I … ”

I stumbled free of Sam’s grip, and then everyone backed up as I fell to my knees and threw up violently. It was black and putrid, and smelled of blood.

I drew in a gurgling breath, and then threw up again. Something thick and bloody and squishy came out and splatted onto the ground, and I thought Oh God, I’ve just lost a kidney.

The thought was so sickening that I almost threw up again, and I tried to hold back because I didn’t know what would come out this time. But that made the pain catch up to me, searing and wrenching, and I moaned and clutched my stomach as it brought me down to one side.

Everyone’s voices all blurred together, as the world became agony.

It took way too long for me to pass out.