Become Your Fursona

I hated zooanthropy.

The light from the window behind my hospital bed was in my face, but I did not want to get up. It was probably midmorning, but I’d had a horrible night … and a horrible nightmare. About glowing, red eyes surrounding me, while screams echoed in the distance.

It probably had to do with what’d happened the day before, I thought. I’d spent all day throwing up and losing my hair. The chemotherapy hadn’t helped any, though. I’d started the day with a nose and mouth; I’d ended it with the painful, pinched beginnings of a muzzle. And let me tell you, it hurts to throw up when your nose is as long as your face. I could see it in front of my eyes now, inches long, black-tipped and sporting red fuzz. And I sighed, but it hurt to sigh, so I whimpered instead and closed my eyes again.

The best I could hope for was that it was cyclical. But if that was the case, then I’d have to go through this again twice a year … three times a year. More. However often it ended up being. At least there wouldn’t be chemo involved.

I felt so tired and disoriented. How long had I been here? Was it yesterday that I’d been throwing up … or the day before? Or sometime before that?

And why was the building so quiet?

I tried to sit up, but my head spun, and I groaned and flopped back down again. Doing so pulled on the tube attached to the needle inside my arm, and it stung and I winced. I lay there just breathing for awhile, feeling every inch of my weary, sprawled-out body; my new, strangely-shaped feet, and the tail that was lumped up and numb beneath me. My fur, that was thin and fuzzy but making the sheets uncomfortably hot.

My nostrils flared, and while they’d grown used to the scent I could detect the hints of all kinds of messes, including the blood I’d thrown up. I winced again, and pitied whomever had to clean the room. And change my sheets.

If there’s anyone out there …

The thought came to me unbidden. My ears twitched, and I listened intently. There was nothing but silence.

Loud, ringing silence.

No white noise. Not even machinery humming.

My eyes flicked open, and glanced around nervously before settling on the IV bottle next to my bed. It was empty.

How long had I been in here?

I groaned and tried again to sit up, straining to push myself upright. Then I tried to gasp for breath once I sat up, but it hurt as I opened my muzzle. Worse, my throat was completely dry, and there was a lump when I tried to swallow. I needed water and food. A shower, too. Where were the nurses? Where was my family? Why was no one else here?

First things first. I reached over and pressed the call button. The light from the windows was bright, so I had to cup my hand over it to see that the light hadn’t come on. Okay, that settled it … there was a power outage, and they’d evacuated the place because of whatever’d caused it. But what had happened? I wondered. The IV stand was still upright, so it probably wasn’t an earthquake …

I went to undo the bandage, then stopped. My arm had thin, red fuzz on it, and my fingers looked gnarled and had dull claws on them. I turned my hand over, and there were pawpads on the palm.

I looked at it for a long moment before my vision started to blur. Permanently disfigured, the voice in my head told me. Permanently scarred …

And what about mental changes? Was I a dog? A fox? How much of me was still left inside? I remembered reading a rabbit’s online journal, and how his whole life had changed because he was scared of everything now. But I couldn’t tell if I was having new feelings or not. I was just physically worn out, and in need of pretty much everything food- and hygiene-related.

Argh, I didn’t need to be thinking about this. I especially didn’t need to be crying, I was going to dehydrate myself. Maybe I should just close my eyes, and let myself be … think about nothing but the animal I was, and what it needed at the moment.

Okay. I shuddered. Okay. I can do this.

I carefully detached the IV needle from my arm, then patted the bandage back down around it. It was old and blood-stained — my skin had probably stretched while it was attached. I would take care of that when I could.

I removed the bedcovers, and my fuzzy skin was still way too warm beneath the hospital gown. The air conditioning seemed to be off. How long had I been sweating? How had I not dehydrated?

I slowly shifted around and put my bare feet to the floor. They touched something fuzzy, and I leaned forward and looked down, becoming a little light-headed as I did so. There were huge clumps of hair all around my bed.

I could feel the loss, and I knew I’d start crying again if I thought about it. But it seemed far away, and the floor also reminded me of a barbershop after a haircut. I just let it be that, in my mind, and tried to make myself stand, leaning on the IV pole for support as I balanced on unsteady feet. Then I gripped it tightly and winced, as my tail turned into pins and needles behind me. I’d slept on it for who knows how long, and it hurt.

I looked behind me at it, and it was surprisingly long; a couple of feet already, with bright red fur. It looked like it’d be fluffy if it wasn’t so matted. Was I a fox, then? They had neat tails …

I gasped as the pain sharpened. Then I reached out behind me, wincing and holding on with my other hand, and tried to straighten my tail out. It was limp and lifeless, and had been bent at a painful angle, still on top of the bed. I pulled it off and let it fall down behind me, and then cringed as blood rushed into it. But that seemed to help; it began to sway a bit as I tried to balance myself. I could feel it doing that without my thinking about it.

I looked behind me and tried to make my tail move on my own, and could see it do so about as feebly as I was moving the rest of myself. Then I took a deep breath, and tried to step away from the IV pole, one hand on the bed to catch myself if I fell.

My eyes went to the furniture, as I moved. The chairs were tipped over, and one of them was smashed. And it wasn’t just my hair on the floor, either; there were thick clumps of gray, black, even red hairs. Or was it fur? It looked like a herd of cats had shed all over the place.

When I got to the end of my bed I let go of it, and held out my arms to balance myself as I walked the few steps to the doorway. With the way that my lower legs were reverse-jointed now, it felt like I was walking on stilts. I stumbled and nearly tripped, but caught myself on the doorway and took more deep breaths to steady my heart.

I looked up at the edge of the door where I’d grabbed it and saw deep clawmarks scoring it. Below that, I saw a dark stain.

My eyes went down to my hand, and I slowly lifted it from the doorframe. Dried blood crumbled beneath my fingertips.

My heart began to race, and the room began to spin. I lurched downward, not fighting it, and sunk down next to the door, my back pressed up against it. My head pointed upward and my eyes were squeezed shut, as I gasped for breath through my dry muzzle. One hand was still holding onto the doorframe, and I slowly let it drop, then tried to adjust my tail behind me.

Oh man, I thought. Oh man.

I remembered that rabbit’s journal again, and could feel that same fear inside me: the fear of being a small, helpless animal. Was it because I was half fox now, or would I have had the same reaction as a human? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I couldn’t.

A thought came to me, and I winced at the irony. All the survival horror games that I’d played, and I couldn’t make myself look around the corner.

Then I heard a voice, from outside the room.

*whisper* *mumble* *hiss* *whisper*

Huh?

*mumble* *hiss* *whisper* *mumble*

My knees started to shake. This was not making me feel better about leaving the room.

I found myself trying to think how long I could survive in there, and what my chances of rescue were. Of course, I had no idea if anyone even knew I was alive, but at the time I really wanted to be talked into just sitting there. How long could I go without food and water? I thought.

My muzzle convulsed in a dry swallow, and I nearly gagged on the lump in my throat. I whimpered again, this time without tears, and tried to talk myself into going outside. There’s a water fountain down the hall, I told myself. There will be lots of food in the cafeteria …

*whisper* *mumble* *whisper* *hiss*

I clenched my fists, feeling dull claws press into my pawpads. Then, on all fours, I crawled to the edge of the doorway and peeked outside.

A long moment later I pulled back slowly, still on all fours, staring off into space. My mind had just numbed with shock. I couldn’t feel anything except my fox body.

Fortunately, it knew what to do. Without thinking about it I hopped onto two feet and stood up slowly, letting the blood clear out of my head, letting my tail swish behind me to balance. Then I walked outside, and examined things more closely.

Now that I was up close to them, the smears of blood on the floor and the walls didn’t seem so huge. There wasn’t much else left of him or her, either. A few scraps of fabric and other materials, and bits of loose hair (or fur). Oh, and a cellphone. The cellphone was making the noise.

I picked it up carefully, between two claws. There was still blood on it.

As I lifted it, I could see it was smashed, and pieces of it were scattered. It broke apart in my hand, and I put out my other hand and tried to catch the pieces but most of them dropped to the floor, plastic bits and glass shards skittering everywhere. I only managed to catch a few pieces …

… including the memory card.

“Day One of the Feral Apocalypse,” a high-pitched male voice said from right next to me.

Whoa! I tripped, fumbled, sent the fingernail-sized chip flying and barely managed to catch it. As soon as I did, the voice started talking again.

“-many have been infected so far?” the voice asked. “Of course, it always starts with one. Then some idiot fails to contain it, and everything goes straight to heck. We’ve seen it in movies, and we’ve seen it in computer simulations that compare it to other diseases. All it’ll take is a mutation that allows zooanthropy to be transmitted by infected humans instead of by animals. Then it’ll spread, whether we want it to or not.”

I stared at the card as it talked, and I could almost feel the fox and human sides of my brain being separately bewildered by it. I turned my head, cocking an ear towards it. Then I recoiled as the voice started again, loudly this time.

“You’d think that someone would have listened to me by now!” he complained. “I mean, it’s not like we already knew of an animal-borne disease that turns people into animals or anything. It’s not like it kills half the people it touches, without hospital intervention. And the ones who survive untreated become warped, twisted, and feral. Oh, no.

“I knew that it’d happen, and I knew that it’d start in a hospital. Doctors think they’re immune to everything. Peh, they don’t even wash their hands properly.”

I wasn’t hearing a voice in my head. I was hearing a physical voice from the memory card. But when I turned it around in my hand, or held it between my claws instead of next to my skin, I could hear it modulating; growing softer and louder, then softer again. What was going on?

My subconscious figured it out before the rest of my brain did, of course. You’ll have to forgive my conscious mind. All the blood that it’d seen in video games, and none of it had prepared it for what’d happened out there.

What had happened out there? And how come I could hear the card? No clue, my subconscious mind told me. What now?

I tried to figure out what to do with the card, as the male voice went on about how nobody listened to him. My hospital gown didn’t have any pockets, though. And it was missing certain other important pieces of fabric, which was convenient for me now that I had a tail, but very drafty. I finally just held the card in my hand, and tried not to think about what I was stepping over as I slunk down the hall to the water fountain.

The water was warm, but at least the plumbing was still working. I lapped thirstily for more than a minute, getting splashed all over my muzzle as the voice on the card lectured me.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “Patient One’s going to get checked in at the hospital, probably in the advanced stages. He’s got the mutated form of zooanthropy, but nobody knows it yet.”

Go on, I thought. I heard the voice coughing, away from the microphone.

“They start to treat him, but it’s too late. He’s flapping and flailing around, having seizures, throwing up contaminated blood-”

My stomach wrenched.

“-and making everyone around him instantly infected. They don’t know it, he doesn’t know it, nobody knows what’s happened yet. They’re just continuing to treat him. And when they start to show the first symptoms, they don’t realize what it is. The doctors and nurses drive home, his family drives home, and they infect other people by accident. So by the time anyone realizes what’s going on-”

I’d started to cry uncontrollably, still while drinking from the fountain. I had to turn the water off, and lean up next to the wall.

“-it’s too late.”

I could hear background noise in the audio, and I realized that he was driving. Not that it mattered that much to me. I had curled up into a ball, my tail wrapped around me, and was rocking back and forth with my head in my arms.

“Yup, there it is,” the voice said over the engine. “Hagerstown, Maryland. Population: The walking, furry dead.”

* * *

It was a while after that before I regained my senses. I think it may have started at about the time that the guy on the card mentioned using plastic explosives.

After that I ran (well, more like staggered) back into my room and climbed up on the bed, to look out the window behind it. Sure enough, there was a big freakin’ hole in the side of the building the window looked out on.

What the heck?

“Remember, when you’re being chased by zombies-” He coughed. “‘Scuse me, zoomorphs — you just can’t open the door fast enough. Better safe than sorry! Besides, explosives are awesome.”

I heard him picking his way through the rubble, kicking rocks aside and coughing through the smoke. Was this guy … had this guy been for real? And why was I hearing all this? How was I hearing all this?

I looked down at the card again. Something must have happened while I was asleep, while I was changing, so completely out of it that not even an explosion could wake me up. Something that somehow had to do with this new mutated infection … an infection that I had gotten just enough intervention to survive.

Either that, or I was as bonkers as this guy was. What was he even after? Or what had he been after?

“Night vision online … ” he said, voice trailing off as if adjusting something. I heard Velcro straps being fastened, and a metal bolt being pulled back. “Buckshot loaded. Time to confirm a hypothesis.”

I still wasn’t sure what he was going on about. Had he come here to rescue someone, or what? I was pretty sure most “zombie apocalypse” nuts weren’t the kind of people to be going inside a contaminated area. But that’s what the guy on this card was doing.

The next sounds that I heard from it were footsteps. I knelt there on the bed, looking at the card in my hand for awhile. Then I remembered how icky and dirty the bed was … not that I was any better. I got down from it, and tried to figure out what to do next, my tail swishing behind me.

My stomach growled, and twisted so much that it hurt. I winced, and put a hand to it. Then I stepped back out into the hallway, my mind made up for me.

It took me awhile to find the hospital cafeteria. I’d been rushed in the emergency entrance, and I hadn’t been to this hospital before so I didn’t know where anything was. On top of that, the elevators weren’t working, and it took me much longer to climb down the stairs than I’d thought it would. After a minute, every step started to hurt, and I had to lean on the rail as I went.

My stomach kept twisting in knots. I was starting to numb to the pain. I was so hungry I didn’t know if I’d be able to eat anything, if that makes any sense. And I felt so weak and fragile, like my skin was stretched out too tight. I’d probably lost a lot of weight.

I stood there thinking about all of this, gasping for breath for the umpteenth time, and all I could think was how absurd it was for me to be in this situation. What was my life expectancy, here? Five hours? Five minutes? Was there anything even alive in the building besides me?

I hoped not.

I heard something break, and almost jumped. Then I realized it was on the card. “What are they doing?” the voice whispered. “It’s like they’re going around breaking all the computers on purpose. No, that wasn’t a computer, it was a … some kinda … three-letter-acronym hospital equipment. Thing.”

Another smash. I strained to listen to the guy’s voice; he was whispering into the microphone. “They’re smashing anything electronic, but they’re leaving the furniture intact. What’s up with that?”

I was almost to the landing when he said something that stopped me in my tracks. “It’s like they can sense electrical currents … or magnetic fields, the way birds can. Are the computers driving them crazy, or something? And if that’s the case, will they be able to sense my-”

Something growled, on the card. “Oh crud.”

I heard a feral growl, something big and animal and alien, and it made my fur stand on end from head to tail. Then I heard gunshots, and running footsteps and slamming doors. After that was some kind of commotion I could barely make sense of, then more footsteps.

I was shaking when I made it to the foot of the stairs. For a long second I could do nothing but wrap my arms around myself and shiver, leaning up next to the door to the ground level. I’d just gotten a glimpse of what could be waiting for me, and I didn’t want it. I wanted to un-hear it, and pretend there was nothing out there. It’d have to have moved on, right?

… right?

I almost opened the door before I realized something: if he was right, and they could “hear” electronics like I could, then I didn’t need that card giving me away. There was a tiny ledge on the wall, a sort of a decorative horizontal striping that stuck out just under an inch, and I set the card there and made a note to myself to pick it up later. Then, taking a deep breath, I opened the door and crept through.

The sunlight was bright, through the glass doors of the lobby. I pressed my paws and nose up against them, looking out at the hospital parking lot … it almost looked normal. Just dead quiet.

The doors were closed.

“They went out another way … ” I whispered to myself.

But the doors were still closed.

There were houses across the street from the hospital. Even with the smashed windows, they still looked inviting, and I stared at them longingly. Then my stomach tightened again, and my pawpads squeaked on the glass as I tried to hold onto it, cringing. I couldn’t wait. I needed something now.

I turned around and hurried, clutching my stomach, past the door of the gift shop and the empty reception desk. There was a sign that said “CAFETERIA,” with an arrow pointing to the right … I found the door, and pushed on it.

It was locked.

I started to sweat, already anticipating the next hunger pang. Then I thought What if there’s a back entrance? I hurried again, back to the hallway and around the corner. There, at the end, I saw double-doors, closed almost shut but held open by a fallen mop. I walked toward them as fast as I could, driven by instinct.

The hallway leading up to it was dark. The doors were just open a crack, and what there was inside was pitch-black. I’d almost got up to them when I stopped, suddenly nervous.

Don’t go in there.

I could hear it inside my head. It was as if someone had said it, but I knew it was my own instincts again. I stood there, hesitant, looking wistfully at the doors. Scared, but starving to death.

Don’t go in there.

Another pang tightened my stomach, and I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed my eyes shut, trying hard not to cry. It hurt so bad. I didn’t care what was in there, I just wanted-

DON’T GO IN THERE!

And then I realized what I was smelling. It was masked by disinfectant, metal trays and utensils, and a thousand hospital smells, but it was strong right next to the door. There was something alive in there.

I heard it breathing.

All of a sudden every muscle in my body locked up. My breath froze and held there, and my tail stopped in mid-twitch. My eyes were wide, and fixed on the door.

It took another breath. Three. Four. Regular, even.

Asleep.

I was still frozen in time. It took all of my effort to make myself move, to start running back out of that hallway, each step as light and as urgent as possible. I almost slipped and ran into the wall, but my tail swished and I held my arms out to balance, wobbling as I rounded the corner. I made it all the way back to the front before taking a breath, and I started gasping, slumping down next to the glass doors and leaning on them. Fogging them up with my breathing.

I had to get out. After I’d caught my breath enough I stood up and braced myself, rubbery pawpads gaining traction on the tile floor, then pried at the doors with my claws. My arms were rail-thin and I weighed even less than I usually did, but I put everything I had into it. Then I took another deep breath and tried again, not making a sound as I strained against the doors.

They didn’t budge. I tried different ways of getting purchase on them; using my hand pawpads, digging in as deep as I could with my claws before prying them apart. No dice. The doors wouldn’t open. For a moment, I considered throwing something through the glass … but that thing back there would hear it, and I’d step on the glass with my bare feet trying to get out.

I still needed food before I could do anything else. I looked at the gift shop entrance, but the sign said “closed” and it was probably locked up. I tried it anyway, before looking back at the door to the stairwell. What other choice did I have? I sighed, one ear still perked toward the hallway.

But where could I go to get something to eat? Then I remembered visiting my great-aunt at the nursing home, and how the nurses’ station out in the hall had cartons of dry mixes. And cans of nutrition drinks and the like.

I carefully opened the door, and picked up the memory card before pulling myself back up the stairs.

* * *

What I wouldn’t give for an elevator, I thought, as I pulled myself up the rest of the way to the first landing. I couldn’t feel my stomach or my misshapen feet anymore, just numbed masses of pain. My heart felt like it was going to give out, too, although that was probably because of what’d happened downstairs. At least the voice on the card was being quiet.

I pushed the heavy crossbar on the door, leaning into it until the door opened enough for me to slip inside. Sure enough, there was a nurse’s station, and while the chair was way out in the walkway the shelves looked pristine. I wheeled the chair back into the station, then climbed up on the counter and started opening cabinets, peering around paperwork to try to find something that looked edible.

Then I heard a door creak open, and I jumped and nearly fell off the counter. But a second later I realized it’d sounded recorded, and that it’d come from the card I’d set down next to me. I sighed.

“Going to have to figure out what to do with you … ” I muttered, as I found what I was looking for. I pulled out the cardboard box of brand-name “balanced nutritional drink,” feeling loose cans clanking inside of it. Then I set it down on the counter, before hopping down and taking my dull claws to the box’s seams.

As I got out a can and fumbled with its tab, I found myself wondering if I’d be able to digest this. Shouldn’t I be looking for something made for zoomorphs, instead? Then my stomach began to tighten again, just as I got the tab open, and I put the can to my muzzle and drank greedily. It tasted like vanilla chalk; it spilled down my chin onto my dirty hospital gown. I didn’t care. It was the first food-resembling-thing I’d had in I didn’t know how long.

I started to get out another can, when I heard a door opening down the hall. And this time it took me a second to realize it wasn’t coming from the card.

Something took two deep sniffs of the air, so loud I could hear from this end of the hall. Then it growled, a bass rumble that shook the floor.

It sounded like angry purring.

The thing snorted, and stepped towards the landing where I was at, claws clicking on the floor. And I realized I was just standing there, still messy and leaning against the counter. It was like I was seeing myself from far away. I was so scared that I couldn’t move, could just watch myself shake in third-person mode and feel my heart pounding inside.

There was so much tension and nervous energy in me that if I moved, I knew I’d just freak out. I’d scream and run and bounce off the walls, and claw at the windows as I got eaten. Or would I? I could feel another impulse, alien and familiar at the same time. And as I looked at the desk in the nurse’s station, the space underneath started to look like a burrow. Or den.

I dove silently into it, muscles tense and movements as precise as I could make them, just stopping myself from hitting the side right as the thing stepped out. There was an inch or two between the side of the long, L-shaped desk and the floor, and I could see claws the size of my fingers … on misshapen, nearly-furless paws the size of my head.

I went through every swear word I knew just watching those giant paws, and hearing the thing they belonged to taking deep sniffs of the air. It growled again, and I couldn’t do anything but watch and wait for it to find me. My heart didn’t even let up when it started to turn back around and go back down the hall …

… but when the voice on the card started up again, I nearly jumped.

“Okay … ” The voice sounded out of breath. “I think that confirms my suspicions!”

I couldn’t hold still anymore; could only try not to bump into anything while I was shaking, watching the thing’s balance shift on its paws. Seeing matted fuzz on the tip of its pasty white tail, swishing in and out of my vision.

“That virus is mutating fast … already it’s making them into some more advanced form of life. Where by ‘advanced,’ of course, I mean ‘more than a match for the rest of us.’ And why shouldn’t it be?”

The growling started again.

“After all, virii can evolve faster than macrobiotic life. And this one’s like a super-virus. It copies and retains genetic traits from all the animals that host it. And now that it’s spread through infected humans as well, it’s making some rapid progress!”

The pawpads came towards me, turning around the corner of the desk, and I held my breath and tried to press myself against the inside of the desk without making a sound. I didn’t look — I couldn’t make myself — I just tracked it with my ears as it walked past me, up to where I’d left the card on the counter behind the desk.

“The only thing that makes sense now is for me to-”

Run.

I wanted to be stealthy. I wanted to somehow do a Metal Gear Solid right behind the thing’s back, and ninja out into the hallway while it was distracted. (What I would’ve given for a cardboard box!) But I couldn’t. My nerves were too shot, my muscles were too tense, and I was too panicked to do anything but hide there trembling or run like heck. No. I’d hid long enough.

Of course, it noticed. It made a noise like a growling bark, and I heard and felt it turn towards me as I skidded around the corner into the hallway. Doors were open, doors were closed, claws were clicking behind me, no time to think. I grabbed the inside of one of the open doorframes to check myself, then flung myself into the room and shut and locked the door. It looked like the room I’d woke up in, except that it was even more of a disaster. There was a mess of some kind on the bed, and flies buzzed up from it in the window light. The IV rack was overturned, and there was a smashed EKG machine nearby. Had someone been sick? Had they gotten eaten? Was I next?

Probably.

It’s right behind you, my instincts said, as its footsteps stopped outside the door. I held my breath, knowing this was my last chance.

Then it pounded the door, loosening hinges and throwing me forward away from it. I almost fell onto the mess on the bed, but I deflected myself off the mattress and stumbled into the wall, pressed up against it with eyes shut. My fur was standing on end, and all of my strength was leaving me. This is the end, I thought.

I’m so bad at this game.

The door smashed, splintering open, and the thing snorted as it tore it aside. I could feel its eyes on me, I could smell its breath in the room, and the worst part is? I could still hear the guy on that card going on.

“It’s like I’ve always said.”

Big, powerful footstep.

“If there was a zombie apocalypse … ”

Another footstep. I could hear the creature’s weight shifting as it stepped over the door, could almost feel its tail swishing to balance.

” … the zombies would become the dominant ‘life’ form in under a decade.”

It stopped, right above where I’d curled to the fetal position. And I realized I had like a second to decide if I wanted to look before it ate me.

I chickened out. I squeezed my eyes even tighter. But then I felt something tiny drop onto my headfur, and I realized that it was the card. “My bunker isn’t completed yet,” the voice on it said, “so I guess there’s just one thing to do. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!”

A long second passed, before I looked up.

It was wearing night-vision goggles.

What happened next?

I somehow managed to escape ( http://becomeyourfursona.com/escape-ending-one )

There was no escape for me ( http://becomeyourfursona.com/no-escape-ending-two )

A vast, cavernous space, like a canyon or aircraft hangar, blinding white light just past the edge. Wind echoes across the entrance, howling and amplified by it. And somewhere down beneath, footsteps echo, as he paces up the steel pathway to the stark, bitter world outside the Machine.

His black shoes and brass buttons shine, and the blue collar of his uniform is neatly pressed. A wrinkled hand comes up to the brim of his spotless cap, and beneath it eyes narrow, and a pinched mouth frowns. She is late, and he does not like to be kept waiting.

Two sets of tapping sounds echo all around him, then come up beside him. The tapping of metal legs stops as the tiny robot arrives next to him, but its fingers keep on tapping the typewriter keys attached to its front, as though it were programming itself. No paper comes out the top, but its lamp-like head looks up at him, questioningly.

He ignores it and turns around, as though to go back inside. But then …

* * *

“Hello?”

The man across the ledge from Feather squinted up at her, and frowned. For a moment she thought Is there something wrong with my dress? and adjusted her straw hat nervously. Then she realized that she’d kept him waiting awhile, and strode up to where he was.

“Hello!” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Feather-”

“Cowl,” he said, barely moving her hand with his own. “Mister Cowl.”

“Do you have a first name?” she asked, letting go hesitantly.

“Yes.”

She stood at attention, starting to sweat, as he examined her as if inspecting a uniform. “Your appearance is not appropriate for the inside of the Machine,” he said, as he paced around to her side.

Oh heck, there really is something wrong with my dress! “W-what’s wrong?” she asked, and wondered if the small creature beside her was typing out a list of demerits.

“This,” he said, and pulled off her beak with a THOCK. A human nose and mouth were beneath it, and she looked startled. “You’re meant to be a Handler, not an animal yourself. Please try to remember that.”

“Y-yes, sir!” she said. Her leonine tail whipped back into the folds of her dress as though it had never existed, just as he walked back behind her.

He made a full circle, grim and dispassionate, the typewriting robot hurrying out of his way as he did so. Finally, Cowl nodded to her, then turned around and started walking back inside. “This way,” he said.

She hurried after him, low heels clicking on the metal floor, and looked over her shoulder at the small creature carrying the typewriter. It looked so out of place. She wondered if it was lost.

* * *

They step inside the steel elevator, and the folding door slides shut accordion-like. Then he pulls the lever, and it lurches to a start and descends. He’s already steadied himself on the handrail, but she stumbles a bit and nearly trips on her low heels.

Part of the elevator car is floor to ceiling glass. It looks out on a cavern, brown rock receding into the darkness, lights shone on its face by small spidery robots with welding tools. They’re patching up bundles of wire, soldering some of them together and removing others. And there are lights that play in the darkness, like tiny fireflies. They’re hard to make out until you look out there and realize they’re more robots, way off in the distance, so far away you can barely see them.

One of them does something to join two wires, and the whole network lights up brilliantly, multicolored light streaming out into the distance. Flickering, glowing, gleaming to life across a space as big as a world. And the spiders all look up and take notice for a moment, before getting back to their work.

The woman stares outside at it all, her breath fogging up the window. She’s captivated, he notes. And she continues to stare, transfixed, gripping the rail as the elevator car shakes.

She turns away and looks at him, a moment before another spider gets shocked by the wire it’s holding. It falls off the rock face and smashes into the ground, just as the surface comes up and obscures the window. “It’s beautiful,” she says to him.

“The Machine is possessed of a terrible beauty,” Cowl says, running his finger along the doorframe and frowning at the oil that stains it. “But which parts are beautiful and which parts are terrible is not for me to say.”

He braces himself again, and she notices a second too late and trips and falls backwards as the car slams to a stop. The door opens, and he steps forward and holds out one hand for her. She takes it, and he pulls her back upright, then steps out as she’s getting her feet back into her shoes. “This way,” he says.

* * *

They stepped out into a damp, underground grotto, phosphorescent moss and glowing mushrooms covering the walls about five feet out from the metal path. Their footsteps clanked on it, and her gaze lingered on sparkling spores drifting out from a cap. It wasn’t as spectacular as the cave she’d looked out on, but it had its own beauty.

They followed the glowing vines in the ceiling, around the bend towards the sound of water. Then they came to the source. The walkway hung out over a deep stream that went past, and turned into a roaring waterfall just below them. It was only about ten feet high, but the sound reverberated inside the chamber.

There was movement on the edge of her vision, and she looked out to see what it was. Then she rubbed her eyes, and did a double-take. There were flying snails, all throughout the cavern, hovering over the walkways and the bridge over the stream. One eyestalk stuck out from their shells, and they paddled the air briskly using tiny feet-like things beneath.

“What are they?” Feather said, stepping back as one floated past. It turned to look for a second and blinked at her, then resumed staring straight ahead as it paddled.

“Cordbiters,” Cowl said, frowning.

“Why are they called that?”

There was a shower of sparks, as one of them bit into the glowing vines using a mouth just beneath its eyestalk.

” … oh.”

“Kindly place them all in the cart, please,” he said, and she saw what looked like a mine cart on rails just past the walkway over the bridge.

“How do I get them in there?” she said, turning around. But he’d already stepped around the corner.

“You’re the Handler. It’s your job to figure that out.” His voice echoed, and his shadow receded across the wall.

Feather took a deep breath, then turned back around to face her task.

It wasn’t hard to move the “cordbiters” at all. They were light — as a feather, she thought — and their eyes widened and feet paddled frantically when she pulled them from their places. She turned one over in her hands to look at it, but it just retracted and huddled inside its shell.

The ‘biters were just big enough that it was awkward for her to grab hold of them in one hand, so she had to use both hands to move them. For a few minutes she ran back and forth, grabbing them up one at a time and putting them into the cart. But after she’d done this a few times, she came back and saw that they were just swimming lazily back out. The only things to keep them secure were two straps across the top, and the flying snails just swam around them.

A spark-spray lit up the cavern, as one of them bit into the vines again. Feather mopped at her forehead, chilly and sweating at the same time, and turned on the indigo backlight on her watch to check the time. A ‘biter peeked over her shoulder, curious, and stared at it for a long moment, the light reflecting off of its glassy eye. It turned to look at her just as she turned to look at it, and after a second it whipped back into its shell and lay still.

Feather’s eyes lit up.

A moment later she whistled, and it echoed off of the rock as all of the snails turned to look at her. “Hey! Over here!” she said, and held up her glowing watch in one hand.

As one, the snails stared at it. Then they started swimming towards her.

“That’s right … ” she said, moving slowly, leaning her arm down into the cart. The slower she moved, the less the snails noticed her, and the more they focused on her watch.

Steadily they moved towards her, crowding around and into the cart. The first ones made a circle around her watch and stared at it, transfixed. The next ones inside jostled to try to get a close view of it, and ended up peeking over the shells of the others.

Feather watched as the last of the ‘biters swam closer slowly, unable to see the source of the glow anymore. As she waited on it, one of the ones in the circle around her hand opened its mouth, inch-long needles shining in the glow.

She yanked her hand out just as it bit down on the air, then grabbed hold of the straggler and stuffed it down into the cart with the others. They all yanked back into their shells as she pulled the straps tight, and the shells clacked into each other with a sound like billiard balls.

Feather leaned up against the cart to catch her breath, tense and exhausted. Then she put her watch back on and checked the time again, before heading back towards the elevator.

Just before she rounded the corner, she looked back towards the cart full of ‘biters. Eyestalks peeked out of it, and blinked at her. She turned away, hoping that they’d be alright until somebody else could take care of them.

As she left, the cart began to move.

* * *

“Go on, shoo!”

A gothic-looking towering vault, with a high, domed ceiling far up ahead. Metal coils snake in and out of old windows, and long rays of light shine in, through the arches supporting the dome overhead. There are large, flamingo-like mechanical birds in Feather’s way, clustering around her on the floor, flapping their feathered wings agitatedly. More of them line the galleries, high above, looking down at her and the movement around her.

Mister Cowl sets his tea down, on a stand just beside the cart, and strides swiftly over to where she’s trying to get the birds to move. Some of them see him, and they start waddling away, their clumsy, hopping gait and bobbing heads making them move much more slowly than him. One doesn’t make it in time, and he kicks it out of the way with a “SQUAWK!” before gesturing towards the tea cart.

“After you,” he says, to a shocked-looking Feather.

She steps towards it hesitantly, looking back towards the limping bird. “Why don’t they just fly away?” she asks. “They don’t look like they’re meant to walk very far … “

“Because they’re stupid,” Cowl says, stepping back up to the cart and taking his tea and sipping at it. Behind him, a couple of birds awkwardly hop up spiral steps towards the galleries, right next to a door that’s marked “ELEVATOR.”

“They seem pretty animated for stupid creatures … ” Feather looks up, at the ones watching her still.

“A lot of things are.” He lifts a teaspoon. “Sugar?”

“Oh … uh, no thanks. I drink coffee.”

“Your loss.” He takes another sip.

The birds are still watching her. A few of them flutter their wings.

She looks away. “Anyway, uh … the ‘cordbiters’ are all taken care of. Did you need me to do anything with these birds, here … ?”

“No, thank you, madam. That will be all.”

She’s startled. “Are you-”

“Yes.”

“But it’s been less than an hour … ” She squints at the screen of her digital watch.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than you could dream of, and more situations in the Machine than you could ever attend to. But your time is tied to mine right now, and my time is limited.” He takes a long sip, and then checks the gold pocketwatch at his waist.

“Oh … “

Cowl snaps the watch shut, and pockets it. “Come back tomorrow at the same time,” he says.

“Alright … ” She nods. “I will, thank you.”

“Mind the birds.”

They cluster around her again, as she walks to the door that’s marked “EXIT,” and he finishes his tea as he watches her elbow through them. She’s still trying to be polite to them, he thinks. She’ll learn soon enough.

* * *

Feather disembarked next to her mailbox. A huge thing like a cross between a bus and an elephant galumphed away just beside her, smog coming out of its trunk. She coughed and waved it away, setting out across the dirt path, the forested hills in the distance just outlines against the sunset.

Gravel crunched beneath her shoes. She passed by a pond, and heard frogs singing and saw glowing dots floating in midair. One of her feet stepped in a puddle, but she shrugged and smiled as she walked past.

Her cottage was tiny, with circular windows and a treated roof that looked like brightly-colored clay. The electric light outside the front door buzzed as her silhouette walked up to the porch, growing lighter until her beak, tufted cat ears and lion’s tail could be seen clearly. She started to open the screen door, then saw her reflection in it and laughed, shaking her head to herself.

Kicking off her shoes, Feather dug out the keys from her purse and fumbled with them for a moment, trying to unlock the door. Then from inside the cottage came a pained moan, like a person struggling to keep from emptying her stomach. Feather’s eyes widened, and her beak fell off, revealing an open mouth. She hurried to unlock the door as her ears folded back into her hair, and her tail whipped back into her dress.

She left the door open, walking past the fireplace embers and holding her hands out to keep from bumping into furniture silhouettes. “Rissa-” she called out, before stubbing her toe on something and hopping around it. “Rissa, dear, are you alright?”

The door to her room was most of the way closed, a sliver of light all around it. It creaked as Feather pushed it open, and crept around it into Rissa’s room.

It wasn’t much bigger than a large closet, with barely enough room to stand behind her chair. Her shelves were lined with strangely-shaped toy models, and pictures and thick books of all different sizes. In her enormous chair, nearly swallowed up by it, a young girl in a white t-shirt and shorts was slumped back, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed.

Feather stood there for a long moment, watching Rissa fight off her latest attack. Rissa’s face was pale white, and just as the color seemed to be gone from her skin, it was gone from the rest of the room as well. The wallpaper was dull gray, and the shadows behind her bright telescreen and between the raised keys of her touch-typer were ominous. Crumpled up pieces of paper and old dirty dishes littered the desk, and even the toys and pictureframes on it seemed dark and menacing as they loomed over her.

There was no sound except for her breathing.

Finally she swallowed, spent another few seconds breathing fast to catch up and then tried to sit back upright. Feather moved in quick to help her, but she brushed Feather off and brought herself up, pulling the chair back towards her desk as she did so.

Feather tried to step up beside her, but the room was too narrow. It was a long second before she spoke. “Are you doing okay?”

The corner of Rissa’s head that she could see shook side-to-side. No.

“Is there anything I can get you?”

No.

“I made some soup this morning, before I left … ”

No. No. No.

Feather reached around carefully, to take the dirty dishes from her desk. As she did so, her eyes fixed on a (fading, black and white) photograph, of a very young girl standing in front of a magnificent four-legged gryphon. The gryphon’s beak and eyes were shining and its wings were spread proudly, and the girl was grinning and holding onto tufts of its fur.

Feather smiled, sadly. “Remember when we … ”

Her voice trailed off. She saw Rissa double-click on something, and begin to type on her ‘typer. The words appeared on the screen: Yes, I remember what it was like. You’re an excellent flier, when you let yourself be a gryphon.

“Someday, do you think we could … ”

But Rissa had already started to type. No, I don’t. Gryphons weren’t allowed at your school.

“Or at work.” Feather sighed, and looked down while Rissa kept typing. When she looked up, she’d already finished a sentence.

Or more or less anywhere. But it was fun while it lasted, she wrote. Kids should have fun and games. Grown-ups have more important things to worry about. Like tending the Machine, and their sick little sisters.

It’s okay. I’ll be alright. I’ve got schoolwork to do anyway.

Her eyes were still looking straight ahead, up at the screen, and her limp arms rested on the desk that was too tall for her.

Feather played with a strand of her hair for a moment; dry, dull, and lifeless. She let it settle, and remembered that it hadn’t always been that way.

“I’ll get you some water,” she said.

Rissa said nothing.

Feather finally stepped back around her chair, and went out and closed the door softly.

* * *

The next day, Feather got dressed in her work clothes (a pair of ratty old sweats and mudboots, perfect for the underground parts of the Machine) while Rissa was still asleep. Tossing her keys and other essentials into a fanny pack, she stepped out the front door quietly, into the cold air and hard dirt path lit by the sunrise. Then she jogged out to the stop at the end of the road, past the pond where the frogs were still singing; past the mailbox that hadn’t been visited yet.

And there she waited.

She set two new high scores on the games on her phone while she waited.

She kept checking the time, so she knew how long it was taking. After an hour and a half the sun had risen, and the frogs had hidden, and the air was starting to get warm. The mist had disappeared from the road, and so she stepped out and looked in both directions. Nothing.

If only she hadn’t had to sell her jalopy! Or maybe … but no. As much trouble as she’d get into for showing up late, Feather would be in even more trouble for showing up as a gryphon. It wasn’t just a thought, or even a feeling; it was a state of mind, and it was hard to break into and out of. It stayed with you all day, or all week even, and it got in the way when you tried to do things. Things like get along with people who weren’t as fond of magical creatures as Rissa was.

Feather waited a long time.

She spent the next few hours pacing up and down the path that led up to the stop, looking up from her phone whenever she heard an engine noise but never seeing the right one. Pretty soon it was getting uncomfortably warm outside, for someone who was wearing sweats, and she was getting uncomfortably hungry. So with a last look over her shoulder, she headed back towards her house, half relieved and half disappointed.

Feather considered calling her workplace to tell them what’d happened, but she knew that it’d do her no good; they almost never answered the phone, and even if they did they wouldn’t listen. So she was just putting her phone up as she got up to the front porch. The main door past the screen was open, and the smell of frying bacon was coming from inside.

She pulled the screen open, and took a deep breath of the sizzling grease smell. She thought she detected eggs, too. “Rissa?” she called out. “Are you making breakfast?”

“Brunch.” It was the electronic voice of her assistive communications device. “Would You Like Some.”

“Yes, thank you … ”

Feather stepped into the kitchen, and saw her thin, wispy sibling up next to the stove, one hand slowly stirring the eggs and the other hand typing on a small keyboard she had up on the counter. “What Are You Doing Home,” it asked.

She sighed. “They didn’t show up.”

“That’s Too Bad.” Rissa turned over the bacon without looking up.

“Do you need any help?”

They talked, and made and ate brunch together. Feather realized how much she’d missed talking to her; all these hours they could’ve spent with each other put into the both of their classes, instead. Then her job search, and now her new job. How much longer did they even have left? How much longer did she have left?

After brunch, Feather asked Rissa if she wanted to go out to the pond together. Rissa’s face was impassive as always, and her hair was tangled and unwashed. But she finally nodded to Feather, and after a few moments’ preparation the two of them stepped outside.

Rissa’s footsteps were fragile and awkward, and she was hesitant about leaving her sandals behind. But she finally stepped out onto the cool, wet grass; then, nearer the pond, let the mud squish between her toes. She ran her fingers contemplatively over a willow branch, her other arm holding her lightweight keyboard, while Feather picked ripe white swampmallows. Then the two of them ate them, sitting down by the pond, getting their feet wet and behinds muddy.

“Remember when Brianna was here?”

“Yes.”

“Those were the days.” Feather grinned, and splashed her feet into the water.

Rissa typed for a moment before hitting Enter. “I Was Thinking Of Different Days.”

“Oh?” Feather looked over at her.

“Before I Was Stuck In This House. Before I Was Stuck In This Sick Body.”

“I’m sorry … ” Feather said, but Rissa’s face was still blank. And she was still typing.

“It Doesn’t Matter. None Of It Matters. You Have Your Work. I Have My School. The World Isn’t Here For Us To Experience. We Are Here To Survive In It. Anything Else Is Secondary.” Rissa slammed the Delete key a couple of times, as she corrected what she was saying. Someone else might have dismissed that, but Feather knew she was frustrated.

A Nipper grabbed onto Feather’s foot, in the pond, and she kicked it away before looking back at her sister. “Aren’t there things that you’d like to experience?”

Rissa sat there for a long moment, staring straight ahead, before typing it out without looking. “Yes.”

“What are they?”

“It Doesn’t Matter.”

“Rissa … ”

“Your Work Is More Important.”

Feather knew then what she was talking about. But she had to weigh the consequences, in her mind. Would she be able to show up for work tomorrow that way? Would she be able to show up at all?

Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she hid her beak and her tail.

Maybe a coat would cover up the feathers.

Maybe shoes for her claws, and gloves for her talons, and wings pressed close to her sides …

“And I Have Work To Do As Well,” Rissa finished.

Feather took a deep breath before speaking. “Rissa,” she said, “would you like to fly today?”

Rissa was silent a long moment. Then she lowered her head and closed her eyes. “Yes,” she typed, long fingers stabbing the keys.

“Alright … ” Feather stood.

She closed her eyes and imagined flight; silky fur, and downy white feathers, and pointed ears and a beak. She imagined walking on all fours, wings outstretched on her back, seeing farther than anyone else can. She imagined herself as she’d once been, as she’d once let herself be, as-

HONK!

She jumped, and her leonine features grew back into themselves, retracting so fast she had whiplash and leaving her in a cloud of feathers. She was on hands and knees in the grass, breathing hard with exertion, looking up to see what had …

The bus.

The bus.

HO~ONK!

Feather looked up past her beak at Rissa, tail swishing behind her. Rissa’s face was impassive; guarded, again. She looked up at Feather, and then looked down the path towards the stop.

Feather jumped to her feet, brushing herself off and trying to get mud and grass stains off of her clothes. She walk-hopped towards her shoes and socks, one paw still leonine, then grabbed them up in one hand and hobbled towards the dirt path. “I’m sorry … ” she said, out of breath. “I’m sorry … ”

Rissa watched her go, barely moving or blinking, and waited until the engine had roared and then died away into the distance. Then she typed out a word, and hit Enter.

“Goodbye.”

* * *

Feather spent the entire ride next to a large, impressive man in a suitcoat. He sideyed her while reading his newspaper, as she tried to brush off the grass stains from her knees and mud stains from her hands and her bottom. And she grinned sheepishly up at him, sweating profusely and trying to make her beak and her tail go away.

They were still there when she showed up at work. Mister Cowl tugged on both, trying to get them to come off, but nothing happened except that it hurt. So instead he just frowned at her, and gave her a look that said What am I going to do with you now?

If he hadn’t seemed to have much time to babysit her yesterday, he had all the time in the world today. Cowl watched her wrangle the cordbiters, sweep up the dustbunnies, and shoo all the pogo-stickbugs into their pens. He took his tea while he watched her wrestle the birds in the atrium, the ones who were too stupid to know they could just fly up to where she was trying to get them to. He didn’t offer her a cup this time, and she didn’t ask for one, either.

He let her go at midnight on the dot, and by then Feather was hot and dirty and exhausted. She nodded off on the bus, and nearly missed her stop when they called it out. Finally she made her way up the long and winding dirt path toward her house, each step heavier than the last, and took a long, warm shower before tiptoeing into the kitchen to get something to eat.

There were no lights on in the house. Quiet snoring came from the door to Rissa’s room. Feather took an electric candlestick from the wall and flicked it on to look in the cupboards for dishes, then set it aside to get some leftovers out of the fridge. There were still cherry buns left over from yesterday’s breakfast, and she devoured two of them before realizing what she was doing.

As she threw her trash away, looking close with the light to see what she was doing, she saw something that caught her up short. It was the package to this morning’s bacon. The label said that it had expired awhile ago.

At this, Feather had to stop. Do I feel sick? she asked herself. I don’t think so … what if it takes awhile, though?

Then her eyes widened. What about Rissa? Is she doing okay? If something happens to her-

A loud snore punctuated her musings.

Feather looked up, and sighed. Calm down, Feather … you were always a worrier. She’s going to be alright, and you probably are too. If anything, waking her up in the middle of the night will be bad for her.

More snoring.

I’ll get up early and check on her tomorrow … I’ll set an alarm, and if her breathing seems irregular I’ll make sure she’s okay before leaving for work. And if something happens, I’ll take her straight to hospital. That’s what I’ll do …

SNO~ORE.

Feather took a deep breath. Right, then. On to bed …

Five minutes later she crawled under the covers, having forgotten to set the alarm.

* * *

A sound startled Feather awake. She jumped, under the covers, then flailed about for a moment, knocking things off of her nightstand before finding the lamp’s “on” switch. It took her another long moment of sitting upright, waking her brain back up, before she realized that what she’d heard was a pained human moan.

“Rissa?”

Another moan, louder this time.

“Rissa!” She got up.

The moans were coming from Rissa’s bedroom, but Feather didn’t go there right at first. There was a special tea Rissa drank, one that helped her with her digestive problems. If there was anything Feather could do to help, making that would be it.

“I’m coming … ” Feather called out, sliding her pink slippers on and shuffling into the house’s cold main room. She made for the kitchen and hurried to get the tea ready, as the moans became more frequent and more intense. This was the worst that Rissa had been in awhile, and it worried Feather.

Teacup and saucer in hand, Feather shuffled back out of the kitchen. As she did so, Rissa gave the most awful, pained, gagging moan that she’d ever heard, trailing off only slowly.

Feather laughed nervously as she pushed the door open, trying to quell her own fear. “I’m sorry, I know it’s taking awhile … ”

The sheets were rumpled, and the quilt had been thrown off. Rissa lay on her side, motionless, clutching her stomach with both arms. And it took Feather until she’d set the tea down on the nightstand to notice that she wasn’t moving. Or breathing.

” … Rissa?”

Feather nudged her arm gently. She did not move.

“Oh. Oh … ” Feather started to shake.

What was it? asked a voice in her head. Was it the bacon? But it couldn’t have been, because I don’t feel sick …”

Her feet had already started to move. She’d made it back to the kitchen and started dialing the emergency numbers on the phone when she realized she had to give CPR. So she ran back to the bedroom, falling and kicking off her slippers and stretching the phone cord, and got to the foot of Rissa’s bed before remembering she had a beak.

Hello? Hello? the phone said.

Feather tugged at her beak with her free hand, then smashed it into the door frame a couple of times. Nothing.

Sweat poured down her sides.

Hello?

Feather threw the phone down and screamed.

* * *

Insects glow and sing outside. The pond’s still surface reflects the moon, and a frog eyes one of the hovering motes of light and licks her lips.

Suddenly there is a noise, shrill and piercing and angry and pained. The frogs are silent, some of them turning to look towards the noise. Then there is another scream, a sound like an angry predator, and its dull bass roar shakes the earth. The frogs scatter, hopping and splashing to get away, and after a moment even the insects are silent.

Drywall smashes, wood splinters, and panes of glass break into shards. A taloned arm crashes through one of the outer walls of the house, then a whole section of roof lifts up, as an angry gryphon rears back and cries into the darkness. Its ears are pointed, its eyes are glowing teal gems, and its fur and feathers are pearly white.

Finally it reaches up and tears down the wall, revealing a bed with a crumpled human form on it — one which is now all covered in sawdust. The gryphon reaches down and tenderly takes it by its clothes in its beak, and then steps outside before transferring it to one taloned arm. Then it spreads its wings wide, wider even than the house itself, and takes off, turning around in midair and speeding towards the road and the bus route.

* * *

Feather knew the general direction the town was in, but she didn’t know any way to get to it except by following the road. There were no cars or streetlights beneath her, and the trees obscured the road markings. Moonlight glinted off of the upper branches of the trees, and their brightness stung her eyes. She could see in such detail; could feel the wind slice through her fur and feathers, and hear its roar over her racing heart. But the light on the trees nearly blinded her, as she tried to squint down at them to see where the road had gone, realizing too late that she’d lost it.

Feather looked back for a moment, dismayed, beak hanging open and wingbeats slowing. Then she looked down at the limp form in her claws, and held it close to herself as she pressed on, determined. She could feel Rissa’s body up next to her heartbeat, and she willed her own vitality to affect her somehow, to give life to her failing organs.

The lights of the town were far in the distance. She could see them just past the lights of the Machine. From here it was a giant shape, black and ominous, which blocked out a big chunk of the sky and blotted out the glow of moonlight beneath. Feather flew over the edge of the Machine to get to the distant town, and she found herself coughing from its noxious fumes. Then whiplike organic tendrils snaked out from below and tried to grab hold of her limbs, and of Rissa. She grappled with them, cutting them with her claws, and pressed herself even harder to fly past.

She kicked the last one free just as she finally cleared the dark area. But by now Feather was exhausted. The lights of the town were ahead, but they were still far away. Feather found her wingbeats slowing, her head drooping, her eyes squeezing shut in spite of herself. Feather shook her head and pressed on, conserving her energy, trying to stretch it to last until she arrived.

A whole minute passed as she barely flew at all, gasping air into her lungs, catching her breath. That minute stretched into two, and then three. The lights were closer, but not close enough.

Feather took a deep breath and then pushed herself toward the lights, flying bulletlike at them with her limbs (and with Rissa) held close to her sides. After a minute the town spread out underneath her, buildings and lights and parked carriages, and she flew in between wisps of smoke coming up from the stacks of the buildings that were just near the hospital. As she was about to touch down she spread her wings like a parachute and flapped them with all her might, trying to slow down enough to land safely.

It didn’t work. She clutched Rissa to her chest as she tumbled end over end on the cobblestone street, crashing through men-at-work barricades and smashing a melon cart next to a wall.

Feather unfolded onto her back, her ears ringing and her feet covered in sticky juice. And on her downy chest lay her sister’s form, laying still as if sleeping.

* * *

Cowl opens one eyelid, unamused, at the flapping and beating sounds over his roof. Then he sits up in bed, at the bashing, crashing noises outside, which go on for a second and end in a THUD.

He lights a match over his nightstand, then touches it to the stub of a candle that’s still in its holder. After that he takes it and stands up, feet finding his slippers, and huddles in his nightclothes all the way to the front door, where he looks out the glass window. The window is murky and it’s dark outside to boot, but he can see something large just across the street, and people all ’round running up to it.

A hand grabs his coat and his blue cap, and he puts them on before taking his candlestick back up and shuffling on outside. Now he can hear people calling to each other, and he can see the commotion: There’s an enormous gryphon laying prone on the street, its wings flat to the ground and its chest heaving with exertion. It looks to see what the people around it are doing, as men run from the hospital carrying a stretcher.

One of Cowl’s eyebrows rises.

The doctors and nurses lay someone out on the stretcher, right there on the street, and start working on him or her. After a long moment, the gryphon heaves and stands up on all fours, scraping melon rinds from its feet and shaking itself dry. Cowl holds up a hand to protect himself, but he’s too far away to get wet, and the doctors don’t seem to mind.

They continue to work, and the gryphon watches them closely, its feathery head just over their shoulders. Cowl looks around at the street, at the dim lamps overhead casting shadows on them, and shivers before fumbling to check his watch. Another long minute passes.

Finally one of the doctors shakes his head and removes his stethoscope, and closes the fallen form’s eyes with one hand. The gryphon blinks, as through disbelieving, then again as it fights back tears. It screams, and the sound is so loud that everyone jumps, as it echoes off buildings and across town. Cowl drops his candlestick and cringes, peering through his arms as the gryphon’s scream dissolves into screeching sobs.

It takes Cowl a moment to realize what’s happened. Then he closes his eyes, and places his hat over his heart.

* * *

Wind blasts through the upper reaches of the Machine’s atrium, as “stupid” birds flock together from floor to rafters, huddling to stay warm. In the cold winter light Cowl takes his tea from beneath a thick coat, sipping at the hot liquid and stirring to cool it down.

A huge creature behind him snorts. Cowl’s teacup smashes to the ground, as he whirls around and presses himself up against the cart to look. Across the room from him is a feathery white gryphon, the same one from that night. The same one from the papers.

“H … ” He coughs. “Hello, Feather! G-good to see you again!”

Her claws click on the floor as she paces up to him. “Things h-haven’t been the same without you … ” he goes on. “How have you been? I’d offer you a cup of tea if you could take it that way … “

She glances over at the tea cart, then back at him, unamused. By now he is wringing his hat in his hands. “I’m sorry I didn’t express my condolences … about your sister.” He coughs. “Terrible tragedy, really … “

Feather looks away, and closes her eyes.

“You’re welcome to take time off for grieving purposes … ” He’s backing away, putting the cart between him and her. “Take as much as you like! And you can come back any time … “

Feather snorts again, derisively. Then she spreads her wings wide, feathers gleaming in the sunlight, eyes closed and head held high. Her beak shines.

She takes off, wingbeats echoing throughout the room, blasts of displaced air knocking Cowl onto his back and nearly tipping the cart. In lazy circles she flies upwards, through rays of light coming from tiny windows. And as she does so, the birds all look up at her, their glassy eyes comprehending.

They take off after Feather, circling with her, flying up into the light. And as she leaves the Machine and looks out on its vast gray expanse, giant tentacles stir but flop back to the roof, exhausted. They don’t have any strength in the sun. Not enough to fight back.

The birds land on them, and pick at them with their beaks. A second later, Feather joins in, her claws gleaming as she pounces.

I like wolves.

I’m writing that down first because it’s the hardest thing for me to say. You know how it is with some things. They mean so much to you that even if no one would think them odd to say, you feel like you’re exposing yourself just by saying them.

You’re probably scratching your head right now, wondering what’s got me so worked up. Okay, let’s back up and try this again …

I love wolves. Not in that way, you. I’m in awe of them. And I’m … I …

Oh, man. I can’t say that part yet. I’m sorry.

It wasn’t like this when I was little. When I was little wolves were just fun. I liked them a lot, but that’s all they were, was fun. My parents took me to the zoo and I’d read the whole plaque in front of the wolf exhibit. And I’d howl at them and they’d howl right back, and I’d grin to myself.

It wasn’t until life got hard that wolves started to mean more to me. The things I was going through, in high school and with my parents, were so taxing that I had to come up with a whole new way of coping with them. I didn’t have any human role models, because I didn’t know any humans like me … none that I wanted to be, anyway. So when I imagined something surviving what I was going through, it was a wolf.

They’re survivors, you know. Not bloodthirsty killers, survivors. And you could say that that takes away from their beauty … that they’re not mystic fairy-creatures, either. Just animals struggling to stay alive. But at the time, I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful than a creature that could live through anything, without losing sight of the goal of survival. Without losing — or needing — hope, because it just kept going no matter what.

Wolves are beautiful because of the stress nature puts on them. And I knew I wasn’t … I couldn’t be as awe-inspiring as they were. But I could try. And in my best moments, I saw myself as one. I didn’t draw or write or roleplay online, but I invented my own separate life where I was a wolf on the inside, who just happened to have a human appearance and human reasoning powers. And my wolf-self didn’t understand why all these things were happening to me, or why people were so cruel to each other. But I forced myself to accept that I was this world’s omega, or punching bag. And that someday I’d get through it, and find my own pack.

That’s how much wolves meant to me … how much they still do. So whenever I find a wolf plushie in stores, or hear people talking about wolves on TV, or see anything else about wolves, I have to hide how interested I am. I don’t wear wolf t-shirts or accessories, and I don’t ever talk about wolves in casual conversation. Not because they’re not important to me, but because they’re so important I’m afraid of embarrassing myself. At best I’d get tongue-tied, and at worst I’d be making myself vulnerable to someone who could use that to hurt me. It’d be like a real wolf baring her throat to a wild dog.

That may seem surprising to you. But high school’s just as dangerous as any natural environment. Except that there’s nothing natural about it, and there’s no beauty or reason to it.

Wolves are shaped by their circumstances, and I was shaped by mine. That’s why they’re all majestic beings, and I was an unhealthy young human female, with a bad sleep schedule and a lousy chemical-filled diet. And that’s why I knew, deep down, that no matter how hard I tried I could never be like one of them.

So when I actually became one, I freaked right out.

There. I said it. I became a wolf.

As near as I can tell, I am one right now, in exactly the sense that I imagined it to help me to get through high school. I look like a human, and I’m pretty sure I think like I always have too. But I physically changed into a wolf, a real flesh-and-blood one that walks on four legs. Also some kind of two-legged hybrid. And whatever let me do that, I still have it inside of me. I’m a wolf inside right now, and I was outside just a few hours ago.

Does that make me a were-wolf? Or a skin-changer, or some kind of anime nature spirit? I don’t know, and I’m scared right now and I’m sweating a lot and I’m trying to write this all down really fast before I can lose my nerve. And I’ve got wolf ears and a tail right now, so maybe I am an anime character. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I’m grateful beyond words and terrified at the same time, and it makes my throat seize up and I start whimpering just to think about it.

Can’t write, I’m too scared …

Deep breaths. Deep, shuddering breaths … letting myself calm down. Swallowing, and gasping for breath afterward, still trying to settle down.

Settling … settling …

Okay … as you can see, I’m kind of a wreck right now. Hopefully, by writing this down I’ll be able to think clearly about it.

Let’s start with what happened last week …

* * *

It started last Sunday. I made the mistake of deciding not to go to church with my parents, and that set them off. We’ve been having these “discussions” about religion lately, and I really don’t want to describe this one except to say it was bad. They had a lot to say to me when they got back, and because I’m … er, because I was still living with them, I had to sit there and listen.

I should’ve known better than to protest. I should’ve known better than to do anything other than what they wanted me to. That’s what omegas do, they’re punching bags and they just take what they’re given …

Okay, that sounds really self-pitying on paper. But I’ve never been much of a rebel. I just happened to disagree with my parents, on religion, politics … just about everything. But I didn’t want to pick fights, I just wanted to ask honest questions. First so I could understand what was going on, and then later, when I’d made up my mind, to try to get my parents to consider a viewpoint besides their own.

That got them really upset, and every single time I’d be kicking myself afterwards. I’d tell myself how stupid I was for opening my mouth to them, or for being / believing differently from them. But no matter how many times I did this to myself, I couldn’t make myself not be different. I was stuck with my feelings and conscience just like I was with my hair or my legs, and in the house where I lived they were disabilities.

You could ask why I didn’t leave sooner. The fact that I was in high school and did not have a job helped. But that night, while they were watching TV, I put my boots and coat on and slipped out the back door. I had to get out and be by myself, and I was hoping not to come back until they had both gone to bed.

It was cold and wet out in the sticks where we lived. Fog shrouded the trees and obscured the road, dark grey in the dim evening light. I did not have a flashlight, but I knew where to go. I’d gone out like this many times.

Do you know what it’s like, out in the woods in upstate New York in midwinter? I mean when it’s not snowy. Inside it’s all warm, sickly smells, and angry guys talking on TV. But outside it’s just … quiet. You’re the noisiest thing out there, crashing through brush and crunching on fallen leaves, and every time you stand still you can hear lots of nothing. Your own breath is the loudest thing out there, and it freezes your lungs just like your fingers and toe-tips are already becoming cold. So you start moving and making noise again, and thinking about where you’re headed.

There’s a tiny clearing I like to spend time in. I mean tiny as in “about the size of your living room.” There’s a big rock in the center of it, like the size of a sofa or love seat, and there are pine needles all over the ground. The trees are so close together you can only see bits of the sky even when standing on top of the rock, which you shouldn’t do when it’s wet and dark out or you might fall and hit your head on something. But I sat on it and pulled my knees to my chest, and rocked back and forth just a bit.

It looked weird, but there was no one around and it helped me to destress. So I sat there awhile, rocking on top of my rock. And I’m trying to think of more ways to use “rock” in that sentence, but you’re groaning at me so I’ll just continue.

Anyway, that’s where it happened. Not a werewolf attack … nothing bit me, as far as I can remember. I just got started thinking about what it’d be like to be a wolf. Even a lone wolf, without a pack. This place would be my reality, I thought … this cold outside would be my daily experience. Not the noise inside. Not my parents.

I had no illusions about it. I spend lots of time outdoors. I’ve even been camping before, and not in a motorhome. I knew it’d be cold, and wet, and windy, and if I found some kind of shelter I’d have to defend it. I’d have to struggle for food and kill things to get it, and deal with things that wanted to kill me. I might even have to deal with humans, and they’d fear me worse and hate me more than they already do in real life.

I probably wouldn’t have lived as long as I already had, if I’d been a wolf. But somehow, it seemed more real to imagine myself as one, out here. It wasn’t “communing with nature” so much as reminding myself that wildness still existed, and it was out here all around us. And our little soap bubble of civilization, of organized cruelty, would be gone someday … whether because it popped or I left.

Someday I would live where it’s quiet, I thought. Someday I’d be myself, and do things that mattered, and actually live like the things out here do. Instead of living this fake high school life.

Like a wolf, maybe? came the thought. And I nodded, and unfolded and crouched up there on the rock, as if surveying the darkness for prey. I felt so alert out there, so alive and aware. So un-sheltered. And young things ought to be sheltered … but then, my parents’ lives seemed as fake as mine. I knew I didn’t want to end up like them.

What do you want to end up like? It’s like I imagined the words. So the next thing I imagined was myself as a wolf, standing there on the rock.

“Okay.”

This time I heard it. Not out loud, but so clear in my mind that I had to check, to see if someone was near me. I was slightly creeped out …

… but not so much as I was just a second or two later.

It started with a strange feeling in my stomach, and an itching on top of my head and in the small of my back. I reached up and around to scratch, and one hand brushed pointed, furry ears on top of my head, while the other took hold of a tail. It pulled, and felt it attached to my spine.

I froze. My brain took long seconds to process this. And before my conscious mind even knew what was happening, I became uncomfortably warm, and started sweating all over.

After that the real changes came, slow enough that I felt them happening but fast enough that they all blended together. And my mind underwent a change, too. It was called a nervous breakdown.

My thoughts were like “No … no, please! I don’t want this! I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry … help! Please help me!” And I started screaming and crying, but I don’t know what I said, or if any words even came out. I was scared to death, because this felt as bad as dying, if not worse.

I don’t remember everything that happened. I don’t even know where my clothes went. I just remember that my screams ended with a howl. And then I choked up and covered my head with my front-paws, crying and shaking and whimpering.

The feelings did not go away. My four-legged body was still there, and I was still in it, and nothing was changing or undoing itself. I screamed in anguish, and it came out as another, long howl. Then I started pacing the top of the rock, back and forth, bare paw-pads feeling the rough stone and lichen.

It’s over, I thought. Everything’s over. My dreams are shot, my life is … is … I tried to look back at myself, and saw only black, fluffy fur, and a nervously-wagging tail. I whimpered again.

This is not me, I thought. It can’t be! I mean, it’s something I like, but … how? Why? What happened? I’d planned to spend that evening outside in the cold, and then go back inside to dream about living this way. Not to actually be a … a …

It was too much. I broke down and started shaking and whimpering again, huddling there on top of the rock. The awe of seeing, of being this animal, just made what was happening all the more cruel. I could no longer use the thought of creatures like this to inspire me to face my challenges. Instead I had to face its challenges, and would probably die in less than a year. And everything I had looked forward to was gone.

Wolves in the wild can be playful and happy, and live what seem to be fulfilling lives. But if you’d told me that right then, I would’ve bitten your throat out.

* * *

I’m not sure how long I was there. Long enough to get cold, I know … long enough to feel the freezing cold wind start to blow around me, and fill my cupped ears and chill me through my fur. I flattened my ears and huddled there, paws and neck pressed down to the rock, tail twitching and freezing off out in the cold. (At least, that’s what it felt like. You know how your fingers and toes always turn into lumps of pain in the cold, even when you’ve got gloves and boots on? With tails, it’s worse.)

I knew I needed to take shelter. Even being just beside the rock, instead of on top of it, would have helped. But I was so scared that I didn’t want to move. It was like my brain had locked up.

It didn’t help that the whole world seemed alien now. I could see farther into the darkness, because it didn’t seem as dark anymore … more like a muted gray. But that only made me more conscious of how alone I was, and how there could be anything out there. I could see a dim glow through the trees — the light from a streetlamp, I eventually realized, way down by the road — and I could hear the car engines, whenever anything drove by off at the edge of our land. They hadn’t used to bother me, but now they sounded different; louder, more menacing. Angrier. At first I thought I was imagining things, but then I realized I was hearing frequencies humans did not. No one had bothered to make things appeal to a wolf’s senses, so even the familiar seemed jarring to me.

Don’t get me started on the smells.

I could only imagine what it’d be like to try to go home. I remembered when Eustace got turned into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and how he’d spelled things out in the sand. Some of the people I knew could get away with that, I thought. They had friends, parents, or siblings who would listen to them, even then. But I knew my parents wouldn’t. Everything they listened to, from their TV shows to their religious leader, taught them that things that weren’t normal ought to be hated and feared. They already didn’t like me that much, and I could only imagine how they’d react to this … if I even got the chance to explain.

So what options did I have left? Wolves had hard lives, and they needed years of practice to be able to live them. Even then, they didn’t live as long, and they rarely died of natural causes. I seemed to be healthy, but for how long? Was I seventeen in wolf years or human years?

I knew what I’d have to do to survive, if I couldn’t turn human again. I’d watched enough documentaries. And I was pretty sure I could live off of raw meat, if it was that or starve to death. I wasn’t sure if I knew how to do all those things, though. And beyond that was a bigger problem: I didn’t belong here.

There haven’t been wolves in New York in forever. So how long until some human saw me and decided to get rid of me, I wondered? It didn’t help that I looked distinctive — curse my fantasies of having a glossy black coat! And even if I stayed far away from humans, and managed not to get shot during hunting season, I’d still have to deal with packs of wild dogs and other dangerous animals. Animals that I wasn’t equipped to deal with, physically or mentally … any more than I was equipped to deal with what had just happened.

I say this because I also felt like I didn’t belong there, in that body. I was trying my best to ignore every feeling I got from it, because I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be having them. The sights and the sounds and the smells were inescapable, because they were part of the nightmare that I’d gotten into. But the feel of my pawpads and claws on the rock, of the shivers that ran down my spine to my tail, of breathing and swallowing inside my muzzle … these were all things that I tried to block out. I just couldn’t handle them.

That was another big part of the reason that I did not want to move. It was like acknowledging that this wolf body was there. And I knew that I had to, but I was so scared that I couldn’t make myself.

I finally had to disassociate. I was like “Okay, there’s this wolf here, and I need to move her down out of the cold.” Then I took a deep breath, and jumped down without looking, the wind rushing fast through my ears.

I nearly twisted my paw. As it was, I landed on it the wrong way. So I hobbled into the lee of the rock, walk-jumping over cold ground and feeling sharp pain that I tried to ignore.

It didn’t work. I whined, and flattened my ears, and pressed my feet, neck and stomach to the icy ground, trying to warm it up. I felt cold wind blowing across my nose, so I kind of scooted backwards a bit. Then I felt it on the tip of my tail, and I tried to move it out of the way but it just didn’t want to stay still. It was so cold that it had to keep twitching.

I whined again. Why couldn’t I be inside?

There wasn’t anything else I could do, so I waited. I waited for the ground to warm up … I waited for the wind to stop blowing. I waited for this wolf form I didn’t deserve (in a bad or good sense) to go away, and be replaced by my old one.

All that happened was the ground warmed a little, even as the moisture on the tip of my muzzle turned into ice. Despite that, I started to drift off, and I didn’t know if it was because I was sleepy or freezing to death. Would I be able to tell? I wondered.

In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter. Nothing made any sense anymore, and I didn’t have any better ideas for where to go to find shelter anyway. I let myself drift, and I welcomed oblivion, because it meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with this any longer …

* * *

… or so I thought.

I was still a wolf in my dreams. I can’t tell you how much that disappointed me.

I was in a huge clearing, the trees packed close in around it. The air was still, and the moon was full, and there were howls in the very near distance. Twigs snapped and leaves rustled around me, and I turned every way, trying to see where they were. But I only caught fleeting shadows.

I eventually heard crashing footsteps, but they were all headed away from me. The howls went into the distance. I sat there on my back legs, looking in the direction they’d gone, and feeling awful self-doubt. What was that? Who were they? Was I supposed to be going with them or not? I felt like I’d made the wrong decision, and I didn’t even know I was supposed to be deciding something.

The air all around me was quiet. I finally got up and paced towards the moonlight, towards a glint of it on the ground.

It was a lake. Either that, or a really big pond. I could see the treetops across it, but just barely, because the light on the surface was so bright. It would’ve been mesmerizing if it wasn’t so painful to look at.

I looked beneath it and saw my reflection, and my breath just stopped in my throat. It was black and fluffy and beautiful, with bright green eyes and a moist, healthy muzzle. It was me … the way that I’d always imagined myself. And its eyes were wide open with shock.

I stood there, frozen, not moving or taking a breath. And slowly, those eyes began to water.

I broke down and cried. And it felt weird and sounded unearthly, but I had to do it anyway. I wasn’t in a panic from what was happening to me, like last time. Instead, I knew what had happened, and I was tortured by it.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t always wanted this. If I hadn’t spent half my childhood pretending, and dreaming that I was a wolf. If I hadn’t read books and played games and watched TV shows about wolves, and lurked on online forums where people pretended to be wolves and kicked myself for not having the courage to join in. It wouldn’t have been as bad if they weren’t so beautiful that I knew I could never be anything like them.

And yet, here I was. It was too much for me. I cried my eyes out, and wished that I knew what I was or what’d happened or what I was supposed to do.

That’s when I heard the voice.

It was speaking in words, real words that I could hear with my ears. I just couldn’t hear them well enough to make them out distinctly. But it sounded like the one that’d spoken in my mind just before I had changed, soft and patient and kind.

Try as I might, I couldn’t tell what it was saying to me. But somehow, it didn’t matter. I stopped crying and sat there and listened, perfectly still from my ears to my tail. And it was like my whole insides melted, and became pure peace and contentment.

After all the fights I’d had with my parents, I didn’t know if God existed, what he was like, or even if he was a he. But it felt like I was sitting on his lap. And everything that I’d been worried about did not seem to matter anymore.

You could’ve told me right then that I was a wolf from now on, and I’d never be human again, and I would’ve been okay with that. As it was, I just knew that everything was going to be alright. It was okay for me to be this way, I was supposed to be this way, and I had always been this way inside … I think. That last part was a bit fuzzy, perhaps because it was so hard to accept. But I felt like I had been given a gift, and I was grateful enough to accept it. Sublimely grateful, and flattered.

I don’t know how long I sat there.

When the howls started again, my ears perked. Then I looked up and caught sight of them, in the distance. Eyes and ears and noses, and tufts of fur and wagging tails. I gave a happy bark and got up and ran towards them, and they ran off and I followed this time, followed them into …

* * *

Something tickled my nose. I woke up.

I was human again, and was huddled up next to the rock, with my clothes and my coat all in place. The wind had stopped, and the air was barely moving. And the ground was all covered in snow, at least a half-inch of it.

Another huge puff of it drifted right into my face, and started to melt. I reached up to brush it aside, but my mittened hand was all covered in snow, too.

I jumped up and shook myself off. There was a tiny brown patch of grass where I’d been sitting, and a lot of snow came off my back, my arms, the cap on my head. How long had I been there? It was still dark, but the sky seemed brighter somehow. Was it because of the snow?

The snow kept falling around me, quiet and drifty and wet. And I remembered my dream, and what’d come before it.

There was a poignant sense of loss, like I’d been handed a beautiful Christmas present and dropped it. But then I wondered if that all hadn’t been the present … if I hadn’t been meant to feel what it was like. If I hadn’t needed to, after those past few weeks.

I wondered who or what that voice had been, and what had really just happened to me. Then I started walking back towards the house.

A few minutes later, laying back in my warm, fuzzy bed, I couldn’t help but grin to myself. I tried to forget the transformation, and the feelings of terror and shock, because they’d been so traumatic that I didn’t want to relive them. They’d felt real, on a level that I didn’t want to acknowledge just yet. So instead I thought of the feeling of being a wolf.

I knew what it was like. If it hadn’t just been a hallucination, I’d physically been one. It was the greatest gift I could ever have asked for. I just never would have, because I’d known it couldn’t have been. And yet it had.

The feeling of peace I’d had afterwards overrode my desire to figure out what had happened … or rather, the nagging worries that I would’ve otherwise had, since there was no way I could figure it out. I didn’t know what had happened, and I was okay with that. I was just extremely grateful for it. And I knew that I’d always treasure it.

That night, when I fell back asleep, I thought that it’d been just a one-shot occurrence … like seeing a UFO, or being visited by a dead relative. The kind of thing that’s once in a lifetime, if that, and would never happen again.

I was wrong.

* * *

You know how mortifying it is when you get to school, and you find out you had your shirt on backwards and the tag’s sticking out? Okay … now imagine you had real wolf ears and a tail, and you didn’t know it.

I was in tears in the girls’ bathroom. I thought for sure that my life was over. And I was glad there was no one there to see me, not only because I kept tearing off more paper towels and blowing my nose onto them but because they were still there, and I didn’t know how to make them go away. I concentrated on them and tried to make them go away, and they finally did, but then they came back a minute later when I wasn’t paying attention. I had to consciously hold them in, while I was walking through public areas, then finally get outside the building.

I got so many absences that day.

For the rest of the week, I wore a cap and a long, baggy jacket into class. I looked like a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia or something. The only reason I got away with it was because the heating was flaky and everyone else was dressing warm too … they were just doing it in a way that made them less likely to get picked on. I still got odd looks and smirks and pointed comments and things, but at least now I knew why. I was just glad that apparently no one had realized what they had seen, and called in spacesuited government agents to take me away.

If that Sunday night had been the high point of my life, then the following week was one of the lowest. I still spent it the same way, trying not to be noticed at school and then trying not to be noticed at home. But I was more afraid than ever, and persistently depressed. And I didn’t dare go outside.

You’d think that after what I went through, I wouldn’t be like that anymore. But that’s the thing about … for lack of a better word, spiritual experiences. When you have them they’re amazing, and you feel like you’re on top of the world. And you are. But then you have to go back down into the world, and get slowly taken apart by the futility and despair. High school and what I went through in that clearing may as well have been in separate universes.

Okay … it did help me once. I was at school, and I was stressed out and scared, and I needed to be by myself but I had to stay there in class. And I couldn’t hear anything they were saying, because all I could think was how unbearable life was going to be if it was always going to be this pointless and cruel, and I was always going to have to hide these wolf ears and tail.

I started imagining some really creative ways of killing myself, because I hated it all and I was scared and tired and sick of it. But then I thought Why don’t I just run off and become a wolf instead? And, I mean, I didn’t know for sure if I could … but after that night, the world seemed just magical enough that I could believe it could happen.

Obviously, I didn’t do that. But just the thought that I could, that it was even an option, made me feel so much better. I just barely got through the rest of that Friday, and stayed up late that night researching wolves online.

(Did you know that the whole thing about pack organization, with alphas and betas and constant fighting for dominance, and omegas as Acceptable Targets and all … it’s never been seen in the wild? It only exists in captive wolves, when they’ve been thrown together against their will from all different families and backgrounds and made to stay there for no apparent reason. Then the assertive ones start jockeying for position, and the most passive ones get picked on cruelly. Remind you of anything?)

Anyway, I slept in late that Saturday, and when I got up my family was out of the house. Which meant I got to play my music really loud, and bake cookies and watch whatever I wanted on TV (which was usually nothing). Except this time, I drew all the curtains and let my wolf ears and tail show the whole time. It felt daring, but the longer I went that way the more comfortable I felt with it … I actually thought they looked nice, when I saw them in the mirror.

Of course I about had a heart attack when my family showed up, and had to pack up and clear out really fast. But that’s just par for the course.

I stayed up late again that night. This time I actually posted on one of those role-playing forums, and created a character and everything. I wanted to put what I’d learned to good use, and maybe become a bit more comfortable with myself and what’d happened to me. I was still living from day to day, and had only the faintest idea of what I had become. But I thought that this was a step in the right direction … and that at any rate, I’d have a while to figure things out.

As it turned out, I had only a few hours left.

* * *

I woke up to pounding on my door. My brain was still half-asleep, and it took me a long second to realize I was not still in my dream. The inside of my muzzle was completely dry, and it hurt when I tried to swallow.

Then I realized I had a muzzle.

“Rebecca!” More pounding. My dad’s voice. “Get up. You’re coming to church with us.”

I sat up with a start and looked down at myself. There was a muzzle in front of my field of vision, just like when I was a wolf. And my hands and my arms were covered in fur, the same black fur that I’d had then. My fingers looked gnarled and had dull claws at their tips, and they and my hands had thick pawpads.

The sensible thing to do would have been to try to change myself back, the way that I’d made my ears and my tail retract. The intelligent thing to do would have been to tell my parents I was sick, or come up with some other excuse.

Instead, I started to hyperventilate.

“Rebecca?” The pounding stopped. “What are you doing in there?”

I couldn’t control my breathing. I didn’t even have the strength to sit up, and just barely managed to scoot backwards and lean up against the headboard. I was having a panic attack, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

“Do you have someone in there with you?” He was stern.

I wanted to try to communicate, but I was so scared that I didn’t know what to say. And I was taking such deep breaths so fast that I couldn’t have made words come out, muzzle or no. Instead I whined like a dog, loudly, then stopped and held my breath because I realized what I’d just done.

“She’s got a dog in there,” my mom said. “Get the keys.”

I heard his footsteps go fast down the hall, and the jangle of keys on a keyring. The whole time, my breath was still caught in my throat, and my lungs convulsed and tried to draw air but it was like I was underwater. Then I heard the footsteps on their way back, and finally I took a deep breath before screaming “Don’t come in!”

It was the worst thing I could have done. Not that I had many options.

When they opened the door and saw me, they screamed. I screamed, and started to cry. Then my dad dragged my mom down the hall, and I got up and followed them all the way to their bedroom, trying to say something, anything coherent. Begging them to listen, to understand.

When I saw my dad loading the shotgun, I ran. I tripped and fell all the way down the stairs, got up without even feeling the pain, then wrenched the front door open and took off.

I almost made it to the end of the driveway.

* * *

I lay in a writhing heap in the snow. It felt like my whole back was torn open, raw skin and flesh exposed to the cold. I screamed and convulsed, as my blood stained the snow and my heat escaped into the air. Snow got into the wounds on my back. My pawpads were sticky and red.

My dad could have finished me off. I don’t know why he didn’t. I’m not sure what he was thinking. Did he realize what he’d done? Did he regret it? I may never know.

All I could think of was how hurt I was, physically and emotionally. My whole life, everything around me had made me feel that I was not welcome. That I was an aberration which shouldn’t exist. Now I knew that the world had finally killed me, and the fact that the blow had been dealt by my family just made it even worse. I wanted to die, to just make this awful thing that I was go away. And I was so furious at myself for still living, and for still feeling this pain, that I did the impossible.

I got up, on hands and knees. Then just my knees, arms wrapped tight around myself, claws pressed into my shoulders so hard that I drew blood. I shook, with fury and self-hatred. And I could feel something happening, but I didn’t know what it was until I finally stood up and screamed; at myself, at the whole world, at everything.

I wanted to make it all die.

For as long as I’ve lived at my parents’ house, there’s been this huge rock at the end of our driveway. I mean huge like the size of a coffee table. Except that it seemed smaller now.

I walked over and picked it up in both hands, and I flung it back towards the house.

My parents ducked, but my aim was off. It clipped the corner of the house, sending splinters flying, and demolished the swing set that had sat there broken since I was little. I screamed again, filled with hatred, and looked for more things to throw. But the only thing I could see that wasn’t attached to the ground was the old station wagon, and it was up too close to the house.

From the wagon my gaze went up to the porch, and my parents. And our eyes met.

I could have killed them. I wanted to kill them. But the fear in their eyes stopped me. They were helpless and terrified, and that made me hate myself even more.

I screamed at them, but it came out as a roar, awful and pained. If I could’ve translated it, it would’ve been something like “See what you did to me!?” And I couldn’t have, but I think they got the message.

After that I took off on all fours, down the road and into the brush.

* * *

I’m sweating and uncomfortable right now, just thinking about what I did and what must have happened to me. But I’m going to try to finish this, before I … do anything else.

I’m sitting in my “friend” Laurel’s house. And I used quotation marks there because I really don’t know her that well. She’s one of the popular girls, and we’ve barely spoken to each other. But she’s shared her lunch with me before, and she’s told her friends to stop teasing me. More importantly, she invited me to a party once, which is how I knew her address.

I showed up there naked and injured, completely in human form, and when she answered the door I begged her for help. She got a blanket for me and took me inside, and her mom checked on my wounds. My arms were still bleeding from where I had gripped them, but my back had completely healed over.

This was just a few hours ago. I’m staying here with her mom right now, writing this on their dining room table while she’s doing something in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure that she’s cooking, because something smells good. Anyway, she volunteered to stay here and look after me while Laurel and her brothers and dad are at church. My wolf ears and tail are out, because I can’t keep them in all the time … she hasn’t seen them yet, but I’m not going to try to hide them from her. I just don’t have the energy.

Laurel said that she’d try to find help for me while she’s at church. She goes to a different one than my parents do, so I believe her. I don’t know what she’s going to do; maybe they’ve got a battered women’s shelter or something. I told her my dad had fired a shotgun at me. I didn’t say what else happened.

They’ve been gone for a long time now. Long enough for me to finish all this. What kind of church is this they go to?

I hope she’s not talking to the police.

*sigh*

*deep breath*

*struggle to hold back tears*

I’m not going to be here when she gets back. And I don’t mean I’m going to run away. I wanted to, when I was at school, but I can’t anymore because now I know that I’m dangerous. I’m not just a wolf, I’m a wolf who’s not afraid of people, not as much as she ought to be. Who tried to kill them, and could do so again.

I’m scared that I’ll hurt someone. I’m scared that the rest of my life will be short and violent, and end with somebody showing me why I ought to be scared of humans. And I’m cursing myself for not learning that to begin with. For not accepting my place and the scraps I was given, and for begging and being uncooperative instead of thanking them for it. I should have done that. I should have learned. And now I won’t have the chance.

I’m not giving myself the chance.

I’m going to

Hello, Rebecca.

Your parents do not remember what happened. They believe that a wild dog attacked you. They’ll be surprised and relieved to see that you’re alright. You may decide whether or not you want to speak with them again.

You are not an abomination. You are different from the people around you, but you are meant to be the person you are. And you are loved, whether you know it or not.

There are other people like you. One of them will find you soon. You may decide to join them, if you like. Or you may live among wolves, or humans. There are places where both kinds of animals still run free. As long as you’re able to do so, you will be happy whatever you choose.

Please do not lose hope, or think that your life’s not worth living. Instead, please continue to live.

Thank you for listening.

* * *

I cut off there because they got back from church. Then we ate, and played on their Wii, and I spent the whole day at their house. I was tired and depressed at first, but somewhere along the line I forgot what I was planning to do. I’m sitting in bed now, in their guest room, huddled up next to the nightlight.

I don’t know who wrote that last part in here. It’s not my handwriting. And somehow I was able to keep my wolf ears from showing to Laurel’s family, so they can’t have known what I am.

My heart tells me it’s the same voice that spoke in my dream, only it’s taken me this long to make out the words. I believe it.

I don’t know if I’ll talk to my parents again. Or go back to school, or their church, or anything. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I’m going to keep on living. Whatever that voice is, it gave me a beautiful gift, twice. The least I can do is to do what it asks.

I’m sorry for what I wrote earlier, and for the damage I caused. But I’m not sorry for being myself, right now. Maybe I will be again, later on, but I’ll try not to be. I’ll try.

If that voice is listening, thank you. I’ll wait until I hear from the person like me to decide what I’m going to do. And I hope that I hear from you again soon.

Good night.

Is your fursona also your muse? That’d mean that you are your fursona whenever you’re writing, drawing and brainstorming! It’d be interesting getting to meet your own characters as your fursona … just watch out for writer’s block!

The Be-muse-d world is licensed CC-By-SA by Jared Spurbeck, aka Tachyon Feathertail. Read on to find out how you can write your own stories set in this world!

Stories set in this world

How to write a story set in this world

1. Read this document all the way through.
2. Write your own story inspired by it!
3. Include a note saying your story is licensed CC-By-SA, and crediting Feathertail for creating the Be-muse-d world. A link to this page would be handy!
4. OPTIONAL: If you don’t want people to use your fursona in their stories, include another note saying your fursona belongs to you and can’t be used without your permission.
5. OPTIONAL: If your story abides by Virmir’s PG Rating and does not contain age-regression, cross-gender TF, or graphic TF scenes, contact me so I can link people to it.

Got a story you’d like me to link to?

[contact-form 3 "Story submission form"]

Your muse and you

Some people call it a muse. Others call it their creative side. Whatever it is, it’s a hidden depth to the character of creative artists and writers … those strange, often socially awkward creatures, who seem so ungainly on land but are in their element when they’re creating things. Has anyone who knows you “IRL” ever mentioned that you seem different online? Maybe it’s because you’re better able to channel your muse on the Internet!

Even to you, though, your muse may seem separate from your “real self.” Sometimes you may even argue with it. It’s not really a separate being, but since it’s rooted in your subconscious it might seem that way. That’s because this part of you processes the things that you see and hear without your realizing it, and turns them into creative ideas that seem to come out of nowhere. It’s the reason why writers are often surprised by their muses, and why their characters seem to think for themselves.

That’s not to say that there’s no spiritual component to inspiration. I personally pray for guidance before writing anything, and I like to think that it’s helped. This story concept is about personifying your subconscious mind, though, not about talking to or channeling real supernatural beings. (That’s for a different story.)

Different author, different muse

Everyone’s muse is different. Yours may be your fursona, or it may be a separate being. See, your fursona can be whatever you like; your ideal self, your “inner self,” or just a roleplaying character. Your muse, on the other hand, is your subconscious mind. It’s you when you’re in a state of creative flow.

Writers aren’t the only people who have muses. Digital painters, clay sculptors, fursuit makers and programmers all have their own, as do other creatives. Do you ever find that you lose track of time, and some creative thing you’re working on just comes easily to you? Even if only for a few minutes. That’s when your muse is being channeled. That’s when you are your muse.

Not everyone’s “muse” is an anthropomorphic animal. People who aren’t into that kind of thing might see their muses as eccentric-but-human friends, or even as actual muses from classical Greek mythology. If you’re the kind who’s inexplicably drawn to pictures and stories about “funny animals,” though, you’ll probably see your muse as one. And it’ll probably fit right in with your other characters.

Creative block: Enemy or friend?

You’d think writer’s block (and other forms of creative blockage) would be a muse’s worst enemy. In reality, though, it’s a message from your muse. You’re trying to create something that it doesn’t like, and it’s not going to cooperate. You can try scattershot brainstorming, writing any old thing that comes to mind and seeing what happens; you may have to, if you’re on a deadline. But if you want to get rid of the block, you need to get back in touch with your muse.

Question the premises you started with. Question your motives, even. Are you doing this project because you enjoy it, or because you want money or fame? You can lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to your muse. And even if you enjoy the process, you may have gotten hung up on your own expectations, or tried to shoehorn something in when it shouldn’t be there. Spend some time pacing, or knitting, or doing whatever repetitive activity you have that helps you think. That way your conscious mind can be occupied, while your muse gets to work on the problem.

This advice is probably nothing new to you. If you’re writing a story about becoming your muse, though, writer’s block is one of the biggest things that might keep this becoming from happening. Throw in some added pressure, like readers’ expectations or an empty bank account, and watch what happens. If you’re lucky, you may gain an insight into the reasons why you create to begin with.

And now for the fun part

Stories set in this world (or based on this premise, really) aren’t just about introspection. They’re also a chance to throw all of your characters from every story you’ve written together, and see what happens.

Even characters who wouldn’t usually talk to each other can, for this. The rebels can play foosball with the emperor. Your most annoyingly happy character can try to cheer up your inner angst! You can make up characters for this if you like, or if you’re writing about a fictional writer. But since you’re creating them out of nowhere, they’ll tend towards being stereotypes. It’s best if you use characters that you’ve already written for, assuming that you have permission to do so. They might even take the chance to say or do things that they otherwise couldn’t.

The part where you overcome your creative block doesn’t have to involve a Fantasia-style musical sequence, like it did in the story that I wrote for Traxer. It could be anything you want it to be, from a scene where you live out the story (or picture) yourself to just a scene of your fursona-muse, quietly, happily writing. Likewise, it doesn’t have to be at the climax of your story that this happens. You might have no trouble becoming your muse, and the conflict could come from some other source.

Your turn

If you write a story that meets Become Your Fursona standards for family-friendliness, and decide to set it in this world, let us know by using the form near the top! And if you have any questions, feel free to leave them as comments.

TOCK-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK …

The clock over the fireplace ticked, nearly drowning out the TV in the corner.

tick-tick-tick-tick-TOCK-tick-TOCK …

The female newscaster was standing in front of a bookstore. “But it’s now been two months since he’s sequestered himself away in that cabin, and there’s still no word from him or his publisher.”

TOCK-tick-TOCK …

A man in a suitcoat, in an office lined with books. The caption read MR. HOLMS’ AGENT. “I haven’t heard from him either! But I’m dying to read his new book, just as much as you are.”

tick-tick-tick …

A man in a winter coat, standing just next to the bookstore. “I was in line for The Rewair’s Orb, and I’ll be in line for the next one. They just need to say the word.” He grinned.

“What do you think’s taking him so long?” said the voice behind the microphone.

“I dunno. I guess his muse just hasn’t struck yet!”

TOCK.

TOCK.

TOCK.

The Great Author looked up with a start, from the pile of papers that he’d been buried in on his desk. His bleary-eyed gaze flicked back and forth, from the windows that looked out on the forest to the rough-hewn wooden inside.

They fixated on the clock.

He got up, sending papers flying everywhere. Then he jumped over his desk and stepped around the wicker furniture in the small living room, before grabbing the clock and sliding open the glass door to step outside.

* * *

SPLASH!

The Author’s muse raised one paw to shield himself. He was a short, stocky anthropomorphic raccoon, in a blue vest and a jaunty red cap. And he did not look happy about getting splashed.

He looked back behind himself, down the pier towards the shoreline, but the Author was already walking back to the house. The Author’s muse hmphed, adjusted his cap, and got back to fishing.

The water rippled from where the clock had been thrown in. But besides that, the lake waters were still. Evergreen trees reached shadows out to almost where he was, and the sun shone down on him, making the fur on the back of his neck warm even though his toes and fingers were cold. He opened the bait box and got out a sandwich, then started munching it, kicking his legs and showering crumbs next to his line.

His raccoon ears perked, as he heard the door slide open and closed back at the cabin. Then again a minute later, and footsteps crashed through the brush, shoshed through the sand, then clomp clomp clomped down the pier.

The muse pretended he didn’t hear anything.

The footsteps stopped a few feet behind him, and he found himself tensing up, waiting for another splash. But instead there was a sound like someone was unscrewing the lid from a jar, then pulling the cover off the inside. Something was set down beside him, and he tried to ignore it but a smell twitched his muzzle.

He sniffed at the air, then looked down beside him to see a glass jar filled with dark brown spread. “What is that?”

“Some kinda snazzy new peanut butter.” The voice came from behind him. “It’s made out of chocolate and hazelnuts.”

“Really, now.” The muse set down his sandwich, then dug a clawful of spread out of the jar and licked it clean. It wasn’t bad, and was very sweet.

“There’s more in the cabin,” the Author said.

“I’ll bet there is.” His muse began reeling in his line.

Behind him, the Author smiled.

The muse detached the fuzzy-shaped thing with eyes from the end of his line, and set it back in the bait box. Then he crammed the hook into the jar, and swung his line out into the lake, jar and all. It splashed, and his legs got all wet.

The Author’s face fell. “Geo, why must you be so unreasonable?”

“I’m not the one who’s being unreasonable, Mister Holms.” He turned around to scowl at the man, who looked younger than he sounded and was wearing a old sweater. “You’re the one who dragged me along on book tours, and signings, and interviews. You made me stretch out that story into a three-volume masterpiece, and now here you are back for more. Well, maybe I’m done for this year.” He turned back to his fishing. “Or this decade. Either way.”

“I thought you liked writing … ”

“I liked writing when it was fun.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun when you’re getting paid for it!” the Author shouted.

“Talk to the tail.” His ring-tail swished. “The rest of me ain’t listening.”

After a minute, the footsteps clomped back towards the house. Geo picked up his sandwich and took another bite, but it had been splashed with lakewater. He spat it out, and tossed the sandwich away. Ducks couldn’t eat peanut butter, he knew, but they’d all flown south for the year.

He wondered what a sandwich with that chocolate spread would taste like.

Geo was almost ready to go back to the house, when the door slid open again. He turned around to see the Author carrying a large duffel bag with him.

Geo’s ears flattened as he turned back to his fishing, listening to heavy clomps up the pier again. The duffel bag unzipped, and something big that smelled of oil and metal was pulled out. There were clicks and latches and bolts pulled back into place.

A last switch was thrown, and Geo’s raccoon ears perked as the Author spoke. “Alright, no more mister nice-guy. Come inside and help me, or face heat-seeking missiles!”

Geo tugged on his fishing line, and the pier rumbled and started to shake. The bait box rattled and nearly fell off, and the Author struggled to keep his footing. Then there was a SPLASH that washed over the pier, and Geo held his cap onto his head and gritted his teeth into the spray as an enormous black metal shape came to surface. It stretched across the horizon.

“Oh look,” he said. “I’ve caught a nuclear submarine. Now what should I do with it?”

The Author stared, as a hatch opened out in the lake and a confused-looking man peeked outside.

* * *

The Author slid the glass door shut behind him. The air smelled like cooked butter, and on the TV a loud ad was playing. He walked over and turned it off.

Out in the kitchen, a thing like a short, humanoid wolf wearing goggles floated up from behind the counter, as the microwave popped popcorn. “How’d it go?” he asked.

“If a guy in a fur hat comes calling in Russian, tell him we gave at the office.” The Author slumped down into the chair at his desk, sending a couple more papers flying.

The wolf-thing floated towards him, paddling in midair with his hindpaws. “Blender and I came up with something that might help,” he said.

“You and-” He looked up. The other was carrying a blender under one arm, its cord trailing just above the floor. “Oh, right. What is it, Zippy?”

Zippy set down the blender and picked up a big gun-looking thing, with a barrel half a foot wide and a bunch of lights and dials and gauges on it. “It’s the Inspiration Machine!”

“I thought that was your Annihilation Machine.”

“It was. I changed it. See, you just set it from ‘frappé’ to ‘blend’ … ” He swung the machine in the Author’s direction, and the Author dove under his desk, kicking his chair aside with a clatter.

“Don’t worry,” Zippy said, “you don’t use it on yourself!”

The Author peeked out from underneath.

“You use it on the thing you want to be inspired by. Like, say you want to recapture the excitement of your old novels. You just aim it at them, and- May I?”

The Author winced. “Knock yourself out.”

“Okay!” Zippy’s face lit up. “Just aim it at them and pull the trigger, like so!”

The BLAM sent the Author reeling and clutching his ears, and the shock wave sent half of his papers flying. Zippy was sent flying backwards and hit the refrigerator, and the punch bowl fell off the top of it and knocked him unconscious. It rattled to a stop on the floor as the Author stood up and took stock of things.

There was a huge burn mark on the front of his hardback copy of The Rewair’s Orb. He sighed.

Picking it up, he checked it over and stopped at the ad copy on the back. “Riveting! Spellbinding! George Holms’ Dementor-like creatures will capture your heart, if they don’t steal your emotions first. Evocative of Harry Potter and Twilight-” The Author groaned, and made a mental note to hunt the reviewer down with a spork. “-but able to stand on its own two (or four) feet, The Rewair’s Orb is in a class all its own.”

But was it, really? he wondered. The Author thumbed through his work, ignoring the scorchmark inside. Most Authors hated their older work, but The Rewair’s Orb had been written just a couple of years ago. He still liked it okay. More than that, he thought it was genuinely a decent book.

But in a class all its own? He’d have to think about that one. He knew it was good, of course. But it wasn’t substantially better than the stories he’d been writing online for years. In fact, he could think of one of two of those that he liked better than it. And the only reason its sequels had got written was because it had become a bestseller … a fact that seemed to have nothing to do with how good it actually was.

The Author turned pages absent-mindedly. Why am I trying to make myself write even more of this? he wondered. This story is over.

He shut the book, and set it on top of the old Thinkpad on his desk. His gaze lingered on the computer, and he remembered staying up all night reading fanfiction based on his work. Some of it had been scary, but some of it had made him think Why aren’t these people writing the next book? They know where it’s going better than I do. More than that, they’re enjoying themselves. I just want to get the wretched thing finished.

The Author mused on that for a moment before picking up the phone, as the microwave dinged and the smell of burnt popcorn seeped out of it.

* * *

A man in a suitcoat, in a room lined with books. He sat at his desk, leafing through a stapled-together manuscript. The bored look on his face changed to one of disgust when he saw the $100 bill in between the papers. He threw it all back on the slush pile, and woke his computer from sleep mode to send out another rejection notice.

The phone rang, and he reached over to hit the transfer button. Then he saw who was calling, and put it on speaker. “George!” he said, in a let’s-do-lunch kind of voice. “Good to hear from you! How’re things going out there on Lake Superior? Getting chilly this time of year, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah, uh, listen … ” George said, in a lost-my-train-of-thought-when-I-opened-my-mouth kind of voice. “Is there somebody else who could do this book? ‘Cause I,” he coughed. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“Of course you’re cut out for it,” his agent explained. “Just look at the Rewair trilogy! You’re the only one who can do it.”

“Uh, no,” George said, “I’m not.”

His agent gave the phone a patronizing look. “Oh, really,” he said. “So who else is going to write the next Rewair book? Please, do tell.”

George coughed again. “Well, um, there’s this person called … uh … ” He mumbled something.

“Speak up!” his agent said.

” … LatinoFurry87,” George finished.

His agent blinked. “Huh?”

“That’s what he’s called on the Internet,” George went on, in a rush. “He wrote this story based on The Rewair’s Orb-”

“He’s not authorized to do that,” his agent broke in.

“Well, somebody ought to have told him that, ’cause he wrote it anyway.” George sounded exasperated.

“Tell him what ‘copyright law’ means,” his agent said, steepling his fingers and leaning back in his chair. “I think he could learn a lot.”

“Will you just let me finish?” George huffed.

His agent said nothing.

“He wrote this epic fanfiction based on my stories, and it continued the Rewairs’ tale better than I could have. I was done with it at the end of the first book, Malcomb, you know that. And it was like pulling hens’ teeth trying to stretch it out into a trilogy.”

“Or laying golden eggs,” Malcomb mused, looking up at the crystal-and-glass awards on his bookcases.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Carry on.”

“This boy — I think he’s a boy — is talented. He’s at least as good of a writer as I am, probably better. And my readers deserve better, or at least better than two-month hiatuses.” He spat out that last past. “Your job is to find the best talent. Find this boy, and sign him up.”

His agent tsk’ed, and shook his head. “No can do, George.”

A sigh. “Yeah, I expected as much. So go ahead. Tell me why we can’t do this.”

“Because they want a book with your name on it.” His agent stabbed a finger at the phone, leaning forward all of a sudden. “Why else do you think you get top billing over the name of your own freaking books?”

“So give him a pen name, or something!”

“Signing someone to ghostwrite for you would be like replacing Coldplay with lip-synchers. It’s just not done.” He folded one leg over the other as he sat back again.

“Well, what do you want me to do, Malcomb? Fill two hundred pages with drivel off the top of my head, and leave the other two hundred blank? Because that’s what the fourth Rewair book’s going to be like if I write it.”

Malcomb shrugged. “An Author’s gotta do what an Author’s gotta do. Just put something on paper. We’ll clean it up in editing.”

“Good Gates, man, do you realize what you’re saying? Whatever happened to ‘George, you’re the greatest,’ or ‘George, this is one of a kind?’ Does quality count for nothing? Does craftsmanship? What sets our published fiction apart from his fanfiction?”

“The fact that you’re getting paid for it, and what he’s doing is illegal.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“That’s what it’s been like as long as there’s been a market, George. I hate to break it to you, but it’s true.” His agent took off his suitcoat, suddenly hot in the enclosed room.

The voice on the phone was quiet. “Somehow, this was more fun before I was being paid to write garbage.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun when you’re getting paid for it.”

The Author hung up.

* * *

The evening was quiet as the Author went back down to the dock, the submarine having disappeared back into the depths of his imagination. No crickets were chirping; the waves were gentle and faint. There was only him and his muse … or in other words, he was alone with himself.

He stood there watching the raccoon fish for some time. So content … so unconcerned. So uninterested in anything that wasn’t fun.

The Author knew what was going on in his muse’s head as well as he did any of his other characters. And he knew what Geo was going to answer before he said “There’s nothing I can do to persuade you to help me, is there.”

Or did he? His muse surprised him with “Actually, there is.”

“Oh?”

Geo clicked a button on a remote in his bait box, and a hundred-foot neon billboard lit up out on the lake. It read “WRITE SOMETHING FUN.”

The Author sighed. “We’ve been through this already.”

“Yep, we have.” Geo clicked the sign back off. “And you still won’t see reason,” they both said at the same time.

The Author looked out at the lakewaters, still and silent and dark. “I guess I’ll have to write it myself, then,” he said. “And the next, and the next, and … ” A lump formed in his throat. He looked down at his muse, and realized that it would be for the last time.

“Remember what it used to be like?” he asked his muse. “The snark, the wit, the fantasy … ” And for a moment he was Geo, sitting there on the dock kicking his furry feet in the air, listening to this strange human state the obvious.

The Author shook his head, and brought himself back to reality. Things didn’t work that way in real life. If you were lucky enough to get famous IRL, you rode it as far as you could. Because you didn’t know when it would give out, and you’d be back to writing fanfics because no one would publish your work.

He looked down at the dock. Geo was gone.

The Author sighed, and began the long, slow walk back to his cabin.

* * *

He threw out the burnt popcorn, and microwaved some leftover spaghetti for dinner. After that he sat in the living room, polishing off the rest of the ice cream with a spoon while watching TV.

The Author stayed up too late watching it. In between he surfed the web on his laptop. He didn’t visit his online journal or microblog, or anything remotely related to his work. Just RSS feeds and webcomics, and leaving comments anonymously.

Finally he got ready for bed, still leaving all the lights in the cabin on. He left the downstairs light on as he climbed into bed, and left the door open enough to see. But after ten minutes of tossing and turning, he knew he couldn’t sleep since the light got in his eyes. So he slid out of bed, feet probing the cold hardwood floor for his slippers, leaving the covers still made to keep from losing their warmth.

The air was as chill as outdoors, except right by the space heater. He hurried like he was taking the trash out in winter, sliding up to the door with arms tightly folded and pushing it shut. Then he hurried back, and sat down on the bed and kicked off his slippers. First the one, then- wait, where did it go?

Something wrapped around his leg.

He tried to grab onto the covers but was pulled right off of his bed, kicking and flailing and clawing at the smooth hardwood as it dragged him underneath. A moment of struggle at the edge, and then he was brought face-to-face with …

A penguin.

“Heh-wo,” it said, and waved a flipper at him.

“Hi, Fluff,” he said, still gasping for breath. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

The penguin shrugged.

“M-may I … ” The Author gestured at the space outside.

Fluff said nothing, so the Author crawled back out on bare hands and feet. Then he jumped back into bed, and shivered for a moment before calling out to him. “What was that all about, Fluff?”

“Squaawk!”

The Author covered his ears for a moment. “Er, I didn’t quite catch that … ”

Fluff exclaimed a long chastisement at him, in the language of penguins that goes from melodic trills to harsh squawking. An exact translation would be as long as this whole story, but the gist of it was “Are you out of your mind!?”

“Fluff … ”

“Squaa-awk!”

“Fluff, listen!”

“Squawk!”

“Fluff!” The Author leaned on one elbow, and talked over the side of the bed as cold air seeped in to where he was. “Look, I know this is bad. Alright? I know what I’m giving up! But it’s not like I have a choice in the matter.”

“Hmph.”

“Do you see this place, Fluff?” The Author gestured around. “Cabins don’t just build themselves.”

“Squawk.”

“Build, buy, same difference. Not to mention, a couple of years ago I couldn’t have taken two months off if my life depended on it. Now I can just say ‘The book isn’t done yet!’ and no one can stop me from doing this. Who else is going to give them what they want?”

The penguin trilled something else, which basically meant “You know the answer to that.”

The Author slumped back, deflated. “Fluff … ”

No answer.

“Fine,” the Author said. “Let’s say I default on my contract and give up my rights to the book, so now anyone can write what they want based on it. And Latinofurry or someone else writes something amazing, and has fun with it, and makes a whole lot of money like he or she richly deserves. Everyone reads it, and everyone’s happy. But where does that leave me, Fluff? Because this isn’t about lakefront property, or having a car and an iPhone, it’s … ”

A questioning trill. Go on.

He sighed. “It’s about living the life that I want.”

The room was quiet after that. Almost ten minutes passed.

“Fluff?”

“Squawk?”

“What do you think I should do?”

Fluff coughed. “A-hem-hem-hem. Fish,” he said.

The Author groaned, disgusted. “No, Fluff, it’s not time for fish.”

“Fish,” Fluff insisted.

“Fluff, it’s the middle of the night! Can’t you wait until-”

“FISH!” he shouted.

The cabin creaked in the cold air. And the Author suddenly got a clue.

He got out of bed and looked out the window, shivering like mad as he did so. There at the end of the dock was his muse, fishing again by moonlight.

The Author scurried towards the door. “Where did I put my boots … ”

* * *

The Author peered out the ground floor windows towards the dock, as he was pulling his coat and boots on. His muse was still there, a shadow sitting at the edge of the dock. But as he hurried outside into the cold, hugging himself and moving quickly and wishing that he’d worn long underwear, he saw that the dock was abandoned.

“Geo?” The Author stopped at the end of the dock and called out to him. “Geo!”

There was no reply.

He ran out to the end of the dock. The moon shone on the still waters, which stretched out as far as he could see. But there was no anthropomorphic raccoon, no bait box, no fishing rod and line or nuclear submarine. There wasn’t even a hat.

The Author stood there for a long moment, gloved hands in his pockets, feeling very alone and dejected. Finally he sat down at the edge of the dock, and sighed a white cloud of steam. The motion sensor lights clicked off behind him, and he didn’t even turn to look.

“Missed my only chance … ” He leaned up against one of the pylons, and imagined a life of boredom and mediocrity. It’d seemed so compelling a moment ago. Now it felt like a death sentence.

“Maybe he’ll come visit if I work on a side project,” he mutterred.

“Like what?”

The Author turned around with a start, looking every which way, but he didn’t see anything. Then he realized where the voice had come from.

He was about four feet tall now, covered in black-and-gray fur. His feet and hands were bare, and he was covered in fur from his muzzle to the tip of his ringed tail. He reached up and pulled a red cap off of his pointy ears, and as he ran his claws and pawpads over the rough cloth half of him was in awe. The other half could only grin and say “Finally!”

He turned around and jumped into the air, waving his hat and calling out towards the cabin. A moment later the lights came on inside; then the motion-detector lights over the driveway turned on, as Fluff, Zippy, Blender and dozens more characters from his stories came crowding outside.

He threw in his line and reeled in his catch, and just as they all reached the pier the submarine surfaced, its long profile a silhouette in the dark. Dozens of hatches opened on top, with whirring noises and outlines of light. Then fireworks shot out into the night sky, and the crowd cheered.

Fluff directed the orchestra, as they played Geo’s favorite soundtrack. Zippy and Blender made juice drinks and smoothies, and served them to people from tables all strung with lights. Men in fur hats got out on the deck of the submarine, and set up beach chairs and watched the fireworks with binoculars. And Geo jumped up and down madly, controlling the fireworks by waving a baton in the air. They looped in circles, spun around in sync, dashed across the lake surface sending ripples out in their wake and exploded right above everyone, showering sparkles onto the crowd.

It was frantic. It was exhausting. And it was the most fun that he’d had all year.

* * *

Two hours later, teeth chattering in the cold, the Author stopped pacing back and forth on the dock. He looked over the story he’d typed on his phone, finger-scrolling on the glass.

It wasn’t long, but it was beautiful. And it had nothing to do with Rewair.

The motion-detector light came on as he walked back to the cabin and opened the door, savoring (slightly) warm air on his face. He closed it, inside, and set his phone down next to his computer, before writing a note on the paper beside it.

There were things that he needed to do, tomorrow. And people he needed to contact.

* * *

“What? Yes, I’m sure. I spoke with him just yesterday evening.” Malcomb grabbed another bite of his chocolate croissant, then spoke into the phone with his mouth full.

“No, there’s no end in sight … ” He swallowed. “But George knows what he has to do, and I’m confident that we’ll see some progress being made soon!”

A woman in an understated suitcoat poked her head in the door, and gestured frantically at the TV in the corner. What? Malcomb mouthed at her. But she wasn’t listening. When he stayed put, she finally walked over and turned it on, then set it to the right channel.

“ … has chosen a Creative Commons ‘Attribution / Share-Alike’ license,” the female voiceover said, as it showed people in bookstores and then a closeup of a copy of The Rewair’s Orb. “This will allow anyone who wants to to write and even publish stories set in his world, so long as they credit him for the original and use the same license for their own stories.”

Malcomb’s jaw dropped.

“He has already spoken with a different publisher-” Malcomb threw the phone’s handset at the wall, and his secretary jumped. “-and they are now conducting a search for authors, to find the fan who can write the next ‘official’ Rewair book. Mr. Holms also announced a forthcoming collection of unrelated short stories, to be called-”

The Author’s former agent got up and turned off the TV, then stood at the window looking out with his hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t move or say anything else.

His secretary quietly picked up the handset, ignoring the pleas that came out of it, and hung it up on his desk. Then she walked out, closing the door behind her.

* * *

“¡Enriqué! Ven aquí! Estoy hablando con usted!”

“Sí, madre … ” A brown-skinned boy in a white t-shirt and jeans got up from the old family computer, and stepped around the piles of blankets and sheets on the floor to go out to the trailer’s front porch. He clasped his hands behind his back, listening patiently to her chastisement, then promised to take care of things for her before stepping back inside, as her attention turned to one of his younger siblings.

His cousin was still on the couch. She was watching an English-language morning news show. Enriqué tuned the words out, trying to concentrate on the scene that he’d just been writing. But then as he was sitting back down at the computer, he looked over his shoulder and saw on the TV a picture of a hardcover copy of The Rewair’s Orb … the same book he’d gotten two years ago for Navidad. The book that had changed his life.

He heard the words they were saying, but it took him a moment to understand them, and even longer for them to sink in. When they did, he found that he wanted to cry.

Instead, he pumped one clawed fist in the air, tears streaming down his slender draconic muzzle. Then he stretched his crimson wings, before hunching back down in front of the PC and writing the last of the scene he’d been working on. The end of a chapter … and the start of a new story.

Many thanks to my penguin-obsessed brother for the RP sessions that provided the inspiration for Fluff’s behavior.

You weren’t bit by a wolf, and your parents don’t howl at the moon. But somehow you’re a werecreature now, and that means fear … of the things out there that hunt your kind, and the chance that you could hurt someone by accident.

What’s going to happen to you? And what are these voices that keep thanking you for listening to them? Only one way to find out …

The Harbingers of Change universe is licensed CC-By-SA by Jared Spurbeck, aka Tachyon Feathertail. The Cynocephali were created by Caroline Faust, aka Yurodivy Kiranov, and are also CC-By-SA. Read on to find out how you can write your own stories set in this world!

Stories set in this world

How to write a story set in this world

1. Read this document all the way through.
2. Write your own story inspired by it!
3. Include a note saying your story is licensed CC-By-SA, and crediting Feathertail for creating the Harbingers of Change universe. A link to this page would be handy! Credit Yurodivy for creating the Cynocephali if you use them in your story.
4. OPTIONAL: If you don’t want people to use your fursona in their stories, include another note saying your fursona belongs to you and can’t be used without your permission.
5. OPTIONAL: If your story abides by Virmir’s PG Rating and does not contain age-regression, cross-gender TF, or graphic TF scenes, contact me so I can link people to it.

Your First Change

Congratulations! You’re now a werecreature. Not necessarily a werewolf, mind … there are more kinds of werecreatures than that. Any real-life animal is a candidate for werecreature-ness, and possibly some mythical ones are as well.

So what’s your First Change like? Well, it depends on which form you first shifted to! You have more than one form now, see … that’s what makes you a werecreature. Besides your human form, you now have …

• Kemono form — A human with animal ears and a tail, or other superficial features like whiskers or slitted eyes. Usually has animal senses, but not much else. Can pass as human if you’re very careful.
• Anthro form — A “furry” version of yourself, like an animal walking upright with a more or less human build. Usually has digitigrade (reverse-jointed) feet, but can’t run on all fours. Capabilities-wise, somewhere between “yourself with fur” and a real-life member of your were species walking upright.
• War form — Extremely powerful. Six to nine feet (two to three meters) tall, and weighs more than your human and animal selves combined. Good at fighting, fleeing, and pursuing. Not so good at manual dexterity, or talking in other than grunts and growls. Able to run on all fours!

You can also shift to full animal form, of course. In this form you look just like a normal member of your species, although you might have strikingly-colored fur. Also, you can talk normally in animal form, while you can’t in war form without a lot of effort and practice. Don’t spend too much time thinking about how that works.

Caveats about the war form

War form is where most of the werewolf legends come from, including their invulnerability. A werecreature in war form, even a smaller one, can sustain injuries that’d knock most humans or animals flat. What’s more, they heal rapidly, even regaining lost blood.

On that note, injuring a werecreature in war form leaves little to no visible evidence. Even if you get blood on your sword (for instance), it will evaporate within seconds. No one’s really sure why. Using silver weapons doesn’t change anything, and won’t make them heal any slower … it just stings if it touches a wound, like rubbing rock salt into it. It’s still noteworthy as the one real deterrent to werecreatures, since they aren’t used to feeling pain in war form and they might think twice about attacking someone who’s armed with silver.

Because of how dangerous it is, shifting to war form is like drawing a gun on someone, or at least waving one around. Other werecreatures immediately become tense if they see it, and may have to fight down their anxiety to keep from assuming the war form themselves. Humans, especially ones who don’t know what werecreatures are, panic.

How this all plays out

So what’s your First Change like? That depends on the animal and form you change into.

Changes into Kemono form tend to catch people by surprise. You may not realize you’ve changed until people start staring, or you look at yourself in the mirror. You won’t even notice you’ve grown a tail unless you sit on it … somehow your clothes will change to accomodate it. Some people quickly learn how to change back, but their animal features will keep catching them off-guard when they lose focus.

Like with Kemono, a change into Anthro or full animal form is also the kind of thing that happens when you aren’t thinking about it. You might be intensely focused on work and snap out of it to realize that you’re a furry; or you might just wake up one day as a tiger. What happens next may depend on how quickly you learn to control your appearance!

A change into war form is triggered by adrenalin. You go into fight-or-flight mode, and your form shifts to accomodate. These changes can be dramatic! They have serious consequences, though. Not only are you a danger to others in this form, but you’re going to have to find clothing immediately afterwards.

Another caveat regarding war form

Think twice before having your were commit murder. If people died every time there was a First Change, there’d be a lot fewer werecreatures around.

Your character is still him- or herself. You just had a moment of panic. Police officers need counseling after shooting and killing armed criminals on the job; soldiers have PTSD after coming home from warzones. Something inside of you dies when you murder a sentient being, and being part-animal is not going to change that. There will be consequences, and you will not like them unless that is the story you’re trying to tell.

Obviously, if your character is a sociopath this caveat does not apply to you. Just watch out for the Cynocephali.

The who to what now?

Along with the legends of werecreatures, people in dark ages Europe told stories of Cynocephali (see-no-SEPH-uh-lee) — men with dog’s heads, or so they say. Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, was a “reformed” Cynocephalus, and whole armies of them were said to exist in the Orient.

They say dogs are man’s best friend, and with the Cynocephali weredogs that definitely holds true. Those who are part of the Order of Saint Christopher roam the world looking for werecreatures having their First Change, and they are uncannily good at finding them. They might not show up right away, but they almost always appear within a day or two.

Most Cynocephali aren’t a part of the Order, but even those who aren’t tend to integrate better than most werecreatures. Cynocephali are common, perhaps the most common weres, and they get a lot of help adjusting to their new lives. Those who are a part of the Order are even better organized, with chains of command and frequent reports and get-togethers. They know how to handle distressed werecreatures, and ease their transition to normal life … and they also know how to stop angry werecreatures without killing them, using the Tokens given them by the Harbingers.

Tokens? Harbingers?

These are the last two big concepts here, so pay attention.

The Harbingers are invisible voices that will deliver a message to you. You’ll be hearing from one pretty soon after your First Change. It may be male or female; its voice may be loud or quiet. Some people hear them in the wind and rain, speaking with the voice of the whole earth. Others hear them on the radio.

Harbingers are always polite. They never intrude; if you’re busy with something, they won’t contact you. One of the most important jobs for a member of the Order of Saint Christopher is to teach a new were to listen for them. This is because what a Harbinger says will usually help that were to clean up whatever mess was caused by his or her First Change.

You’ll first hear it address you by name. After that it will tell you something you don’t already know; what happened to the people you attacked or fled from, where your friends you got separated from are. It will usually give you a warning: “This thing will happen unless you do something.” Finally, if you’re still paying attention, it will close by thanking you for listening.

The villains of the piece

Why would you not listen to them? Maybe because you’re skeptical or distracted. Or maybe because you’re fed up with them. Maybe they’ve started making requests of you, and you’re sick and tired and no longer paying attention. Or maybe you don’t care what happens to the people around you, and you aren’t concerned with their suggestions for how to minimize violence and property damage.

At any rate, the Cynocephali have made a career out of listening to the Harbingers, which is why they always show up when they’re needed. They’re also given Tokens, or objects blessed by the Harbingers. Sometimes they’re something they already own; sometimes they’re objects they’re told where to find. Either way, their powers are useful and usually minor … although it’s said that Joyeuse and Excalibur may have been actual tokens.

There are other forces besides the Harbingers out there. They have their own powers and agendas, and may even have their own Tokens. Not all of them are friendly, to humans or werecreatures … and some of their powers are flashier, and more overt. Just because their followers can’t hear the voice of the Harbingers, though, doesn’t mean they’re not speaking to them.

Wrapping things up

That should be enough to get you through your first five minutes or so as a werecreature. Maybe even an entire day. But there’s a lot out there to discover, both good and bad. And I’ve only begun to touch on it.

Let me know what you find in your own adventures. ~.^

The highway curves off into the distance, between mountains and badlands and mesas. Everything’s reddish-orange, dusty and dry, just like an old pickup truck.

There’s one right now, crawling along the slow lane. Minivans zoom right past it. Enormous tractor-trailers rush past, nearly blowing it off the road.

It doesn’t seem to care. The driver doesn’t, either. He tilts his weather-beaten hat to block out more of the sun, then turns up the AM radio as another tractor-trailer roars past. A high-pitched whine comes out of his speakers, intermingled with static.

He nods. “Right,” he says, even though no one is with him. “Uh-huh.

“Two of them? Wow. And one is a-

“Oh, heck.”

He looks up at the roadsign, promising food and lodging from six major brands. “Okay, I’m coming up on it now.”

The exit’s in a quarter of a mile. Driving one-handed, he reaches down and unzips the duffel bag next to him, before getting out a short-barreled shotgun. He touches a silver icon to it and breathes a short prayer, before returning his gaze to the road.

Two cars scream past him, driving the wrong way up to the Interstate, just before he gets to the exit. Honking and screeching sounds come from behind him, and he holds onto his hat, looking out the window for a split-second before coming down off the highway. More cars tear past at the intersection, and in the distance he hears screaming.

He turns left, heading towards the big travel plaza that’s emptying of all of its customers. Cars are pulling out fast and rear-ending each other, and people are throwing the building’s doors open and running for their lives.

He pulls into the parking lot just as it empties, and takes a spot around the corner from the entrance. Now he can hear snarling and animal breathing, and then a roar right before sounds of crashing and towers of things tumbling over.

He cuts the engine and leaves the keys in the ignition, then unbuckles his seatbelt and pushes the door open, grabbing his shotgun on the way out …

* * *

FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO

*squaaawk*

“I’m sorry, what?”

Rachel sighed, and looked around the main prep area to where Tara was staffing the drive-thru window. Her friend was busy counting out change for someone waiting outside, while trying to talk to someone else on her headset.

“Uh, it comes with pinto beans, cheese, guacamole, rice …

“Rice.

“Rice, with an ‘r’.

“No, not ice. Rice!” She dropped the lid to the cup she was filling, and kicked it aside before getting a new one and cramming it on top. “Rice!”

“What are you doing just standing there?”

Rachel jumped, almost ruining the order she was working on, and turned around to see the store manager — all 4’10″ of her. She had Hispanic features, and her nametag read “Alice.”

“Sorry … ” Rachel grabbed up handfuls of lettuce and cheese, and tossed them on before wrapping up the tortilla.

“The evening rush is starting,” Alice reminded her, in accented English. “I know this is hard for you and your friend, but you need to stay on task. You can take a break afterward.”

“I know, it’s just … ” How to explain Tara’s disability?

Rachel finished her prep work, then brought the tray to the counter. “Thirty-four!” she shouted, and someone standing two feet away took it. Without acknowledging him, she walked back to the line, stealing a glance at the drive-thru window as she walked back. Tara had her eyes closed and both fists clenched, and was silently counting to ten.

Rachel glanced up at the screen and began work on the next order automatically. She had it bagged up and ready for the take-out customer when she spotted the manager again. “Um, Alice … ”

Alice coughed, and indicated the bag. Rachel handed it to the man waiting at the counter before trying again. “Listen, my friend’s having a hard time over there … ”

An entire cup of ice and soda fell off the machine where Tara was trying to fill it, and she threw the handful of sauce packets she’d grabbed at the floor in frustration.

Rachel went on hurriedly. “Can I take over from her for a few? She can go get … something … from the stock room … ” Her voice trailed off.

She saw the look on Alice’s face as she considered her friend, and knew what it meant. “If she can’t even handle this, how is she ever going to make it here?” But Alice finally looked up at her and said “You take over for her, then. I’ll get the mop.”

Rachel let out her breath in relief.

She walked over to where Tara was leaning her forehead against the soda machine, eyes closed. Rachel could hear the static of the radio in her headset. “Tara?”

No answer.

Rachel took a deep breath, knowing how much Tara hated this, and shook her gently by the shoulder. She recoiled as if shot, and her radio headset fell to the floor. “-ello? Hello?” it squawked.

“Tara, I’m going to take over for you now.”

“I can’t do this,” she said, in a quiet and just slightly quavering voice that showed that she meant it.

“I know.” Rachel kept her hands to herself, even though she wanted to comfort her. “But tomorrow’s the weekend, and-”

“I hate the weekend.” She stared daggers into the soda machine, not looking at Rachel as she spoke. “I hate our stupid apartment we can’t even pay for.”

“Tara … ”

“Yes, I know how lucky we are to have jobs, but I just can’t do this!”

A car horn honked, outside the window, and Tara jumped and nearly fell to the floor. Rachel tried to help steady her, and she fought Rachel off as if by instinct.

“Go punch something in the stock room,” Rachel said, not realizing that she’d regret it. “I’ll cover for you.”

A long second passed, and even the radio headset was silent. Then, wordlessly, Tara walked back towards the stock room, a blank expression on her face. She jumped again when the horn honked a second time, but managed to catch herself.

Rachel consulted the screen on the drive-thru cash register, and finished the order for the person waiting outside. Then she put on Tara’s headset, rubbing hand sanitizer into her palms as she spoke. “I’m sorry for the delay, can I take your order please?”

Alice came up beside her with the mop and bucket as she started filling drinks, and began to clean Tara’s mess. They both looked to the side as they heard a muffled THWACK — THWACK — THWACK from the stock room.

“I told her to go punch something,” Rachel said, helplessly. “To let out some stress.”

Alice shrugged, and went back to her mopping. “If she damages anything, you’re paying for it.”

Rachel sighed. “I know.”

Another order filled, and everything was quiet … or as quiet as it got at a fast-food restaurant approaching rush hour, she told herself. Two people were working the line, one of them bringing her orders to pass through the window, and Alice was up at the front taking orders. The drive-thru window was starting to get hectic, but Rachel had worked it during lunch hour, and she hoped she’d be able to handle it.

Then they all heard the clatter of piles of things hitting the floor, and a second later Tara screamed in frustration. The line workers held back, but both of them were still frozen, looking towards the stock room as Tara began crying loudly.

Rachel scrambled to finish her order, counting out change and reaching through the window to hand it to the person outside. She jumped, at another clatter of things hitting the floor and another scream from the stock room, and dropped half the coins on the pavement.

Without thinking, she took off her headset and hurried around the line, past the workers staring as Tara’s screams became more bloodcurdling. The door to the stock room was just a crack open, and as Rachel rounded the corner and headed up to it all she could think was dead, dying, horrible pain, crushed beneath piles of boxes …

“Tara!” She threw the door open. “Are you alagplx-”

There was something in the stock room.

It was twice her size, and covered in fur, and tipped with gleaming claws. And as soon as it saw Rachel it growled at her from behind the sack of tortillas it’d torn into, a muffled sound that just about stopped her heart.

I’m going to die, Rachel thought. She had never felt such fear before, and did not understand what was happening to her in response.

Acting on instinct, she slammed the door shut, then fumbled the lock closed just as the creature barreled into it. The metal door dented.

“Mad dog!” she called out to the store. It seemed like the most sensible thing to say. “Mad dog!”

Another slam into the door. Why isn’t anyone running? Rachel was terrified. The whole world seemed like it was spinning around her, and she found herself braced up against the door half in a futile attempt to keep it shut and half to keep from falling over.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to take off around the corner, but slipped and fell on some rags that hadn’t been there before. Her co-workers gasped and jumped backwards, when they saw.

Slipping, kicking the rags away, Rachel stood up and screamed out towards the patrons who were staring at her in shock. “Mad dog! Run for your lives!”

Now her co-workers screamed and ran, and so did the people out in the dining area. Trays got flung aside, napkins went flying, people jumped over tables and slipped on their wrappers. Somebody hit his head on a chair, and got dragged outside by someone else.

She heard Alice saying something and coming out of her office, and ran in that direction. When Alice saw her, she froze in her tracks, her mouth hanging open.

Rachel stopped and looked down at her, trying to think what was wrong. How bad did I hit my head? Am I gruesomely injured? Covered in blood?

I didn’t think she was this short …

Alice turned and tried to run, but Rachel grabbed her by the shoulder. “Alice!”

She screamed and tried to break free.

Rachel took hold of her and spun her around. “Alice, stop … stop screaming and listen to me!”

She stopped screaming and started blubbering, dropping to her knees and pleading in Spanish. Rachel had to get down on her knees too, just to talk to her face to face. “Alice, listen! There’s a-”

She kept crying, hysterical.

Rachel took a deep breath. “There’s a mad dog or something in the storeroom-”

It roared, and slammed into the door again.

“I don’t have a cellphone! You’ve got to get outside and call 911, and-”

SLAM.

“And, like, the National Guard or something! I don’t know!” Rachel looked over her shoulder towards the line, then back down at Alice. She was still crying, and was now doubled over with her face to the floor and her arms over her head.

Rachel hurriedly pulled Alice to her feet and shoved her towards the front entrance. “Go! Get going already!” Alice stumbled and ran on short, shaking legs, not looking back as she did so.

Rachel followed, knowing the stock room door couldn’t hold the thing for much longer. Then she got to the glass pull-door leading out to the main floor of the travel plaza, and she tried to pull it open but it snapped off in her hand. She stood there, shocked, holding the entire door in one hand for a split-second, before she realized that This is too heavy for me! and dropped it. She leaped backwards onto a table, as it fell to the floor and cracked.

What just happened?

She crouched on the table, staring down at the door in shock, as the pounding behind her intensified.

SLAM

SLAM

SLAM-THUNK.

Rachel turned her head towards the counter, as the rumbling, deep bass GROWL filled the restaurant.

I am going to die.

* * *

As the man from the pickup truck ran around to the front of the building, shotgun in hand, his features changed. He held his hat in place as long, drooping hound dog ears came out on either side, and a tail poked through beneath the back of his leather jacket.

He ran up to the spaces for handicapped people just as a ball of fur exploded out of the front of the building, cracking the glass on one door and knocking the other off of its hinges. An enormous gray creature was fighting a smaller brown-furred one, grabbing and clawing with its forepaws and trying to hold it down. Their snarls were muted as they tussled, the large creature biting and clamping its jaws down and trying to rip out the smaller one’s throat.

The dog-eared man felt a shiver that made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, running all the way down to his tail. He suppressed it and took aim with his shotgun, waiting for the two creatures to break apart.

They rolled around on the pavement, first towards him (he backed up) then straight into an abandoned car, breaking the windows and denting the side. The brown one broke free just then and leaped over the car in one bound, running across the parking lot towards the dumpsters.

The gray one stood and roared at it, then picked up the car and lifted it high. Nine feet of monstrous dire wolf stood a truck’s length in front of the man, vaguely female and humanoid in shape but with a countenance that was pure animal.

He shot it.

The car dropped behind it towards the man, rolling and smashing across the pavement, and he dove out of the way and looked up to see where the creature had gone. It was clutching its side as red mist vaporized out of a hole in it, not mortally wounded but startled and turning every which way to see what had just happened.

It saw the man, and their eyes met for a second.

He fired again and missed, and it took off as soon as he shot at it, bounding on all fours away and around the corner. That was his cue. He ran back to his truck-

The car had skidded to a stop right beside it, upside-down, its left front bumper nearly holding the door shut. He took a deep breath, and then heaved the car sideways about a foot, before climbing in and slamming the door shut and turning the keys. The engine roared to life, and he backed out of the parking spot and turned around, headed around the building to where the orange one had fled.

* * *

The first shot panicked Rachel. She wanted to run away from them, but she looked behind herself and the dumpsters she was hiding behind and all she could see was flat orange ground. I’m trapped! she thought.

Then she heard the second blast and the scared yelp of the monster-thing, and its feet pounding the ground as it ran off. And she thought Wait, that was the police, or a hunter or …

She backed up against the dumpster and slowly found herself settling to the ground, shaking, as the adrenalin started to wear off. She heard the engine start in the background, but it didn’t even register because she was so scared. There wasn’t anything in her but fear and panic, with a thin layer of conscious thought on top, and she found that she couldn’t control her own breathing. She couldn’t even try, she was so scared. And she didn’t understand the strange feelings all over her body — couldn’t see the claws shrinking, limbs contracting and fur growing back in on itself. She could only look straight upwards and gasp for breath and think I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m horribly maimed, all my guts are leaking out, I’m-

Something fell on top of her, obscuring her vision, and she couldn’t even move but could only think Why’s there a blanket on top of me now?

Rachel shifted position, feeling gravel and pavement beneath her bare skin. And why am I-

“Get in!” someone shouted, over the roar of the nearby engine.

She sat there for a moment, not comprehending. Then, slowly, she stood up, holding the blanket and trying to straighten it out. Parts of it felt slick and wet, and she looked and saw that she was bleeding.

“I said-”

Rachel screamed and jumped, and hurriedly wrapped the blanket around herself as a man stepped around the side of the dumpster.

He didn’t seem bothered. “You ready?”

“I … uh … ” She was still short of breath.

“This way.” He turned around and headed back to the truck, that Rachel saw on the other side of the dumpsters as she went and followed him.

She saw something else, too. Is that a tail sticking out of his pants? As if in response, it wagged.

He climbed in, and she did too, carefully. The inside was as old and beat-up as the outside, with cracks on the dashboard and exposed upholstery coming out of a thick gash in the seat.

As soon as Rachel got in, one arm still holding the door open, she thought What am I doing? Why is this man here and what does he want with me? Is he some kind of-

Out of nowhere the creature jumped on the hood, tilting the truck forward and sending Rachel up against the dashboard, her face right next to its claws. She screamed and tried to back up as it roared and tore off the driver’s side-view mirror, trying to pry the truck open.

Something exploded right next to her. The windshield shattered, held in place around the cracks by the safety glass laminate. And the wolf creature was blown backwards and sent into the grass, writhing in pain.

“Hold this.” The dog-eared man handed her the shotgun he’d just fired, and she took it before realizing the door was still open. Setting the gun on the dashboard, she slammed the door shut while the man flipped a switch to turn on the windshield wipers. They creaked to life, and she shivered.

“You ready?” The man looked over at her. It occurred to her that he was probably younger than his truck.

“Uh … ” She looked up at the hole in the dashboard. The blood on it was starting to evaporate, and was misting off into the air like it’d never existed. And behind it, out on the grass, the creature was starting to crawl back to its feet, clutching its wounds and looking mad.

“Good.” He threw the truck into reverse and backed up quickly, the creature seeming to shrink into the background, until the back of the truck hit the curb and went up it and both their heads hit the roof. Then he pushed the stick to put it in gear and spun the wheel around, taking them out of the parking lot with tires screeching just as the wolf creature stood.

It loped towards them on all fours, closing distance fast as the truck sped towards the Interstate. All Rachel could do was watch it get larger, framed by the words “OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR,” and think Hey, I’ve seen this movie before!

As they pulled onto the highway it lunged at them and grabbed on to the back of the truck. But the man spun the wheel until it was finally thrown into the grass, the back door flying off after it. Rachel looked behind her out the window, trying to see where it went, and finally spotted it standing upright and receding into the distance.

Only once it was out of sight did it occur to her that she had been panicking nonstop, and that she was about to hyperventilate. She swallowed and choked her breathing back down, taking deep, shuddering breaths and waiting for her heartbeat to settle.

“You okay?” the man said, glancing at her.

She nodded, too quickly.

“Good,” he said, and went back to driving.

When she’d caught her breath enough to talk, she looked up at him. “What was that thing?”

“Werewolf,” he said, as though it were obvious. As he spoke, his dog ears and tail shrank back into him.

She stared. “What are you?”

“Cynocephalus.” He didn’t even look at her, but kept his eyes fixed on the road.

The truck was rattling from being pushed so fast, and it was hard to hear what he said. She gave him a weird look. “You’re a snuffleupagus?”

“see-no-SEPH-uh-lus. Means weredog.”

A pause. The truck continued to rattle.

“Well, w-where did you come from?” She adjusted the blanket, trying to warm herself and stay covered at the same time. “Did you know? I mean-”

He turned on the radio, to a shower of static.

“Hey, I’m talking here!”

“And you should be listening.” He held up his hand. “Now shush.”

She did listen. “ZZZwhirhummm-her First Cha-KSSSH-cked the werecoyote, but was fought off by-rttTTrTTT-are now heading east on I-40.”

She stared at the radio, confused, trying to make sense of it. Then all of a sudden there was a deep, resonant female voice, and it drowned out all other noise in the truck. “Hello, Rachel. Thanks to you and Bryce, no one was killed during Tara’s First Change. Your friend will be detained in human form by the county sheriff in two hours, and will be held overnight before being turned over to a privately-held laboratory. There, she will be drugged and killed, and her remains will be dissected. Thank you for listening.”

The voice faded back into static, and Rachel found herself laying limp on the seat, plastered in sweat. That had taken more out of her than the entire fight had.

“What was that?” Her voice was a whisper.

“A Harbinger.” He glanced at her. “What did he say?”

“She said … ” Rachel was still in shock. She tried to make herself sit upright, then looked at him. “Bryce?”

“Yes?”

She swallowed. “Uh, my name’s Rachel, just so you know.”

“I know.” He nodded.

“She said … oh man.” Her free hand went to her forehead. “That was Tara, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“She … ” Rachel tried to make herself calm down. “Tara’s going to be locked up, and put in a lab and dissected.”

“Did she say when?”

“Sometime tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“I, uh … ” She watched as he got out a water bottle from a sack on the floorboard between them, while he was driving, and sipped at it one-handed before offering it to her. She shook her head, then immediately nodded and drank from it before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“I don’t know when,” she went on, as he took the bottle from her and put it back where he’d gotten it.

“Did she say who’s taking her?”

“The county sheriff … ”

“We know where to find her, then.” He nodded, eyes still on the road. “I can take you there tomorrow morning.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” She indicated herself. “I just … ”

Rachel stopped, because she realized that she was about to say I just fought off a werewolf one-on-one. And as Bryce slowly looked over at her, she realized what else she had heard on that radio.

Werecoyote.

* * *

After that, a peculiar feeling of numbness overtook her on their way into town. And it wasn’t her injuries; she barely managed to check (they had healed over and vanished). It was more like shock, and fear, and embarrassment.

Once they got into town Bryce stopped at a drive-thru, then let her eat while he went into a department store to pick up some clothes for her. She was so numb it took her a minute to take the food from him even when they had already parked, and then she still had to make herself speak in order to tell him her size.

Even letting a guy know how overweight she was wasn’t as mortifying as the knowledge of what had just happened. She knew what werecreatures were, or at least she thought she did from movies and pop-culture references. And they were just so … intense. Their minds were more animal than human, and they gave in to their feral sides and underwent grotesque transformations.

She’d seen it in movies, and it’d made the hair on the back of her neck bristle. The thought that it’d happened to her, that she’d been (that she was) one of those things changing on camera for shock value, was so alien that she just wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out.

Rachel glanced up at the parking lot, and at her reflection in the mirror above the windshield, and saw that she had furry, pointed ears sticking out of the top of her head.

She panicked as though a swarm of bees had landed on her, messing up her hair and pounding the ears to make them go away. It hurt, but she didn’t care. She finally felt them retract, along with the tail that’d come out at the same time, but by then she was covered in sweat again and was losing control of her breathing.

They saw- somebody- I-

Holding still with terror, she flicked her gaze to either side, scanning the parking lot. No one seemed to be watching her. And she was far enough from the main entrance that there weren’t many people there anyway.

Rachel finally took in a long, shuddering breath, and then covered her face with her hands.

I can’t deal with this …

The thought that “Rachel = horror movie creature” was still too much for her to bear. So she found herself imagining a real coyote as a defense mechanism. She’d seen them before on her mother’s land, and she knew they killed sheep and rabbits and things but she ate meat too, after all. And they’d always seemed so skittish, or at most curious. They were so small, at least compared to a wolf.

She imagined a coyote with drooping ears, looking like a forlorn puppy dog, and she laughed nervously because she knew That’s me. That’s what I am right now. She let herself be that thing, not physically but inside; she let herself identify with it, and was scared with it and scared as it. All the movies she’d seen fell away … all the monsters and grotesque transformations. All that was left was her, and she was a coyote and herself at the same time. And she let herself be okay with that.

Rachel felt like a scared animal, and all she wanted to do was curl up and wait for this all to be over. But she started to smell the food Bryce had bought her, now that she was aware of her surroundings again. So she sat upright and unwrapped it, careful to keep herself wrapped up in the blanket, and ate slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t from the kind of restaurant she worked at, but at this point she thought that was just as well.

She remembered as though through a thick haze what it’d been like in her last seconds there, and how she’d tried to get everyone to safety. Had she changed by then? She imagined herself as this monster (she didn’t know what she looked like) coming out into the kitchen and roaring at everyone, thinking she was telling them to run for cover. They must have been terrified, she thought, and laughed and shook her head sadly as she thought of Alice. She must have been terrified.

Bryce unlocked the door and got in just then, saying something about having bought multiple sizes and stashing bags full of coat hangers behind the seat. She just nodded and kept eating, not wanting to think about anything else.

By the time that she’d finished, they’d pulled up to a motel not far from the department store, and for a second Rachel was fearful. But when Bryce came back from the office, he handed her her own cardkey and told her where her room was.

“Clean up and get dressed,” he told her. “And set your alarm for an early start. We’ve got to be there first thing in the morning to keep Tara from being dissected.”

“Okay,” she said, and nodded. It seemed so unreal to her now.

He got out and went to his room, taking his shotgun and a satchel from under the seat with him. After a moment, she opened the door and got out herself. Then she grabbed up a few bags of clothes, holding them in the same hand that was holding the blanket around herself, and locked and shut the door and went up to the door to her room.

The first order of business was to clean herself off. She picked out some clothes to wear, and took a long shower. But as she was looking in the fogged-up mirror, after she’d finished drying herself, she saw the shadows of ears on the top of her head. And she felt her tail wag nervously, inside the towel she’d wrapped herself with.

By this time she wasn’t scared so much as disgusted. Are those going to keep surprising me like that?

But something occurred to Rachel. And so she thought of her ears and her tail as parts of herself, and focused on making the rest of herself like them. It happened so fast that she tripped on her new reverse-jointed legs, and just barely caught herself on the counter.

She could see her muzzle, and feel the thick fur on her hide. Her breaths came in from a long way away from her face, and her chops were held open as her tongue hanged out, sweating in the hot air.

Rachel looked down at her hands, and saw thick pawpads and dull claws. Looking at them from the back, they were shaped like human ones, but were furry and fuzzy and had strange finger-joints. It was unreal, and she knew that she was examining herself … she didn’t feel uncomfortable this way at all. But it reminded her of the times that she’d spent playing with her mom’s dogs when she was little, and feeling their paws and examining them up close and ruffling their fur before running outside.

A thought came to her, and she wiped a spot on the mirror clear so she could look into it. What looked back looked exactly like a coyote’s face, its muzzle hanging wide open and its fur all messed up and wet.

Rachel laughed, and it came out as a bark. She held the next laugh in, clutching her wet furry sides and giggling to herself. That hadn’t looked like a scary creature at all … all she was was this doglike thing crossed with a human. Dogs were okay and people were okay, so she was okay with herself. And as she looked at herself in the mirror, after cleaning the whole thing off, she couldn’t help but think that she looked nice this way, even if her fur was wet. It was thick enough that she could probably go out just like this, if it wouldn’t startle people.

She didn’t think she seemed very powerful this way, though, and could tell she was still slightly overweight even through the fur. She thought she was maybe a couple of inches taller, but that was probably because of her digitigrade legs … and she remembered being taller, back at the restaurant. And taking a door off its hinges.

Rachel opened the door a crack, trying not to let all the steam out, and tested its hinges a tiny bit. Then she pulled on them with more force, but she barely even heard them creak. It seemed just as solid as it always had. How did I do that? she wondered. That were- er, when I fought Tara, she was HUGE. How did I even survive that?

She tried making herself change further, but realized she barely knew how. Maybe it was some kind of instinct … I remember being so scared at the time. Maybe adrenalin does it? She didn’t know.

After making sure the curtains were closed, Rachel took a deep breath and stepped out that way, as her werecoyote self, her bare paws touching the carpet. Then she turned the television on, and alternated between watching it and testing her new self out, walking and moving around just to see how it felt. For a minute she jumped on one of the beds, and even jumped in between them, but she stopped there because she didn’t want to give the cleaning lady too hard of a time.

Just before she fell asleep, she lay sprawled out on top of the blankets (her fur was thick enough), watching a movie on television. A man was turning into some kind of fuzzy, plastic makeup-y creature, that she thought was supposed to be a werewolf. And his girlfriend was screaming … at how bad the special effects are, Rachel thought.

Heh, she thought, and her tail thumped onto the bed next to her a few times. That’s so dumb. She didn’t feel threatened by it at all, because she knew it was nothing like her.

Finally, she turned off the TV, then rolled over onto her side and went to sleep.

* * *

Rachel woke up to a knock at the door. She cracked open one eyelid, and cocked her ears towards it. Huh … it’s not even light out yet, she thought.

The knock again, more insistent. “Get up!” Bryce’s voice.

“Okay, I’m coming … ” She drowsily uncurled from the nest that she’d made in the covers and hopped down, only to find that her legs were not working. Rachel let out a yip as she fell to the floor, and tried to stand up but collapsed again.

What’s happening? Rachel looked up and saw herself in the mirror next to the door, and her mind went blank. Instead of the coyote / human hybrid that she’d seen last night, there was a full coyote on all fours.

“You alright?”

“I … don’t know!” She said it and then wondered how she had. My lips- er, muzzle moved, and I heard sound come out, but …

How come I can talk this way, but Alice couldn’t understand me back at the restaurant?

“Well, do you need me to come in there?”

But Rachel had already changed back to her half-coyote self. “No, thanks, I should be fine … ”

Her brain took a moment to process what’d happened. Then it took another long moment to remember what’d happened the day before. She looked herself over in the mirror, but instead of the familiarity from last night there was only a gnawing uneasiness, which threatened to escape in a whine.

She took a deep breath, holding it in for a second and letting it out. Then she shook her head. I should get dressed.

A few minutes later she’d changed back to her human self. She had just finished putting on one of the outfits that Bryce had gotten her, so that she could try it on, when he knocked on the door again. She ran out, bags of coat hangers in hand, the tags still attached to her loose shirt and jeans.

It was cold outside. Breath escaped from her nostrils in white puffs, in the light of the overhead streetlamp.

“I’ll turn the heat on in the truck,” Bryce said.

“What about the … ” But as she spoke, he pulled out a small, gleaming metal item from his pocket, and waved it over the holes in the windshield. The glass creaked and hissed as it fused back together.

” … what was that?”

“A Token of friendship.” He held it out to her. It was a tiny silver medallion. “From the Harbingers.”

“Oh … ”

He closed his palm around it, and put it back in his pocket. “Let’s go.”

Soon the bags were stashed behind the seat, and the truck was rumbling back the way they’d come at just barely the minimum speed limit. It shook, and she shook with it and the cold, and rubbed her hands right next to the heater vent.

Bryce, in his thick leather jacket, was unaffected. “You can change to anthro, if you like. To keep warm.”

“What’s that?”

“Anthro means ‘human.’ It’s like a human with animal features, or an animal walking upright.”

“Ohh, right … I tried that last night. Won’t it … ” Then she noticed she already had ears and a tail.

“Nah, it doesn’t mess up your clothes. Only the war form does that.”

Rachel looked out the windshield at the road. The sky was dark and moonless, and there were no headlights approaching. So she let herself become half-coyote. She felt her fur bunch up underneath her clothing, and her shoes tightened so she kicked them off. “How does it … ” She felt around back. There was a hole for her tail, somehow.

He glanced over and nodded. “Works every time.”

Rachel was still shivering, but she could feel her fur coat’s warmth. She’d need to ask him to turn off the heater soon. “So what’s the one with ears and a tail? Or does it have a name?”

“Kemono.”

“Kimono?”

“Kay-mo-no.”

“Uh-huh.” Rachel said it under the rumble of the truck’s engine. She raised her voice to ask “What does it mean?”

“It’s basically Japanese for ‘person with animal ears and a tail.’”

“Oh.” Rachel tried to adjust her clothing, and found a tag in the way. “Uh, could you turn the heat off please?”

He did.

She looked out the windshield, to see if there were incoming cars. It felt daring to be out in public looking like this, but if somebody saw her she knew she’d be mortified.

Something Bryce had said caught up with her, though. “What’s war form?”

“A form for war.”

She sideyed him. It was easy to do, since her eyes were more on the sides of her head.

“You know,” he said. “War. As in killing people.”

Rachel squirmed.

It seemed he could tell she didn’t understand. He looked over at her before continuing. “You know there’s this chemical called adrenalin, that puts you into fight-or-flight mode.”

She folded her arms, embarrassed and miffed. “I know.”

“When a werecreature feels that way, bad things happen.”

“Bad things?”

“Like nine feet of death cutting through everything in its way.” He looked straight ahead as he spoke to her. “Sometimes you can reason with them. Sometimes you can’t. Best to try after you’ve gotten out of the way.”

Rachel looked straight ahead too, reliving the attack. Remembering the terror. When she’d seen the monster, she hadn’t stopped to think about anything … what it was, how it’d gotten there, what’d happened to Tara or if it had eaten her. Everything she’d done, including locking the door and trying to warn everyone, she’d done on autopilot. Or if not fully on autopilot, then close.

I wonder what Tara felt like? she wondered.

I wonder how she’s feeling now?

* * *

Tara felt like a lost, forlorn puppy. She lay curled up on her cot in the concrete prison cell, wearing an orange uniform and bundled up in a thin blanket. Her eyes were closed, but she hadn’t slept the whole night.

The drunken man two cells over was still calling to her. She covered her face and her ears, squeezing tears out of her eyes. Go away, go away, go away …

In her mind’s eye, she saw the puppy she imagined herself as sitting at the table, in the “special” school she’d been sent to after her diagnosis. “Pick up the spoon,” her teacher said.

The puppy stared up at her, confused.

A hand came down and took her paw, and set it down on the utensil. “Pick. Up. The spoon.”

The puppy barked. Then a shadow loomed over her, and she cowered. The hand picked her up and tossed her into a pen, and she tumbled to a stop, shook her head and looked up. Shadows over her gestured and fought.

“Your daughter’s progress is too slow.”

“She’s not my daughter! My daughter’s been taken from me!”

She paced in circles, head low and ears and eyes towards the things casting the shadows. As she paced, she grew to the size of a small dog.

“Talk to me! Why won’t she talk?”

“She’s just too slow. Look, she doesn’t even understand what we’re saying.”

The “dog” looked up, and sighed.

She grew into a young adult wolf, gray and fluffy and lean. And she looked up, as a hand was held out towards her face. At first she held back, hesitant, but then she leaned forward and sniffed it.

It grabbed her, and she fought and squirmed as it forced her into a harness. Then she looked up at the enormous sled dogs all around her, towering over her and forming neat lines.

A whip cracked and they took off, and she ran as fast as she could trying to keep up with them. Her lungs ached, and her heart pounded, and her legs felt like they would give out. But a voice kept saying Go! Go! Faster! Faster! You think you can rest now? There is no rest! Run! Keep running! Don’t ever stop!

The voice sounded like her father. “You think I’m going to pay to support you once you turn eighteen? Think again.”

The voice sounded like her mother. “Honestly, Tara, what’s so hard about this? These are the best years of your life!”

The voice sounded like the people at school, and she cried and fought to forget what they’d said.

She lay there curled into the fetal position, arms pressing the pillow against her ears and the back of her head. Her lips moved silently as the voice found physical form. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless. If you can’t keep up, you’re worthless.

Why can’t you just control yourself? she whispered. What are you going to do if you have one of your meltdowns in public? You could go to jail for that!

Everything turned into a haze.

Tara sat up with her back to the wall, hugging her pillow between her chest and her knees. She rocked back and forth, eyes closed and lips continuing to move.

* * *

That’s how she was an hour later, when Rachel came in to rescue her.

The door down the hall opened. But all she heard was snoring, from the drunken man two cells down. She couldn’t hear any footsteps until they were right in front of her.

“Tara,” Rachel whispered.

She looked up. And then she stared. It looked like an animal given part-human form, stuffed into clothes with the tags still attached. Tara felt her insides turn to ice.

“Tara, it’s me! Remember?”

Slowly, Tara shook her head, and clutched the pillow to herself.

“Do you remember the fight at the restaurant?”

She nodded. Then she shook her head. Her wide eyes did not leave Rachel.

Rachel sighed, and leaned her head up against the bars. “Tara, you’re a werewolf. You shifted to what’s called ‘war form,’ and you almost killed everyone there at the store.”

Tara began to shake.

“I’m a werecoyote, and I helped a cyno … cyn … a weredog hold you off. Now we’re breaking you out of here. Come on!”

Tara shook her head quickly, eyes closed, still shaking.

“Why?”

Tara’s lips started moving long before even Rachel’s furry ears could make out what she was saying. ” … should be destroyed, should be destroyed, should be destroyed … ”

“What? Tara, stop saying that!”

She shook her head, eyes still closed. ” … should be destroyed … ”

Rachel sighed, and listened for another long, painful moment before speaking. “Tara … ”

” … should be destroyed … ”

“Tara, listen to me!”

She shook her head quickly.

“It’s not your fault, okay? You didn’t know. None of us did. And you shouldn’t have been there to begin with. It was loud, it was chaotic, they wouldn’t let you sit down … it’s no wonder you lost control. There weren’t any accommodations for your-”

“I shouldn’t be here,” Tara whispered, sniffling.

“I know, that’s why we’re breaking you out!”

“I mean in the world. At all.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “If I can’t put up with the same things that everyone else can, then I just ruin things for everyone. Or end up hurting other people. And now I’ve k- … I’ve … ohh … ” She started crying into the pillow, pressing it close to her face.

It tore Rachel apart to watch her. Can coyotes cry? she thought. She found out she could.

Rachel swallowed. “Tara, you didn’t kill anyone. Okay?”

“How do you know?”

“I know you wouldn’t have. You only fought because you were frustrated and you were being held back. And a … ” She stopped, unsure how to say it.

Tara looked up.

Rachel sighed. “I heard the voice of a higher power, and it told me that you didn’t kill anyone.”

“A higher power should kill me,” Tara whispered, looking away.

“A higher power created you, Tara!” Rachel’s muzzle hung open in between sentences, because she was perspiring like mad. “It made you autistic, and it made you a wolf. And wolves aren’t meant to be caged.”

“I could hurt people … ” She looked up at the wall, as if examining it.

“And they could hurt you too. But at least you know that your actions can hurt other people. At least you try not to hurt them. They don’t even realize when they hurt you. Or when they’ve forced you into a situation where you can no longer control yourself.”

She said nothing.

Rachel’s eyes flicked up to the door leading out. “Tara, they’re going to dissect you.”

She said nothing.

“Tara, please come!”

Rachel’s ears perked, as she heard footsteps and doors opening outside the hall. But Tara just rocked back and forth, seemingly dead to the world, until the door to the hall was flung open.

The drunken man snorted, and woke up.

“Well, what have we here?” a male voice said. It didn’t sound loud and gruff, like the trooper who’d picked her up last night, but silky and polished like a city man. Tara glanced up to see it, but the cell wall blocked her view.

Rachel backed up against the wall. “I, uh … ”

“Shoot her.”

The cell block was filled with LOUD, and the wall was splashed with red. Tara instantly jumped to her feet.

* * *

He looked like a recent grad from business or law school. Clean-shaven, with a suitcoat so black it was glossy, and a large onyx gem set into a ring. It gleamed as he straightened his tie, enjoyed Rachel’s shocked look and smiled.

Beside him were two literal stuffed shirts. They wore uniforms and carried rifles, but they were not human. Inside the clothing and past the sunglasses were thick masses of water shaped like people, their features rippling with surface tension. The overhead light became swimming pool shadows around them, but they themselves didn’t look glossy enough to be CGI.

“Go in,” the man said, looking over at them. “Get them both.”

The two walked up to the bars to Tara’s cell, stopping in front of it calmly. One of them walked through the bars, its clothes folding and its rifle held in between them. The other stood outside and watched.

There was a gunshot, and the man winced. Then water came splashing out of the jail cell, drenching Rachel (who scooted back) and the other “guard,” who raised its gun. It shot twice as the bars were pulled open, then the rifle was yanked out of its hand and sent flying down the hall.

The man ducked, ignoring the startled look of the drunk in the cell just beside him, and looked up to see a female werewolf in war form biting down on the “guard”‘s neck and tearing. It splashed apart, clothes collapsing and water sloshing across the floor towards him. And the wolf looked down at the coyote for a second before looking up at him and growling, one hand pressed to the floor. It was a low sound, that shook the walls and seemed to come from the earth itself.

The man drew a gleaming silver revolver on her, sweat beading across his forehead, and took three tries to pull the catch back. Then he swung around as he heard footsteps, and saw a dog-faced man in a leather jacket.

“Boy,” the dog said, “do you think that’s going to stop her?”

The growling intensified, and there was a scrape as claws dug into concrete. The suitcoated man looked back.

“You’d better run now.”

* * *

The chase would’ve lasted about one second if Tara hadn’t had to slow down to go around Bryce. As it was, the suitcoated man barely made it out into the foyer before she grabbed him, held him up till his head hit the ceiling and roared right into his face. He screamed.

She held him there for a long moment. Breathing on him, glaring at him, remembering all the people in suits who had made her life miserable. The grip of her claws tightened.

Finally she flung him into the wall. He smacked into it and hit the floor, taking some of the plaster with him and landing next to the stunned sheriff, who was gagged and tied up behind a desk. The man did not move after that.

She stood there clenching and unclenching her fists, squeezing her pawpads with her claws. She did not move as Bryce helped Rachel out into the foyer, and then leaned down to check on the suitcoated man.

“Still alive,” Bryce said.

Rachel coughed, painfully.

“We’d better get going.” He looked up at Tara.

She followed them outside, watching as they climbed into the truck, knowing that it was too small for her now. Tara looked up, out at the mountains in the distance and the miles of flat country between them, and it was dark out but she could see as well as if it were daytime. Deep breaths of cold air cooled her tongue and chilled her insides, and she realized that she’d never felt more alive.

The wind rustled her fur and roared in her ears, and she couldn’t hear what Bryce was saying to her. She jumped into the truck’s flatbed, and it creaked angrily and she heard him yelling at her to get out. So she did, hopping down and crouching next to it.

It started up and pulled out of the parking lot, and she ran after it, out onto the highway. On two legs at first, then on instinct she switched to all fours. It wasn’t like crawling on hands and knees; it was like running, but twice as fast. Each set of limbs propelled her, and picked up where the other left off. She didn’t know how fast she was going, but the sense of speed was incredible, and she felt momentum carrying her so strongly that she knew she’d flip over if she tried to stop.

Wind pressed on her like an invisible curtain, and she squinted into it as it pressed her fur against her. Concrete wore and rubbed at her pawpads, and she veered off into the brush, the dry grass whipping her neck but the earth softer under her paws.

The truck began to speed up, and she pushed harder into the wind, grinning and enjoying the game. But then it went even faster, too fast for her to keep up, and the distance between them increased. She finally slowed down, slowed and came to a stop, just as two police cars sped by. And for a second she wanted to chase them, but she took one step and knew that she couldn’t. Tara was breathing hard, taking in deep breaths one after the other, her lungs burning and heart racing.

She forced herself to take slow, stiff steps one after the other, to keep knots from forming in her arms and legs. After what seemed like only a short time, her heart rate settled down, and she stood back upright and dusted off her hand-forepaws. Then she looked down at them, and herself.

Tara didn’t recognize herself. Her shape was still vaguely humanoid / feminine, but she was covered in thick fur. And it wasn’t just that; she was partway shaped animal-like. The joints of her arms and legs suggested a creature meant to run on all fours, even though she was standing upright.

She turned around and examined herself in the light of the crescent moon. The grass was much shorter next to her than it usually was, and she knew she was still in the war form, even though she had calmed down. Even after that run she felt like a coiled spring, powerful and ready to leap and run and climb without stopping. She had never felt anything like it … but there was this sense of familiarity, of having seen or felt or known this before. As though she was rediscovering it.

She clung to that feeling, and willed herself to believe that this was okay. That it was normal, or at least normal for her. Because if it wasn’t, she didn’t know what she would do.

Something startled her, and she whirled around, instinctively baring her claws and scanning the highway for movement. What had happened? What was it?

Tara heard it again, like a voice whose breath was the wind. She held herself still, slowly looking around with her eyes, scenting the cold air and cocking her ears in all directions.

Finally she heard it, as though the whole world was speaking to her and she stood atop its vocal chords. It was a male voice, high-pitched and gentle somewhere past the force it conveyed. It was so powerful that it shook her, and she fell on her hands and knees. “Hello, Tara.”

It was quiet for a second, and she shook her fur out of her face and tried to catch her breath. In less than a minute, she’d gone from feeling enormous to tiny and insignificant.

She coughed. “H-hello?”

It spoke again, and she braced herself against it, scared because of how strong it was. “The person you injured will recover. Your friend will recover as well. She and Bryce will escape from the people pursuing them, using the Tokens that have been prepared for them.

“You will be spoken to again tomorrow, and again as courtesy dictates. If you follow the instructions given to you, you will not hurt anyone more than is needful, and you will never be caged again.

“Your life has been a hard one. It is good that you are set free.”

“Th-thank you,” she whispered, her face now covered in tears.

“Thank you for listening.”

The voice went away.

* * *

Tara sat there in the grass for some time, huddled into a ball against the cold and the intense emotion. Crying into her own fur, and sniffling and rocking back and forth. For a moment she imagined seeing herself from the outside, and thought how hard it was to imagine a creature like this acting the way that she was. But she had to, because it was the only way she knew how to react. It was the only way she had strength to.

She finally stood up, sniffling, still taller and stronger than before. Much of the strength had left her, because of the experience that she’d just had, but she felt it returning slowly. It was only a matter of time.

As the sun rose, she started walking away from the highway, towards the mountains. The voice would speak to her again, she knew. Maybe she’d find out what to do … maybe she’d find out how to change back, or to catch up with Rachel.

Either way, maybe she would be okay.

What if you died and came back to life as an anthropomorphic animal? You might never be able to go back to your old life … but would you want to?

The Rebirth universe is licensed CC-By-SA by Jared Spurbeck, aka Tachyon Feathertail. Read on to find out how you can write your own stories set in this world.

Worldbuilding Summary

• Rebirth is a “realistic” superhero-style universe. “‘Morphs” are one of the most common kinds of metahumans.
• ‘Morphs have two closely-related powers: DNA absorption and bodily regeneration.
• This regeneration allows them to revive from death, possibly in a new form. Hence, “Rebirth.”

Stories set in this world

How to write a story set in this world

1. Read this document all the way through.
2. Write your own story inspired by it!
3. Include a note saying your story is licensed CC-By-Sa, and crediting Feathertail for creating the Rebirth universe. A link to this page would be handy.
4. If you don’t want people to use your fursona in their stories, include another note saying your fursona belongs to you and can’t be used without your permission.

So what is the Rebirth universe like?

Have you ever watched the TV show Heroes? I’ve only seen bits and pieces of it, and I’ve heard that its recent eps aren’t very good. But I loved the idea it started out with, of a realistic take on a world where people suddenly got superpowers.

Rebirth’s world is a lot like that one, except that there are a lot of people with superpowers compared to how many there are in Heroes. Like maybe one in a thousand, which means there are thousands of them in most first-world countries and millions of them worldwide.

This is the first generation of people who were born with superpowers, and while most of them aren’t as flashy as those featured in comic books they’re all cause for concern … at least, among “normal” people. How do we keep supers under control? There should be a law …

Where does rebirthing come into play?

‘Morphs, short for zoomorphs or anthropomorphs, are one of the most common kinds of superpowered individuals. Remember how the cheerleader in Heroes could recover from any injury? ‘Morphs are sort of like that. Even if their heart has stopped and their brain has stopped functioning, they’ll all of a sudden “wake up” several hours after their deaths, taking in gasping breaths through newly-patched lungs and remembering their demise in vivid detail. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is not uncommon in ‘Morphs who have rebirthed.

So why call them ‘Morphs? Well, their bodies don’t just heal themselves; they also assimilate foreign DNA rapidly, like by absorbing it through the bloodstream. It has to be reasonably close to human DNA, however. Insect bites and infections won’t turn you into bugs or bacteria.

All ‘Morphs are born as ‘Morphs, but they don’t know it for awhile. Sometimes they find out when they suddenly start growing the features of their family pet, or of people or animals that they work with. Other times their abilities lay dormant, even their healing factor, and are triggered all at once by their rebirth. Imagine waking up after being mauled by an animal, only to realize that you now look like your attacker …

What’s it like being a ‘Morph?

Once a ‘Morph has absorbed a particular genome, she finds it easiest to be in a physical form that is a cross between it and her other(s). She can assume any combination she likes, with a bit of practice, but if she is killed (temporarily or otherwise), she will revert to a form that is a cross between all of them. ‘Morphs also revert to this form while asleep.

‘Morphs can change shape rapidly, as their forms are extremely plastic. Their feet can change shape from planti- to digitigrade in seconds, and they can store tails inside their spines, extending them when needed. They can’t conceal extra limbs, though … ‘Morphs can grow wings (and regrow lost limbs), but it takes at least a week or two, as they have to eat and replenish the nutrients needed. Once a ‘Morph has wings, she has them for life unless they are amputated.

Sadly, having easily-mutable DNA comes at a price … ‘Morphs are very susceptible to cancer and other genetic diseases, and often don’t live past their teens. The longest-lived ‘Morphs are in their thirties and forties, and are already coming down with geriatric conditions. Eating organic food and avoiding synthetic chemicals and plastics might help, but “natural” things can contaminate their DNA also, and it may be awhile before anyone figures out a way of helping them.

How do other people see ‘Morphs?

Most people are too confused by the sudden appearance of ‘morphs (and other, more powerful supers) to have very concrete opinions about them. Plus they’ve got an economic meltdown to deal with, on top of things. But there’s no law against discriminating against ‘Morphs … in fact, they aren’t allowed to perform certain jobs, legally.

What kinds of jobs? Well, when people found out what ‘Morphs could do, they were quickly barred from any profession involving children, the elderly, hospitals, blood banks and animal care. ‘Morph teachers and nurses lost their jobs in most countries, and pet owners were forced to give their animals up for adoption or put them to sleep.

These laws are debated, yes, but what few debates there are are always along the lines of “How do we keep these things under control?” And if there’s any opposition to them, it’s on account of those laws might infringe on other people’s rights.

There are some European countries that aren’t quite so hostile towards ‘Morphs, but even in more tolerant ones they’re starting to implement mandatory genetic screening for all citizens. Canada and the UK have already made it a prerequisite for receiving government health care. There is no genetic screening in the United States as of yet, but people are gunning for it.

That seems a bit harsh!

Don’t think that these laws exist for no reason … there have been recorded incidents of ‘Morphs taking DNA forcibly, even from endangered species and other human beings. Environmentalists are up in arms about it, as are animal welfare advocates and park rangers.

Many ‘Morphs — possibly most — changed by accident. There’s a lot of ignorance of how they can have their genes contaminated; just because blood is the easiest doesn’t mean it’s the only way. There are a lot of cat and dog ‘morphs. But they’re not as sensationalized, so there’s a lot of distrust.

‘Morphs aren’t arrested on sight for being criminals, even if they appear animalistic. But they’re seen in about the same way as a punk with a purple mohawk, twelve piercings and tattoos up and down each bare arm. People look at you and they just know you’ve been up to no good, and they want you to stay far away from them.

Any questions?

If there’s anything you’d like to ask, just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you! I’d be happy to help authors write stories set in this world.

A light rain misted onto Carol’s glasses, as she removed her helmet and put down the motorcycle’s kickstand. What she could see of the sky was gray, and all around her was the sound of water showering on thick forest leaves.

Gravel crunched under her feet, as she walked around the ranger’s jeep and past the sign that said “WILDLIFE RESCUE.” She took a moment to steel her nerves, before walking up to the front porch and knocking on the old metal screen door.

Footsteps, from inside the building. Then the ranger came up to the door. She didn’t look much older than Carol, but she was a lot taller, and her khaki uniform made her seem much more professional.

Her voice sounded like it had on the telephone. “You’re Leslie, right?”

Carol nodded, a little too quickly, and looked away.

“Well, c’mon in!” The screen door pushed open with a creak, and Carol held it open before stepping in. It was not much warmer inside.

“Let’s see about getting you set up.” The ranger went deeper into the building. Carol adjusted her glasses and looked around. It was an old building, dusty but with lots of natural light, and it smelled like zoo animals …

Oh. That was why. The imported Egyptian Fruit Bat hung silently inside its floor-to-ceiling cage, which took up about a third of the room. Toys dotted the floor, covered in newspaper clippings, and pieces of oranges and shards of rind hung on a string made the room smell faintly like air freshener.

Carol’s gaze, though, was fixed on the bat itself. All she could see was its softly-furred backside, and its brown wings wrapped tightly around it. It was only about half a foot long, and there was a metal mesh cage in the way. But Carol thought it was beautiful.

Footsteps came up from behind her, and stopped. “You like the Rousette, huh?”

Carol blinked and turned around, broken out of her reverie. “Huh?”

“The Egyptian Rousette. The bat.” The ranger was carrying an armful of medical paraphenalia, including a syringe.

“Oh. Um, yeah … ” Carol was looking at what she was carrying.

“You know they’re the only large bats that use echolocation.” The ranger tore open a package, and affixed a needle to the syringe.

“Yes.” Carol couldn’t help but watch.

“You like bats?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I think they’re cute.”

Carol just nodded, and swallowed.

The ranger finished what she was doing, and started wrapping a long elastic cord around Carol’s arm to cut off the blood flow. “Okay, Leslie, now hold still. This is going to sting a little, so we only want to have to do this once.”

Carol felt the pressure build up uncomfortably, and watched as the ranger got the needle ready. She closed her eyes and clenched one fist as it pierced her arm; then it got pulled out, and immediately a cloth bandage was pressed over it. “Hold that while I get you a Band-Aid.”

Carol held it in place, and let out her breath. While the ranger’s back was turned, she pulled the gauze away and stole a glance at her arm. A drop of blood had soaked into the gauze, but her arm had already healed.

She hurriedly replaced it as the ranger came back, and put an adhesive bandage over the gauze. Then the ranger untied the cord holding back her blood flow, and put it back in the first aid kit before holding up the syringe, partway full with Carol’s blood.

“It’ll take us a day or two to get the test results back,” she said, squinting at it. “You can start volunteering before then, though, so no worries about that.”

The ranger went back down the hallway carrying the first aid kit and syringe, and Carol followed, stealing a glance over her shoulder back towards the bat as she went. A little ways down the hall was an infirmary, and the ranger put up her gear there, and set the vial of Carol’s blood inside a rack next to empty vials. Carol took note of that.

“So … what will I be doing, here?” she asked, struggling to find the words.

“Oh, it depends. See-”

The phone rang.

“Hold on one sec.” The ranger left the infirmary, and went down the hall into another room.

Carol’s eyes fell on the vials, and on the first aid gear right beside them.

* * *

Carol unlocked the bat cage, with the key that she’d found in the ranger’s desk, before quietly stepping inside. The ranger had a loud voice, and it carried all the way out here and drowned out what she was doing. It sounded like she was on the phone with a friend … or a relative. Or an ex-boyfriend, judging from her tone of voice.

The bat stayed sleeping and motionless as Carol tore open the wrapper in her mouth, and got out one of the long needles. Affixing it to an empty syringe, she approached the bat and held still for a second, conflicting thoughts in her head.

It’s so cute, all huddled and sleeping like that …

I wonder where I ought to stick it at.

Just a tiny bundle of fur and wings …

How much should I draw? Will I hurt the thing?

I want to pet it, right now.

I need to do this. But how?

Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward and took hold of the bat in one hand, then stuck the needle in it with the other and drew out a tiny amount of blood. It turned to look at her, eyes wide with shock, and she sweated as she withdrew the syringe and unclipped the needle from it.

Carol had almost gotten to the door when it started chirping at her, loud. Now she was really sweating. She tried to get the lock back in place-

“You can’t turn your back for one second these days, can you?”

Carol froze.

Heavy, booted footsteps came up the hall behind her. One hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her around, hard. “Alright,” the ranger said. “Let’s see it.”

Carol’s heart was beating so hard it felt like it would give out. Slowly, carefully, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a vial of blood, then handed it to the ranger.

The ranger snatched it up without looking. “I don’t know why I give people the benefit of the doubt anymore. I was just telling my friend the other day that we shouldn’t judge people like you. Now I’m not so sure.”

There was a long moment of silence. The ranger did not speak again until Carol looked up, and saw her hard, stern face.

“Get out.”

* * *

Carol hopped down the wet, wooden steps and out into the rain, filled with adrenaline and trying to keep from showing it. She was scared, and she didn’t think she would stop being scared until she’d gotten ten miles away. Her guilt barely registered, she was so scared.

But she was also excited, because she’d gotten what she came for.

After getting back on her motorcycle and pushing the kickstand back up, she checked in her pocket to make sure. The tiny vial of bat blood was still there. And the vial of her blood was not, anymore.

The screen door pushed open, and Carol hastily threw on her helmet. A second after she’d gotten it in place, a rodent-like snout pushed out the front beneath the visor.

“Hey! What do you think you-”

Carol took off, kicking gravel up from her tires, and sped back towards the main road, a whiplike tail trailing out behind her.

* * *

Carol knew she couldn’t go out the main gate, so she took a barely-marked dirt trail out through the west side. After making sure she was not being pursued, she unwrapped another needle and injected herself with the bat’s blood, wrapping the needle and syringe up afterwards and pocketing them to throw away later.

She forced herself into human form and got back on her motorcycle, at the edge of the park where the dirt trail just met the road. No cars were coming, and there were no traffic noises for as far as she could hear. Just water dripping off leaves.

Carol grinned to herself, inside her helmet, and noted the time on her watch. It’d been fewer than three hours since she’d set out. At this rate, she’d be home by dinner.

The drive to the wildlife rescue had taken two hours. The drive back took six.

She didn’t take the main roads, for fear of being spotted. But in under an hour Carol started to feel lethargic, as though she’d been running all day. At first she dismissed it as being the effects of stress, and tried to settle into her ride and enjoy herself. But after not too long, she realized that she could barely keep her eyes open. It was the middle of the day, and she was starting to fall asleep.

Carol pulled off the road at a fast food restaurant, somewhere on the edge of a town in the hills, and almost let her motorcycle fall over she was so tired. There wasn’t a line at this time of day, so she walked up and ordered something small just so she could sit down. While getting a straw she noticed they had a free newspaper sitting on one of the counters, so she grabbed it on the way to her seat.

She only managed a few bites of her snack before realizing that she was about to faceplant on top of it. Stretching out in her seat, she took off her rainjacket and used that as a pillow. Then she covered her face with the newspaper, half-sitting and half-laying down.

Carol only meant to rest for a few minutes. She was used to feeling drowsy in the middle of the day, and laying down for a half-hour or so and feeling much better afterwards. Besides, it wasn’t like it would be easy to fall asleep on a hard bench like this …

* * *

She tries to wrestle the gun away from him, but he is too strong. He slams her against the wall, scraping her knuckles across the brick. Then he kicks her away when she lets go, smacking her into the concrete.

She looks up through the haze and the ringing in her ears, up into the barrel, and he-

* * *

“Ma’am?”

Carol gasped for breath, her dream cut short.

There were sounds all around her. Sounds of sizzling, and beeping, and people talking and eating and walking around. And deeply interesting smells, of grease and dead things that were good to eat. Where was she, again?

“Ma’am.”

Something shook her shoulder and she recoiled, jumping to her feet up on the hard plastic seat and putting her hands against the windowblinds. The newspaper fell away, as she stared in fear … down at the middle-aged woman, with a restaurant uniform on and a cleaning rag in one hand.

If the woman was startled, she gave no sign of it. “Ma’am, we’ve let you sleep there for hours. People are coming in now, and you’re making noise and it’s scaring them.”

Carol’s heart was still beating fast. She could barely remember why she was there. The gunbarrel seemed more real, and she felt like it was still pointed at her.

“You need to order something if you’re going to stay here longer. And if you’re going to sleep, you need to get yourself home or to a motel. Okay?”

The words were starting to make sense. She realized that people were looking at her, and it would’ve scared her if she hadn’t just been afraid for her life.

“Okay?”

” … okay.”

Carol slid back down into her seat, as the cleaning lady went on and washed the next table. She took a deep breath to center herself, still ignoring the people looking at her. Then she looked down, and her eyes fell on the meal that she’d barely touched.

Putting her rainjacket over one arm with shaking hands, she got up and wadded up her trash and tossed it into the bin. Then she went into the ladies’ room to clean up, her face turning red as she tried to ignore the stares on her back.

There was no one in there. Which was good, because when Carol saw her reflection she jumped up and gasped, and dropped her coat on the floor. Her face was a hybrid of bat and opossum features, darkly furred with radar dish ears and a pink nose on a long snout. Her arms were covered with fur, and her tail was whipping against the wall in her panic.

She fought to control her breathing, as the reality of what had just happened struck her. They saw me! They all saw me! I must have scared them to death — I must have seemed crazy to them — they probably saw me flailing my arms and things and … and …

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and made herself hold it for a few seconds before letting it out. I’m going to be alright. Everyone knows that people like me exist. No one’s going to try to hurt me or anything … not here, not out in public. I’ll be okay … I’ll be okay.

Even so, she locked herself in there, until she was satisfied that everyone who’d been in the restaurant just then had left.

* * *

Carol didn’t eat anything else there. By the time she got home, she was famished.

She walked her motorcycle up to the driveway, after cutting the engine a couple of streets down. The streetlights were on outside, over the suburban lawns. A couple of dogs barked at her from inside their fences, but dogs were always barking at something.

The gravel driveway was empty, just like it had been since her parents had left on their cruise. Carol went around back and leaned her cycle against the outside wall, then unlocked the side door before stepping in. The house was dark, even though the moon shone in through curtained windows.

Now that she was inside, Carol let the changes come, and found it a lot easier to see afterwards. She tried clicking her tongue to echolocate, but nothing happened as far as she could tell.

She shut the door quietly and went into the kitchen, without turning any lights on. The refrigerator was whirring, and the noise made her ears flatten. She opened it, squinting inside, but the scent of old grease and leftovers no longer smelled as good as it once had.

Looking over at the table, her eyes fell on the fruit basket. She shut the refrigerator door and ate three bananas, before realizing that they were brown. Oh well, she thought. I would’ve just made banana bread with them anyway.

Washing an apple in the sink, she looked out the window at tree silhouettes. Things were moving between them, little flying things, and Carol knew what they were.

She turned off the water and opened the window a crack, listening through the screen, and her ears perked at the sounds of clicking and chirping. She could hear more of the bats’ calls now, the higher-pitched parts that human ears couldn’t detect. Her heart leaped at the sound, and she held her breath in, listening and waiting for an epiphany. An understanding of what their calls meant.

After a minute or two of holding still and breathing quietly, she finally stopped and sighed and went to go get a knife for the apple. Something about their chirping did call to her. But she wasn’t sure if it was because of her nature, or just because of her bat ears. She felt like they were talking too fast and speaking a foreign language, one that sounded like one she knew but was too different for her to interpret. Maybe if I lived in Egypt, she thought.

Carol had a long dinner, plowing through most of the fruit basket (peels and all) and half of a jar of peanut butter. She finished with a tall glass of milk, not questioning her cravings but taking the time to satisfy them. She knew what was happening to her, and that it would take awhile to finish … awhile for her wings to grow in.

As it turned out, “awhile” was “about a week.”

It was slow and painful at times, and she was lethargic and sleepy for most of it. She slept for almost the whole time that the sun was up, and if she couldn’t get back to sleep around noon she read one of her manga until her eyes were too heavy again. The nights she spent eating and drinking almost constantly, gulping down gallons of milk and bringing a snack to eat on the way to the store. After a little while, she didn’t even try to hide the bony protrusions sticking out of her back, or to hold her animal features in. She just smiled at the cashier, and hoped that it didn’t look like she was snarling.

She took two multivitamin pills daily. Her shopping basket was filled with dense, nutrient-rich foods; avocados, a couple of pomegranates, and lots of citrus fruit. Meat was too expensive, so she stacked tubs of cold, wet tofu into her cart, and ate peanut butter and bananas while marinating it at home. It wasn’t half bad, although after a couple of tries she found that she liked it better when mixed into fruit-and-milk drinks than when fried up with soy sauce.

The few hours she didn’t spend eating, cooking and shopping, she spent surfing the ‘net on her laptop, with the lights off and brightness turned all the way down. (And the window open to listen for bats.) Mostly she looked for videos by other ‘morphs, and blogs with tutorials on how to deal with a changing body. Links to recipes started to fill up her favorites list.

Every now and then she browsed for news stories, about First Federal or her disappearance. They hadn’t talked about it for a while, in the town that she had been working in. And apparently, no one had caught the killer.

Carol did not like to think about that. She spent one day in a haze of half-awakeness just because her dreams were so terrible. The whole time she was asleep she spent trying to run, or to fight him off. And all she could think about while she was awake that day was the feel of the cold gunmetal, or the way her hands clawed at his until they were slammed into the wall.

She had been shot only once, but she’d relived it six times now, each one just as horrifying.

For all that, she found that revenge didn’t drive her. She tried to think about her death as little as possible, because all that she felt about it was fear. Likewise, her plan was not an obsession. It was just something that had to be done.

She wanted it to be over soon. Preferably before her family came back. Then she could reveal herself, to them and her friends online and her boyfriend. She missed every one of them, even the annoying ones. But she dared not call them, or pick up the phone, or log in to sites with her old accounts. She didn’t even surf the web without using a proxy server.

Soon this will be over, she thought, doing pushups while stretching her wings to their lengths and trying to feel their tips. And soon I’ll be able to fly.

* * *

Despite exercising whenever she could, Carol still put on a bit of weight, and it wasn’t just in her wings. She used a flashlight to look down at the scale, frowning to herself and being glad that she was sewing her stealth outfit with some give to it.

And that she was going to be getting a lot more exercise, soon enough.

That night was the first time she tried flying, as her wingspan was already greater than her height. There was a creek beside her house, behind the suburban neighborhood, and there was an open area in the trees behind it. After wading the creek, she ran as fast as she could into the clearing, then started flapping her wings wildly. But it only drove her to crash in a tumbling heap.

She rubbed her bruised elbow, the color not fading even as the pain did. Then she got up, took a deep breath and tried again. I don’t care how many times I’ve got to do this, she thought. Being shot didn’t stop me. This isn’t going to either.

Carol tried five more times to get up the speed to fly, and to hold her leathery wings at the right angle to produce lift. On her last try she almost did, and her heart leapt as she felt her wings carry her feet off the ground. But then they clipped a tree, and she rolled to a stop, instinctively curling her wings around her.

She looked up at the tree in dismay. Then she started climbing it.

It took her ten long, agonizing minutes to get up to the branch that she wanted. Her wings kept getting caught on things, and trying to get them out without being able to see behind herself brought her close to tears in frustration. But she closed her eyes and took a handful of deep breaths, then continued and finally freed herself.

Crouching on the thickest branch, twenty feet off the ground, she looked out at the creek and the clearing and at her house’s distant roof. Then she closed her eyes, and jumped.

Her wings caught the air, and she soared.

It was just like the first time she’d managed to ski. The same feel of gliding, over ground that she’d once had to tread. And the same feel of silent exhilaration, the only sound in her ears that of wind rushing past. It was hard to hold her wings out rigid, but she barely noticed she was so excited.

After a couple of seconds, she realized that she was dropping slowly and tried flapping her wings to compensate. But she underestimated how much force she would need to apply against the stiff cushion of air beneath her, and her wings folded up and she dropped like a rock, falling into the creek with a splash.

This is what she was thinking right afterwards.

Aghpttb-

I flew! I was flying! I …

AGH, there are rocks stuck in my knee and it stings!

I still remember what it felt like. I want to do it again …

Cold! Wet! Pain! Cold!

That was the awesomest thing EVER!

She finally stood up off of the slippery rocks, and finished brushing the pebbles off of her skinned knees, her hands moist with blood and water. Then she looked back up at the tree she’d jumped down from, and thrust her fist into the air, before shivering.

Hugging herself with both arms and wings, she managed a grin in spite of chattering teeth.

That was so worth it.

Carol wanted to try it again right away, but decided she’d better not. That turned out to be the right choice. She spent the rest of that night shivering and sniffling, and drinking a warm mug of lemon tea.

The next day (or next night, given her sleeping schedule) her back and her wings ached all over. She could barely even move her arms, which made sewing her stealth outfit hard. She had to rest that day, and the next, stretching her stiff wings when she could and making a couple of feeble attempts at doing stitches. It had only been a few seconds of flight, but she felt like she’d tried to lift a car.

The day of her parents’ return was approaching, and she still wasn’t ready. It looked like there was only one thing for it: She spent the whole last day packing and cleaning up, then got on her motorcycle and drove back to the city she’d worked at.

It was a long drive, especially with a sore back and wings, and she had to share the road with humans who couldn’t see as well as she could at night. Worse, the prices at the downtown hotel were sky-high. But as she flopped down onto the big, cushy bed in her room, she thought it’d been worth it for two reasons:

One, the generous fruit basket on the table.

And two, the lights of First Federal, right outside of her window.

* * *

Midnight. Still not as dark as she would’ve liked. The lights of the city shone red on the clouds behind her, as though sunset had never ended.

Carol finished hauling her bag up to the rooftop next to her, and looked out at the bank building as she got her things out. There weren’t too many lights on in it, and there weren’t any other large buildings nearby. The office that she was headed for was on the other side of the building, so she couldn’t see in it, but she’d made sure to check when she’d driven back with snack food and energy drinks. An hour ago, the light had been on.

Her fingers were unsteady as she strapped the gun to her hip. She wondered if it’d been a good idea to drink so much liquid sugar, or if she was just nervous. For a second, she thought of just climbing back inside. Then she shook her head and dismissed it, and finished strapping her gloves and her gear to her night-black stealth outfit.

There wasn’t a lot of gear to strap on, because she had to pack light to be able to fly. Stepping up to the edge of the roof, she looked out across the street at the lower ledge of the bank building … a flat platform with air vents and boxy things on top, to the side of the main part of the building.

Carol swallowed as she looked across at it. It seemed so far away now. And the lights of the streetlights seemed brighter, and the noise of distant traffic seemed louder. Every now and then a car drove past below, and she felt silly and conspicuous, like everybody could see her.

She clenched her fists, and told herself that if she did this right, nobody would.

Carol went to the center of the roof, walking lightly on bare paws, the noise of the central air conditioning getting louder in her ears. She stretched her arms, legs and wings, and did a basic warm-up routine. Then she looked out at the bank building and took a deep breath, before running towards it and leaping over the edge of the roof.

It was like doing a pullup while wearing a full-sized backpack. The first time she’d barely noticed, because the feeling of flight was so novel and she didn’t have any place she was flying to. But this time she immediately panicked, her breaths fast with fear and exertion, and as she looked up into the rushing air she realized that she was not going to make it.

Do I flap?

She couldn’t bring herself to, because she knew she would certainly plummet. So instead, as the roof of the building approached she put out her arms and

SMACK

One second she was flying, the next she was grappling with the ledge. She felt it beneath her arms, then her forearms, then only her hands were holding onto it as her footpaw-pads slipped on squeaking glass.

Heart racing, breaths rapid, brain telling her I am going to die, she fought to clamber on top. Her foot gained traction on scratchy concrete, and she just about tore its pad off getting the other one off the glass and pushing with all her might. One elbow got above the ledge, then the next, then she flung herself over the side and landed on top of the building.

Carol’s heartbeat was so rapid she thought she would die just from it, and trying to catch her breath felt like fighting to keep from drowning. Her tail and her wings were squashed underneath her, but she didn’t care. She could barely feel them.

She wasn’t there long before her ears perked. There was a squeak, of skin on the glass of the window she’d been kicking. Like someone had pressed his hands or his face up against it.

Carol jumped back to her feet, blood rushing to her head and making her stagger, as pins and needles crept into her wings and her tail. Then she shook her head, trying to clear it, and looked around for an entry point.

She had to rest up against the side of the door for a second, before taking out her glass cutter and carving a square through the inset window.

* * *

Carol crept through the dark hallway, towards the light spilling out from the open door.

A woman’s voice, laughing. “Are you kidding me? Those mortgage bonds are backed by the country’s top three lending institutions! Of course your money’s safe. It’s safer than it’d be in our vault.”

She got out her phone from its belt case, softly closing the magnetic cover before switching it on and turning on the Voice Memo feature. Carol pointed its microphone towards the door as she crept closer, quietly, holding her gun at the ready.

“Well, okay, maybe not that safe … ” Carol’s pointed ears heard a trace of the other voice on the phone. “But you know me, Ron. I’ve never let you down before, have I?”

She stopped outside the door, recording for a second.

More laughter. “And you’ll never let me forget that, will you?”

Carol let them finish their conversation, and waited for the phone to hang up. But a second later she heard it being lifted off the receiver again, and a number dialed into it. This time a man’s voice spoke, a deep one that sounded like plaid shirts and facial hair. “Hey, Mark. Remember those subprime mortgage bonds that I told you about?”

Carol’s ears perked.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” A chuckle. “Yeah, those’re the ones. Anyway, I think they’re going downhill.”

She holstered her gun, and crouched down low to hold a knife out around the corner. In its mirrored surface she saw feet under a rainforest wood desk, along with an energy bar wrapper on the floor next to a wastebasket. The feet moved, kicking the wrapper out of the way, as the chair swiveled to face away from the door.

“Heh, I know. Sorry for getting you into that mess. And First Federal has spent a ton on them, haven’t they? Listen, maybe we should … ”

Carol’s pounding heart drowned out the man’s words as she stepped into his office, the scent of central heating and pretzels and peanut butter and wheat-oat bars all assaulting her nostrils. His desk was messy, his suit jacket was tossed over the guest chairs next to the plant, and there was a screensaver going on his PC as he twirled the phone cord in his finger.

She stepped closer, crouch-walking, holding her wings pressed to her sides. She crept around the side of his desk, closer and closer to his high-backed leather chair. Finally she stood up, between the chair and his desk, and put her gun to his head. “Don’t move!”

Carol had tried to make it sound forceful. Then she realized the person on the other end of the line must have heard. There was silence for a long moment, and then her heartbeat drowned out a question on the phone.

“I’m going to have to call you back,” the deep male voice said, cracking. He hung up the phone, slowly and carefully, without turning his head.

Carol waited another long, painful moment, sweat running down her sides, before he spoke. This time it was silky and young. “The voice sounds familiar, but I’m afraid I can’t place it. Can I at least look to see who is pointing a gun at me?”

“G-go ahead.” Agh, she thought, I stuttered!

She stepped aside a pace or two, holding both arms straight out to aim at him, trying to keep them from trembling. The white-shirted young man in the chair spun it slowly to turn and face her. When he saw her, he looked confused. “Carol?”

She nodded, too quickly.

An incredulous look, for a second. Then he burst out laughing, and she really began to sweat. “Carol, you- this-” He was laughing so hard he couldn’t talk.

She said nothing, and couldn’t help but wonder just how dumb she looked.

He reached for a tissue, and wiped at his face. “Well, Carol, congrats on your rebirth! Welcome to the club.”

“I know what you are.” All of a sudden she wanted to cry, and she knew it came through in her voice.

“Yes, I know.” The man regained his composure and looked up at her. “And you’re lucky that you weren’t dumped in a creek. Did you know that?”

She said nothing, and he went on. “And now that you’ve got your life back, you’ve decided to … to dress up in a costume and come up here and kill me. For revenge, I guess. Is that it?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“What is it, then?”

“You’re going to tell everyone what you are.” She shook the cameraphone in her hand. “I’m going to take a video of you changing. Then you’re going to say how you cheated everyone. And killed me.” Carol tried her best to keep her voice level.

“You’re wasting your time,” he said.

“Y-you’re not going to talk?”

“No, I mean this is a waste of your time.” He gestured at her. “Just look at yourself. You risked your life getting in here, and for what? To put some small-time corporate con artist away?”

“Murderer.” She growled at him.

“Yes, well, there was a reason for that. And as you can see, you’re not dead, now are you?” He clasped his hands underneath his chin, leaning his elbows on the arms of his chair, and smiled at her.

“I didn’t come here just to put you in jail,” she snarled, anger taking over where fear left off. “I want you behind bars so that I can go back to living my life, without having to worry about you killing me again.”

He shook his head, sadly. “Rule number one of rebirthing. You don’t get to have your old life back.”

“I will if you’re out of the way!”

“No, you won’t,” he said. “Think about it. What are you going to tell your family? Your life with them will never go back to normal.”

“They know I’m a ‘morph. They just don’t know what all that entails yet. And they already think I’m weird.”

“Do you really think you’ll get your old job back?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you really think I want it?”

He leaned back in his chair, and put his hands behind his head. “You have all the answers, don’t you?”

“And now, I want answers from you.” Carefully, without taking her eyes off of him, she thumbed the controls on her phone and set it to record video.

“Ask me how I survived the last person who tried to kill me,” he said, smiling.

“H-” She coughed. “How did you survive?”

“I didn’t,” he said, and spun his chair around slowly.

“Don’t move!” she said, and waved her gun helplessly at the back of his chair.

When he came back around, he had the face of a cat, with glossy black fur and emerald green eyes. His hands pressed together beneath his chin, and sharp claws came out from them and tapped each other. “I didn’t survive,” he repeated. “But I have nine lives.”

“Wh-”

He screamed as he sprang at her.

* * *

Carol had seen her cats get into fights before. They were so fast she couldn’t even tell who was winning until one broke off and ran. There was just an explosion of fur, and then two cats would run out of it, one of them chasing the other.

Those cats meant business. So did this one. One second she had a gun trained on him, the next it went off and she was rolling around on the floor, crashing into furniture, trying to get this whirlwind of blades off of her. It was like being attacked by a million pairs of scissors, and it was all she could do to keep them from cutting her open. Fur went everywhere, and so did pieces of fabric and upholstery. After only a few seconds, the room was a cloud of flying debris.

If someone had watched it in slow motion, they might have seen her grabbing his arms, and then him pulling his hind claws up to her stomach, and then her pulling away while still holding onto him and the both of them crashing into the plant. But Carol couldn’t watch in slow motion, and so she could barely tell what was going on. Except that everything in the room was being destroyed, and she wanted to keep this from happening to her.

Hadn’t she been holding a gun at one point? There it was, on the floor. She grabbed it in one hand, and he grabbed her arm, and she swung the gun into the side of his head and it went off as she did so. Plaster and insulation clouded the room from the new hole in the ceiling, followed by potting soil as she grabbed a handful of it off the floor and flung it in his face.

Clutching his face, blinking dust out of his eyes, he dropped to one hand and swung his legs in a clawed spin-kick. Carol dove towards the door, but he caught her tail and it stung and threw her off-balance.

There was a pause of about one second as she stood there leaning against the doorway in pain, looking into the clouded room and then down the hallway, as two men in security outfits rounded the corner. Then he pounced her again, and they were in the hall tumbling and kicking holes in the wall. And people were shouting at them, but she couldn’t hear, because he was screaming. (Or was she?)

Then a gun went off again, and she didn’t know if it was hers or someone else’s, but blood sprayed across her as he recoiled and let go. She didn’t stop to think but took off, down the hall, stumbling and staggering but running as fast as she could. There was another gunshot as she rounded the corner, and she couldn’t feel anything but didn’t know if it was because they had missed or because she was so high on adrenalin.

All Carol knew was that she had to get away, right now. And that running footsteps were chasing her.

* * *

He approaches the man from behind, unable to see his face in this light. Or his tail.

“Sir! Are you alright?”

The man just stands there clutching his chest, taking deep shuddering breaths and coughing. It looks like he’s bleeding.

“Sir!”

He comes up next to the man, and something taps his leg. He looks down, and it’s a swishing tail. He looks up just as something hits him in the side of his face, and he loses consciousness.

A cat in a tattered, stained shirt leans against the wall and grits his teeth for a second, before something tiny and metallic PLINKs from his chest to the floor. He wipes at his muzzle with the back of his hand, then lurches forward, unsteady at first but soon settling into a run.

* * *

Carol turned sideways to slam into the crossbar on the door, going through without losing momentum, then stopped at the head of the winding staircase. Stairs! was all she could think.

Running footsteps, rounding the corner behind her. For a second, she had a vision of herself jumping over the railing and floating down dramatically, wings outstretched. Then she had another vision, of herself smacking into the concrete. She winced.

Carol jumped, as a shot bounced off the door, and took off running again.

It occurred to her, in between smacking into the wall at each landing and scrambling to take off down the next flight, that this had been a long night and she really wanted to go home. Hey, maybe I’ll get to go home now! she thought. Having to be with her family seemed downright happy compared to that cat fight.

She grabbed the rail of the last flight, trying to round it without smacking into the wall, when a gunshot from above bounced off of it right next to her hand. She fell backwards, landing on her wings and tail in a heap and so filled with adrenalin that all she could do was flail and kick her legs, not sure which way was up.

While she was doing that, a cat was knocking a person out several stories above her. Then she got back on her feet, just as a dark-colored blur dropped down between all the stairs. It rolled to a stop as she ran down the last flight, then came up at the end of it while she was about halfway down. A shaft of light from the window behind her shone on his fur, and his glowing eyes.

And on the gun in her hands.

Oh right, I’m still carrying this! She held it pointed at him, the stairwell silent except for their echoing breaths.

Carol remembered their last standoff, and how badly it’d ended for her. But whatever had happened between then and now, it looked like he’d gotten the worst of it. She felt exhausted, but he looked even moreso. And as she watched, he dropped to one knee, gasping for breath and not even looking at her.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she ventured, “haven’t you?”

He just nodded.

She wanted to lean up against the wall herself, but she was afraid to show weakness. They stood there for a couple of moments, long enough for Carol to feel dizzy as the adrenalin started to wear off.

“Bet you can’t … ” The cat gasped for breath. ” … finish me.”

“Huh?” Carol blinked.

“Got to do what it takes … ” He took several breaths. ” … to stop me. From going after you.”

“Y-you’re going to go after me?”

“Didn’t you?” He glared at her.

As she watched, he rose to his feet, a murderous look in his eyes. And then he began to climb the stairs towards her.

“Stop,” she said.

He went on.

“I mean it!”

The next few seconds would have ended badly for Carol, no matter what she had decided to do. But just then, she heard cars screeching and pulling up outside. Sirens wailed, and colored lights shone in through the windows.

The cat turned to look, and his ears flattened.

Carol looked between him and the door, her brain frozen. Then somebody pulled the door open, and without thinking she turned around and shot out the window on the landing above her.

“Don’t move!” someone shouted. But she wasn’t listening.

Pounding footsteps, gunshots, screams and noises of fighting echoed off of the walls behind her … as Carol ran through the window, jumped off the ledge, and flew.

* * *

The next day, the phone rang at her parents’ house. On the other end was a voice that sounded like their daughter’s, or like hers would if she were in massive pain. It wanted them to come get her, at a certain motel in a town in the next state, and to get her motorcycle at another motel in the same town.

They got there around noon. Carol had been up the entire day, unable to fall asleep because of muscle pains in her arms, legs, back, side, wings … pretty much everywhere. And she hadn’t taken anything for it, because she didn’t have anything to take.

She was still part-bat and part-possum, and was still wearing her torn stealth outfit. At least the color helps hide the bloodstains, she thought, gritting her teeth against the pain as they helped her into the car. A couple of tablets of painkiller and a pillow bought from the motel helped her fall asleep on the drive back, and the last thing she thought was I hope it isn’t too hard on them when the police catch up with me.

As it turned out, she needn’t have worried.

Carol woke up that evening when her mom walked into the living room and turned on the TV, after letting her crash the entire day. The lights were off and the volume was low, but it was loud enough for her to hear.

She winced, still wrapped up in blankets, and tried to shut her ears to it. But then she heard something about First Federal … and slowly, trying not to move her neck too much, she looked back over at the TV set.

She expected to see footage of the place where they’d fought. Of the torn-up office, and the stairwell where she’d flown off. But instead they were interviewing people, about how the bank had gone belly-up. Apparently they’d bought too many worthless loans from other banks, all so a ‘morph with ties to the others could profit from it. The police had him in custody now, on charges of fraud and assaulting a police officer, and the bank was closing down.

Carol’s heart sank as she watched, because she remembered that she’d left her phone there. It had everything on it … but was it even still working? Were her fingerprints recognizable? She didn’t know. And over the next few days as she recovered, nobody called them or showed up asking about her. Eventually, she forgot. And to all appearances, so did her parents. They never asked her any questions, and she never told them anything.

* * *

Halloween was that weekend. Carol spend the late afternoon giving out candy at the door, and the evening talking with her boyfriend and friends online. She didn’t have any proof of what she’d just been through, and it seemed almost like a dream. But somehow, it was one that she kept reliving.

It had been scary at times, but it had also been exhilarating. And she kept coming back to the fact that she’d done it, that she’d made her plan and carried it out and kept from being killed again or captured. She’d never known that she had it in her. And it made her wonder if maybe she shouldn’t be looking for a new line of work.

The next weekend, she heard how another ‘morph somewhere in New York had brought down the gang that had “killed” him and his family. And when she looked, she read similar stories from all over the world, of ‘morphs and people with other abilities. Everyone was suspicious of them, but they were doing things that no one else could.

People like her were making a difference.

The next evening she said goodbye to her parents, and rode off into the night. Somewhere, somebody needed her help, and she wanted to be there for him or her.

And maybe get a pet dog …