Hop, Skip, and a Jump
When the transformation is complete, you blink a few times before another door manifests in front of you. You try to walk toward it, but, you find that being in the body of a kangaroo makes walking feel almost awkward, not to mention the shape of your legs and new body make it a little difficult to attempt - you remind yourself that kangaroos don’t ‘walk,’ they hop.
‘Right,’ you think to yourself. ‘I don’t have full human legs anymore, which means…’
You look down and give a sigh, knowing that you’re pretty much going to have to start moving by jumping around instead of walking or running. So, you try to hop.
Your first attempt at a hop is humorous to envision watching, mainly because it feels so strange to you to move via bouncing. In fact, you move so strangely, you almost trip over yourself and end up bonking into the door. You teeter back, mildly dazed, but, you manage to shrug this off. You sigh, knowing you’ll need to adjust to this quickly to avoid making a fool of yourself.
‘And of course it had to be a female kangaroo form,’ you muse. You’re not super bothered by it, but, at the same time, the pouch isn’t exactly something you’re used to having attached to your midsection. ‘Couldn’t be a male one. Or, heck, couldn’t be something that walks around normally. Nope. Kangaroo.’
You shake this off and grab the door knob, then turn it.
To your astonishment, the door opens up to a vast land that is lush and fertile, and not at all like where you just came from. You force yourself to hop out of it and find this hop is a bit smoother than the previous - and after a few more hops, you feel like you’re getting the hang of moving that way.
Then, you stop.
First, you turn back to find that the door has shut, and, it fades into the background completely, leaving you in this new wild area to yourself.
Then, however, you look around, and you take in the sights more clearly.
You’ve ended up in a teeming forest environment, filled with towering trees stretching on and up toward the sky, and smooth, flat grassland with several hills at either side of you. In the distance, you can see mountains looming, while you turn to look back over your shoulder to find that there is a lakebed not far behind where you stand. The air is warm, with a faint breeze, and the sky above is clear, allowing the sun to beam down freely.
‘Is this… Australia?’ you wonder.
You’ve never been to Australia before, so you can’t say for certain.
The sign mentioned taking you to the respective creature’s habitat, and since it’s not like kangaroos are naturally found in the United States or somewhere common like that, it makes the most sense that you’ve ended up in Australia.
But for now, you shrug this off, and you decide you want to explore the area you’ve wound up in to see what may be around, and if there are any others like you in similar costumes - you’ve got a lot of time to kill in this body-changing costume, after all, and there’s no sense in spending that time staring off into space.
‘Besides,’ you think. ‘I still need food, water… gotta figure out where all that is so I don’t end up dying and getting stuck in some random costume.’
You begin to bounce forward, moving at a slow pace as you adjust to the motions proper; it’s still strange to you, the sensation of moving with both legs in unison by hopping, and it feels like the tail you’ve sprouted is acting like a sort of… guide, almost, to keep your body balanced. But you do feel more and more comfortable with it as every second goes by, and every bounce is performed.
‘Kangaroos do have superhuman legs, after all,’ you muse to yourself.
While you hop about, you end up going deeper into the forest. The trees are thick and large and numerous, but they offer a great deal of shade to you, as you stop feeling the sun’s frequent heat baring down on your body once you’ve gotten further into the thicket.
‘The air feels almost cooler here, too,’ you muse. You can feel it brush against your fur and the parts of you that don’t have fur. It feels quite nice, and is soothing to you. It carries with it the smells of the trees and grass.
‘Interesting…’ You breathe in deep, soaking in the atmosphere and the scents. Your nose seems to be a bit stronger than it was when you were a human, since you feel you can pick up some rather faint scents like the woodsy aroma wafting in the breeze. ‘This whole place is like something out of a fantasy book.’
You mostly spend this time moving slow and glancing about, checking the area for any other signs of life. You don’t know if this is actually the real Australia, or, if you’ve wound up in some weird dimension or whatever. You do concede that you wouldn’t be surprised since, well, you’re in a female kangaroo’s body right now, with a pouch and a tail and all that. Who knows what could be going on.
In terms of actual wildlife? You hear… something. You think.
You halt your bouncing and perk your ears up. Your ears are bigger and considerably stronger than they were before, of this you are certain, so you pick up a better concentration of sounds as you turn your head to and fro.
You can hear some birds chirping in the distance, although you can’t pinpoint exactly where they may be - and among those birds is the laughing sound you know to be a kookaburra; its humorous cackling is definitely the loudest sound among anything else you hear, and it echoes from the far distance.
As you stand there, soaking in this atmosphere, you also get the distinct sensation you’re being watched by something. You don’t know what, but, you feel the fur on your neck and arms start to stand upright - whether that’s the kangaroo aspect or your human self bleeding through, you’re not sure, but you don’t really care enough to ponder on that long. You feel uneasy, for sure.
‘What kinds of animals would be the predators to kangaroos?’ you wonder, trying to wrack your brain for the fuzzy memory of what you knew regarding Australian wildlife. ‘I know when they’re babies they’d be vulnerable, but, as adults… hmm. I know humans would be, but, that’s kind of a given, so…’
You can’t recall, even now as you try to think it over.
A rustling noise further to your right snags your attention. You turn to stare in that direction, but, you can’t see anything through the sea of trees. But you know you didn’t mishear, and, as you stare there, feeling tension spread through your body, you get the dreading sense you should leave the forest.
‘Shoot,’ you think. ‘Great. Now what?’
You freeze up and try to figure out what to do. You aren’t sure if you want to test it or not - for all you know, the rustling could be some small woodland creature just trekking about for food, but it could also be something bigger or potentially more dangerous. And you are no condition to take any chances; especially since you know nothing else about this environment.
‘Do I stay and see?’ you think. ‘Or do I turn and go back into the open area?’
The rustling occurs again. You need to choose, and quick.
Written by Hollowpages on 13 August 2020
