1. One Morning From Uneasy Dreams
I.D. INJECTOR DOE
That Indestructible Something
By Chatoyance
═════════════════════
1. One Morning From Uneasy Dreams
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams
he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect."
- Franz Kafka
Dry, ancient grave-soil fell from the bucket of the Kubota Mini-Excavator. The small team of men and women worked quickly in the early light, the excavation had taken longer than anyone had expected. They had struggled frantically through the dark, night-vision goggles alternately helpful and blinded by the lights from the surrounding cadastral district of Žižkov and the rest of Prague. They had permits, forged, if they were caught, because the quest for permission had failed. Getting caught was not an option, if necessary, they would do whatever they had to. The world was at stake.
He sat in the van, outside the cemetery, his driver ready to take him to safety and escape whatever happened. They would call him when it was done, when it was safe, and only if it was safe. No matter what, they would take photographs, he could still use those, but he wanted to see, with his own eyes. It was risky, but it was his money, and of that, he was almost without peer. If he wanted to see for himself, then he would see.
The dawn was breaking now over the New Jewish Cemetery, forcing the team to remove their increasingly useless goggles. There wasn't much time left. Someone would come, someone would notice. The police might be called. That would be bad. Very bad.
They worked with shovels now, they were near the lid. One of them struck wood, and a frantic effort to clear enough soil without breaking the coffin began. The old wood was damaged by the work, but it lifted with effort. Inside, dressed in simple clothes, a shriveled corpse lay, sunken, closed, leather eyelids exposed to light for the first time in almost ninety years. One of the team spoke briefly on his cellphone as the others took pictures and readings with curious instruments. In the van, outside the cemetery, one word was heard: "Come."
The team moved aside as he approached. He was dressed not in his usual fine suit, but instead in nondescript clothing, jeans and a hoodie top. He wore sneakers, he always wore sneakers, or canvas shoes, never leather, even with the most expensive of clothes. His driver stood with him over the grave. He was tall, and muscular, and clean-shaven, and very blond. He put his hand on the shoulder of his driver as he stared down into the exhumed grave, down at the body that lay in the old coffin.
After a short while, he finally let out his breath, a long stream of vapor in the cold air. His eyes were large with fear and wonder and horror too. That meant it must be true. The team looked down at the moldering corpse, but saw nothing unusual. He, however, clearly saw more.
Just before he left, just before they all fled, in van, on motorcycle, in car, leaving all the equipment behind, he said just one single, quivering statement over Franz Kafka's grave.
"Sweet... Celestia."
──── ∆ ────
Greta was banging on her door, which always angered her, but today she just didn't feel angry. "Hey! Get up! We're going out to have pancakes! I'm HUNGRY, Gorilla! Get your hairy ass up already!"
'Gorilla' was Greta's favorite pet name for Gregoria. She liked it precisely because Gregoria did not, yet today it did not seem so grating. Gregoria found herself chuckling at it, strangely happy that her sister was teasing her. Teasing, after all, meant affection, deep down.
That thought suddenly brought Gregoria Samson to full wakefulness. She never thought things like that. Her little sister was a pest. She had always been a vile, verminous bug. It bothered Gregoria even more that remembering thinking that way made her feel ashamed. It must have been that weird dream.
The dream was already fading, which was sad because it had been such a pleasant one. It was rare to have a happy dream, so Gregoria lay still, trying to cling to it. It had been a pony dream! Yes, a pony dream, she had dreamed of... of what? Running, she had dreamed of running, she was certain of that much, and she remembered talking with... with princess Celestia in her dream, though she couldn't remember about what. It was fading away so fast now. In a moment, the last details were gone, and inside herself Gregoria felt sad, because there had been something wonderful about her dream, and it was gone now.
Gregoria yawned and stretched, what remained of the covers falling off of her. Her bed was a mess, the sheets untucked from the mattress, her pillows scattered to the floor. She didn't remember putting on pajamas - she didn't even own pajamas. She always slept in the nude, yet even with the covers off she...
Her eyes were wide now, her pupils small. She wasn't wearing pajamas, that wasn't what was keeping her skin warm and cozy in the cool morning air. Gregoria stared in horror at her forelimbs, covered now in thick, short, golden yellow hair. The hair lay flat and smooth along her limbs, not the fuzzy fur of a bunny, but the neat, slick coat of a short-haired dog... or a horse. Her hands wouldn't stretch, and with mounting terror Gregoria realized that she could not move her fingers apart. She had no fingers... no, that was not right. She had only one finger, on each hand, the middle finger, which now was gigantic, with a huge and heavy nail at the end.
Gregoria curled her single finger on her right forelimb, and stared at the thick, heavy nail that went nearly all the way around. It was a hoof. Her right arm ended in a hoof, as did her left. Wildly twisting on the bed, raising her nightmarishly long and muscular neck, Gregoria tried to take in her utterly changed body. Everywhere golden yellow hair, except for a small patch between her rear legs, where two flat bumps rested, topped with small nipples. Her chest was flat and tall, her sides narrow. As she struggled, her flowing black tail slapped the bed, and stung the inside of her squirming legs. Her legs were equine legs, and they too ended in hooves.
Her proportions were not natural, they were not the proportions of an earthly creature. She was a living cartoon beast, made of flesh and bone and blood, but there was no question that she was a pony, an Equestrian pony, right out of Friendship Is Magic. Gregoria's heart pounded within her new, oddly shaped chest, as panic began to strip her ability to think.
A dream! She was still dreaming! Of course! This had happened before, it had happened several times before - those awful, awful nightmares where one thinks one is awake and then goes to pee and suddenly really wakes up only to find the bed wet and... oh, this had to be a dream! Absolutely! The thought sent waves of relief flowing through her, and made her laugh out loud. Her voice was high and cartoony, a proper pony character voice, not her own. A dream. She would awake now, that's how it always happened. Realize that it's a dream and wake up. Yeah... any moment now.
Gregoria flopped her limbs down, her ears twitching high on her head at the sound of the impact of her hooves on the mattress. Any moment now. Only a dream. Hee! It was almost cool. She certainly liked My Little Pony, it was fun enough, her friend Rachel had gotten her into it. She wasn't the pony fanatic Rachel was, but it was something they could share.
Any moment now. "GORILLA! OOK-OOK! WAKE UP ALREADY!" Greta was at the door again, pounding as if she were trying to break it down. "Come on, Grilla-willa, get up! We don't get to do this very often!"
That was true. With the economy the way it was, getting to go out for pancakes was a treat. It was hard on her parents, having to deal with two failed launches from the nest - both she and her sister had been forced to return home. They just couldn't afford to live in their own places right now. "In a moment! I'm waking up!" Gregoria had spoken before thinking, the words had just tumbled out, all in that strange, cartoon voice.
"Well hurry up and get dressed! Don't make us wait!" The sound of stomping faded down the hall. Greta hadn't seemed to notice anything wrong. That proved this was a dream! Gregoria's new voice sounded utterly different, kind of like Twilight Sparkle, but really more like Tara Strong trying to be overly cute. It was kind of a silly voice, really. Greta would have noticed and said something, so this had to be a dream.
It was an awfully long and oddly lucid dream. Oh... that must be it. This must be one of those 'lucid dreams' people posted about. Gregoria had always wanted to have a lucid dream, they sounded amazing. Supposedly, lucid dreams were realer-than-real and you could do anything in them just by wishing. Ooh! Excitement built where previously fear had reigned. Gregoria rolled over onto her side, her hooves clocking together loudly, the sensation vibrating the bones of her legs - all four of them. 'Ow, actually', she thought. That wasn't pleasant. OK, then, wish time.
Gregoria closed her eyes and with still pounding heart wished to turn into Arwen from The Lord Of The Rings. She opened her eyes. She wasn't in Rivendell. She was still laying on her side, on her torn-up bed, staring at... her hooves. Her golden-yellow hooves. No. This isn't how it was supposed to work. "I want to be an elf!" She spoke the words out loud, in her odd pony voice. Fear returned, rising like a rocket inside her. "I want to wake up!" She waited. She carefully, gently, tapped her forehooves together three times. "There's no place like waking up!"
Nothing. "I WANT TO WAKE UP NOW!!!" she found herself screaming the words. Her heart leapt against her chest like a caged bird. "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!" Gregoria flailed in her bed. She tried to pinch herself, but flat hoof met foreleg to no effect. She brought a hoof to her head and saw stars for a moment, reeling from pain. Her world was terror now.
"HELP!" Gregoria found herself screaming, helplessly, almost out of her mind. "HELP! HELP ME! MOM! GRETA! DAD! ANYPONY! HELP!"
It seemed like forever until Greta and her mother burst into her room. "What? What's the matter?"
Gregoria was sobbing, crying, as her mother held her, stroking her head. "Mom - I can't wake up! I just can't wake up and I don't know what to do and I need to wake up, oh PLEASE help me wake up!" The tears ran down Gregoria's hairy cheeks and dribbled onto her forelegs, soaking into her coat. She stared, helplessly into her mother's eyes. "Please mom, please help me... oh sweet Celestia, I can't wake up!"
"Gregoria?" Her mother was puzzled and concerned. "What do you mean, dear? What do you mean 'you can't wake up?"
Greta stood by, looking a little scared by her sister's bizarre behavior.
"MOooOOM! Look at me! I can't wake up! Just look at me!" Gregoria pointed a yellow hoof at her flat, pony chest. Her ears lay flat against her skull, she could feel them, and her tail was thrashing because of her fear.
Gregoria's mother stared at her daughter. "I don't understand, Greggie. What, are you in pain? Is there something else wrong? What is it?"
She began hitting her head with her hooves. "WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"
Gregoria felt her forelegs restrained by her mother's hands. "Stop that! What has gotten into you? Everything's OK! I'm right here!" Gregoria was sobbing now, unable to cope, unable to think. "Come on, it's OK, I'm right here. Just relax, you're awake. Shhh... Shhhh...."
It took some time before Gregoria could stop crying. Finally, some shred of reason returned to her. She was still terrified, but she could think. She held up her right hoof. "Mom. What do you see?"
Her mother was startled. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Look, here." Gregoria waved her hoof in her mother's face. "What is this, what do you see here?"
"I don't know what you're asking!" Her mother released her, and sat more upright on the bed.
"HERE! What is this? Right here?" Gregoria shook her hoof violently, letting her joints wiggle.
Her mother stared, blankly. "...Is it something about your hand? Does your hand hurt?"
"THAT'S NOT MY HAND!" Gregoria pulled back, her mother strange to her now. Why was she pretending everything was normal? Why was she acting this way? "Look at it! Do you see any fingers? Do you?"
Now her mother looked frightened. "Do you want me to call the doctor? Maybe we should have you looked at?" Suddenly, her mother's expression changed "Wait... you're just pulling my leg, right?" The voice was almost pleading. Her mother wanted to believe the question, she wanted to hear that it was all a joke.
Something in Gregoria jumped a gear. Her original fear was replaced with a sudden new terror. She didn't want to have a doctor look at her. Somehow, that was even more frightening than what was happening to her now. Dream, or insanity, or whatever was going on, thoughts of being locked up, experimented on, maybe even cut up for research - these thoughts flooded her mind now. No. No doctors. This was getting out of hand. No doctor could help this, whatever it was.
If it was a dream, then going to the doctor could become an even worse nightmare - she'd had terrible, terrible nightmares about doctors offices before. If she had gone crazy - and the thought was very prominent in her mind now - then what would they likely do? Lock her up, shoot her full of drugs... she might never see daylight again. Get put away, and you might never get out. No... no... this was getting way, way out of hand.
She needed time. Time to think. Time to wake up, time to try to get sane on her own, first. Time to try anything except getting locked away somewhere, alone, apart, afraid. No. This situation needed to be settled down. Everything needed to settle down.
"Ye...yeah!" The cutesy voice came out of her muzzle, so strange to her new ears. "Yeah. Sorry... sorry mom. Sorry sis..." Greta was looking very, very worried, more than mom was. "I... I was having a real muffin of a dream and..." What was she saying? Even her words were odd, not just her voice, but... no doctors. No getting locked up. Not yet, anyway. "I guess I just lost it there for a bit. I'm sorry. I kind of ran with it after that. Kind of a jerky think to do, right?" Gregoria hoped the insincerity and fear in her voice would not be too obvious.
Her mother was dubious, but it was clear she desperately wanted things to be alright. Mom always wanted everything to be right. She was willing to accept Gregoria's words, because she wanted them to be true. "Don't ever pull that again! You had me half-scared you'd lost your mind. That was a mean thing to do, Greggie. Don't think you're too old for a paddling!"
Her mother was up and off the bed. "I guess you really did have a hell of a night. Your bed is a mess." She turned to the door, eager to leave, clearly still nervous from the outburst. "You can clean it up later. Get dressed and get downstairs. Your father is probably furious by now."
Greta stayed a moment longer, after mother had left. "You really pissed her off, Gregoria. That was a fucking stupid thing to do. You had me worried too, you idiot!" Greta stormed out, affecting anger, but Gregoria's new nose smelled fear coming from her sister. It was a very strange thing, to smell fear and know what it meant. "Get dressed, I'm hungry!"
Gregoria sat up in her bed, as best she could. She felt clumsy in her new body, all legs and no arms and everything so strange. Her heart had calmed down, and she was breathing shallowly now. Nothing had changed. She was still a pony, the bed was still a mess, and she could hear her mother and sister downstairs fussing and fuming over the 'rotten trick' she had performed on them. Her mother had held her, touched her, looked at her close up and had not seen anything different at all. Her sister was oblivious. Only she could tell she was a pony.
She wanted to cry. She began to wonder if maybe she should go to the doctor, maybe it was a brain tumor or cancer or that she really had gone completely insane? Gregoria put her weight on her forelegs on the bed. It was all solid, real, unchanging. She felt the pressure on her joints, the tension in her muscles. She felt her yellow coat, and her long, flowing tail. She moved her tongue around inside her longer, flat-toothed muzzle. She snorted with her new nostrils, and a world of impossibly strong scents and smells informed her in ways she had never even considered possible.
No. This was much stranger, far weirder and more dangerous than a brain tumor or going crazy.
This was real. It was utterly impossible, yet every sense, every part of herself told her this... was real.
She wasn't ever going to wake up. She would never-ever-ever just wake up.
Because she already had.
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Oh this is going to be weird... I'm wondering how she's going to get dressed, or whether anyone's going to notice...
This looks very promising.
Gr...Gregoria Samson...
Oh I see what you did there
YEah, I'm reading this
Faved your own fic? XD lawl, I gave this a fave and upvote! It's not bad
I favorited the second I noticed it in my notifications, anything written by Chatoyance is absolutely worth reading.
An interesting start, definitely looking forward to more
Where are you going with this? WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?
Seriously, though, I look forward to more.
2156666
I'm afraid I don't... Enlighten me?
2156854
It's a similar name to the character in Kafka's Metamorphosis. It's a weird and really sad little book about a Russian guy who wakes up one day and has inexplicably become a huge bug thing
And Chat does it again, can’t wait to see what happens next!
Huzzah! More of your delightful writing! The dreariness of my day was just lifted a bit.
2156666 2156854 I don't see the reference either, is it to one of her other works, or to something in wider literature?
2156916 I'm assuming from the name that it's too Kafka's Metamorphoses. It's a little Russian novel thingie about a man named Gregor who wakes up one morning as a ginormous bug
Interesting. Would I be right in guessing that the "Paradise" shared universe (collected here, and that particular page is work-safe but no promises about the rest of the site) was one of your influences?
2156919 Ah, Gregor Samsa, the unfortunate soul of Franz Kafka's work, now I get the reference.
Clearly you've never been to Quebec.
Going out for pancakes? What's the point, the ones you make at home are always better than the stuff at restaurants.
Well...
[youtube=W_B3dvFMyDE]
Well, this is pretty much how a psychotic break can go down. "Why is everyone else acting so strangely?"
Even mentally healthy people can experience very mild, temporary psychosis throughout their lives, and to make matters worse, it's often associated with waking up from sleep. One time I woke up and for some reason I was convinced a friend owed me forty dollars. I never even questioned the notion until I was talking to him and I heard myself ask about it. That clicked my brain back into place, like wait a minute, I can't recall having ever loaned him money. Only time that's ever happened, but man, it was weird.
"A Chatoyance fic, huh? I've been meaning to read one of these through. See what all the fuss is about. Well, here it goes."
Some minutes later
I liked it.
The Kafka reference was a little heavy, but appreciated. Come to think of it, the sequence where Gorilla examines herself is reminiscent of The Metamorphosis, in a good way. The duality of the protagonist's perception of herself and the rest of the world's perception is promising, and the alterations from the transformation are obviously more than physical, something that many trans-species stories overlook. Including mine, come to think of it. Huh.
If anything bothered me, it's the opening sequence, but that's more because I'm concerned that this plot point may go unnoticed for a while and I'll forget about it or something. Depending on how the next chapter or two goes along, that could be a non-issue.
Overall, you've made a good first real impression on me. I'm faving this story, and will check out your other stuff soon.
Huh. I get the feeling that the very rich man saw a cockroach in a suit. Why he was able to, now that is the question...
In any case, this promises to be well and truly awesome. I look forward to more.
2156970
Yes, among others. I just added the Acknowledgements page. I had it originally, but I couldn't get the thing to pass moderation because of it. It was considered to be a 'chapter', and they wanted me to stick it in the 'author's comments' area, which... would just be impossible. So I removed it, temporarily, and it passed moderation. Sigh.
Now, it's back! Huzzah!
During the time I was away from Fimfiction because of the Anti-TCB attacks (death threats, server attacks, email-bombing and more), I found several sites such as the Transformation Stories Archive, Shifti, and more. These brilliant writers definitely inspired me. I highly, highly recommend visiting these sites, listed in my Acknowledgments, by the way. Wonderful stuff.
2157879
Ahh the TSA... Posti and the others will be delighted to hear they have inspired - I shall point them in this direction.
Wouldnt happen to be august 17th hmm? I kid, but i cant believe you wrote this before me! Ive been planning this for a while.
Well, this looks interesting enough.
I really wonder how this will continue, not so much for her physical transformation but for the change inside.
Even if she doesn't "suffer" from transformation euphoria (because there was no Potion), a pony will be hard pressed to keep her cool in human society. Will she adapt and become "human" again or will she break to stay "pony"?
And Kafka as a man with a pony heart? No wonder his life got wrecked. But who is the mystery man?
PS:
TSA? Yes, they have the good stuff.
I can relate about pony dreams and trying to remember them. One I had a while ago had Luna in it and for some reason was trying to give me some silver bracelet thing. This was before the sleepless in ponyville episode. I've had a few others but it has been awhile.
I like the different direction you are going in this story. I am interested to see what happens next.
Wow... That just about one of the only ways waking up as a pony might turn bad. Still though, super sniffer!
The name "Gregoria" is about as subtle as a giant cockroach.
2158684
Hrm! Yes, this does remind me of that series. I wonder if she has read....
2157879
Ahh! Okay, yes she has.
.... Death threats? Seriously? Tch, people get so bent out of shape over transformation stories. It's rather odd to have such an adverse reaction to a simple story. Even after reading a fic where one of the cake twins was killed under a convoluted set of circumstances 'just to move the angst along,' I didn't threaten to kill the author.
Just repeat to yourself, "It's just a fic, I should really just relax."
2156896
I would have though references to the Metamorphosis were to be expected in a work like this. Main character woke up as something else for no easily understood reason, opens with the opening of kafka's grave, there was apparently something weird about the body... c'mon, the book is going to be linked to it like crazy.
As I recall the metamorphosis is crazy long, far longer than the premise really requires, given that the entire plot consists of "This guy turns into a bug, then has a really shitty life".
Already enjoying this <3
Gregoria Sampson? Really? Really really?
3462201 i dont get it
Here's a thought: We are all what the wiring of synapses in our brain tell us. If they suddenly tell us that we're an earth pony, then that is what we are going to see, hear, feel and believe with all we are. It doesn't matter what everybody else might think. So, it doesn't matter if Gregoria really has been ponified and no-one else is capable of perceiving it or if she's just suffering from a brain malfunction that's leading her to fail to be able to perceive her body properly anymore: the effects and outcome are exactly the same.
This looks like it'll be very interesting! I'm curious to see where all the downvotes came frm.
You'd be surprised how much control you have over the pose of a pony in the Ponylumen 3D pony maker.
i.imgur.com/t1Du4iG.png
But its limitations are in the so few choices of mane and tail styles. That's my main gripe.
Okay! It's been a busy week (and I was absorbed reading Always Say No, which I'm sure you can understand :)), but now I think that it is time to start this! As a heads up, I therefore probably won't be manually checking the Going Pony comments for much longer, so, if you want to get in contact with me and don't want to rely on the inexplicably erratic automatic notification system, it would probably be better to use a different channel.
Oh, and thanks for following me; I doubt that there'll actually be much for you to see, but, eh, maybe you'll be bored one day and find something in my Favourites (I found Always Say No in yours after having somehow overlooked it when I was reading most of the Optimalverse).
Anyway, on to the main event. I'm not sure how many chapters I'll have time for, but they look pretty short.
Ah, well, right away, the title. I'd forgotten to expect something artistic. I have no idea what "Injector Doe" means, but presumably we'll find out. Maybe "Doe" is some designator, the phrase another language's equivalent to "Injector Delta"?
…Huh. And the opening of the story just deepens the mystery. Well, you've already got me firmly hooked by the end of the second paragraph, if only by a desire to find out what's going on.
Thought 1: So the mysterious "he" knows of Celestia? Hm. More mystery. It would seem, though, that the protagonist mentioned in the description is not the only one with the central condition, and that-- Ah. Clever, Chatoyance. "yet no other human being can perceive" (emphasis mine) :)
Thought 2: There are going to be some puzzled and annoyed police officers later in the day.
Ah, and a delta as the section divider. That suggests I may be onto something with my current hypothesis about the meaning "Injector Doe". There's still not much data to work with, though… so perhaps I ought to stop typing and get back to reading.
Okay, knowledge of Celestia seems widespread. This seems likely to be a universe (…or Mundis splay, as it occurred to me to wonder the other night; do you set all your works in the same multiverse?) where FiM exists.
Sometimes I wonder what the Optimalverse would be like if set in a universe where the Optimalverse existed; how would Celestai's early tactics have changed if there was a series of freely available stories "predicting" her actions? But that's getting offtopic, sorry. My mind sometimes wanders far away from what I'm reading, no matter how absorbing it was a few seconds before I had whatever idea sent me off.
Ah. And that thing where the story explicitly answers a question just after I think of it seems to be happening again.
Okay, now this is something I've been curious about since I read the description: the mechanics of the perception distortion.
Hm. Yes, sorry, Gregoria, but the most rational explanation, based on the data you have available, would be that something has gone wrong with your brain. You don't seem the type to experiment on yourself, unfortunately, but with only one data source, you probably couldn't disprove the mental illness hypothesis. You don't seem to have thought of it yet, though.
Of course, with the data I have available, I'm pretty sure that that's not what's going on. The mysterious male in the opening could possibly have been a separate case of the same illness who was also hallucinating the Kafka thing, but it seems somewhat unlikely… unless this is designed and induced (the reason for the "Injector" in the title?). What will be really interesting to see is two people with this condition and no foreknowledge of each other meeting; if they recognize each other as alike… hm, though then, Ockham's razor would still suggest some sort of pheromone system or the like rather than a physics-warping transformation. Even that, though, would be extremely interesting, as it would be extremely unlikely to come into being by chance in two already-improbable separate cases. Of course, depending on the exact nature of the perception warping, it might be relatively easy to prove that that really is what's happen, which would be one of those discoveries bearing the possibility of altering our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hm. Well, two conclusions, at least: One, I am very interested. Two, I'm, ah, likely just the sort of person Gregoria is worried about. I mean, I'd not do anything without her consent, but there's just so much to be learned here… I imagine that she'd prefer not to be asked in the first place, though.
Anyway, on with the story!
Ah, and the hypothesis has occurred to you… and been immediately discarded. Naturally it would feel… Eh, but I really ought to stop criticizing her for poor scientific practice under extreme stress. It's not really fair; the story of Isaac Newton sticking a bodkin in his eye and wiggling it about to study what happened is remarkable because the vast majority of people would be focused more on the pain and risk of blindness than on the quest for knowledge through self-experimentation, after all.
Wow. I don't know how you did it with that picture, but it's just so clear that she is desperately trying not to panic. It's a rather remarkable experience for me, just being able to look at her and see that without being able to pinpoint why.
And I finish the first chapter actually a bit late. Miiiiight have had more time to read if I'd not spent so much time thinking and typing, of course, but then, this means that there's more to read later.
Wow. You practically beat us over the head with the Kafka references and still people don't get them. Such a shame.
But anyways, I noticed when you added this story to my compendium, in the Science Fiction folder, which I find to be a most under served genre in Fimfiction, so my interest was piqed.
This is a very interesting concept, and I particularly liked the "freak-out" scene wherein Gregoria attempts to wake herself up, and consequently scares her mother and sister half to death. Felt very organic. All in all, good first chapter.
Wow, this story has... what's the word? I dunno. Well it's not your average copy-paste text document with everything in the same size and font.
The bad first. Your heavy use of commas creates a bumpy narrative flow and makes it difficult to feel deeply immersed in the story. I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm just providing some constructive criticism. The good is everything else. I enjoy the way you introduce characters and your exposition is great.
8046717
Thank you. I hear what you have to say about the comma use. I suspect it is a bit antiquated.
I grew up on Golden Age science fiction stories - books from the 40's, 50's, and 60's. They had a different style of writing back then, and it is what I learned to love. From what I see of many more modern books, the trend now is for short sentences with maybe one comma, occasionally. So, I get where you are coming from.
I am glad that you like my characters and exposition! I can only hope that it will be enough for you to... forgive my 'ye-old-olden-days-eth' style of writing.
Oh - really neat deer avatar, by the way.
It bothered Gregoria even more then remembering thinking that way made her feel ashamed.
She had only one finger, on each hand, the middle finger, which now was gigantic, with a huge and heavy nail at the end.
How could you tell it’s the middle finger?
*chuckles*
8674112
Quite simply, she could feel it. Just as you would, should such transformation happen to you: a being knows what parts belong to it.
The skeletons of all mammals (and other animals) is all based on the same plan. Equines have the same bones, for the most part, as humans, they are simply of different lengths and thicknesses. Originally, the ancestors of modern horses had five toes, which they walked upon. Only over great time were the other toes gradually lost, and equines gradually became digitograde walkers - creatures that walk on the tips of their fingers. The last remaining finger, or toe, was the middle one. (my background is in biology, and... I do my research for my stories, too.)
enlightenedequine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Horse-Human-Limb-Comparison.png
You might find it interesting to know that occasionally, rarely, the genes that used to, long, long ago, create those other four toes/fingers sometimes become activated in the womb, during development. Some horses are born with multiple toes, which is to say, multiple hooves. Napoleon's famous horse, Bucephalus had multiple, vestigal toes. Sometimes they don't hurt anything being there, sometimes they do. Here is an example:
4.bp.blogspot.com/-zsZbCCCFFDA/VHsVW6mA-mI/AAAAAAAAAME/kzIq8NCePto/s1600/two%2Btoe%2B2.jpg
All hooves are purely large fingernails, set into oversized fingers. Literally, not figuratively, quite entirely literally. Isn't that kind of awesome?
8674851
thechnically they are not digitograde. ungolate and equine legs fall into separate anatomy cathegories. They walk on their toenails, not on fingers and balls like cats do.
8046717
You'd hate reading in my native language, where no unions or constructs may prevent a comma or half a dozen of other punctuations to appear.
When comma must be there: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/607/
Avoiding commas is considered a grammar mistake but established authors may allow it themselves, creating their own dialect. Or they just don't care because readers don't care or they are getting paid. They are Rob Liefelds of writing. Rob Liefeld is a well-paid comic artist who does not know how to draw feet and thus he does not draw them. Usually. If he does, they are horrible. Those authors don't know how to use commas and they don't use them.
Is this a the Stanley Parable reference? It sure looks like one.
9934180
Not to my knowledge. I loved The Stanley Parable - I found it utterly brilliant - but I did not deliberately reference it here. It is possible I had not played the game yet. If there is any reference, it would be unconscious on my part. That said, if my brain did such a thing, I would not be displeased.
9934251
It is narrated in such a way that it somewhat resembles 3rd person narration similar (at least to me as well) what I remember of watching Stanley Parable. Since Stanley Parable is the most remembered by how it is narrated the connection was automatic.
Good opening.
9934180
That's totally dialogue from the ending where you go downstairs to the basement instead of upstairs to the Boss's Office