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 cat 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 slowly 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 MicroSD 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 animal. 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 MicroSD 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 someone who 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 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 is 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 about at 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?

“Because 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 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 person 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 detect 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 in.

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 pangs. 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, possibly more than one something.

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, steady, 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 way 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 MicroSD 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 misshaped feet anymore. My heart felt like it was threatening 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.

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

“Going to have to figure out what to do about 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 the 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 of 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 things 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 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 )

My parents weren’t there to see me off. There hadn’t been any time after the test had been done. I’d only had a few minutes to grab my belongings, and no one else had been in the house. Besides that, it was a military train station, not a light rail depot. My parents probably didn’t have clearance. No one else’s families seemed to be there, either.

Guards stood around us as we boarded, wearing thick ceramic plates and carrying the kind of rifles that shot your soul, not your body. Between them and the steel-armored maglev, huge and intimidating up close like a dinosaur’s flank, I nearly had a panic attack just getting on the train. It felt like stepping into a cage … or being shoved in, as the case may be.

Still, once I was inside I felt safer. It was cold with air conditioning, and echoey with the metal clanks of walking, but it reminded me of a subway car without any advertisements. Even better, it looked like the kind of train where you got your own compartment. An unarmored soldier showed me to mine, and I sat down on the thin cushion fidgeting nervously.

Now that I knew it was there, I could feel the animal inside my heart, frightened and begging for someplace to hide. I knew it was alien — it was the problem — but for now I didn’t protest. I let it be scared, and I drew my knees up to my chin and hugged them, closing my eyes and blocking the world out. And when the door shut, and left me alone in there, I let out a sigh of relief.

I looked out the bulletproof glass at the concrete side of the station, and thought of what lay beyond … what lay outside the city. But if this was a cage, it was keeping me safe inside it. And from now on, whatever happened to me was out of my hands.

Somehow, I found that prospect both relieving and frustrating. It meant that I was just a passive observer. No guilt, no reason for people to claim that this whole deal was my fault. I didn’t ask to be tainted with an animal spirit, it just happened. I didn’t ask for treatment, I just needed it. And I didn’t want to go outside, but that was the only place I could be treated.

I wouldn’t have minded actually having some power over all this. But I didn’t. That seemed to be how things went in my life — always being dragged around by something or another. I was getting used to it, just like how I was starting to get used to the constant nagging fear that came with having an animal eating away at your human soul.

Well, at least one of those things would be going away.

I tried to turn my thoughts towards more pleasant matters by looking around at the scenery. But military trains are not the most visually stimulating places around, unless you really like looking at shades of gunmetal grey. On to plan B then — a nap, or as close as I could come to getting one.

Of course, the moment I closed my eyes, the door slid open. I opened my eyes and tilted my head towards the door, fully expecting a soldier. What I saw was a young man about my age (I wasn’t sure; I was never a good judge of these things) in civilian clothing. He smiled a forced sort of smile, and waved at me.

I bit my lip and looked out the window again. “Please don’t let him sit next to me. Please don’t … ”

He sat next to me. Of course. My heart lodged itself somewhere in my throat, and I did my best to ignore him lest it fall right out of my mouth. I might not have been keen on the idea of going on living at the time, but that seemed like an awful way to die.

“Um. Hi,” he said. His voice was quiet and subdued, like it was for most people with eidolic toxicosis. Spirit poisoning. “M-my name’s Leander. Everyone just calls me Lee though.”

Cue awkward but inevitable pause between the two of us, while my animal side screamed at me that he was extremely dangerous and I needed to run and hide. Just like it did for every other person I met. It was worse than usual now, maybe because I was cornered. After all, he was between me and the door, I didn’t think the guards would take well to me fleeing through the hallways in a blind terror anyway.

“So … what’s yours?” I heard him shifting in his seat.

I sighed and looked in his general direction, more at the fabric patterns on the seat than his face. Maybe if I played along for a little while he’d leave me alone, and I could go back to pretending he wasn’t there. “It’s Corrine.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” He didn’t sound like he meant it. I couldn’t blame him; it’s not like these were great circumstances to be meeting anyone. “So, do you live here?”

It was a ridiculous question, and he realized it if his frantic backpedaling was any sign. “Um, I mean, it’s just I haven’t seen you around. Did you, uh, move here recently or something?”

“No. Lived here all my life.” And good riddance.

“What school do you go to?” Ugh, small talk. He sounded about as excited about it as I did, more like he was reading lines off a page than putting anything into a conversation.

“I don’t.”

He stared at me, confused. I saw his face contort and twitch for a moment.

“Long story,” I offered, in the way of explanation. It was the most anyone would ever get out of me.

“I didn’t do too well in school either. Not with grades, but … you know.” His voice dropped into the near-inaudible range. “It’s why they, ah, had me tested. And now I’m here.”

I winced. Was I really that obvious? “Yeah. They never got me tested at school, though.”

“Then how … ?”

“Work. It’s required by law now.”

“Oh.” He looked down again, his gaze flitting back and forth like he couldn’t bear to look up at me for more than a second. “Sorry.”

Huh. ‘Sorry.’ Well, what else could you say to someone who had a spiritual tumor growing in them? “We’re all in the same boat here,” I said, the terror inside me quieting as I willed myself to believe it. “Er, train, sorry. Anyway, they’ll find a cure soon.” I was being hopelessly optimistic, if not outright lying. It wasn’t going to be soon, if the military was overseeing this like they seemed to be. They tended to be busy with other things, like the skinchangers. As long as we weren’t p-shifting and ripping their throats out, we weren’t high priority. Which meant we were probably getting shoved off to the outer world where they could forget about us.

“Right.” Sincere voice, suspicious body language. He could probably see right through me, even if I could read people I never was a complicated read. “So…have they told you where we’re going?”

“Outside.”

“I know that.” He crossed his arms. “But didn’t anyone tell you where?”

“I know about as much as you do.” I shrugged. “Which isn’t much. It’s the military, what were you expecting?”

He flinched again. “Could you keep it down? They can probably hear us.”

In retrospect, implying the guys with guns were anything short of open, heroic, and competent was probably a bad idea. “Sorry.” I mumbled and did a double-take towards the door. Still closed, and they weren’t beating the door in. So far, so good. Maybe I’d even get through the ride there alive, if the train ever left the station.

It wasn’t long before I was drumming my fingers against the armrest and scowling, quite against my own will.

“Nervous?” And here I was almost willing him out of existence. Drat.

“Yeah.” My rhythmic cadence had turned into a rapid-fire solo from one of my favorite metal songs. Blast beats for the win. “I just don’t like enclosed spaces.”

He laughed nervously. “Me neither.” He stood up, reaching into a shelf above us for his luggage. “Here, I’ve got something that can help…”

Naturally at this movement, the maglev lurched into movement, and he fell to the floor along with his bag. I’ll be honest, I laughed, but more of a reflex than out of it being any kind of funny. I much more carefully got to my feet, and picked his bag up from on top of him. “You alright?”

“I’m fine.” He said far too quickly. “Sorry, I’m not that coordinated.” He braced himself against the windowsill and placed himself back into his seat.

“No need to apologize.” His bag was a bloody mess. I could see notebook papers poking out the sides of it with illegible scribblings just about everywhere, including the margins. But then again, I wasn’t one to criticize organizational skills. But I wasn’t this bad…was I?

He stared at his bag. “Could you…”

My brain took a few moments to process through what he could possibly be asking for. And then the proverbial lightbulb went off. “Oh.” I dropped the bag in front of him.

He gave me a bewildered look in exchange, and picked it up. “I always carry around at least a few of these with me.” I heard papers rustling around, and from the debris he produced a stuffed animal of some kind of dog.

“It’s cute.” I said, not really sure what else he was expecting.

“She’s a jackal. Only one I’ve ever seen.” He smiled fondly at the stuffed animal. “She can keep you company. If you want, I mean.”

“Sure.” Why not? Maybe this would get him to leave me alone. And at least it seemed to brighten his day, his face sure did light up. He did an underhand toss and the jackal landed right in my lap.

“I’ve got a lot of these. I collect them. I even have a virus plushie, want to see?”

“No.” I did have a nagging curiosity about how that was even possible (what with viruses being a microscopic entity and all) but I was sure the results couldn’t be pretty. Assuming they were visible to the naked eye.

As I tucked her under my arms, I had to admit, she was soft, and fuzzy, and strangely comforting. I leaned up against the seat and stared out the window, the pine forests obscured by a shimmering eidolic hedge. Still, it at least seemed less claustrophobic. Maybe now I could get my nap. The animal in me seemed to be somewhat satisfied, at least.

Everything turned very dark– we were heading into a tunnel. Perfect for my nap. I stretched out as far as I could without kicking Leander. And then the train lurched to a stop again.

He blinked, looking out the window along with me. “That can’t good…”

In my personal experience, a situation is never so bad that it can’t somehow get worse. And I was proven right once again when the eidolic hedge powered down. Any feeling of security I had withered away and died. What was going to protect us now from all the skinchangers and raiders and Lord-only-knows-what-else lurking outside?

Safety lights flickered on in the hallways and the intercom crackled to life. “Attention passengers. There has been a mechanical malfunction on the maglev. Please remain seated until the problem is resolved.”

This was less than reassuring, but the howls coming closer and closer were a greater concern of mine. It meant one of two things– wild animals or skinchangers. I was praying for animals.

Leander didn’t seem to be doing much better. All the color drained from his face. “Did you hear that?”

I was finding it impossible to speak or make a sound, and merely nodded in response.

Outside I could hear feet shuffling around and eidolic bullets loading into gun chambers, the soldiers otherwise eerily silent. Their movements stopped. I could hear a dull click, click, click, like metal against metal. Then, the shattering of glass and screams. Some might have been my own, I wasn’t even sure at this point. My mind had placed itself somewhere far away and safe, where there wasn’t shouting and gunfire and more screaming.

I had only the vaguest perception of someone grabbing my arm. A few moments and I realized it was Leander, and he was yelling at me too and I wasn’t sure what he was saying. Somewhere in all the haze I realized he was pulling me towards the door and trying to open it. I guess it wasn’t working, because we weren’t going much of anywhere.

But it didn’t really matter now, because there wasn’t a door to speak of. The soldiers were literally up in arms and screaming. They were also being flung across the hallways as if of their own will. Then I thought I heard one saying “Protect the civilians!” but it was hard to hear over the gunfire. And I was so far away already.

Something– I wasn’t sure what, because I couldn’t see anything except a strange shimmer in the air like heat off the pavement in summer– caused Leander to lift straight off the floor. His hand was yanked from my grip, and I stumbled onto the ground. I got off better than Leander did. He was thrown against a wall, and stopped moving.

I felt another something brush up against my collarbone. And then a flash of light, and a yowl of pain, and the something became very clear. It towered over me, and had to hunch over to fit in the compartment. Its golden fur contrasted starkly against the grey of everything else around it, and its feline face had a savage look in its eyes. It was unmistakably a lion skinchanger. And I should have been terrified of it, but I wasn’t. The animal in me was silent for once. And something about it was morbidly fascinating, like how a flame must be beautiful to a moth.

Of course this thing probably wouldn’t burn me to death. I’d just get my head knocked off. It’d at least be faster.

The thing backhanded the last soldier standing, and turned back to me. One of my aunts had a cat before they became illegal, and that animal was an unrepentant mouser before everyone went into a mass panic and started exterminating mice. The way that skinchanger looked at me was exactly the same as how her cat would look at mice before it killed them, except it had a very human grin on its face. One with more very sharp teeth than I cared to think about.

It must have had some mercy in it, or it just got bored of tormenting me. I didn’t even see him move his paw to strike me, and it only hurt for a second before I fell unconscious.

Click here to read the next chapter …

Adele sat upright in bed, going into a sneezing fit. She’d dreamed that something had been tickling her nose, and now she felt like something was stuck in it. She knew it was still nighttime because it was cold, and the freezing air made her sneeze all the more.

Finally she finished, sniffled, sneezed again and rubbed her nose on the shoulder of her nightdress, when all of a sudden she stopped.

Something was wrong with her nose.

Adele brought both hands to her nose, sniffling again, and felt the tip of it. What she felt was protruded and leathery, like the nose of one of her father’s hounds. Her mouth, too, jutted out just beneath it. She felt at her face for some time, unafraid but unsure of what this meant.

She patted the bed beside herself until she found her plush rabbit, and held it close. “What do you think, Mr. Thomas?” she asked. “Is this just part of growing up? I don’t recall mum’s face feeling like this … ”

Adele thought for a moment. “I sound like I have a cold,” she said.

She attempted to purse her lips, then tried out a few faces, just to see how they felt. The activity made her sneeze again, and she sniffled.

The cold air was getting to her. She shivered and held her bare arms for a second, trying to warm up. Then she threw off the covers and swung her feet onto the cold floorboards, before feeling her way to the door. “Come on,” she told Mr. Thomas, holding him in one arm. “Let’s see if mum’s still awake.”

The hallway outside Adele’s room was just as cold. She walked slowly, keeping one hand on the wall until she reached the stairwell. Then she held tight to the railing as she descended the staircase. The steps were huge to her tiny feet, and she did not want to fall down.

She heard the wind whistling outside the front door when she reached the landing. But she also heard the fire going in the sitting room, and hurried to the door.

Adele put her hands on the freezing brass doorknob and turned it, then pushed the door open and stepped inside. The warmth of the fire tickled her nose, and she bit her lip to keep from sneezing. It tasted strange. “Mum?” she asked.

No one replied, so she tried again, before she heard the crinkling of paper from a magazine. “Adele?” came her mother’s voice. “What are you doing still up? Didn’t Miss Winslow put you to bed already?”

“Mum, I’m sorry, it’s-”

“You’ll have to speak up, dear. I can barely hear you.”

Adele tried to speak up. “Mum, I need you to look at something for me!”

“Well, alright, then. Bring it over here.” Porcelain scraped against porcelain, from behind the back of her mother’s favorite chair, as Adele hurried around to the other side of it. “Whatever’s the matter with your voice? You aren’t coming down with something, I-”

She screamed. And Adele screamed too, as the cup that her mother had been holding shattered onto the floor and splashed her feet with hot tea. She jumped, and backed away from the shards.

“Mum! What’s wrong?” Adele asked.

Her mother only kept screaming.

Now Adele was starting to cry. “Mum, please tell me what’s wrong!”

A door opened, out in the hallway. Adele ran, leaping over the spill and bumping into the wall along the way, then wrenched the door open and collided with her nurse, Miss Winslow, out in the hall. Adele buried her face in her nurse’s nightgown, sobbing in terror.

The nurse guided her back towards the doorway. “What’s wrong with ye, child? Have ye broke somethin’ of yer mum’s?”

“Her face!” Adele’s mother cried. “Look at her face!”

Miss Winslow tried to tilt Adele’s head up towards her, and Adele obligingly looked upward, tears still streaming from her eyes. As soon as she did so the nurse stepped away and uttered an oath, leaving Adele clutching the folds of her dress.

Adele let go, overcome with despair. “Please, tell me what’s wrong!” she cried. “I don’t know what I did wrong! I … ”

She started sneezing again. And she kept sneezing as Miss Winslow hurried her up to her bedroom, shoved her inside, and then shut and locked the door. She could still hear her mother sobbing downstairs.

Adele crumpled to the cold, hard floor, crying and sneezing and shivering, holding her stuffed rabbit tight. Finally, when there were no more tears left to shed, she climbed up into her bed, then crawled under the sheets and lay still until she fell asleep.

The next morning Adele lay in bed for a few minutes, examining her nose again. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it felt a bit different from last night. And when she held her arms, she thought that the hairs on them seemed fuzzier somehow.

Miss Winslow came by to take Adele out and help her attend to her toilet, then locked her back in her room afterwards. A few minutes later she came back and set a dish with her breakfast on it on the table in the corner. Adele checked it, and found toast with jam and egg, and a basket of fruit. She quietly ate her breakfast, then sat in the chair underneath the window, leaning against the windowsill.

After awhile, she heard the sounds of a motorcar pulling up into the driveway. Adele pressed her face up against the cold window, trying to hear what was going on outside. She heard someone climb out of it, and exchange words with her mother, but he did not sound like her dad.

Afterwards the front door opened, and they stepped into the sitting room. Adele got up from her chair, and quietly went over to her bedroom door. The door to the sitting room was closed, so she could only hear the tone of their conversation, and not any actual words. But her mother sounded distressed. The man she could barely hear, but she thought he was trying to reassure her.

Finally the door opened. She heard them bid each other goodbye; then the front door opened, and the man left. She heard her mother shut and lock the front door, then start to pace up the stairs.

Adele ran back up to her window seat, hands in front of her face. When they touched the chair she pulled herself up to it, and sat down and clasped her hands in her lap as her mother unlocked and opened the door.

Adele waited for her mother to say something, but she did not. A shiver ran down Adele’s spine.

“Mother?” she asked, polite but scared.

“Yes, child?”

“W-what’s wrong with me?”

A sigh. “You’ve come down with a serious disease, Adele.”

“Is it serious like the mumps?”

“More serious.”

Adele squirmed. “I don’t feel sick … ”

“You’ll have to take cod liver oil again.” Her mother’s voice was shaky. “And Doctor Swan has written you out a prescription, which you will have to take as well.”

“Is it my face, mother?” Adele felt at her face again. “Is that what the illness is doing?”

For a moment there was no sound. Then Adele heard her mother choke back a sob, and it froze her heart inside of her. “Mum, don’t cry!” she pleaded. But then the door was shut and locked, and Adele broke down into tears again as her mother’s footsteps went down the stairs.

She heard Miss Winslow say something to her mother, and strained to hear what it was. But all she could hear was her mother yelling: “First blindness, and now this!”

Miss Winslow said something more quietly.

“Calm down?” her mother exclaimed. “How can you say such a thing? She could die from this, and there’s nothing that we can do!”

They said some more things after that, but Adele could not hear them. She felt like her whole body had frozen, and the only things that could move were her beating heart and the tears that were left on her cheeks. Everything else in her room was still and quiet, and the shouting she heard coming from downstairs no longer made sense anymore.

The rest of that day was a blur.

After that, the days started to blend into each other. Adele stayed locked in her room the whole day, except for trips to the bathroom, and no one ever came up to her room except to serve her meals or make her take medicine.

The medicine was sharp and foul-tasting, and Adele hated it. It left her whole mouth and her throat burning. She thought it might be because of the medicine that her food was starting to taste bland … the corned beef tasted like mud, and the toast tasted like shingles. But the fruit that they left her was sweeter than ever, and she found herself devouring it.

The dogs were her only entertainment. No one let them into her room, but she sat by the window whenever they were let out and listened to them play in the yard. She thought she could hear where each one was, and she remembered their warm noses and happy, affectionate natures. Adele wished they would let her play outside again, but knew it would do her no good to ask. So she just imagined herself running barefoot on the wet grass, holding onto a dog’s collar, then being nuzzled from behind and falling over and laughing before getting her face licked.

Every morning Adele checked herself all over to see what had changed. Her nose and mouth weren’t doing anything anymore, but her ears had started to move, and they felt more floppy and rounder. Her whole body was furry, and her feet and lower legs felt sort of like a dog’s back legs, but with fingers on the ends. Adele could feel them, and could just barely manage to do things like take hold of the sheet covers with them.

She wondered if she was becoming a dog, and if that was what had everyone worried. The thought struck her as strange, but she didn’t see why everyone had to be so upset about it. There were plenty of other dogs in the house, and it wasn’t as though she had stopped being herself. Adele knew that she looked different on the outside, but she still felt the same on the inside. Just worried and bored and frustrated.

Maybe they were afraid that they’d catch it from her, she thought. Adele wasn’t sure why they’d be so upset about that, either. She imagined her mother taking Doctor Swan’s medicine, and giggled. Didn’t the whole house come down with the flu earlier? What was so diferent about this? Adele remembered her mother saying that she was afraid that Adele would die from this, but by now it didn’t seem real to her.

Then, one day, the pain started.

It started one night when she was tossing and turning in bed, trying to get to sleep and realizing she couldn’t because her back was sore. Adele turned over and lay on her side and forgot about it, but the next morning she tried to stand up and her back was so stiff that she fell over. She spent that whole day leaning forward in her stiff wooden chair, wanting to get up and move around but still too sore to do so.

That night wasn’t any better. And the next morning when she tried to feel around to see what had changed, she cried out in pain when she prodded her back.

It brought both of her parents up to her room. Her dad had long since come back, and she stood at attention as he took charge of the situation. “Show me where it hurts,” he told her.

“M-my back,” Adele said.

The ears on top of her head perked, and swiveled to face him as he walked around her. Then she heard him stop, and the breath caught in his throat. “Clarissa,” he said, “do you see this? What’s happened to her?”

Now she heard her mother walk around and kneel down in behind her. She unbuttoned the back of Adele’s nightdress and put a hand on her back, and Adele could feel her mother’s cold hand, and her back bulging and swollen behind her.

“What do you suppose this is?” she heard her father say, as he leaned in a bit closer. “Is this where … ” Then he poked at her back, and the pain shot all the way through her. She cried out, and collapsed.

When Adele woke up, she was laying flat on her stomach on top of her bed. Her mouth was dry and tasted like cotton, and her arms and legs were splayed out to either side.

Indistinct voices sounded around her. Her head was still ringing, and it hurt when she tried to move it. As soon as she did so she heard footsteps coming towards her, and her mother’s voice saying something. But she couldn’t tell what it was.

She heard Doctor Swan’s voice, and it was clear and distinct because it was so unexpected. “We need to lance it to let them out.”

Adele heard her mother sound taken aback, and call her father’s name as though she were asking him to agree with her. But she did not hear her father’s voice.

Then she felt something on the bed next to her. A second later there was a cold hand on her back, and she realized that it was still bare.

Then there was a sharp pain, firey and jarring and making her wake up partway. Adele was still just barely conscious, and she gritted her teeth and clenched her hands as the pain traced its way down her back, unable to do anything else.

Then her back exploded, a horrible pain that lasted a split-second and was followed by blessed relief. She heard her mother’s oath, and she felt something warm and sticky around her, especially on her back. But what she mostly felt was the things that had been inside her back, that felt like two tiny, warm, sticky arms. Adele could feel them attached to her, and she stretched them out luxuriantly, not caring what had just happened and just glad that the pain was over.

She heard her parents and Doctor Swan talking, and felt warm, damp rags washing her back and running over the bed. Parts of her back still felt sore and raw, and she winced when they were touched. She also winced as the rags went over her new “arms,” because whoever was doing it didn’t seem to know how to handle them, and kept squishing and twisting them in ways they did not want to go.

Adele tried to pull her “arms” back, but the hands holding the rags were insistent, and she heard her mother’s voice chiding her. Her mother took her time cleaning her off, and Adele muttered something to her. Then finally, everyone left, and Adele let her wings settle next to her as she blissfully fell back asleep.

When Adele woke up, it was nighttime.

She knew it was nighttime because it was cold. The cold had woken her up. She was still laying on her stomach without her nightdress, and her fur was thick but not thick enough. She shivered, and rolled onto her side.

When she did so, she felt her folded wings like a blanket behind her, and felt one of them press into the bed. It was uncomfortable, so she sat up. One hand pressed onto a dry, crusty spot on the bed beside her, and Adele realized what had happened. It was still strange to her, but she did not question it. She didn’t have any reason to do so.

Outside her window she heard an owl’s hoot, and her ears perked towards it. Then she heard the chittering of bats, and something about them sounded familiar … like a voice that she’d heard but forgotten.

Adele grabbed her stuffed rabbit and ran over to the window seat, hands in front of her, before leaping on top and perching on it, hands and foot-fingers splayed out. She pressed her nose up to the cold glass and listened. The bats’ chirping sounded melodious; more musical than anything she’d ever heard.

She tried to mimic them, just like she’d playfully barked at the dogs before her mother had told her to stop. And the same song came out of her throat …

… and bounced back into her face.

The bats outside seemed to pause for a moment, and so did Adele, blinking in confusion. She’d felt the song on the tiny furs on her face and neck, and inside her large, rounded ears. And it’d felt like there was something in front of her. She wasn’t sure what that meant.

Adele tried it again. And this time she felt a picture in her mind, the same way that she had imagined the feelings and sounds of the stories her mother had read to her, before she had become ill. It was like feeling without touching; knowing that there was a flat pane in front of her just by singing at it.

The window.

She turned around and sang a short, clicking song at her bed. Now she could feel all of its lumpy textures, and even the backboard and the wall in behind it, and the nightstand which had things set up on it still. She knew how far away it was, and could even tell that she’d left the covers a mess.

Adele had to catch her breath when she realized that. A grin slowly spread over her face, and deep in her throat her voice box started vibrating, a happy song that was even higher-pitched. As she did that she found that she could feel everything in front of her, everywhere that she looked, and could even turn her head and feel what was in front of it.

She jumped down from her chair and did that for as long as she could, marveling at the sensation, amazed that she could now walk without having to hold out her arms in front of her. Was this what it was like to see? Adele got dizzy just from turning around every which way, feeling the whole inside of her room including the ceiling. Then she took a deep breath, and the feeling stopped until she started her song again.

Adele jumped up and down, clapping her hands and flapping her wings happily. The air currents swept her off her feet, and a second later she found herself on the floor across the room, rubbing her sore elbows. “What was that, Mr. Thomas?” she asked, and turned her head to face the chair where her stuffed rabbit was. “Did I … ”

Her hands reached out and felt the leathery wings on her back, as she realized what they were. And as she heard the chirping of other bats outside, she knew what she had become, as well.

“So that was why mother was so afraid,” she said, elbows and knees still smarting. Every time she’d heard bats described, she’d been told they were ugly creatures that got caught in people’s hair. And when she’d first recognized the chirping outside, and been told that it was because of bats, she’d always imagined them being like wasps or mosquitoes.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Adele protested, and screwed up her face in dismay as she stood up and tried to reason things through. “Mosquitoes aren’t furry,” she said, and walked over to Mr. Thomas and picked him up. “And they don’t have faces like dogs. I feel more like a dog than a mosquito, so I can’t be as ugly as one of them, can I?”

She held her stuffed rabbit so that he could see outside, and pressed her face to the glass. All of a sudden she wished that she were on the other side of it, or at least that she knew what it felt like. She wanted to be let out of her room, to play outside again, to have fun wrestling with the dogs and to actually be able to run …

To run. Without holding her arms out in front of her, running smack into trees and tripping on roots.

To fly.

Adele grinned again. “If this is because of my illness, I do hope that I never get better.” One hand went to her mouth. “But what if I am better now, and this is what I’ll be like from now on?”

She turned her head to “look” down at her stuffed rabbit. It said nothing. Then Adele looked back out into the room, and recognized something she hadn’t before: The door had been left open.

She walked through it confidently, feeling excited and happy and extremely hungry. On the landing she could hear the fire going in the sitting room downstairs, and she did not even have to hold on to the handrails. “Come on, Mr. Thomas,” she whispered. “Let’s go ask mum and dad if it’s okay to go outside again.”

May 10th

Mood: Okay
Location: Home

LS keeps saying I should try this whole online journal thing. So here I am. Let the friends list requests begin! Gotta friend ‘em all, right? I kid, I kid …

Edit: Wow, srsly? I didn’t even know some of you had online journals! I’m flattered.

May 19th

Mood: Impatient
Location: Still at home

Apparently if you have one of these online journaling whatnots, you’re supposed to write about yourself in them. I’m not sure I see the point, because I lead the most boring life ever and you don’t want to read about it. But LS keeps bothering me, so here goes …

Today I read library books. All day. And tomorrow I’m taking them back. Or maybe the day after. Who knows. I’m lazy.

Exciting, huh?

May 22nd

Mood: Bored
Location: Still at home

My last entry didn’t satisfy LS. So today I’m going to write until I hit the word count she gave me. Here goes …

bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored

… okay fine.

I live in a fourth-story apartment in the City of Gray. That’s not what it’s called (no kidding), it’s just what I like to think of it as. It’s shinier downtown, but it’s just a shinier shade of gray. Even the buildings with glass sides just reflect the gray sky and the gray buildings and streets. There was a tornado near here a few days ago, and I was wondering if it would sweep me off to the Land of Oz.

My apartment, which I would think of as “My rockin’ bachelor pad” if it were, in fact, rockin’, has four walls and a ceiling. This sets it apart from some of the other units in the building. The mice and cockroaches know this, which is why I spend lots of time with them. Of course, it helps that I don’t do the dishes often enough.

I make a living by doing odd jobs online and collecting unemployment insurance. This is a rare skill, as they’ve made it so hard that only people who are able to read can apply. Did I mention I like reading? I hate going to the library, though — I’d buy from Amazon, but I like being able to read while eating. And for some reason, you need money to eat. Imagine that! I also hate going to the store, but it’s another prerequisite to eating.

I’m still about a thousand words short of the word count she gave me. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so here’s a picture I snapped of the view outside my window:

Error: Picture not found.

Edit: Rats, I still can’t get it to upload. Any ideas? What am I doing wrong?

May 30th

Mood: Scared, nervous and frustrated
Location: Heck

I am never using a public library terminal to look something up ever again.

June 3rd

Mood: Sarcastic
Location: Not heck

LS keeps needling me to write. So here goes.

Let’s see … today’s writing prompt, up on the online journal website, says “Have you ever hugged somebody you didn’t know in person? Has anyone you didn’t know ever hugged you?”

Answer … yes. When I was active in the furry fandom. And I will never do so again for as long as I live. >_<

Edit: Both.

Edit 2: A close personal friend has informed me that she happens to be in the furry fandom, and doesn’t like hearing people make fun of it. So the comments thread for this entry is now closed. Sorry.

June 5th

Mood: Wry amusement
Location: Dry apartment

My refrigerator just gave up and died on me. This morning. While I was still asleep.

I am so glad I didn’t have any meat or animal products in there, or I wouldn’t be eating for the rest of the week. *munches on celery and carrot sticks*

June 6th

Mood: Bemused
Location: The place with four walls and a ceiling

Remember our talk about furries, earlier on? That’s what our talk about vegans the other night reminded me of. Apparently, in order to be a good ol’ red-blooded American one must eat steak from a Texas longhorn every night, just toasted enough so that it’s still raw and squidgy in between the gray parts.

FYI, I have dietary restrictions that keep me from eating animal products. Any of them. At all. I’ve been this way for a year now, for reasons that are, frankly, none of your business. Sometimes I feel like I’d kill for a hamburger, but the last time I went to McDonald’s (for a salad, mind you) the smell drove me away. It’s like death warmed over, and deep-fried in lard. And I can remember liking that smell, but now it just makes me sick. It’s like my body knows that it can’t digest it, and it’s keeping me from making a serious mistake.

How serious? To the wise guy who talked about sneaking an egg into my “soymilk smoothie:” That would’ve killed me. I mean it. One night I woke up with the worst stomach cramps, and not a clue what had caused it. So the next day I checked the ingredient label on the expired bread that I’d bought, and it turns out it had milk and eggs in it. Now I always check the ingredients, even at fast-food restaurants, and if it’s not vegan I don’t eat it.

And to the other wise guy, who went on about “rabbit food:” Shut up. SHUT. UP.

June 12th

Mood: Furious
Location: Barricaded inside my apartment

I hate dogs.

I don’t mean I dislike dogs in general. I mean I hate dogs. I hate every one of them individually, from Great Danes and little yippers to Chihuahuas that work for Taco Bell. I hate them all.

I live down the hall from a couple that keeps two German Shepherds. And they take them out for walks at least four times a day. Every morning, I get jolted out of my sleep by barking and whining and claws scratching their door. Then I lay there as I hear the door open and these claws, tons of them, clicking across the hallway. Coming closer. And I’m tired, I don’t want it to scare me, I’ve been through this a million times, but I have to stave off this feeling of terror every single time.

Sometimes I see them in the hallway or on the stairs, and I have to duck out of the way really fast. Because when those dogs see me, they start barking. And they have the loudest bark, that hurts my eardrums and just pierces right through whatever mood that I’m in and sends me into a panic. Yes, I know I’m a wimp. I don’t care.

You know what happened today? I was walking back up the stairs, clutching my MP3 player, trying to restore my shattered nerves after this confrontation I’d had at the Post Office. And I was so absorbed in what I was listening to, and in wanting to get home, that I bumped into the German Shepherds coming down the stairs. They started barking right next to me, and I threw myself up against the wall, staring at them, unable to think, unable to realize that I’d just flung my MP3 player down two flights of stairs. And the guy apologized to me, but I barely heard him over the sound of my heart beating and those dogs barking like crazy.

I don’t know how long I stood there hyperventilating. And when I finally managed to calm down, I realized what had just happened and ran downstairs, to find an MP3 player with a cracked screen. That thing was my lifeline, on my trips outside my apartment, and now it won’t even turn on anymore.

At least my headset still works. My stupid, custom-rigged headset. With a broken microphone, and tape holding the two parts together. I hate it I hate it I hate it.

And I hate dogs.

June 14th

Mood: …
Location: maybe this is heck after all

sometimes, i really wish i could just curl up and die.

June 21st

Mood: Shaken
Location: The place where I spend my whole life

I apologize for my last entry. I’ve been under a lot of stress this past year. And I try to hide it, but sometimes it shows.

To those of you who suggested that I seek counseling: Maybe it’d help, but I can’t afford it. I’m not a student, and I don’t have any insurance.

LS has been trying to talk me through some of my issues. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about all of them, and I feel bad about imposing on her anyway. But she insists, and I’m kind of glad that she does, because as stressful as talking about it has been it’s also been a relief.

I’ll let you all know how things turn out.

June 29th

Mood: Nervous
Location: Here

Okay … this post is friends-only. I don’t want to do this, but I stayed up late last night talking to LS and she really thinks that I should. It doesn’t seem like such a great idea now that I’m here and awake, but she made me promise to tell you all so I guess that I have to.

…

I keep distracting myself with other websites. This … this is really uncomfortable to talk about! And I mean, it’s almost funny how nervous I am, and I can laugh at it if I think about it, but then I get ready to type and I start to sweat and I … I …

… I have Zooanthropy.

Permanent. Not cyclical.

I’ve avoided talking about it, because I try not to think about it. I don’t want to think about it. I spend so much time on the computer because it’s easier to pretend that I’m normal. But I’m not. I’m not even human.

The doctors say I’m a Sylvilagus Floridanus Sapiens, which is what you say when you don’t want to tell your patient he’s a half-human half-rabbit freak. Here in the city I get weird looks, but if one of you people saw me out in the real world you’d cross to the other side of the street, or cover your kids’ eyes and pull them away from me. I wouldn’t blame you. I don’t want to see me, either.

The worst part is, I’ve always wanted this. Back when I was in grade school, I read about the loup-garou of medieval France. And they were these sick people who were killing and eating their neighbors’ livestock, but I saw that and thought “That’s so cool.” And then we were taught all about how the Native Americans were like lycanthropes and such, and how some of their tribes would deliberately eat diseased animals so that their saliva would carry the disease. And it was savage and inhuman, but I just thought “Why wouldn’t anyone want to be part animal?”

I knew that … that it was a terrible disease that scarred people for life, and could kill you if it wasn’t treated. But it just had this hold on me that I couldn’t explain. And I’d look at pictures and photographs of infected people, and I don’t know why I was so interested but I had to stare at them. I just had this feeling of wonder, like there’s more to life than … than four walls and a ceiling. And like there are things that are still possible that we haven’t dreamed of.

Maybe part of it was my upbringing. I went to an elite private school, had next to no friends, and spent all of my free time in front of the computer.

But my parents did alow pets. For my birthday one year they bought me a rabbit. He was black and inquisitive and full of energy, and he kept me company while I was doing homework and playing on the computer. He was one of my only friends. And I’d look at him curled up in the cage every night, and I couldn’t help but feel that he was better off than I was.

And for some reason, that idea took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I wanted to be a rabbit. So I read Watership Down, and wrote these stories based on it, and roleplayed being a rabbit with these people I met online. I even got into furry, and the people there aren’t as crazy as the media makes them out to be …

Well, most of them aren’t. I was one of the crazy ones. I hung out on FA, on the normal messageboards, on the mainstream furry hangouts where they’re all talking about art and things. But I also hung out on a zooanthrophile website. Where it was all like “You must be 18 or over” and “For educational purposes only,” and other disclaimers that should have scared me off but didn’t. And you wouldn’t believe the things that they had there.

I was on the edge of my seat reading this long series of diary entries on their messageboard, by a person who was being transformed by the infection. He posted photos. He took a (low-quality) video, and showed how his voice was changing, and I could barely bring myself to click on it I was so scared. I’d never seen an infected person before, and thought that I never would. And when you spend that much time dreaming about something, to be faced with it for real is terrifying.

He wasn’t taking any medicine for it at all … he was just letting the disease run its course. I read all the posts in between his, and the other zooanthrophiles were cheering him on, and congratulating him for documenting the whole thing for everyone to see.

Then he stopped posting, and I read where people had been speculating as to what had happened. Then I read a post by his sister. He’d gone feral and attacked someone, and the both of them had died. After that and a couple of shocked responses, a mod reminded everyone that their website did not condone this type of experimentation, and closed the thread.

My heart was in my throat, and my sides were plastered with sweat. I felt like I’d been through the whole thing with him, and I hadn’t been able to stop reading because I’d had to know what had happened. After finding out, I swore off my interest in that kind of thing altogether, and resolved never to even think about it again.

You may be surprised that I only mentioned one person who had done this, when everyone there wanted to. The reason they didn’t was because it’s hard, like … like killing yourself is hard. The kind of thing that you think about doing, but for one reason or another you can’t follow through with it. And that’d take a lot of effort and planning. I mean, getting bitten by a wild animal is easy, but the animal might not be a carrier, so you’d have to go through multiple animal bites to be sure of getting infected. The animals would all have to be killed to be tested. And in the process, you’d probably come down with all kinds of other diseases.

That’s not something you can explain to others. You put your life at risk on purpose, and your family and friends are right to think that you’re messed up in the head.

Messed up in the head …

What was I thinking?

They wanted us to do volunteer work at the college I studied at. And I could’ve done all sorts of things, but my friend was working at the raptor center so I decided to join him. They take care of the city’s peregrine falcons, that nest up on the sides of the buildings. The ones out in the country got killed off by DDT and scared farmers, and we’ve got one of the only surviving populations in the world. Some people want to get rid of them and the pigeons, because they’re afraid that they’ll spread disease. But crazy people like me wanted to keep them alive, so we did crazy things like keep track of each nest, and take care of their young when the parents get killed. And when an adult falcon got injured, we had to care for it personally, until it could be reintroduced into the wild.

Did I mention that this was volunteer work? As in, they didn’t get paid for it? Any bird they had there could be a carrier, could infect them with this life-threatening disease if they made a mistake, and they took care of those birds anyway. I thought the people who worked there were heroes, but knew I was too scared to do the most dangerous things that they did. Then all of a sudden they needed my help, and I had no time to argue.

We were trying to tag one of the falcons, before letting it go. And I tried to hold the bird down, but I made a mistake and it sliced the side of my wrist below the glove. Then I made another mistake — I let go.

You wouldn’t believe how quickly we got out of there. And the lady I worked with and I exchanged this look, like “Did we just survive that?” Then she looked down at my hand, and her eyes went wide. And she told me to hurry and wash it off, while she got the disinfectant.

The bird was no longer an issue. It’d have to be killed to be tested. Now we had a medical emergency on our hands, with a potentially life-threatening condition. And I was in shock, because I was scared from the attack and my heart was beating so fast that I couldn’t think straight. It was like that cut on my arm was the most fascinating thing in the world. And then there was this voice in my head that told me “Wouldn’t it be neat to find out what it’s like?” And I let that voice keep talking, because it meant that I didn’t have to move or do anything except watch blood run down my forearm. I was so scared.

The lady I worked with — it wouldn’t be right to call her by name — came back with the disinfectant, and she started to apologize for taking so long but then she stopped in midsentence, and stared down at my wound. And she was like “Why didn’t you wash that off? Do you want to get infected?”

And I didn’t know what to tell her.

She dragged me to the sink, and made me scrub down for a whole minute while she got the bandages ready. Then she dried my wrist off with some paper towels, smeared disinfectant all over the cut and wrapped gauze around it. And then she made me go back on campus and report to the infirmary, because my tuition only covered their medical care.

And then I waited. They let me take the next few days off from class. I could’ve asked my roommate what they covered, but I didn’t. All I did was sit there in the dorm and wait for the test results to come back. Every time the phone rang, I jumped. At one point I thought about letting my furry friends know, but how could I tell them how I felt about it when I didn’t even know? I wanted to get up and pace, and I probably could have walked circles around campus. But I’d given them my dorm room’s phone number instead of my cell, so instead I practically dug a hole into the room below. I don’t know if I ate anything that whole day.

The phone finally rang on the second day. And the person on the other end told me that that falcon had been a carrier of Zooanthropomorphosis Virulens, and I needed to go in for treatment right away. And I was sweating, and my hand was shaking, and I kept stuttering as I asked her to repeat herself because the line was so quiet. But when I finally hung up, I felt relieved. And I just sort of slid down the wall to the floor and let out my breath, still shaking but laughing at how silly I was, now that the tension was over.

Now that I’d had a whole day to think about it, and to realize how serious it was, I knew that I didn’t want to let the infection manifest. I wanted to go in for treatment, and get it all taken care of so that I could go back to my classes. I knew that it’d take at least a few days just to take hold, though, so I didn’t like run right back to the infirmary or anything. Instead, the first thing I did was I went on my favorite (sane) furry messageboard, and let them know what had happened.

I told them all of my feelings about it. I told them about the crazy site that I’d been to, and I admitted to having an unhealthy fascination with this kind of thing. But I ended by letting them know that I wasn’t going to put my life in danger or make my family nervous. I was going to do the responsible thing, and get myself treated.

Then I ran straight to the infirmary. They made me take this liquid medicine that was like a chalk milkshake. And they gave me this huge bottle of it, and said that I had to take it three times a day until it was empty. It was nasty, but I did as I was told. And I was nauseous the whole rest of that week, but I “chalked” it up to the awful medicine.

Then my hair started to fall out.

I sprinted to the infirmary. They did all kinds of tests on me, and drew blood samples and everything. And then they told me the awful news. My infection wasn’t responding to the treatment, because the disease had become resistant.

They put me on chemo. Retroviral therapy. All of it. It lasted for months. All of my hair fell out. I missed all my classes that whole semester. I could barely eat anything, and I eventually had to be hospitalized and put on an IV drip. There, I was in and out of consciousness, and they had a TV on the whole time but I couldn’t tell what was on. I’d just have these weird dreams, then not even wake up but realize I was watching the television.

They finally contained the infection. But the damage had already been done. And I remember I was drugged up and incoherent, but I was screaming and waving my arms at the nurse — the arms that were still hooked up to IVs — and demanding that they cure me. And I hadn’t even looked in a mirror or noticed a change or anything, I was so incoherent. They’d just told me that the disease had taken effect partway, and I didn’t want that. I wanted to be better again. I wanted everything to go back to normal and for this stupid nightmare to be over, and I couldn’t accept that it wasn’t.

They told me all sorts of things trying to get me to calm down, everything from “It’s barely noticeable” to “People with your condition can still live long, healthy lives.” But none of it prepared me for what was to come.

When they discharged me I was still incoherent, and I just sort of sprawled there in the backseat of my roommate’s car while he drove me back to the dorms. He told me that he was glad to see me again, everyone wished me well, so on and so forth … oh, and someone had found this thing online where I’d said that I’d gotten infected on purpose, and people were talking about that. And the insurance company had gotten wind of it, and they were denying my claim, which he’d found out because he had “accidentally” opened a letter they’d sent.

I just sorta bobbed my head and looked out the window, and thought it was funny how this reflection of a rabbit’s face was looking back at me. Then we got there, and my roommate helped me upstairs, and I crashed.

The next day I woke up. And for precisely two seconds, I was glad to be home. Then I realized what’d happened and had a panic attack, right there. My thoughts were like “AAAHHHH my face is messed up my hands my arms everything! I’m not cured! They sent me home and I’m not cured! But I can’t be cured but I have to be but I can’t but this isn’t right! This is not supposed to happen!” And I don’t know if I was screaming or what, but my roommate heard something and opened the door, and I dove under the covers and shouted at him to go away.

I spent the next half-hour there, sweating and breathing fast, unable to move and unwilling to get up. I’d finally remembered what my roommate had said, and I knew right then that my life was over. All the feelings I’d kept private, all the dreams and secret longings, and now my whole family if not the whole world knew. And I would be paying for it ’till I died.

I didn’t want to be a rabbit in real life.

College was over, my friendships were over, everything I had was gone. And when I remembered seeing my face in the car window, and realized what I had become, it was like being physically socked in the gut. I contorted with the impact, and held that position until it hurt. Because it was the cruelest thing that’d ever happened to me.

Finally I got up, looked in the mirror, and cried.

Thus began my education.

My first lesson? Nothing in all of modern society is designed for people who have fur. Here are a few examples: Zippers. Clothes. Showers. I used half a bottle of shampoo on my first attempt at cleaning myself, and I looked like a disheveled wreck afterwards. Nowadays I just use bar soap, and I look even worse.

As for clothes, I practically killed myself trying to get dressed, only to find out that everything was too tight … like putting your belt on around a fur coat. My pants wouldn’t fit because my legs bent in different ways now. I looked ridiculous, and felt like an idiot. Then I almost passed out from heatstroke before I finally got the clothes off. And maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it sure felt like it at the time. I’ve never worn a fursuit before or since being infected, but I can’t imagine it being that much more uncomfortable.

So clothes were out. I couldn’t register for classes without them, and I couldn’t go out to the dining hall, either. But I had to do something, because I couldn’t eat anything that we had in the room. What I ended up doing was wrapping a sheet around myself while I sat in front of the computer, trying to adjust to typing with claws and looking around a muzzle with eyes on the sides of my head.

The first place I went to was that furry messageboard that I’d posted on. I read the replies to the thread that I’d posted, and they were all congratulating me, but then I got to this one where he called me out for being a zooanthrophile. He said that I was a sorry excuse for a fur, an example of why one should never do things like what I did, and a waste of medical treatment that could’ve gone to someone who needed it. And he hoped that I got what I deserved.

I closed the browser right there, but I’d already begun to cry. I’ve never gone back to that messageboard.

My roommate finally brought back a salad after his classes, but by then I wanted to starve myself and just let the pain blend in with everything else. I ended up scarfing it down after he’d gone to bed, then staying up late that night and crashing the whole of the next day.

You may be thinking that this was not a sustainable lifestyle. You would be right. Pretty soon the college kicked me out and sent me back home to live with my parents. And you can’t imagine how awkward that first meeting was.

I don’t remember half the things that they said to me on the long drive home. My dad kept addressing the person he thought I was, the irresponsible freak who had done this to himself, and barking about how a man had to own up to his responsibilities. And my mom was trying to calm him down and reassure me, but she had no idea how to do either.

I didn’t respond to either of them. I was so scared. I didn’t know how to cope with any of this, and I wanted to curl into a ball and wait for it all to go away. So that’s what I did. The whole ride home I was curled up in the back seat of the car, sandwiched in between my boxes of books and the door, trying to hide myself and knowing I couldn’t. And the few short weeks I spent at home — which seemed like an eternity — I hid as best as I could, sleeping during the day and reading and going online at night.

The whole time I felt nervous, terrified, trapped … I felt like I had been tossed in a sack, and had no idea when the hunters were going to skin me and eat me. I could barely leave my room without quaking in fear. Slowly, I began to realize that I wasn’t even thinking like a human anymore, that the rabbit part of my brain was telling me that everything was dangerous and everyone was a predator and that I should be afraid all the time. And the human part of me knew that was irrational, but I couldn’t help it. The most I could do was try to distract myself, between episodes where I’d curl up and shake and wish that the world would leave me alone.

I had one of those when my dad finally decided to have a “talk” with me, a stern talking-to about “independence.” He said he didn’t care what kind of foolish mistakes I had made, but whatever I looked like I was still a man, and that meant that I had to get out there and work. And I just nodded to whatever he said, still curled up in my sheet, barely comprehending the ramifications of what he was talking about.

Long story short — he found me a position here that lasted just long enough to qualify me for unemployment insurance, after I cracked under the pressure. And I tried, I honestly did, but one never knows what kinds of monsters are hiding behind office file cabinets to eat little bunnies like me. *rolls eyes*

So that’s it. That’s why my life is heck, and why I stay indoors all the time. I can’t deal with going outside, and even when I have to go out there I come back feeling like I barely survived. I’ve got these baggy clothes I can wear now, but … it’s just too much. It’s like all of the feelings I used to have are intensified. Every sound out there is like listening to headphones with the volume turned up too loud. The sun is too bright, the air is too humid, and dark alleys have sharp, pointy teeth. And everyone on the sidewalk is either staring at me or trying to ignore me, and not succeeding. No matter how confident (or even resentful) I feel when I walk out the door, I’m reduced to a quivering wreck inside of five minutes.

I hate having these stupid instincts, and I hate having this stupid body. And I know that I’d always wanted this, but frankly, I don’t care anymore. You couldn’t have done more to disillusion me if you’d walked up to my ten-year-old self and slapped him.

Maybe someday things will get better. But I doubt it. I don’t have a job, I don’t have a car, and I have no way to get either of them as long as I’m living like this.

And now that I’ve given you all Too Much Information, I’m going to logout and never come back to this website again. >.>

June 30th

Mood: Nervous
Location: In front of my PC

You have no idea how hard it was to log back on and see what comments you people left.

And you have no idea how much they mean to me. <.<; This is the only place I can go to talk to other people where I actually feel like a person. And to be able to ... to tell you what this is like, what I’m like, it’s just …

Thank you.

I don’t know how you’d act if you met me in person. And you probably don’t either. But I know you’d at least try, and for that I am grateful. Most people don’t even try; they don’t want to think about who and what I am any more than I do. But I have to be around them, and see the looks on their faces, and it hurts because I feel like I don’t matter. And then I feel like they’re going to eat me. And my brain tries to protest, but my instincts remind it about what people used to do to people who look like me, and … and I just turn into a wreck.

The black lady behind the counter at the store that I go to is more sympathetic than most. Maybe she understands what it’s like to be stared at.

“Hello, Mister *my last name*,” she says, when I get up there with my handbasket, in my long wool coat and the pants and hat that are too big for me. “How are you today?” And I cringe as soon as I hear her voice, but I force myself to reply.

“Fine,” I say in a near-whisper, unconsciously scanning the room for hiding places.

“Some weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

I nod, too quickly, to whatever she says, looking away nervously. She’s the nicest lady in the world, but it scares me out of my mind to talk to her. It’s like … like I said, it feels like everyone I’m around could eat me, if they wanted, and they’re likely to do so at any moment. And there’s nothing I can do except hide, and try not to be noticed. Then if somebody talks to me, it’s like being a deer in a semi’s headlights. Because rabbits do the same thing. When a car is heading right for them, they … we’re too scared to move, so we just freeze right there in the middle of the road. And that’s what I do when somebody tries to talk to me.

I don’t know if any of you would have the patience to try to talk to me. Because I’d have to fight off that panic as soon as you said anything, and I don’t know how long it would take me. You’d probably get bored, or frustrated, or even nervous, and awkwardly excuse yourself. I’ve seen it happen before. That’s why that lady stands out — I know she can sense how afraid I am. She tries her best to put me at ease, and she doesn’t act like there’s anything out of the ordinary about me or the way that I’m not responding to her. By the time that she’s done checking me out, I’m shaking so bad I can barely grab the receipt. But when I finally leave the store and she waves a cheerful goodbye, I feel both relieved and grateful.

The people who work at the library aren’t half as nice. They look at me suspiciously, and they handle the books I pick out like they’re contaminated. (I thought everyone knew you couldn’t get infected from other people … ) Do you remember that time I posted about the library here? That was because I had decided to look something up on their computers, and I hadn’t known you were supposed to fill out a time card.

The librarian got mad. She came over and gave me a talking-to, and it sounded like she’d been waiting for a chance to do so. And if you thought I sounded like a mess just trying to talk to normal people, you have no idea how bad it got when I was talking to someone who hated my guts.

I had no coherent thought whatsoever. I didn’t feel even a little bit like a person anymore, I felt like a scared rabbit. Everything was BRIGHT LIGHTS! SCARY NOISES! BIG THINGS TRYING TO EAT ME! I curled up in a ball underneath the table, scratching at the edge of it with my hind legs like I was digging a burrow. And they tried to pull me out, but I clung to whatever I could because I just knew that I would die if they got me out of there.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. Long enough for people to come by and stare at me. I couldn’t see them, because of the way I was curled up, but I knew that they were there. I’d just about convinced myself that this was ridiculous, and it was time for me to come out, when someone else who worked at the library came over and tried to coax me into coming out, and it was like my brain locked up again. I had to fight to ignore her and pretend that she wasn’t there, and that I was coming out of there and standing up all of my own volition.

I filled out the timecard and sat down in front of the computer, acting like everything was normal and I hadn’t just been curled up trying to hide from a predator. Like I was an ordinary human being, and I was just doing what I came there to do. Then I broke down and cried as soon as she left, and buried my face in my coat until it was over.

After that, I wrote that one entry.

You think you know what fear is? You don’t. You have no idea. You’re human. You eat scared little animals every day.

When I became part rabbit, I didn’t just get long ears and a poofy tail. I got Fear. The kind that takes over your mind, body, and soul. The kind that makes you forget you were ever a human being and just makes you want to escape, to hide, to do anything in order to get away from the thing that is chasing you.

When I’m having a good day, and I’m all cozy in front of my computer, I like to pretend that I’m still an intelligent being, and that it’s okay to live in a human world. Then I meet actual humans … and even though I’ve forgotten my place on the food chain, my instincts remember.

*takes a few deep breaths; tries to calm down*

Okay. I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I guess it just sounded like some of you really don’t get what this is like, so I’m trying to help you all understand.

I’m not sure you can understand … but I really appreciate the fact that you’re trying. Thank you all, so much, especially the ones who took the time to listen to me on IM. I’ll try not to be so depressing in my next entry, I promise.

July 4th

Mood: A little frustrated
Location: Standing in front of the computer

Computer users and Internet addicts everywhere will be able to sympathize with today’s post.

Yes, I’m talking to you, with the dirty dishes stacked next to soda can pyramids. I’ve got those too, just like everyone else who’s too lazy to clean up after themselves. But you know what else I have?

Fur. Everywhere.

It’s all over my chair. It’s all over my bed. It’s stuck to the sides of the shower, and I think that it’s merged with the threads of the carpet. The dust on my shelves is furry, and my library books are starting to sprout hairs in between all the pages.

I thought of it now because the sun just shone in through the window, and I spent about five minutes mesmerized by all the glowing fur in its rays. Then I realized where it had come from, and groaned.

That would be the morning sun, incidentally. Which reminds me of something else I need to do. Good night!

July 4th, 2:08 PM

Mood: !
Location: theplacethatilive

im going to die im going to die im going to die im going to die someone help me please

July 4th, 6:32 PM

Mood: In awe
Location: Home, sweet home

I’m sorry to leave you all hanging like that! I’m glad that I posted that, though, because … well, just let me explain what happened.

Today the repairmen were scheduled to come and finally fix my refrigerator. But I didn’t find out about it until half an hour before they were supposed to show up. Because I kinda slept in late, if you’ll recall.

I had a panic attack. A full-blown, cold sweat, lump-builds-up-in-your-throat-and-you-scream-’till-the-neighbors-beat-on-the-walls panic attack. My house was a mess (a furry mess), I was a mess, I didn’t know how long they would be there and I had noplace to hide.

I went online and posted that last entry. Then I still didn’t know what to do, so I jumped on the IMing client. I told the first person I found, who just happened to be Ell Ess, that I didn’t know what to do and I thought I was going to die. And right there and then, she offered to call me on the phone and talk me through what was happening.

On any other day I would’ve panicked at the thought of that, but today I was willing to do anything. So I agreed, hastily. She was on dial-up, so she had to logout before she would call me. And I was crying and shivering still, but as soon as she signed off I held my breath.

Then the phone rang, and my heart jumped into my throat. It stayed there for the second ring, and the third. Then I closed my eyes, and picked up the phone.

“This is *her name*,” said a muffled-sounding female voice.

“H-hi,” I said, and sniffled.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked.

“I, I, I don’t know … ”

There was a pause. Then she said “If you don’t want to talk about this, that’s okay,” and started telling me about what was happening in the furry fandom. About the art that she drew, and the conventions she goes to to sell it. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear about it at first, but I just kept listening, because I didn’t know what would happen if I told her to stop. And then she told me about these furry webcomics that I can just barely remember, but some of them were so funny that I had to start laughing, even though I was still taking shuddering breaths and trying to settle down.

Then I heard footsteps creaking up the stairs, and I froze. And she seemed to sense what was wrong, and asked “Are they there?”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

“*My name*,” she said, “you need to go answer the door for them.”

The footsteps came closer. I was pouring sweat under the clothes I’d thrown on.

I heard LS take a deep breath. Then she said “I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told any of my online friends yet. But when I do, you have to promise to get up and answer the door.”

Someone knocked.

“Okay?”

I swallowed. “Okay … ”

“Are you going to answer the door?”

I made myself stand. “Yes,” I said, and started walking towards my front door, willing myself to believe that there was nothing on the other side.

“Okay,” she said, and was silent for a few seconds. Then, “I’m a dog right now.”

“What?”

“I have cyclical zooanthropy.”

I opened the door, and I didn’t even look at whomever was out there. I smelled human beings, and I heard their voices, but whatever they said I just nodded to. I watched out of the corner of my eye as they took apart my refrigerator and started doing things to it, and listened as LS explained.

Apparently she’s a Cocker Spaniel like four times out of the year, for a week each time and then a few weeks on either side growing and shedding her canine features. She’s been that way since she was little, and she’s really shy about it. You’d think that she wouldn’t be, since she’s a furry artist and all! But apparently she’s been hiding it for years. Her fursona isn’t even a dog; she says it’s not her fault that she is one in real life, and that she likes wolves a lot better.

She missed last year’s furry convention in her area because she was only partway human at the time, and she didn’t want them to see her like that. But there’s one coming up in a few months that she thinks is going to be when she’ll be a full anthro. And she didn’t want to go, and couldn’t even remember the last time she’d gone out in public like that, but she agreed to go this time … on the condition that I join her. So if you’re a fan of her art, you’d better start trying to talk me into it like right now. ^.^;

To be honest, though … the idea of a convention still scares me. A lot. But to be around people as supportive as some of the furs that I’ve known, and to even be there with another anthro, and for that anthro to actually be LS there in person, well … I’m definitely considering it!

“So do you still hate dogs?” she asked, right before she hung up.

I just laughed, because I couldn’t believe I was talking to one. And I still can’t believe it! I don’t know how she got me to do any of this. I don’t know how I survived having people inside my house and even talking to one on the phone, let alone one who could literally eat me. But I have, and I feel so exhausted and relieved at the same time.

Maybe for you, this would be no big deal. But I feel like I just climbed a mountain. Or ran a marathon, or fought off a wild animal. And I know that going outside again, let alone to that furry convention of hers, is going to be very hard. But right now I feel like I can do anything, and I want to stay feeling like that for as long as I can.

You know what? I’m going to go down to the store and restock my refrigerator. And I’m going to thank that nice lady for all the times she’s been patient with me.

After that, I’m going to come back and clean house a bit. Then I’m going to go watch the fireworks.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!