The misadventures of some random person turned Manticore

by Cloverleaf

Wake up call

There's a lot to say about darkness. When you experience it, it's an all encompassing force that chokes you from all sides, yet leaves all the room to breath you need. It invites the unknown, the dangerous, the terrifying. Yet at the same time it can be inviting. Be a gateway for your imagination to flow, run wild. A blank canvas. After all, you must experience darkness before the realm of dreams can manifest.

So when my eyes cracked open that morning, and the darkness surrounding me fell away, I had to question if I had truly opened my eyes or if they were playing tricks on me, and this was another dream. Some small part of me told me I'm stupid, because I couldn't possibly be aware of it without it being lucid.

The first thing that came into view was the grass around me, bright, with the sun shining on it. A small smile crept up on my face, as I thought it'd be a wonderful day. That smile faded quickly however, when a realization dawned on me. The sun was shining on the grass. There was only one explanation. My eyes glanced upward, and I groaned. Yep, someone stole my tent....again.

My gaze glanced back down to see if they only took that, when they came upon a curious sight. It, looked like a bug. A big bug. Big enough it's fangs were about as long as one of my fingers would be, possibly longer. That and the fact they were gleaming white. So apparently it hadn't fed on anything in a while, which means maybe I should leave before it woke up. Well, first step was to get up, slowly, quietly. So I looked down and put my paw down on the ground proper to stand up.

Paw.

I have a paw.

Why do I have a paw?

I laid back down and moved it out from under me, holding it up to my face. The fur was a dark reddish brown. The paw itself was big, and somewhat catlike. I flexed it a bit, and yes, I have claws. Definitely a cat's paw, and a big cat at that. Still didn't answer my question, but it did mean one thing. If this was the case, I was actually a lot bigger than the bug. Another smile crept on my face as a bit of curiosity got the better of me, and I reflected on the irony of letting that happen.

New order of business, find a stick. Whether or not I was bigger than this bug by me, I was not going to touch it directly. Could be diseased. It's body looked like it had holes in it after all. Didn't take long to find one suitable, since it was sitting right next to me, but a new problem arose. I had paws. Now, of course, finding and using a stick should have been easy, but considering the fact I had, overnight, somehow turned into a big predatory animal that doesn't have opposable thumbs made it a much more difficult chore. My first attempt had been to grab it inbetween two toes. It ended up with a splinter in one that hurt like heck pulling out. At least I found my teeth were sharp enough to dig into the splinter.

So then I tried hooking it with a claw. That ended with a section of it snapping off. So now i had a smaller stick, and a realization I should be very careful if I get an itch. In the end I settled on picking it up with my mouth. My first try there caused a gag reflex, and I started coughing. Once I finally settled down and my respect for dogs grew a little, I looked back over to the bug. A pair of blue instectoid eyes greeted my gaze with their own. It got up, a tad shakily, then dropped back down. Well, whatever it was, it was about, sheesh, maybe the size of a small horse. Smaller than I felt I was, but, it definitely didn't stand like a bug.

No, something about it was nagging at me, Like I should know what this thing was. A trip down memory lane commences as I fiddle through all my knowledge of animals, which in truth was a mass of memories on their general appearance. Nothing matched, so I considered more mythical nature. I considered what little I knew of greek and norse mythology, pop culture, and- wait. Something did come up there, in pop culture. My younger brother Evan had gone gaga over some show about colorful horses recently. He had shown me something like this bug in front of me, but I couldn't wrap my head on the name.

Still, the absurdity of the thought. I was sitting in front of some make believe creature from a kids show. Did Evan slip me some mushrooms or something last night, and where was he anyway? It was his idea to go camping.

I guess It must have thought I wasn't paying attention, cause when I looked back down it was right in front of me, looking at me. It seemed stable on it's legs, which honestly, with all those holes in them, I was amazed about. Darn things didn't look like they'd support a laptop. I tried to put on a smile, which must have scared it, cause it backed away and started flapping some holey wings on it's back. This, thing, whatever it was, didn't make sense at all. All those holes, even in it's wings. How could it even fly like that?

Well of course I was forced to eat my words as it took flight and shot off, the sound of it's buzzing fading into the distance. Well, whatever it was, it was gone, and I was back to contemplating how in all heck I turned into a big cat. I needed to see exactly what kind, and find my brother. I once again moved to get up. I put all four paws down on the ground and tried standing up straight. Being on all fours felt weird, but at least some early movement training all people go through helped. One paw at a time, slowly.

It took a matter of minutes to get a hang of it, well, that and a few sudden mouthfuls of dirt and grass, but I was on my way, whichever way that was.....

Author's Note:

This is my first attempt at writing a FiM fiction. So, please, constructive criticism is encouraged. I hope to make this a decent length, and possibly make chapters longer. But honestly, I'm just looking to at least finish this story, instead of dropping out halfway like so many other stories i tried to write.

Comments

[Disalign]

I am liking this, definitely keep it up. Haven't read a human turned to manticore story yet, so it was tempting!

[booklover41]

Love tje fact that one of the first thing he tried to do was poke something with a stick.