Metamorphosis

by PaintSplotch


1 - Kafkaesque

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

I knew something was weird when I felt a tongue frantically licking my face.

You think that would be sexy, but no. I was too tired for this nonsense. I slept terribly, like usual. Groaning, I attempted to roll over in my ugly, orange sleeping bag where the soft padding of paws shifted over to my new direction and resumed its licking.

“Bleh, Yuri, no,” I sputtered, waving my arm up to shoo away my dog. Instead of the usual waving, my arm bent… oddly. It felt like my elbow was smashed hard against the side of my torso and my hand felt… long. Too long. And my voice! It had a weird, buzzing reverb quality to it. This got me to crack open my eyes. If this was a dream, it’s the most realistic one I’ve ever had. Attempting to rub the sleep out of my tired scratchy eyes only resulted in me hitting myself in the face with what felt to be a very hard blunt object.

When I could see again, all I could really do was look down and stare. Instead of my normal human arm, I saw a goddamn stub. It was blackish orange and covered in what appeared to be hard armor, which ended in a horse-like hoof. Looking at my left arm/foreleg resulted in the same thing. Yuri, my service dog, just sat as close as he could to me in my tent and tried once again to lick my face. Looking down showed other more drastic changes. I did the most rational and logical thing any human being could do.

I threw up.


Changing species in one night does not do a body good as I have come to have found out. I laid in the cleanest part of my tent and cried. I just cried while I was curled up in a ball with my new weird legs and torso. My pants have fallen off and my now oversized shirt was squishing something on my back. Faithful Yuri just simply laid with me and placed his great, big, fluffy head on my shoulder and made soft little noises as he attempted to comfort me. It helped, I can tell you that much. When he started making silly ‘omnom’ noises I couldn’t help but to crack a smile again. So I just laid with him for a while, giggling as he took the opportunity to stick his wet nose into my surprisingly still ticklish spots. It did calm me down enough where I could take a little closer look at myself. Yuri simply stayed where he was, licking and nibbling on me as he gave me much needed emotional support.

The first things I looked at were my arms. They looked like the front legs of some animal. Bending the ‘wrist’ portion made it seem like it came from a type of ungulate or equine, especially since the blunt ends sorta looked like hooves. They sure resembled them, with a frog and everything. Looking at the bottom of my hooves revealed tiny stiff hairs inside of the hollows and tiny cracks in the ‘armor’ where my joints are. There’s something sharp on my head, ‘cause I poked a big hole in the tent in my thrashing. This was some Gregor Samsa level of horror right here and I don’t even know what my face looks like yet.

Eventually, the haze of despair and abject terror faded enough for me to have some semblance of thought again. It’s when I noticed… nothing. There were no noises outside. Was anyone awake? None of the other hikers were coming in to check on me as I panicked. Sure, I've done this before, so maybe they got used to Yuri taking care of me and didn't want to bother me while I'm vulnerable and screaming? There were three other people in my hiking party, surely one of them would have dropped by. Wouldn’t my yelling have woken somebody up?

Wait.

What if… what if they have changed too? Maybe they are afraid to come out? Perhaps they were like me now—
a horrible bug monster, trapped in your clothing and having a severe existential crisis. Perhaps so.

This revelation sobered me up for a bit. I just lay quietly and recovered while I was still tangled in my sleeping bag as patient Yuri licked away the tears from my new face. At that moment, I was completely grateful that at least Yuri knew who I was. Did my scent stay the same after I changed, or did he witness my horrifying transformation first hand? That poor dog.

I'm getting off track, I need to get UP.

It was harder than it seemed. I guess now I'm a full on quadruped. I've seen horses and cows walk before, but doing it yourself is much harder. There's a pattern you have to get down and, lucky me, I'm not so good at those. The first few attempts caused me to end up on my face. Thankfully, whatever my new 'skin' was made of prevented serious injury, but, eventually, I could stand and walk a bit. I felt like a wobbly toddler as I figured out this mess of limbs. Like I was actually walking on what would essentially be my toe and fingernails. It's… weird. There’s a strange sensation of touch on my hooves. I can feel the hard little pebbles under my canvas tent. I could even feel the lingering body heat on the floor fading. Weird.

Getting out of the tent was another problem as it was zipped tight. Luckily for me, there was a rope tied to the zipper for Yuri to grab and open it himself. I was so glad I put it there at the start of my journey. Paranoia paid off!

Yuri is a great service dog. I have no clue where I would be without him looking out for me.

“Hello!” I called out once I was free from the horrible smelling tent. “Is anybody out there?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I walked slowly over to one of the tents. “It's… I know what happened to you. It happened to me too. Please come out!”

The tents were all zipped up and quiet. The fire had since died down to ashes and judging by the position of the sun, it should have been lit to cook breakfast by now. I could hear birds and the sound of the lake nearby, but no people sounds. That scared me; there are usually a whole lot of other hikers on this trail. Someone would have come by by now.

“Mark? Stacy? Brandon?” I called again. Still no answer, so I decided to examine the nearest tent, which belonged to Mark. The infernal zipper was there, taunting me and my blunt little stub legs. I tried to grip it with my mouth and pull it open, but it was easier said than done. The zipper was hard to grip in my new mouth, which felt sharper for some reason. When that failed, I went with plan B.

I rammed the sharp thing on my head right into the front of the tent. Whatever it is, it’s sharp and it punched a neat hole right through the canvas. I withdrew the… thorn, I guess? If I cross my eyes I can just barely see it. It left a hole nice enough to peer into. When I looked inside, it only made my situation more… grim.

It was completely empty. The sleeping bag had an impression in it of a human body, like it deflated around someone. A half eaten bag of chips laid on the floor, a few crumbs scattered about. His backpack remained in the corner, half packed and messy. A big rule of hiking is that you DO NOT go ANYWHERE without your backpack. It’s your kitchen, infirmary and armory all in one. It’s not something a fellow hiker would do.

I checked the other tents (after poking holes in them), and they all told the same story. Clothing, food, gear… all left in the same spot as the night before. All was quiet and still. It looked like… everyone was vaporized. Gone. All gone.

I started to shake a little. I traveled with a group for a reason. It felt safe and I knew these people well. It's not good for me to be by myself. If you couldn’t guess already I have… problems you can say. Anxiety, depression and paranoia will do that to you. This was a chance for me to get out and not feel sick for once. I was having fun, for it was the first time in a long time that I felt normal Now I was alone, with no other people, on the goddamn Appalachian trail in the middle of goddamn Clarence Fahnestock State Park. I had to sit at this point. I felt sick and cold. A sense of dread washed over me. I could not deal with two panic attacks in a row. I couldn’t.

I took a few deep breaths and did my best to try to squash away the thoughts of ending up dead and forgotten. My grandma waiting in her little trailer all alone, waiting for someone who would never come home again. Would she even know if something happened to me? If this happened to me… what about her?

My dark musings were interrupted as Yuri appeared in front of me with my medicine bag clutched in his jaws. He set it before me and barked once before sitting down. I couldn’t help but cheer up a bit. There may not be people, but I had Yuri at least. My change left me slightly shorter than him. Yuri was big already, being a German Shepherd, but it at least gave me reassurance that he could perhaps protect me from… whatever is out there. Bigfoots, aliens, or whatever caused this.

“Drink, please.” I commanded and with that, Yuri huffed and ran off to retrieve a bottle of water. He’s awesome.

My medicine bag, thankfully, was fastened with velcro, so it was easier to open than just poking a damn hole into everything. I dumped out my bottles. Citalopram, Clonazepam and Bupropion for good measure. I eyed my little packet of birth control and snorted. I doubt I will be needing that anytime soon. Imagine an ugly bug monster like me getting laid? So I tossed it away.

Getting the bottles open was a trial in itself. I tried using my mouth again, but I couldn’t grip the bottle, twist it and press down on it at the same time. These were safety caps, which meant even hands have a hard time opening them sometimes. I tried wedging the bottle between some rocks and pressing my hoof one the cap, but that only ended with me accidently punching a rock when I slipped. Yuri just sat with a bottle of water in his mouth, watching as I struggled to reach my medication.

Eventually, I got desperate enough that I decided the only thing I could do was break them open. So I went to the cleanest piece of clothing lying around I could find, and pressed as hard as I could with my body weight. Well, it somewhat worked. I got my pills, but I crushed a good half of them in the process. Goddamnit. All in all I figure I lost about four days to a week’s worth of pills with my clumsiness. Now I would have to pour all the loose pills and broken crumbs back into the bag and then somehow pick out the dosages later. At least they were all different colors.

The water bottle was the same, but at least I could open that one with my mouth. So thus having taken my medicine with a drink of water, I could sit and let them work their magic. Yuri just laid by my side, wagging his tail. I decided to join him and snuggled up.

Perhaps I was looking at this the wrong way. My paranoia tends to do that. Perhaps this is some X-Men level bullshit, or something. Maybe this is a dream and all I have to do is hang tight. Maybe… everyone else went somewhere to get help? It would be shitty if they did that and didn’t leave me a note at least. But at least I felt better as I could be in this weird alien body. I decided to do a trial—if they didn’t come back in two days, then I would leave. I would go home and check on my grandmother. But they are out there. I just need to be positive. I just need to not let my illness rule me and make me always think the worst immediately. As I felt calmer and more relaxed, I couldn’t help but smile.

Yep, they’ll be back.