Reality Hopping
In this story you can hop between realities following these rules:
No more then
- 1 a Day
- 6 a Week
- 20 every 4 weeks
- 50 every 12 weeks
- 180 every 48 weeks
These measurements are based on your home reality.
Your home reality is the one where you start your journey from.
When you hop to another reality you switch your mind with anybody who is there already.
If you hop to a different reality then your home reality from another reality then:
Reality 3 contains you.
Reality 2 contains the person from reality 3
Your home reality contains the person from reality 2
If someone dies then the person whose reality he/she home reality changes to that of the person who died. (Using the example above , if the person in your home reality dies your home reality becomes reality 2. If the person in reality 2 dies then the home reality of the person from reality 2 becomes
3.)
Written by Catprog on 22 August 2004
Alterntive Scenarios from Other Stories
This is for characters from the other stories in other scenarios.
Written by catprog on 21 February 2016
Costumeverse People
People in the costumeverse
Written by Catprog on 14 October 2017
Jared outside of Costumverse
Jared didn’t think much of the novelty shop the first time he saw that it had opened. All he saw were some goofy looking trinkets and gadgets hanging in the window, nothing that quite gathered his interest or delight. A deeper look through the front glass revealed nothing more than counters full of gag gifts and plastic toys, although he never quite took the time to look more closely than a brief glance. The only thing that really stood out to him was the name of it: Get it Here, emphasis the store’s. The way the word ‘it’ was so bombastically highlighted caught his eye, as if ‘it’ was the very thing he’d been looking for his entire life, whatever that may have been.
So he wasn’t bothered by the shop’s existence until one day he did see something worth his attention. Displayed in the front window, loosely draped over a porcelain mannequin was a black and white onesie. It wasn’t until Jared had passed the store completely that his brain registered what he had seen. He came to a quick halt, turned around, and stood in front of the mannequin for a closer look. Immediately in front of him was his reflection in the glass, face turned upwards. Most of the onesie was black, but around the torso was a tan oval like an underbelly. It had a hood pulled over the head. Semi-circle ears sprouted from the crown. A single white stripe ran down the center of the forehead. He saw through the legs a fluffy black tail hanging from above the onesie’s seat. His up-close inspection confirmed what he had thought: it was a skunk onesie.
It might not have been the thing Jared had been looking for his whole life, but it certainly demanded his purchase. His love for skunks carried back to his early childhood, something fostered by the creature’s unwarranted disdain by the public. He had always wanted to have one as a pet, but was withheld by state laws and his landlord’s pet policy. While this wasn’t the real deal, it looked pretty close. The fur seemed authentic and warm. It wasn’t something he thought he’d mind wearing on a cold night. Maybe it was odd for a grown man like him to purchase something so silly, but quite frankly, he didn’t care. He had to have it.
He waltzed into the shop at a brisk pace. The door opened to the jingle of a bell above his head. The proprietor, a tall old man with slick, white hair stood behind the counter. He was smiling at Jared with his hands clasped together on top of the desk. He had seen Jared staring through the window and fully anticipated his entry. “Hello there!” he said in a voice that reminded Jared of his grandfather’s. “How can I help you?”
Jared gulped. “Yes, um… I was wondering if I could buy the suit on the mannequin I saw?” He pointed to it. Looking at it from behind he could see how realistic the tail was. The double-stripe running down its center looked flawless, almost like a real skunk’s. He’d have thought it genuine if not for the seamless way the rest of the suit was pieced together. There was no way multiple animal pelts could be fashioned together so flawlessly.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 03 December 2022
Take the Skunk
The old man squinted his eyes at it. “Which one? You mean the skunk one?”
Jared felt a tad embarrassed. “Yeah.”
The old man smiled. From across the room Jared could see how cerulean his eyes were. “Perfect. I didn’t think I’d be selling that any time soon. I’m glad you showed up.” He walked around from behind the counter towards the window. He grabbed the mannequin and hoisted it off of its stand. Jared made to approach and help, but the man held him back with a polite show of his palm. “I’ve got it, son. Don’t worry.” He unzipped the front zipper. As he slid it off the mannequin, Jared wondered. Was that zipper there before? The old man cradled the onesie in his hands, which Jared noticed were conspicuously without wrinkles. “Yeah, this is a nice one. I worked extra hard on it. Wanted it to be as real as I could make it.”
Jared was afraid to ask. “What’s it made out of?”
The old man rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, trying to remember. “Ah, nylon? I think?”
Jared relaxed. “OK, that makes sense.”
The old man gave him an assuring look. “No skunks were harmed in the making of it, I promise you.” He brought it to the front desk and laid it out. As he rang it up, Jared ran his fingers over the surface of the suit. The old man said nylon, but nylon didn’t feel anything like this. This was coarse and scratchy, the exact same texture he’d expect on a wild animal. He’d never had the pleasure of petting a real skunk, but this was what he expected one to feel like. “That’ll be $35,” the man said.
That was cheaper than Jared expected, but he wasn’t going to complain. He pulled out his card and the man rang him up. “Can I, uh, get a bag to put this in?”
“Not ashamed of anyone seeing you with this, are you? There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“N-no,” he lied. “I just need something to carry it.”
The man nodded. “Of course. Let me get you one.” He reached behind the desk and produced a large paper bag. He neatly folded the onesie into a square and put it inside. With a gentle push he slid it towards Jared’s side of the desk. “Here you go. Have fun with it, Jared.”
“I will, thanks. Um…” Did I tell him my name? He remembered that he gave him his card. His info probably popped up there. “What’s your name?”
“You can call me Leland. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too, Leland.” He took the bag off the desk. It felt heavy, like there was a small animal inside of it. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. Until next time.”
“Yeah, see you.” Jared headed out of the store, clutching the bag’s strings tightly, Leland’s blissfully blue eyes still shimmering in his mind.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 04 December 2022
Other Apartment
He wasn’t in his apartment for more then five minutes that night before he was stripping down to his underwear so he could try on the onesie. It was laid out on his bed, awaiting his use. When he was down to his underwear, he picked it up and gave it one last look. So real. Nylon, polyester, whatever, it was perfect for making skunk fur. He looked at the collar and saw the zipper. It was small, which is probably why he missed it the first time. He pulled it down and split the belly open. He noticed that the inside was shiny like velvet, inviting him even more. With a giddy smile he stepped his foot into one leg, then the other. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled it up until his feet popped out the bottom. He wiggled his toes and rolled his ankles, loving how soft it felt against his legs. He stood up and put his arms through the sleeves. He zipped it back up, then finally flipped the hood onto his head.
Voila! He was a skunk. The soft interior clung to his skin snugly, tingling him with delight. He rubbed his bare hands over his tummy, savoring the outer softness. He could feel the tail hanging from above his butt. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve said it had bones running through it. But forget how nice it felt, he had to see how it looked. He scampered off to the bathroom and turned the lights on. He saw himself in the mirror, decked in that mephitine suit like a toddler on Halloween. An ecstatic smile split his face. He looked so cute! He turned his back to the mirror and checked out his tail. Oh yeah, it was perfect. He ran his hands down his back, noticing how snug the suit was so his skin. Funny, he remembered how loose it looked on the mannequin. Maybe it was way smaller than he was.
He turned his frontside to the mirror. He stood there with his arms akimbo, looking and feeling proud. There was no need to be ashamed, not when he felt so comfortable. He had found his new pajamas. Heck, it was a good thing he lived alone, because he definitely planned on wearing this thing as often as he could. Only when he cooked meals or had people over would he take it off. Oh yeah, and he would clean it of course. He loved it, but not that much. Something so special had to be taken care of anyway. Just as he thought of it, he realized with a rumbling tummy that he hadn’t had dinner yet. He grasped at his collar for the zipper.
There was nothing there.
He patted his hand around to confirm that the zipper he very clearly remembered using was gone. He slid his hand up and down his belly. There was no crease or stainless steel teeth like before, nothing but faux fur. He clawed, picked, and stretched the fabric across every part of it, including the front and back sides. There was no zipper. The first throbs of panic settled on his heart. He stared down at the suit and saw with his own eyes that there still was no zipper. Where did it go?
He had no time to formulate a theory before he felt the onesie tighten around his body like a bag being vacuum-sealed. His spine shot into a straight line. He looked at the mirror and saw that whatever slack the suit had was now gone. It had fit into the contours of his body, leaving absolutely no room in between whatsoever. Most alarming was the hoodie which had fallen on his head like the top portion of a wetsuit. He was terrified that the suit would continue shrinking and crush him.
But the suit was not shrinking. It was assimilating. He felt something tingle down his wrists. He looked down and saw the fabric lengthening down towards his hands like a living liquid spreading its territory across his skin. His wrists disappeared, then the bottom half of his palms, then his hand entirely. “What is this?” he screamed. He shook his hands frantically. It didn’t work. He shook them harder. Nothing happened. He shook them so hard that they nearly flew off by the joint. The suit continued claiming his hand until no skin remained. What replaced it was a thick cushion of fleshy padding where his palm had been. What felt like a tugging sensation on the very tips of his fingers was his fingernails sprouting into long, white claws made for digging.
He felt a pressure on his feet. He looked down and saw the same process happening to them. What had been a tightening of the suit was now more like a physical melding. Flesh bonded with fabric. The cells of his skin melted and fused with the velvet liner. The hilt of the skunk tail drilled into the base of his spine. He wasn’t wrong when he thought it had bone inside of it. He knew that now that it was latching onto his vertebrae and rendering the tail a part of him. When he tried pinching the suit off of him, he could only wince in pain. There was no suit, only skunk.
He looked back into the mirror. The outer limits of his face had been consumed by fur. The rim of his eye sockets were black. A white stripe ran down his forehead. His formally brown mop of hair was now a shaggy white cumulus. He thought a black cloud would consume his vision as the fur crept down into his visor, but was spared that punishment at least. What he was not saved from was the black fur closing in on his nose and lips. “Ah!” A great pressure pushed out from inside of his head, right behind his medulla. He went cross eyed and looked at his nose. What were two bumps on the bottom corners of his peripherals became long, black protrusions that reached out to the center of his vision. His nose and jaws were sprouting forward into a snout, a painful process that felt like someone had stuck a hook in the roof of his mouth and was pulling it straight out of his face. He gripped the rim of the sink growling through the pain. It escalated around his lip when a forest of whiskers sprouted from his upper lip, each one coming out individually.
He was in the final swing of his transformation, one that fell upon his pecs and around his groin. A groan mixed with agony and queer delight belted out of him as his manhood started to retract into his body. He looked down in horror to see his reproductive organs shrinking back into his loins. “No! No no no nonononnnonnono!” Blocking the view of his disappearing genitals was the sudden inflation of his chest into a pair of white breasts. His crosses eyes stared down at them in abject terror and confusion. The first notes of a scream started their way out of him but were cut off by his paw slamming over his snout. The sound that came out of him was not his own, but that of a woman’s. It crackled like a teenager’s, but instead of a sudden deepening in his pitch, it was a rapid incline. He cautiously uncovered his maw and let out a tepid “Ah.” It did not crack this time, but remained the smooth, unmistakable tone of a woman’s.
Then, just like that, all sensations stopped at once. He looked into the mirror to see not a reflection of himself, but that of a buxom skunkette. He- no, she? He still identified as a man, but any and all physical remnants of that were gone. God, even his visage had taken on the soft contours of a woman, albeit with the inclusion of a short snout with a pink cherry nose. He lifted his hand- no, his paw, -towards his cheek. His entire body jerked the moment his tough paw pads touched his sensitive whiskers. Yes, it was real. It was all real.
Terror set in. “Oh God! Oh no! Why?” He rubbed his paws all over his face, stretching the skin to find any breaches that would reveal normal human skin beneath. All he got was the sight of sharp canines sticking out from his gums. Nothing human besides his upright posture remained. Even his underwear had magically vanished. What was he going to do now? Was this permanent? He had to call someone, but who? 911? How was he supposed to explain that over the phone? Who would they even send? It had to be someone who trusted him, but he doubted even his own mother would believe a single word of what happened.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 24 January 2023
Maria (Sister)
But he couldn’t just lock himself in his apartment for the rest of his life, or however long this curse would last. Maybe Leland will have a cure. That old son of a bitch knew what this would do to me. That would have to wait. First, he had to get help. He ran out of the bathroom, whipping his fluffy skunk tail through the air behind him. Morbid curiosity drove him to try and move it.
Sure enough, it wagged on command like the feathered fan of a burlesque dancer. That was kind of cool, but not enough to stay focused on. His phone was left on his dresser. He clicked the power button, bringing up the lock screen. A few rapid taps unlocked it and brought him to the home screen. He opened his contacts and selected the person who lived the closest, his sister Maria.
She picked up on the third ring. “Hey! What’s up?”
“Maria?” His voice was a harsh reminder that he was no longer a male. He clapped his paw back over his mouth. Shit! He cleared his throat, then tried to correct his pitch by bringing it lower. “You there?” He cringed hard. It was painfully obvious that he was trying to change his voice into something more masculine.
“Uh, yeah?” Maria said, sounding concerned. “You OK? You sound weird.”
“Um, yeah.” His attempt at sounding more natural failed. “I mean… no. I kinda have an emergency.”
“Oh. What’s wrong? What happened?” The worry in her voice cut like an edge.
“Well, I’m fine. I’m not hurt. Nobody’s hurt, but… I need you to come over.”
“OK. I’m headed over right now. What is it?”
He cringed. “It’s hard to explain. I can’t tell you over the phone.”
He heard the frown in her voice. “OK… How bad is it? What’s going on? Do you need me to call the police?”
“No! Just… Just get over here, OK? I can’t explain it without you seeing it.”
She didn’t ask any more questions. “OK. I’m on my way.” She hung up the phone, leaving Jared alone in the silence of his apartment. He spent the next several minutes pacing around, rubbing his paws nervously. His pink button nose twitched incessantly. His tail would flick and jitter behind him. He tried putting jeans on, only to find that the extra padding of fur prevented that. A towel around torso was going to have to do. A sharp buzzing sound rang through the apartment when his sister hit the intercom. He unlocked the door for her and she came running up. Jared panicked. She can’t see me like this right when she walks in! He ran into the kitchen and hid behind the doorway right as he heard knocking on the door. “Hello?” called a voice.
“Come in,” he hollered. “It’s open.”
Maria opened the door and stepped inside cautiously. “Jazz? You here?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 25 January 2023
Skunk too
Jared frowned. Jazz? Who the heck is Jazz? “That you, Maria?” Jared called from the kitchen.
“Yeah, it’s me. Why do you sound so weird?”
“Um… It’s complicated.” He heard her footsteps approaching the kitchen. “Wait! No! Don’t come in here!”
She stopped abruptly. “Jazz? Are you OK?”
“No. Well, yeah, kinda. Why do you keep calling me that?”
“I… always call you that.” There was a long pause. “What’s going on? Where are you? Where’s Jasmine?”
Jasmine!?!? “Jasmine? Who-? What are you talking about?”
He heard her take a step back. “Jazz, if that’s you, you’re scaring me. Come on out. Let me see you.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Jared took a deep breath. He stopped trying to sound like a man. “I might scare you even more when I come out.”
“OK. Are you hurt?” She didn’t seem concerned by Jared’s feminine voice.
“No, but what happened is… pretty shocking.”
“It’s OK. You can show me.”
“Whoo… OK.” God, this is gonna suck. “You sure you’re ready?”
“Just show me.” She was getting impatient.
“OK. Here I come.” With another pair of deep breaths, he stepped out into the doorway.
The reaction was instantaneous, one that involved a startled jump and a high-pitched scream. It was not Maria’s. The black and white fur across Jared’s body went into a great kerfuffle. He jumped so high the soles of his feet went almost a foot into the air. His heart seized in his chest and plummeted into a pool of ice water at the basement of his gut.
Maria was a skunkette too.
She was still Maria, of course. There was her usual outfit of jeans and a t-shirt. The purse she usually carried was slung over her shoulder and her sunglasses were perched on her brow. Her hair was even in the same long style that bobbed around her shoulders. That’s where the similarities to the Maria Jared knew ended. She was, like Jared, wholly and unmistakably a skunk, from the big bushy tail that sprouted behind her to the half-moon ears that sprouted from her hair.
She jumped when Jared did, but not because he was a skunk. “What? What?” she demanded.
Jared quaked where he stood, clinging to the towel vaporously. “Y-… y-… y-… You’re…” His quivering jaw could not get the words out.
“What? What is it?” Maria looked down at herself. Jared expected a sudden and violent realization that she was a skunk too. Nothing of the sort happened. “Is something on me?” Seeing nothing, she ran over to her brother/sister. “Are you OK? What’s under the towel?” She reached for Jared’s paw.
He turned away. “No!” Maria leapt back, startled. “I mean… Sorry… Sorry… I… Oh my God.” His eyes went up and down her mephitine form over and over. Most surreal was her face which besides its black fur and animal snout looked exactly like it had when she was a human. “You’re a… skunk.”
Maria frowned hard, then cracked a confused smile. “Yeah, no shit. So are you.” She tilted her head. “Is everything OK? I mean, obviously not, but did you hit your head or something?”
He wished it was that easy to explain. “No… I didn’t. I just…” He looked down at himself. The towel swelled around his recently acquired bosom. “I put a suit on… And it did something to me.” And to you, he almost added.
“Oh. Can I see it? Is it underneath the towel?”
Does she really not see any difference? Have I been a woman to her this whole time??? “Um… Yeah. Kinda.”
“Oh. Let me see.”
Jared blanched. “Um… I don’t know.” Showing his naked body to his sister wasn’t something he was comfortable with.
“It’s OK. We used to take baths when we were little babies, remember?”
“Uh… Well, yeah, but…” Then Jared realized. If she remembered her as a woman this entire time, they probably had grown up as sister and sister rather than brother and sister. Sharing bodily secrets must have been much less taboo. “Alright.” He opened his towel to reveal his trunk. He anticipated a severe reaction out of her, but got nothing but a confused frown.
“You look fine! Is something hurting?”
“Uhh…” Now that he thought about it, he felt kind of comfortable having a furry tummy and chest. “No.”
“Oh. Then why the hell’d you call me over?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 26 January 2023
Lie
“I…” Crap. Now I have to come up with an excuse. “Earlier… I was having a really bad… cramps… in my stomach.”
Maria’s frown deepened. “Were they that bad you had to call me? You didn’t take anything for it?”
“Um… I did. They were bad, but nothing was working.”
“OK, and why’d you get naked?”
“Well, I was when they started.”
“Right, right. Well, if they come back just call me, I guess. Did you need me to drive you to the clinic?”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“OK. You want me to hang around a while?”
Jared needed nothing more than to be with someone to handle his new form, but being around someone he’d forever known as a human in the same form was not easy on his psyche. Simultaneously, being around someone who looked like him and did not judge him for his appearance was helpful. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
“You got it. I wasn’t doing anything anyway.”
For the first time since his transformation, Jared smiled. “Yeah, thanks. Um, you called me Jazz, right?”
Maria narrowed her eyes. “Yyyyyyyyyeah. I’ve always called you that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just… wondering. How did you come up with it?”
“I mean… It’s short for Jasmine. Wasn’t that hard to come up with when I was 3.”
Jasmine. He remembered her saying that name earlier. That’s who I am in this universe. But was it a universe? As in a place separated from the one he was born into? How much did his current past and human past coincide? Were his parents skunks too? What animals were everyone else? Finding all of it out wasn’t going to be easy or fun. He had to ask questions without sounding like a loony, although he more than felt like one. “I think I’ll go get dressed.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Maria joked.
Jared/Jasmine strutted back to the bedroom where his/her closet was waiting. Opening it revealed a wardrobe which at first glance looked the same as it had been. His shirts, pants, socks,
and underwear were all stacked on a white metal rack neatly while his jackets hung from the rod above. He made to reach for a pair of underwear when his paw stopped. A frown furrowed his brow. That isn’t mine was his immediate thought, but it was supplanted by the realization that the opposite was true. Yes, those slim panties stacked up in a row were in fact his. But of course. The Jasmine version of him had bought clothes for women. Why wouldn’t she?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 27 January 2023
Clothing
He picked up a pair and held them out curiously. He was familiar with women’s underwear, of course, but the prospect of putting them on was uncomfortably foreign. He noticed that the back of the waistband had a hole going through it. Above it was a clasp like that on a bra. He realized that it was for his skunk tail to fit through and that all of the other pairs had the same feature. A sigh left him as he unclasped the panties and brought them down to his feet. He stepped into the leg holes and pulled them up his furry legs. Without thinking, he pulled the tabs on the clasp around and over his tail. With a deft shift of his fingers the clasp bar slid into the holder, locking the underwear into place.
He blinked. Did I just do that? He looked down at his back and saw the underwear neatly wrapped around his waist. It was like he had done it a thousand times, and that was because he had done it a thousand times, several thousand, in fact. Just like putting on any other article of clothing, putting the panties on was accomplished purely by muscle memory. Now that the underwear were on him, they didn’t feel unnatural at all. “Huh,” he said out loud.
He noticed his bras stacked nearby. With his curiosity peeking, he plucked one up to perform an experiment. He closed his eyes and put the bra on. His arms went through the openings, the cups hugged his chest, and he closed the clasp onto his back. His eyes opened and looked down. Everything was perfect. “Holy shit!” he chuckled.
“Everything OK in there?” Maria called out.
“Yeah!” Jared said, smiling from ear to ear. “Everything’s awesome in here!” Who knew putting on women’s clothes could be so fun!
“Alright! Let me know if you need help with anything!”
It was only a few minutes ago that Jared thought he’d need help with everything, but that turned out to be false. He put on the rest of his outfit while grinning like an idiot. What he ended up with was just a white tank top and some jeans, but looking at himself in the mirror he saw the coolest outfit he’d ever had the pleasure of putting on. There was close to an entire 10 minutes spent bouncing and dancing his big fluffy skunk tail out behind him before Maria called to ask if he was OK again.
“Oh yeah! I’m fine,” called out the skunkette admiring herself in the mirror. Not Jared the he, but Jasmine the she.
She wandered out of the bathroom and back into the living room where Maria was sitting on the couch reading a magazine from the coffee table. Jasmine noticed for the first time that the people on the front cover were skunks too. One of his magazines was a National Geographic
depicting a mosaic of Jesus. To his amusement and wonder, he too was a skunk. She chuckled. Skunk Jesus. Cool.
Maria laughed with her. “What’s so funny?”
Jasmine pointed to the magazine. “Skunk Jesus.”
Maria looked down at it and lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? What about him?”
Jasmine realized that she had just said the equivalent of Human Jesus. “Nothing. It’s just funny seeing him on the magazine like that.”
“Oh, OK.” Maria laughed at the absurdity of it. “Are you high?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 28 January 2023
Yes
“No.”
“You’re acting real funny. You were just freaking out a few minutes ago and now you’re laughing at a picture of Jesus. You coming off the peak?”
Shit. That’s actually a great excuse. Why didn’t I think of that? “Yeah, sorry. That’s why I called you. Having the cramps in the middle of it really fucked me up.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I didn’t wanna give you TMI.”
“For smoking weed?” Maria scoffed. “Weirdo. You know I know you’ve done it before. Why would I judge?”
“Y-yeah. Sorry. I was paranoid.”
“Shit, been there.” Maria patted the cushion next to her. “Have a seat. Take the edge off. You definitely need it.”
Jasmine agreed and took a seat next to her. Her curiosity fell back on her like an anvil. “What’s on TV?”
“I dunno. The remote’s right there.” Maria nodded at the remote on the coffee table.
Jasmine snatched it up and inspected it. It looked like her old remote, maybe a little fatter? Her Jasmine brain saw everything as normal, but Jared brain could find minute changes. Giving anything else closer looks provided the same mind-puzzling contradiction: what she was holding was different from how his memories experienced them, but everything else including muscle memory, subconscious, and various other facets of his psyche registered them as perfectly normal. The contrast faltered side to side in her mind like a pair of dimensions spilling over one another inside the hull of ship rocking on its keel. Neither could take hold of another, not when the
opposing perspective would come crashing over on top as soon as the advantage had been taken. It was like he’d been trapped in her own personal Mandela effect.
Maria watched her stare a disconcertingly long amount of time at the remote. “Damn. You’re toasted.” She quipped.
Jasmine realized how hard she was staring and laughed it off. “Oh yeah. Haha… My bad.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. Like I said, been there.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 28 January 2023
Tv
Jasmine hit the power button on the remote. The TV on the wall powered on normally with a white bar materializing in the center of the screen and blooming out to the channel he had last. A passing sports fan, Jasmine, or rather Jared, had watched a hocky game the night before. It was on TNT which today was featuring a few basketball games. Jasmine’s jaw dropped. Famous athletes had all been skunkified like she had been. They talked, joked, and debated amongst themselves exactly like their human counterparts did. They analyzed game footage, discussed strategies, and made guesses on who would win. Everything was totally normal except for the jarring yet banal fact that they were all skunks.
She switched the channels. Yes, everyone else was a skunk too. The exact same commercials Jared had seen the human version of Jasmine could now see as the skunkified edition. They all included the same lines and actors. They all featured the same products. They all had the same annoying songs and jingles. Only difference? Take a guess.
“Wait!” Jasmine yelped, making Maria jump in her seat.
“What? What?”
“Are movies the same?” she asked as if Maria knew what was going on.
“The same? What do you mean? What movies? Jesus Christ, what exactly did you smoke?”
All that did was bring up the image of Skunk Jesus again. Jasmine had to stop herself from giggling again. “Nothing. Wanna watch a movie?”
“Um, Keith is expecting me back home for dinner.”
“OK, OK. No problem. Let’s just…” She opened the streaming menu.” Let’s see something really quick.” Using the many streaming services the market had to offer, Jared had both rented and bought several movies digitally over the years. If Jasmine was the same as Jared, at least in the very tenuous and confusing sense that she hoped it was, the movie Troy starring Brad Pitt was still in her library. It was her favorite movie, one she liked to rewatch at least once a year. She opened Netflix and browsed the movies she’d seen. Sure enough, Troy was both in the library and had been marked as something she watched. The thumbnail depicted Brad Pitt as Achilles, although not quite the version Jasmine/Jared was used to.
She laughed out loud. “Ha! Oh my God!” She selected the movie and hit play. It started exactly how it normally did, veering off only when the first character appeared on screen. Needless to say, they weren’t human. Jasmine just sat there laughing herself silly, watching as the movie played itself with a cast completely replaced with anthropomorphic skunk people.
Maria kept quiet, concerned but happy to see her sister in such a childish state of euphoria. She made a mental note to ask Jasmine who her dealer was. Whatever Jasmine was smoking, it was that good stuff. “Well, I wish I could watch this movie with you… again… but I should get going.” She started to get up.
Jasmine snapped out of her hysterics. “Wait! Don’t go!”
Maria frowned. “What?” Her patience was growing thin. “If nothing’s wrong I don’t think I need to babysit you, unless you think I need to.”
“No, no… You don’t, I swear. But… do you think you can drive me somewhere?”
“Your dealer, I’m assuming.”
Jasmine couldn’t help but chuckle even though she was trying to remain serious. “No. It’s a store I ran into earlier today.”
“Oh, so you’ve got the munchies.”
Jasmine shook her head, whipping her long white hair into a halo around her head. “No. It’s not. I swear. It’s something important I have to check out, and I’m too high to drive.” She wasn’t high at all, but driving her car seemed like something too surreal to do when everything around her was so significant and thus distracting.
“What is it?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 29 January 2023
Back to the Store
Jasmine thought for a moment. How the hell was she supposed to explain Leland? “You’re right, it is my dealer. Sorry.”
“You guys are all cool, right? I’m not bringing you to settle some score, am I?”
“What? No! Just… Can you bring me over there?”
Maria would’ve declined if she wasn’t after some of that good stuff herself. She sighed and fished her keys out of her coat pocket. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
The mere walk from Jasmine’s apartment to Maria’s car was a display of wonders. They spotted her neighbor whom Jasmine had known for years when she was Jared. They were not only a skunk, but were walking their dog who, as far as Jasmine could tell, looked completely normal and unchanged. The person saw Jasmine and gave a polite wave. Jasmine waved back, if less enthusiastically.
Things got exponentially weirder once they got in Maria’s car. The first oddity was the gap in the car seats between the backrest and the seat itself. Maria sat down and casually tucked her tail through it so that it could rest upright behind the backrest. Jasmine sat down and found herself doing the exact same thing as unconsciously as she would put on her seatbelt. The drive to Get It Here was an adventure on its own, revealing a complete treasure trove of mephitine discovery. Jasmine’s pretty face was smushed into the car window as she gawked at everyone who passed. Interesting to see beyond just everyone’s having become, or simply being, a skunk was the fact that there was a variety between them. There were spotted skunks, striped skunks, hognose skunks, and hooded skunks. Jasmine wouldn’t have noticed if her Jared form didn’t have such a fascination with the animal.
That reminded her. “Hey, Maria?”
“Yeah?”
“I got a stupid question.”
“I bet you do.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, do you know what a human is?”
Maria frowned and cut her eye at her while trying to look at the road. “No? What’s that?”
Jasmine slumped in her seat. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
They came across the lot where Get It Here had been. The lot remained, but taking it up was a convenience store, not the bizarre novelty shop where Jared had gotten the suit. Looking in through the windows he couldn’t spot any skunk that resembled Leland. She was disappointed, but not surprised. Somebody who sells something magical like that wasn’t liable to show up when you needed them to.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 31 January 2023
History
Maria watched as her sister stared at the convenience store quietly. “You OK?” she asked.
Jasmine sighed. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. Sorry for dragging you out here.” She sat back in her seat. “My dealer’s not here. Sorry.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about it.”
Jasmine tried not to, but that would prove hard.
Maria drove her back to her apartment. After double-checking that everything was OK, she left her sister alone. Now that she was past the amusement period, Jasmine had to sit down and really adjust herself. Sitting down and watching the rest of Troy was fun, but by the end of it the skunkiness had pretty much lost all its novelty. She put on some other movies, laughed at how the actors looked, then turned them off. A look through the gallery on her phone revealed multiple
pictures of herself and her family the exact way Jared had taken them, but in their places were what Jasmine the skunkette had taken, not Jared.
She perused her apartment for other changes. All her clothes were built to contain tails and other skunk features like fluffy fur and claws. She had no winter clothes, probably not necessary given her fur. More time was spent in front of the mirror gawking at her tail. A period of literal self-reflection had her repeating to herself what became a morbid chant: I’m a skunk. I’m a skunk. I’m a skunk. Holy shit. I’m a skunk. And there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
Memories of the human Jared remained intact, making her question how in tune they were with what happened to Jasmine. Were her interests the same? Were all the people she had met still around? Dread seized her. Are the human people I grew up with still in existence? She had no way of finding out. There she was, stuck in this new universe, a perverse copy of what she was familiar with yet totally alien too.
She had to distract herself from an impending episode of existential horror. She ran to her bedroom where her computer awaited her. The chair wasn’t done recoiling from the impact of her landing on it by the time she was logged on. Her desktop picture was the same: a pretty screenshot she had captured while playing Red Dead Redemption 2. Looks like my interests are pretty much intact. She opened up her browser and clicked the search bar. Where to start? Evolution? Society? Where did things go different?
She was in the middle of typing “human history” when she quickly backspaced it and replaced it with “skunk history.” The results that came up included a few images of cavemen and pre-historic people, but of course they were all skunks. Among them was the famous image depicting the procession of human evolution, the one that started with a basic primate and then gradually moved up into the human. Not only did this one end on an anthropomorphic skunk but it started on what was a completely normal skunk in the human universe. “Woah…” Jasmine thought aloud.
Wikipedia offered a definition: Skunk history, also called world history, is the narrative of skunkity’s past. Jasmine got a chuckle out of the word “skunkity”. Browsing the wiki page as well as other informative websites unveiled a motherlode of information too burdensome for her to drink in at once. It was rife with scientific names of skunk’s ancestors, but instead of Australopithecus afarensis, it was Australopalianthropus afarensis. Other scientific names followed the same theme, replacing the human origin of the word and replacing it with the skunk version, usually “mephitis” or “palianthropus”. A translation of the former revealed that it meant smelly in latin. It was funny to her that even in a world where everyone stank, it didn’t mean nobody stank.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 01 February 2023
World History
That reminded her. Could she spray? That wasn’t something she was willing to experiment inside her apartment. Another quick google search revealed that most skunks had their glands removed upon birth. In fact, there was an entire political debate on bodily autonomy which confronted the tradition. Without going so far as to check herself physically, Jasmine assumed her glands had been removed, which was kind of a bummer.
That wasn’t the end of her investigation. There was so much else to unpack and ask. Thank God that all of this had happened to Jared in the modern age when there was all of the world’s secrets at her fingertips. She slogged through a book series’ worth of Wikipedia pages that included both history and anatomy. Skunk history followed human history more or less to a tee. There were more paintings of skunk Jesus to giggle at as well as other religious and historic figures. Skunk Abe Lincoln, skunk Joan of Arc, skunk Napoleon, skunk Ceasar. Fuck, there was even a skunk Hitler. Jasmine would’ve laughed her ass if off if it wasn’t so messed up.
That brought her back to the political sphere. Issues were similar and the parties followed the same format of Left wing vs. Right wing and Liberal vs. Conservative. There were a few added issues that were interesting. There was the aforementioned bodily autonomy debate regarding the removal of stink glands. Race divides were not done by color of skin but pattern of stripes. Geez. I guess the concept of race in the human world is more nebulous than I thought.
Politics aside, there was the issue of human existence. Maria had never heard of them, but could they have existed in this universe like skunks did in the human universe? She typed “human” into the search bar. To his surprise, there were in fact a few suggestions. She hit enter and was subject to the most bafflingly hilarious set of images he had ever laid eyes on. There were several artist’s renditions of humans based on their skeletal remains. Apparently, they had gone extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago, never evolving past the Homo erectus stage. Jared had learned that there was a human bias of what people thought dinosaurs and other fossils looked like when they were alive. Artist renditions humans made tended to exclude dinosaur feathers and thus were incomplete pictures of what they may have looked like.
Skunk bias of what humans looked like, on the other hand, had the exact opposite problem. Each human was covered head to toe in thick fur just like any other animal. What were supposed to be serious renditions of what humans lived like on planet earth were instead a gut-busting comedy of errors. Jasmine found herself in another fit of hysteric giggles. Scrolling down the selection of hairy humans had tears rolling down her cheeks. It reminded her of Cats, the God awful 2019 movie.
“Oh shit!” She had to look the movie up. To her surprise, the film actually did much better in the skunk universe. Apparently skunks made to look like cats had a much less severe uncanny valley effect given the better similarity between the two animals. That did not save the movie from having a nonsensical plot and a star-studded cast of actors who didn’t care about performing.
There was so much more to delve into and gawk at, but Jasmine couldn’t let it distract her from the fact she still had a life to live as a skunkette. Jared’s job as a host at a restaurant most likely carried over to Jasmine. Was working in that environment going to be much different? Jared had been working there for over a year; maybe Jasmine could perform it like nothing had changed. She could only hope. She checked her calendar on her phone and confirmed that she had work the next morning. The rest of her work schedule reflected what Jared’s had been. Maybe she could get away with this after all.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 03 February 2023
Living
The next morning was the start of her first full day as a skunkette. She performed her usual routine from showering to eating breakfast and brushing her teeth. There were some noted
differences, mainly that shampooing her entire body proved to be a hassle and a half. She had to take time to brush both the hair on her head and the floof of her tail. Upwards of half an hour passed before she deemed herself presentable.
She drove herself to work, careful not to lose her focus on the skunkified world around her. She turned on the radio to listen to some music, finding out that her taste in alternative rock music remained untouched. Getting to work was another round of shock from seeing people she recognized as skunks. Everyone had the same features. Her manager, Tom, even kept his balding head, poor guy.
Everything proceeded as normally as any other day. Jasmine was afraid she’d slip up and introduce herself to a guest as Jared, but once again muscle memory saved the day. The rest of the shift went without incident, and Jasmine left the restaurant feeling proud. Far from tired like she usually was coming off work, she was thriving. The urge to go back in there and ask if she could fill another shift was strong. If doing her job had become this fun, what else was there?
She went straight to her parents’ home and knocked on the front door. She damn near died laughing when the answered it to reveal a pair of aging skunk folk. They both got a big old hug and got asked how they were doing. They were happy to tell her that they were just fine, although her father found it pertinent to ask if she was high on anything. Another fit of laughter rolled through her. She told him no, “but I’m high on life, that’s for sure.”
The week blew by in a flurry of joy and thrill. She went to the movies to watch Avatar 2 which featured the same Na’vi, albeit with a more mephitine twist to their features. Even after that 3 hour long slug she bought tickets for other movies and sat through them. Comedic moments were funnier, action scenes were more suspenseful, and the scary moments would’ve had her skunking in her pants.
She visited an amusement park, a museum, a concert, even a ballet. These were things she never would’ve done on such whimsy. Jared would’ve complained of not having enough cash or time. Now she had the same amount of both, yet she found ways to spend it and never regretted a single moment. She had achieved a childlike sense of wonder that escalated her emotions into such extremes she could hardly control herself. The sway of perspective was done with. Jared the human was gone. Jasmine the skunkette was here to stay.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 04 February 2023
A way out?
Or so she thought. Her human-self came crashing back along with a package and a letter she got in the mail. It was a medium sized carboard box with the note folded up and taped to the top. There was no address. The name written on the note gave her immediate pause.
JARED
She picked the package up from her welcome mat and did a quick check to see if anyone was looking. With no sign of anybody, least of all a tall skinny old man, she hustled inside with the package and shut the door. She ran to her couch and sat down with the package in her lap. She peeled the tape off and opened the note.
Dear Jared,
Or should I say Jasmine? That’s your name here, isn’t it? Well, I hope you’ve adjusted nicely. It’s a mirror of the world you know, after all, just a little smellier, I suppose. Certainly, you’ve gotten used to the stench if there is any. I suspect they have a priority on hygiene like our society does. I haven’t spent much time there myself. Not a fan of polecats like you are, not that I detest them. They are cute in their own little way, just like all of God’s creatures.
Anyway! I’d like to send you an option of carrying yourself to another furrier world if you’d be so inclined. Inside is another suit like the one you bought from my shop. No, you won’t find it again, at least not in this town. I wouldn’t recommend going looking for me either. You’ll end up disappointed.
What won’t disappoint you is what’s in this box. I invite you to open it and see what’s inside. Perhaps it’ll lead you to a universe even more engaging than this one! Although I know your infatuation with skunks will probably make you decline. Either way, the option will always be here if you ever feel so inclined.
I hope this letter finds you well. No hard feelings, I hope.
Sincerely,
Leland Gaunt
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 05 February 2023
Wolverine
Jasmine held on to the letter for a while, reading it and rereading it several times over. There was no reference to Leland’s handwriting, but she had no doubt that the eloquently curvaceous script in front of her was a result of the wizard’s hand. How did he find her so quickly? Did he always know where she was? Did he know what she was doing right now? He claimed to be elsewhere, out of town, and while she was inclined to believe him, there lingered the unsettling feeling of being watched. She put the note down on the coffee table and walked towards the door. She opened it and looked outside. There was nothing but hallway and dozens of apartment doors. No sign of an oversized magic man peeking around the corner or through a crack in one of the doors. Of course there wasn’t. Why would there be? If he was really watching her, it was probably through some magic orb that provided him a bird’s-eye view of her apartment, one that penetrated the roof and the many floors above her like an x-ray.
With any illusion of privacy shattered and unrecoverable, she closed the door and stepped back into her apartment. The package was on the couch where she had left it. The yellowed parchment was folded on the coffee table. She brought herself over and read it again. It said the same thing, referring to her as Jared, her human and male self, a version she was unsure still existed or not.
Sitting next to the package made her uneasy. What was in it? A new suit, so the note said, but of what animal was unclear. A different species of skunk? Maybe something else entirely. Just opening the package and pulling it out seemed risky. Having put on the skunk onesie when she was Jared had proved a universe-altering decision. Just coming into contact with another one, let alone putting it on, seemed like a risky decision.
Alas, curiosity got the better of her. She picked the package up and sat it in her lap. It felt heavy, at least a bit more than what the skunk onesie had weighed. She peeled the tape off and pulled open the cardboard flaps. Before her was a flat sheet of dark brown fur, one that seemed to fill the package’s perfectly rectangular shape. Running down the center vertically was a zipper flap. It reminded Jasmine of what she had seen on the skunk onesie. She knew that once she put this one on it would disappear. That was if she put it on. Who knew what kind of animal it would change her into and what world she would find herself in.
Only one way to find out. She pinched the furry suit between just her index and thumb fingers like it was a dirty handkerchief and pulled it from the box. It was much heavier than the skunk onesie, that much was clear once she got most of it out of the box. Holding it with just her pinched fingers proved too difficult, so she had to readjust her grip so that she used all of her paws.
The fur was much denser than what was on her body now. Laying her paw on it revealed that it had multiple layers: a coarse outer coat and an almost impenetrable bottom coat. She ran her fingers through it. At the roots of each dark brown hair was a section of light blonde. Beneath it all the skin was invisible, the fur was so thick. What the hell is it? she asked herself. A grizzly bear? Images of herself as a snarling, hump-backed behemoth came to mind. If that’s what it was, she definitely wasn’t putting it on.
The box was put aside so that she could stand up with it. The rest of it fell out from the box and dangled from her paws like a new dress. The limbs, she saw, were incredibly thick. That tough, protective fur continued throughout the onesie’s design. The only color besides dark brown on the outer layer was a crescent of blonde that went around the collar, above the chest and just below the hood. The feet paws were enormous like baseball mitts. When Jasmine brought the suit to her body and looked down the back she saw a brief but fluffy tail shaped like a club.
And still she didn’t know what animal it was. A ferret maybe? A weasel? An otter? Any other mustelid? Being a skunk kept her guesses in the mustelid family. It was embarrassing not being able to pinpoint what it was exactly. It had to be an animal that lived in the arctic. Fur this thick could keep a blizzard at bay. A mink, maybe? No, the fur wasn’t soft enough. Plus, the body was too stocky. Minks were more streamlined for swimming.
That left one mustelid that she knew of with this kind of fur: a wolverine. The short, stubby beasts with ferocious tempers and jaws that could snap moose femurs. That had to be what this was. The dense coat, stocky frame, and massive paws all pointed that way. Jasmine felt silly for not having realized it sooner. Is that what Leland wanted her to become next? An ankle-mauling claw dog that could give a honey badger a lesson in aggression? Maybe if I put it on it’ll give me retractable claws and a skeleton of adamantium. As awesome as that would be, she doubted that it would turn her into Hugh Jackman.
If that was the case, would it ever be worth putting on? Leland said it was her choice, but something told her that there were consequences if she didn’t. If he could craft suits that altered bodies and the universe, surely he had some way of fucking with her from afar. He was able to find her here in the skunk universe, so it was pretty much certain that he would find her in the wolverine universe if it existed.
Jasmine couldn’t make her mind up, at least not yet. This was something worth sleeping on for at least a night or two. She went to her bedroom and hung the suit up on a hanger in her closet. There it would remain for some time, drawing Jasmine’s thought every time she passed her closet door. A few days came and went with her living life as a skunk. Before long the novelty had worn off, and living in a world of skunks was as natural as living with humans.
It was one night, exactly nine days since the man known as Jared put on a skunk onesie, that Jasmine went to her closet and opened it. The wolverine suit was on the farthest end of the rack, behind the wall where it was darker. She pulled her shirts and jackets aside so that she could retrieve the bulky suit. Pulling the hanger off the rack reminded her just how heavy it was. The zipper went down so she could pull the hanger out. She took some time looking at the suit’s fur patterns. On the back were light brown stripes, sort of like a skunk’s. Hey, maybe she wouldn’t change that much after all.
Jasmine went to the bathroom where she took her clothes off and unzipped the suit the rest of the way. The inside was a white velvet material, so at least it would be pleasant to wear for as long as it wasn’t fusing to her skin like liquid tar. Her feet went into the legs first, filling them out to the paw pads. When she hiked the suit up to her waist she realized how loose it was around her limbs and body. At first she thought that it must have been made for someone much bigger than her, but then she remembered that larger mustelids like badgers and wolverines had loose hides, especially honey badgers.
Her arms went through the sleeves and she covered her shoulders. The hood went over her head, then she paused. All that was left was to pull the zipper up, no doubt the trigger for her transformation. She remembered how terrifying turning into a skunk had been, as it would be for any person. Saying that she knew what to expect this time wasn’t that convincing.
But she was in too deep to stop now. With a deep breath she pulled the zipper up. It slid with a low buzz, clinging each metal tooth together until they had formed a thin but solid pinstripe of shiny steel. Jasmine let go of the zipper tab. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The zipper would vanish at any moment now, and her transformation into a wolverine would begin.
At first nothing happened. The zipper remained intact and the suit continued to hang off her body like a cloak. She held her arms out awkwardly, preparing for fur to fall into the shape of her body like shrink wrap, but it wouldn’t. Frowning, she turned her back to the mirror to see if anything had changed there. There was the bulge of her fluffy skunk tail pressing into the hide and the unused wolverine tail hanging limply just below that. Did he send me a dud?
She turned to face the mirror again. Just like that, the zipper had vanished. “Oh,” she said aloud. Rubbing her paw down her trunk unveiled nothing. Like a game of red light, green light, the zipper wouldn’t move until Jasmine had her eyes off it.
There wasn’t any time to dwell on the mechanics of the suit before she felt it shrinking into her body exactly as the skunk suit had. She saw it fall into the shape of her body, replacing most of her black and white fur with that luscious dark brown. A uniform pressure overtook her skin, causing her to inhale sharply on reflex. The suit was not so tight on her that she couldn’t breathe, but there lingered the threat of it crushing her into oblivion if she did not keep a reserve of air in her lungs.
The hoodie consumed her head, leaving only her excited-looking face exposed. Her ears were flattened beneath it, muffling all sound except for the erratic thump of her heart. A creeping tickle began to move up her wrists. She held them out and saw the sleeves creeping up her paws like a spreading oil spill. The black fur was encroached and absorbed by the suit. It consumed her paw pads and slid up her digits like shadows on a tree in the evening.
Soon her claw tips were cocooned, leaving the hood to spill across her visage and transform it into something more ferocious. Looking in the mirror she saw the ovular cutout around her face shrink into her brow, chin, and cheeks. There was a stab of panic in her heart. Her breath quickened and she kneaded her paws. It wasn’t painful, but seeing the furry material lay claim to her identity like a bacterium colonizing a petri dish was distressing.
Finally the suit covered her nose and mouth. The space between her eyes was the very last piece of her to be consumed. The suit was done spreading, but was nowhere near finished with transforming her. A great buzz flooded her body as the suit penetrated her skin and went to work making her more wolverine-ish. She yelped once her proud skunk tail sank into her back. Jasmine was spared the sight of the tail bones slithering down the space between her back and the suit like a snake. They fell into the limp wolverine tail, filling it with sensation and muscle that she could control.
“Ah!” She leaned forward onto the kitchen sink, catching herself on the rim of it. The transformation had settled into her skeleton. From her spine to her limbs she could feel the bones lengthening and swelling into something much stockier. Though the discomfort was short of painful, she was able to open her eyes and watch her reflection change along with her. The shoulders, once slim and dainty, were coming apart like a pair of sliding doors. It added only a few inches, but was enough to turn Jasmine from a petite woman into a linebacker. The same happened to her hips and thighs. The soft curvature of her waist hardened into a rigid trunk. Most glaring was the shift of her head. When the snout started hardening it was as though a filament of lead was being poured into her skull.
Then came her muscles. They filled out the girth of her skeleton gradually. Jasmine hissed and snarled. She could see the sinews rising into the skin. Beneath her breasts formed a pair of thick, squared pecs. Traps rose from the back of her neck, completing a second set of shoulders. The biceps turned into boulders. Her forearms rivaled the breadth of small tree trunks. The same process swelled her legs and glutes, completing her new status as an athlete. Last to change were her paws. The pads thickened into leathery mattresses that could’ve stopped the swing of a bat, they were so dense. Her claws, already long and powerful, grew even more intimidating, almost like a bear’s. As she held her paws in front of her to watch the transformation she could feel the same process happening to her feet.
And that was the end of it. Like a lightning strike it ended as quickly as it had started. Every feeling of twisting and pulling dissipated, leaving Jasmine in a state of mild shock. She blinked and looked at herself in the mirror. Jasmine the skunk was gone, replaced by Jasmine (if that was still her name) the wolverine. Oddly she kept the overall features of her face. Her eyes were the same color brown. It was difficult to pinpoint given how much had changed, but for some reason she was still able to recognize herself.
On the other hand, everything else was completely different. Jasmine looked like a strongman or a bodybuilder, she had been so filled with muscle. She could see every flex her muscles performed when she moved her arms. Earlier she thought she looked like a linebacker. Looking at herself now it was clear that a lineman was more appropriate. It felt as though the tile floor beneath her would break beneath her immensity. Her neck was like a thigh and her paws were like catcher’s mitts. Everything about her exuded strength and masculinity.
Which is funny, because she was still a female. Atop those gargantuan pecs were a pair of small, but still identifiable breasts. A quick inspection between her thighs confirmed that she was still a woman, though now her parts were hidden beneath a serious layer of brown fluff. Geez, if this is how big the ladies get. How big are the fellas?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 07 July 2023
Homelife
That reminded her, she had a scale in the bathroom in both her previous lives. She turned and saw it next to the shower stall. It was a large platform made of acrylic with a digital screen for displaying the weight. That was almost exactly how it looked before, only something was different about it. It looked way bigger than it did before. As a human and a skunk it was about the size of a baseball plate. Now it was more like a pizza box, and much sturdier too. That made sense given Jasmine’s size. If a regular person like her was this heavy, there would have to be bigger scales to accommodate that.
In fact, now that she looked around the room, she noticed that just about everything else was bigger than in the human and skunk worlds. The toilet bowl was much broader and the shower stall was more spacious. Even the toothbrush that she kept in its holder looked more like a golf ball brush than something she’d put in her mouth. That reminds me. She peeled her lip down with her claw and took a look at her teeth. They were sharp like before, but with a much more menacing length and girth. Jasmine made no mistake. These were for gripping and tearing flesh. Her fingertips drifted onto the jowls where there lay a bedrock of solid jaw muscle. Just flexing it let Jasmine know that she could crack a bone with just her teeth.
The last thing she inspected was her backside. Turning around made her stubby wolverine tail sweep across her legs. It looked small when compared to the glorious tower of black and white floof that it had been just a few minutes ago. Jasmine was a tad disappointed, but at least she still had a tail to wag around, something she enjoyed doing in the mirror like a goofball.
After what may have been half an hour going over her new form, Jasmine left the bathroom to see what had become of the rest of the world. Stepping through her conspicuously wider doorway brought her back into the living room where the theme of enlarged objects continued. The seats on her couch were fattened so that they could contain the enormous frame of a wolverine. The chairs at her dining table were similarly huge, as was the table itself. Humorously, while everything was significantly wider and thicker, nothing was at all taller. It was as though someone had stretched reality by two dimensions but neglected to attend the third.
The coffee table was at the center of her apartment. Her collection of national geographics was stacked on top of it alongside a remote control fatter than a machete. When Jasmine got close she noticed that there were only a few buttons on it and that they were the size of quarters. A quick look at her burly paws and fingers told her why. As she took time to look at her paw some more she wondered just how her claws worked. When she clenched her fist there came no trio of long, shiny spears from the gaps in her knuckles. A shame, but while she couldn’t do that she was able to retract her massive claws back into her fingers halfway with the flex of a muscle she didn’t have before. It felt strange and natural at the same time, like someone with amnesia performing their signature by muscle memory alone.
Jasmine sat down on the couch and picked up a NatGeo. A good chortle came out of her when she saw the wolverine version of scientists and celebrities peering over historical artifacts and taking pictures of wild animals which were the same as they had been in the human world. Jasmine tried turning the page but found that two of them were stuck together. She tried plucking at it with her thumb claw but couldn’t get the damn things apart. After the fifth pluck a frown furrowed her brow.
“Come on now,” she said, irritated. “Open the fuck up.” Trying with both thumbs didn’t work any better. Her frustration boiled over, twitching her lips into a snarl. “Fucking thing!” Finally she just threw the magazine back onto the table where it smacked off the stack and went fluttering to the floor. Jasmine slumped back into the couch with a harrumph and crossed her beefy arms in front of her chest. “Stupid magazine.”
Her anger did not clear until moments later when she blinked and realized what she had done. The stack of magazines was now cut in two, its upper half slid across the coffee table like a lost game of jenga. Did I really just do that? That kind of aggravation wasn’t normal for her, or anyone for that matter. Was that her wolverine DNA turning her into an impatient curmudgeon?
She got up from the couch so that she could fix the stack and resume reading the magazine. Take it easy this time. It’s just a page. She opened the magazine to a random spot and looked at the pictures. To her chagrin, when she tried to turn the page she saw that this one was stuck too. Great, here we go. But before she frustrated herself on trying to peel them apart she realized that the next page she could get to carried over from the one she was on perfectly. The pages were never stuck together. They were made twice as thick so that her enormous claws would have a better time turning them.
“Oh…” she said, feeling thoroughly stupid. “Oops.”
After perusing her collection of NatGeo’s and getting some amusement out of seeing wolverine Jesus (that would never get old) she decided to turn on the TV. As expected, everyone who appeared was a wolverine version of themselves. Having gone through the same motions before as a skunk made the new transition no less jarring. She had just gotten used to seeing people as skunks. Now she had to readjust to people as wolverines.
Which reminded her, how was her family? She patted her thigh looking for her phone but found nothing but bare fur. It dawned on her that she had been naked this entire time. Her hide was so heavy that it felt like an outfit on its own. She didn’t doubt that there was any need for winter clothes. How wolverines survived in tropical weather, if they were even down there, was beyond her.
She remembered leaving her phone in her pants pocket and went to the bathroom to go get it. It was weird picking up a pair of jeans that looked big enough to fit around a tree and knowing that it was hers. Even weirder was that the tag on the back read “skinny fit”. Putting them back on was a delicate procedure given her massive sharp feet claws. The denim was padded with leather on the inside for that exact reason. I guess everything’s gotta be made extra tough in this world. I feel like the Hulk trying to fix an iPhone.
Once her clothes were on (she was happy to find a hole for her tail in the waist of her pants) she drew her phone out of her pocket. The thing weighed like a brick and had a screen the size of a rearview mirror. Jasmine sat down on the couch and braced herself for the journey into her gallery. Seeing her family was going to be the most jarring of all changes thus far, she knew it. Her thumb tapped the gallery app, clacking the thumb claw on what was probably a bulletproof screen. First there were the pictures Jasmine had taken most recently when she was a skunk. There were a few selfies and pictures she had taken with her friends. Prior to putting on the skunk suit, her friend group consisted mostly of the guys she worked with. After turning into a woman there was a major shift in gender with her friends.
That made her wonder. If the wolverine version existed before the skunk version, and the skunk version existed before the human version, where are they now? Do they even still exist? All of her memories of being Jared and her brief time as a skunk were intact, but buried beneath all of that was an entire lifetime as those three species. She was a human, a skunk, and a wolverine all sandwiched together within a bread of consciousness baked by the original Jared.
But who was the original Jared? Could any version of her even be called original? Skunk Jasmine had probably been turned into a human, and then into a wolverine. In that case, wolverine Jasmine became a skunk first and was now a human. Wait, no. That doesn’t work because I was a skunk at that time. Wolverine Jasmine probably turned into a human and then became a skunk, or some fourth animal Leland hasn’t sent me yet. If that’s the case, what does that make skunk Jasmine?
Her head was starting to hurt. She forgot about the phone in her paws for a moment. That existential dread concerning herself, her family, and the life she had left behind weighed on her like a ton of bricks. What was real and what wasn’t was indecipherable. Existence itself was a fragile concept, even more so than it ever had been. The fact that there was a being out there, Leland, who could transfer people from reality to reality with just a magic suit was deeply unsettling.
Then she remembered the phone in her paw. It was still open to her gallery where she was greeted with the faces of her friends and family. She scrolled down to see more photos, those with more smiles and cute animals. With each upwards swipe of her thumb there would zoom a dozen or so pictures she had taken onto the screen. Every one of them brought up a memory of either when she was a skunk or when she was Jared. Here they had all been given a certain wolverine flair, but were the same pictures regardless. Whether or not the other realities existed did not matter so long as she had her family and friends here in this one.
Existential dread having been quelled for the moment, Jasmine smiled and tucked the phone back into her pocket. She stood up from the couch and did a big, full body stretch, reaching her artillery-arms out at her sides and bearing the muscle against the fur. She came to a rest with a sigh and looked out the window. It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was beaming into her living room and radiating off the tree leaves. A perfect day for a walk if there ever was one.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 08 July 2023
The Rest of the world
Jasmine all but burst out of the front entrance and into the parking lot. As expected, all of the cars were stretched widthwise to accommodate their much girthier occupants. On the way to hers Jasmine spotted one of her neighbors getting out of his truck. Back in the human reality he had driven a green Toyota Tundra pickup. That was the case here, only it was much, much, much bigger. The wheels looked like they belonged on a tractor and the body was hitched up more than a foot above them. The neighbor came out and flicked his keys around into his giant paw before tucking them into his pocket.
He noticed Jasmine staring as he passed her. “Hey there,” he said, somewhat concerned.
Jasmine blinked and realized what she was doing. “Hey! Uh, nice truck.”
Her neighbor smiled. “Oh, thanks.” He walked the rest of the way to the apartment with his head held high and his chest upthrusted. That clearly made his day.
Now that she was walking through the parking lot amidst all the cars and trucks she noticed that they were not merely widened but dazzled in ways that they hadn’t been in the other realities. There were cars with souped up engines rising out of their hoods, their trio of red exhaust ports blinking in the sunlight as she passed them. There were fat, black wall tires and hotrod flames. Vanity plates were stamped with outright vulgar acronyms while flanked by even ruder bumper stickers. Jasmine felt like she was in the center of a car show, not an apartment parking lot. Is every man in this universe compensating for something?
Apparently the women were too, because Jasmine’s car was the exact same way. She stood in front of it, awestruck by her Camry’s explosive presentation. The hood had a section cut out to leave room for the engine block. The wheels were a deep black with chrome hubcaps. The once plain beige color was replaced by a volcanic black and a fiery red stripe that ran down its center. The license plate said LOADED, whatever that meant.
In no way would Jasmine have recognized it as her car if not for the plush Luigi keychain she kept dangled from the rearview mirror. Out of everything that had changed, that was the only thing that remained. She slid her keys out of her pocket and clicked the unlock button on her fob. The headlights blinked and the doors clunked. Yes, it was hers. It would’ve been embarrassing if not for everyone else’s being the same.
She climbed into the front seat and found a thick steering wheel. The way everything like the knobs on the radio were so big and damage-proof reminded her of a playskool van she saw toddlers ride in all the time. There was still a gap in the backrest for her tail which was convenient. There was some hesitation before she put the key into the ignition. There was a mighty roar and a rumble when she twisted it. The radio blared her favorite station loudly enough to make her ears fold back on her head. Jesus Christ. Is everything going to be this loud and obnoxious?
Apparently so. The drive to the park felt like a survival mission. The roads rumbled and shook with a caravan of engines powerful enough to propel a fighter plane. Hitched up trucks and souped up cars would sputter past Jasmine, black fumes vomiting from their exhausts and fogging up her vision. Every so often there would be the blare of a car horn or the screech of tires. The road didn’t feel like a road so much as a herd of bison trying to stampede away from a predator. Jasmine spent the entire ride huddled in her seat, paws gripping the steering wheel, praying she wouldn’t get in an accident and have to deal with any of these psychos.
She made it to the park without incident, though her heart was still racing as she got out of the car. Her wolverine instincts brought up fantasies of finding every one of those aggressive drivers and beating the shit out of them. She realized that her teeth were clenched and that her paw was balled into a fist. A few deep breaths calmed her down. Is everyone this aggressive? It’s a miracle civilization even came to be with all this malice.
For now she could spend some time in the park and in the sun where there would at least be some folk enjoying a peaceful stroll. Jasmine spent her time people-watching, mostly. There were people walking their dogs which were still quadrupedal like they were in the human world. If I go to the dog world then what will they be walking? She imagined naked humans on their hands and knees being walked around on leashes. It made her shudder.
The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the sun and eating some ice cream she got from a kiosk. The waffle cone it came in was as big as a water glass with scoops like grapefruits. The moment she made her first lick she found herself in a lapping frenzy. Flicks of liquid chocolate were splashed across her lips and face. The thing was huge and yet the entire cone was in her stomach in a matter of seconds. She stood in the middle of the pathway, face covered in chocolate, a severe chill grating at her teeth and mouth. God, I’m a monster. The people around her didn’t seem to care, really. They passed by her messy face without a second glance. Hopefully that meant everyone was a slob when they ate. She made a quick trip back to the kiosk for some napkins which the server was happy to provide.
Her walk around the park was relaxing, but nonetheless hampered by the constant thrum of traffic that wrung in the park like being in the center of a colosseum. Jasmine steeled herself for the journey home, promising to keep herself calm and collected so that if anything happened she wouldn’t lose her head. After what felt like half an hour of white-knuckle driving she made it home safe.
The next day she was scheduled for work. If there was any activity she had the most trepidation towards it was acting as hostess for some ravenous, aggressive, hard headed mustelids with claws for days. She showed up on time and went through the usual motions of greeting people and showing them to their seats. Almost every meal served was either a giant steak or a triple-stacked burger, all of which were ordered rare. Steaks Jasmine would’ve thought were only for food challenges were served regularly. Just like that they would be gone with startling speed, usually without the help of forks or knives. It relieved Jasmine to see patrons devouring their food with the same recklessness that she had done to her ice cream the day before. By the end of her shift she had worked up quite an appetite and ordered a large steak of her own. She devoured it with typical ferocity, leaving her chin and shirt soaked in red meat juice. When she was done she started giggling herself silly. She had just demolished a steak that would’ve stopped Adam Richman cold halfway through. To her that was freakin’ hilarious.
The next few days were spent either at work or in front of a TV watching movies and shows. Wolverine media, she found out, was remarkably violent. Scenes depicting action and fights had a certain impact to them that their human and skunk counterparts lacked. Men fighting used their claws. Punches did not sound like smacks but had a brutal knuckle-on-bone crunch like they did in reality. There was no shortage of blood and swearing. With how the protagonists in movies reaped their vengeance on the villains, it was difficult to determine who was really the good guy.
Worst of all, Jasmine fucking loved it. Particularly brutal moments would have her standing out of her seat, pumping her fists, shouting with glee every time a bad guy got their teeth knocked out by someone’s fist. It would leave her with a thumping heart and coursing adrenaline. She had to sit down and pause whatever she was watching just so she could collect herself. Maybe this world isn’t too healthy to live in for very long, she thought.
Her saving grace came in the form of a package in the mail that arrived a week after her transformation. Once again it was a medium sized cardboard box that lacked any return address. A note was taped to it with the name JASMINE written on it in familiar handwriting.
Dear Jasmine,
I hope that’s the right name to call you by now. You’ve spent some time using it both as a skunk and a wolverine. If not, my apologies.
How’s being a wolverine? Exhilarating, I hope. I thought it would be the perfect animal to spice up your life. They are a rather rowdy bunch, aren’t they? A tad too violent for my tastes. Always picking fights and trying to one up each other with their gaudy cars and dress, something I’m certain you’ve noticed first hand.
If it hasn’t been to your liking, you’re more than welcome to try on this new suit I’ve brought. This one’s not quite as related to either skunks or wolverines. Perhaps it’ll offer the most unique experience yet.
Sincerely,
Leland Gaunt
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 09 July 2023
Tiger(taur)
This was the second of Leland’s letters to find Jasmine, and yet it offered no less feeling of being watched than the first. She lived in the same address as always, so it made sense Leland still knew where she lived. However, she doubted moving anywhere on Planet Earth would help her escape his omnipresent eye. She folded the letter and set it on the counter. The package was cradled against her in one arm. It was light, or at least it felt that way. Everything on a human scale was smaller to a beefy wolverine, as Jasmine had gotten used to over the past week. Now to find out what was in store next for her if she decided to go through with it again.
She took it with her to the couch where she sat down and put it on the coffee table in front of her. She extended her index claw and wondered what creature would be presented to her this time? Going along with the theme of animals she’d been so far, she expected something like a weasel or a ferret, maybe. Badger? Mink? Stoat? Those were all mustelids, and though skunks weren’t technically mustelids, she included them in the same bunch. More possibilities ran through her mind as she stuck her claw into the box flap and sliced the tape down the middle. She opened the flaps and immediately recognized the orange and black-striped fur pattern of a tiger.
A toothy smile lit up her face. I get to be a tiger? Sweet! She pulled the onesie out of the box and stood up to see it at its full height. Though it was light on the whole, the fur was rough and dense, nearly more so than her own impenetrable wolverine coat. The shoulders were broad, and the sleeves were spacious. The underbelly was a smooth tan color. She pulled up the hood to see cute, black-tipped ears with white dots on the back of them. A fun fact she knew about tigers was that those dots were meant to resemble eyes in order to ward off ambush from other tigers. Jasmine gave them a little flick with her fingers and giggled.
But there was more to the suit than she expected, something very strange. Even as she had stood up to let it unfold to its full height, it wasn’t completely out of the box yet. The legs were out, but the torso they were attached to was still folded up. It looked like the suit was made of an overly long tube of tiger fur with the hind legs haphazardly attached at the center. She picked one leg up and rubbed it between her thumb and fingers. It felt normal like she could fit her legs in them, so why were they so oddly placed?
Jasmine pulled the suit further out of the box, pouring it over her shoulder as she did. It came out of the box in short order, bringing with it another pair of legs and the tail. That confused the hell out of Jasmine. What is it? A six-legged tiger? A tigerpede? She held it in front of her to inspect the legs in the middle again. To see the whole thing she had to hoist it in the air way over her head. Even then, the second pair of legs (the actual hind legs, it seemed) were half on the carpet.
“How the actual hell am I supposed to wear this thing?” Jasmine muttered to herself as she continued looking over the strangely proportioned onesie. The zipper ran down from the collar like always, but was only as long as she’d expect on another suit, reaching just short of the middle set of limbs. She tried envisioning what it would turn her into. There was the tigerpede, an elongated tiger with three sets of legs, a cursed image she didn’t want to hold on to for too long. It didn’t make sense either considering every form she’d taken so far was anthropomorphic. Maybe it stands on two legs and has four arms? Like Goro from Mortal Kombat. That didn’t make much more sense either.
Wait. I think I’m looking at this wrong. Jasmine turned around and laid the suit face down on the couch from. It was long enough to dangle over each armrest. Looking at the deflated onesie from that perspective helped build a more accurate idea of what it really was. What if it isn’t six-legged or anthropomorphic? What if it’s both? She grabbed the suit by the shoulders and lifted the top section upright so that it was at a right angle with the couch. Finally, it clicked. A centaur.
Images of bare-chested men, their torsos rising from the shoulders of a horse’s body, flooded Jasmine’s mind. The horse bodies were promptly replaced by a tiger’s. Then the human portions became tigrine. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense, she thought. What was that supposed to be called? A centiger? A tigertaur? She didn’t know the etymology of the word centaur. Too lazy to look it up, she went with the term Tigertaur for the simple reason that it sounded cooler.
No matter the name, there was still the question of how she was supposed to wear it. Where was she supposed to put her legs? The forelegs made more sense as then the torso portion would fit her, but what about the rear half? Maybe she was supposed to put her legs in the hind pair while her arms went in the forelegs, but that would leave her completely inside of it with the torso section unfilled. She thought of those two-person horse suits where there was one person for each pair of legs; one in the front, another in the back. Maybe I can convince Maria to huddle in this thing with me, she thought facetiously. We’ll both be a tigertaur. Wonder how that’ll work. It wouldn’t, she knew. No doubt Leland intended the suit for Jasmine and for Jasmine only. The previous onesies had changed her in mysterious ways already. Whatever this suit would accomplish couldn’t be too incredible by comparison.
That was if she put it on. The worlds she had traveled to so far were both dramatically different to each other based on the animal she had become. She had trouble imagining what a world full of tigertaurs would entail. The wolverine world she lived in now was a hyper-competitive society based on might-makes-right. What would a world of savage predators entail? How the hell did they even drive cars? Do cars even exist? It seemed dangerous (minus the no cars possibility). Jasmine looked at putting the suit on similarly to jumping into a tiger pit at the zoo. Sure, she would be a tiger too, but that only helped a little when everyone else was one too. Then again, if everyone was a tiger, perhaps nobody was.
Throughout the entire time of that wandering train of thought she had been holding the suit up. Looking at it again brought images of strapping tiger men, their muscular abs fading into the feral majesty of a tiger whose physique outmatched even the strongest man. She envisioned walking, each step twinging their muscles across a tautly wound collage of black stripes. They walked the streets casually, their splendor nothing out of the ordinary. One would greet the other, no more aware of each other’s species than Jasmine would here in this world. She wondered, more seriously this time, what does a society like that look like? Only one way to find out.
She considered taking the suit to the bathroom like before, but reckoned correctly that it would be too small for what she was going to turn into, even considering that it was sized up for a wolverine like her. The living room would provide the most space, given she moved some furniture around. Quick work was made of the place. Thanks to her wolverine strength moving the couch was no issue, nor the coffee table. It left a broad plane of open carpet featuring square depressions where the couch and table legs had been. From there she stripped herself nude and chucked her clothes aside. I wonder what kind of clothes they’ll have in this place. Will I need two pairs of pants, or just one?
She picked the suit off the couch and brought it over to the center of the floor. Pulling the zipper down from the collar revealed that the portion she would be stepping into did not lead into the back portion. It was smooth fabric/skin with no opening for a second party to fill. So much for that idea, not like I was eager to invite anyone else into this thing. She turned around and held the suit behind her so she could step into it. It fit to her legs snugly thanks to the great fluff of wolverine fur. The back half hung from it awkwardly as she pulled the torso up and fit her arms through the sleeves. Normally the suit would shrink to her skin once the transformation started, but it looked like it was doing that already with how tightly it fit around her. Her muscle gut jutted halfway out of the zipper.
“Hope I can zip this damn thing up,” she muttered to herself as she grabbed the pull tab. It took a deep inhale and some quick jerks, but she was able to close it all the way to the collar. Her belly and bosom looked ready to explode out of the front side, but it was on. She looked over her shoulder at the second half of the suit. It sagged from her lower back like a deflated bounce house. The legs were flat on the carpet with the tail running between them. How is it gonna fill that out?
She turned her head back forward to inspect her chest. The first thing she noticed was that the zipper had disappeared already, trapping her in the suit. “Damn. So we’re doing this already?” Suddenly the suit shrank on her, sucking into her skin more tightly than it already was. “Oof. I’ll take that as a yes.”
The process went as always. Orange fur slipped down her paws, swallowing her palms, thumbs, and fingers to the tips. She saw the same happen to her ankles and feet, thus her massive wolverine steppers were gone. The hoodie performed the same around her head, swallowing her face from every direction until it had filled her visor and snout. There was no mirror for her to look into, but looking to her left she saw the TV’s empty black screen. A hazy reflection of herself looked back, something whose gulonian features were rapidly vanishing.
It started with the usual plunge of pressure onto her musculature. Her physique started to slim, starting with that pronounced gut and bosom of hers. The sensations stretched across her arms and legs as the biceps and hamstrings thinned themselves out. It wasn’t painful, but by no means was it comfortable. It was felt across her entire body, most severely wherever the most drastic changes were occurring. She put her paws over her chest where her breasts were sinking slowly. They flattened out across her pecs which, though smaller than they had been, were still broad and chiseled. The same happened to her trunk which now featured an immaculately carved set of washboard abs.
Am I becoming a man again? She reached between her legs to find out, but found nothing. Literally. There was nothing there. Anything like a reproductive organ was gone, leaving nothing but smooth, fuzzy pelvis. For a moment she panicked, afraid that she’d be robbed of her sex. Then she remembered, If I’m going to be a tigertaur, those are going to be somewhere else behind me. She looked over her shoulder and was shocked to see the rear portion of the suit standing on its hindlegs. It did so shakily, looking like it was only partially filled by air or flesh. Much of the skin was still wrinkled and the tail still sagged. Jasmine dared to touch it. There was something inside of it, ill-defined and turgid, flesh and bone, perhaps. She watched as it rose gradually and gained its footing, becoming a part of her just like a limb.
She was torn out of her fascination by a sudden squeeze of pressure across her bones. The suit was in its final stages, i.e. the suckiest part: bending her skeleton into the proper shape. It was hardest on her limbs and skull which had to force themselves into a tigrine mold. It felt like giant hands were squishing her cranium like it was wet clay. Her snout was underneath an anvil as it shrunk into her face and began sprouting longer, thicker whiskers. She had it no better in the legs as her femurs were squashed into humeri and her tib-fibs became uln-rads.
But the worst of it was in her spine. The hilt of it fell out of her pelvis and drilled into the rear portion of the suit, now officially a tiger body. Nerve-endings spread across it like a million tiny fingers, each one discovering a new part of her to feel and experience. It was like blood rushing into a numb part of the body; pins and needles all around. She hissed and swore throughout. More bones were being created from old ones. Her pelvis turned into a sternum complete with ribs, although they had no lungs to protect. She felt the last of her vertebrae spill into her tail, bringing with them sensation and control. Once they were at the tip, she automatically performed her first tail flick as a tiger.
Then, as always, all of those unpleasant sensations vanished. It was over. The tigertaur was complete.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 04 December 2023
Primitive Cottage
Jasmine stood there for a few moments, stretching her arms to collect herself. Looking down at herself she saw a tan underbelly studded with abs that ended when the tiger body did. Bringing her arms up she saw how defined they had become. While the wolverine body was beefy and huge, the tiger body was lithe and cut. Her paws were only slightly less massive, still wielding a strength no human could dream of. Flexing her fingers drew a terrifying array of long, sharp, white claws from the tips. It was fun just watching them go in and out.
But that was only one portion of her body, the “human” side. She looked over her shoulder again and saw the tiger half standing behind her, tail swaying lazily. It was like an entirely different animal patiently waiting for her to tell it where to go. She could feel all of it, and yet her mind had trouble recognizing that it was indeed a part of her. Growing a tail was one thing. Growing most of entire freaking tiger was another. She ran her paw down the top of it, her “back”. It felt like someone was touching her mid-spine, that someone being her. Even as she saw and felt her paws rubbing the fur, it was impossible to fully grasp that both parts were her.
“Her”. Is it even accurate to call her that anymore? She wondered that herself now that her breasts were gone, replaced by a nicely squared set of pectorals. She tried leaning over to the right and bending down (a very awkward maneuver in its own right) to see what was between her hindlegs, but she couldn’t get a good angle. However, the movement was enough to swing the set of organs she had hanging from her new pelvis, something she felt dearly. That settled it. She was no longer a she, and Jasmine was no longer Jasmine. Jared was back, baby.
“So. What am I gonna do now?” he wondered aloud in a voice deeper than it ever had been. He looked down at himself one more time to get his bearings straight so that he could learn how to move but saw something that stopped him dead. The living room carpet was gone, replaced by a hardwood floor. That wasn’t there before. He looked up to see what else had changed and realized that everything had. He wasn’t in his apartment anymore but had been transported to some rustic-looking building made entirely out of wood. The decorations were gone and so was the furniture. There weren’t any windows. Looking up he saw a conical roof made of thatch and crossbars. All that covered the floor were animal skin rugs that looked like they had come from deer or antelope.
“When-? How the hell did I get here?” He started turning around in place, his four legs scuttling beneath him to perform a 360. He didn’t even realize he was doing it, he was so focused on his new surroundings. The place looked like a hunting cabin, missing only a rifle rack and a cot to sleep in. It had a fireplace, albeit a crude one. In one corner there was another deerskin and some crudely hewn pillows, probably where he was supposed to sleep. Is this my place? Is this even an apartment?
He finally realized he was moving and came to an awkward halt. His legs were spread beneath him like a newborn fawn trying to get their legs beneath them. His tail twitched behind him manically, activated by the sudden alert mode. “How did I do that?” It had to have been muscle memory, like then he’d put the bra on for the first time as a skunk. In this world he’d spent an entire life as a tigertaur; the body knew how to operate it but he did not.
Chill. Just relax. Let your body do the walking. He took a deep breath and envisioned himself striding forward. You did it already. You can to it again. Come on. Just like that, his four feet began to move. They strode ahead seamlessly, one in front of the other, perfectly balanced. Jared simply delivered the command like he would with just two legs, and yet both pairs acted like he was controlling them both. He knew it was muscle memory. It would only falter when he thought too hard about it, something that happened a few times while pacing the cabin. He would make a few steps with his upper body gliding along with his hands held out to keep himself balanced before he would try and direct one of his legs a certain way and trip himself up
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 12 December 2023
Forest
“Easy, easy,” he cooed to himself. “Like riding a bike. A four-legged, half ton, living, breathing bike.” A few more laps around the floor and he’d hit a rhythm. It wasn’t rocket science; just don’t think about it. If anything it required less finesse than what a human needed to walk on two legs. Before long he was making trips back and forth across the cabin like it was nothing. Put One Foot in Front of the Other from Santa Clause is Coming to Town started playing in his head, making him wonder, Do tigers even celebrate Christmas? Was there a tigertaur Jesus like there was a skunk and wolverine Jesus? Can you even crucify a tigertaur?
Once that morbid thought had passed, he wondered again what kind of world waited for him outside the cabin. What kind of society of tigertaurs existed out there? How was his family? Was this the same place as his apartment? Or somewhere else entirely? With no windows to peer through (or look at his reflection in) his only source for an answer was through the door in front of him. It was crude, like just about everything else around him. It hardly stood out against the surrounding walls, being made out of the same wood, it seemed. He sauntered over to it and pushed it open.
The light of the outside poured in, but he was not greeted by the hum of the city he lived in. There was no city, no apartment, no town, nor any other measure of civilization. Before him were the trees of a forest so dense he could not see past the first several yards. Their deciduous canopy blanketed the mossy ground with their shadow, letting through only the thinnest rays of sunlight. There were no other tigers, or any animate life to speak of. Only nature’s murmur was there to greet him, doing so only begrudgingly.
Jared stood in the doorway for a few moments longer, eyes scanning the yonder tree line. Is this it? Where am I? He took the first intrepid steps out into the open, feeling the moist earth sink beneath his paw pads. Looking to his right and left he saw nothing but more forest, its atmosphere blued over by a thin mist. His black ears strained into the woods, flickering at whatever hints of sound they could find. There was still precious little, none of which alluded to company.
Am I alone out here? Is this even anywhere near my apartment? He stepped the rest of the way outside, out of the cabin’s shade. He looked at it and saw that it resembled a hunting cabin like it had on the inside. If that’s what it was, what was he doing there? Was it his or someone else’s? Nothing resembling a trail led into the forest, leading him to doubt that it was meant for anyone else. If this was his place, then where had everything else gone?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 14 December 2023
Through the Forest
The answers, if he would ever find them, were deeper in the forest where he would have to go find them. He took a deep breath. It’s alright. I’m a tiger. Nobody’s gonna mess with me, right? I mean, other tigers I guess, but something tells me I’m not going to run into any of them soon. Thus, he began his journey away from the cabin, turning his head to look back once before it was swallowed by the trees and he couldn’t see it anymore.
The woods were not so suffocatingly dense throughout. Not far into his trip did he wander into varying ground, the earth swelling over hills so steep they were bare with rock. The ground was strewn with twigs that would snap beneath his feet, adding a somber soundtrack to his lonesome journey. The canopy was alive with birds, their chirps being his first bit of company since his arrival in this world. He would see one on occasion as it hopped and twitched its way up a branch before shuttling off into flight. They regarded him no more than the trees they flitted between, their beady black eyes betraying no fear of the large cat roaming the forest floor.
His ears flicked suddenly, and he came to a stop. It was automatic, done without his input. He rounded his eyes and turned towards the noise to filter it more clearly. A steady rumble in his ears made his fur stand on ends. He was drawn to it, though he wasn’t sure what it was. Instinct made him turn in its direction and journey towards it.
The building dryness in his throat told him what it was before he began to recognize the sound of a running stream. He saw it when cresting over a hill, just a thin brook no deeper than up to his knees. It ran from as far as he could see in both directions, vanishing like a long stretch of road. The air was rife with the smell of moist earth and the visits of other animals. He smacked his lips while realizing how thirsty he was. It had been a long walk. He’d earned himself a drink.
He came up to the bank. His feet sank into the sandy ground, leaving a trail of his gargantuan footprints. He saw his reflection in the surface, and though it warped and bounced with the flow of water, it offered the first real look at himself since being transformed. What struck him first was the size of his head atop his shoulders. He brought his paws up to feel it and realized most of it was thick, heavy fur. Kneeling on his forelegs gave him a better look.
Though his eyes were remarkably large with dangerously yellow irises, they maintained the same shape that had defined him since his days as a human. His jowls were massive, heavily padded as they were by a bush of white and black fur thicker than his paw. Wings of white sprouted around his eyes and onto his brow. The pattern of black stripes was symmetrical across his face. He opened his mouth and saw giant, sharp fangs outclassing what he’d had as a wolverine by several leagues. His tongue was a massive paddle studded with white flesh spikes capable of rending flesh in just a few licks. Framing it were glistening black lips that quivered with his every exhale.
Jared was no expert on tigers, but he thought he knew what kind he was. His massive size and the kind of forest he was in lent to the idea that he was a Siberian tiger, the most massive of all the subspecies. He couldn’t hope to name all of them, not without his phone handy. The other two kinds he knew of were Bengal and Sumatran tigers. Neither of them was this massive or fluffy. If he was one of them, he would’ve expected to have been transported to a jungle somewhere. He smiled to himself, pride swelling a little. I got the coolest kind of tiger there is. Awesome.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 18 December 2023
Explore
Breaking his self-appreciation was his building thirst, a reminder of why he’d gone there in the first place. He noticed how he was already kneeling on his forelegs but couldn’t reach his face into the water like a cat would. He leaned over and dipped his fingers into the stream, feeling its gently persuasive current pushing and swirling around him. He let his rear legs fold underneath him, forming a giant tiger loaf so he could get comfortable and start drinking. He scooped some water into his paw and drank from it. It cooled the fur around his mouth and trickled down his whiskers. The taste suffered from the soil but did not hinder the water’s blissful quench.
He took a few more pawfuls before wiping his paw on his chest and taking more time to look around. Where would he go now? What was there to do? He could follow the creek for as long as it wandered. Maybe he’d find whatever it fed into, but how far away was that? Would he be able to find his cabin from there? What if he ran into another tiger? Were there even any out there? Of course there had to have been. Unless this was some mythical realm full of unique creatures (which wouldn’t have surprised him at this point) there was no way he was the only one of his kind. He knew tigers, like all large predators, were extremely territorial. Maybe this was his, and any potential rival who wandered into it would leave upon realizing it was his.
He looked around at the forest. Is all of this really mine? He sniffed the air and picked up something he hadn’t given mind to. It was the smell of him, that which wafted on the wind and hung over like a fog. He’d been here before many times. This was his stream, and no one else’s. Those who decided to drink from it did so on his accord and at their own risk. Nature documentaries he’d seen in the past came to mind with figures of how much territory a single tiger possessed. He didn’t recall the exact number, but he knew it was measured in square miles. Not acres like some plot of land, but square miles.
And all of it was his to explore.
Jared got back on his feet. He took a deep breath through his nose, flooding his mind with the many intricate scents that hovered around him. Looking back up the stream in the direction it flowed, he wondered without concern, What will I find at the end of that? So he ventured forward, off to discover what belonged to him.
* * *
The creek wandered for a great stretch, reaching into varying swathes of flora as unique as they were foreign to Jared. More hills greeted him, some affording good views of the land around him. In the distance he saw the blue ridges of a mountain range, their slopes textured by the clumped treetops. A river, likely the one his creek fed into, snaked between them and through the Manchurian topography. As nice as the thought may have been, he doubted all of it was his territory, but he was on a mission just to see how much of it was.
He did not make it to the end of the creek when night fell. The deerskin back at his cabin sounded very comfortable at that moment, but he made do with a makeshift den he carved out of the ground between two massive shrubs. Finding the best position to sleep in proved a bothersome task. Was he supposed to lie all the way down on his side or huddle his tiger beneath him and sleep with his anthro side upright? A few minutes of squirming in place passed before he had to remind himself not to think about it. Muscle memory. Muscle memory. Soon he was slowly lowering himself down on his side, letting his upper portion lay on the ground. He huddled his legs and folded his paws beneath his head. He closed his eyes, tried not to think about his cabin, and fell asleep shortly after.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 22 December 2023
Back Home
He got up at the crack of dawn, shaking his fur of the morning dew that had beaded everywhere. The smells of nature were heavier and more blended in the humidity. Hopefully it wouldn’t prevent him from realizing when he was wandering out of his territory and into someone else’s. He didn’t bump into any other tigers as he continued his journey, fortunately, but he did encounter something else. Bringing him an abrupt stop was the sight of a half dozen deer taking a drink from the creek. They stood collected at its bank, just under a the protective shade of a nearby tree. Half drank at a time while the other three huddled around it to keep watch for predators.
Jared was one such predator. That much was clear when his instincts flared up, urging him to sulk into the cover of a nearby tree, head hunched low. He sniffed the air and caught the faintest fragment of the deer’s scent. A pang of hunger rumbled in his gut. His mouth was starting to water and his fur stood on ends. Crap. Am I really gonna do this? Is this how I get my food? He looked at his hiding position. He felt totally concealed, like he was in a perfect position to watch and approach the deer’s position. It had been achieved with the most nonchalant of actions, like opening a door or sitting in a chair.
It made sense that he had to hunt to survive, but to do it now seemed like a bad idea. The fact that he could probably grab one of those deer and kill it while relying entirely on muscle memory disturbed him. He’d never gone hunting before. The weight of a gun in his hands was unfamiliar. To kill a deer with his bare claws and to feel it die was not an experience he was willing to go through, no matter how hungry he got.
He left his hiding spot and wandered up to the bank. Instantly one of the deer spotted him, and all five other heads snapped to look at him. His casual march towards them did not stop, and all six deer skedaddled with a graceful launch into the forest. Their darkened forms hopped along the trees until one by one he couldn’t see them anymore. The predator side of him expressed disappointment while the Jared side- the real side -was proud of himself.
The journey down the creek stopped when the smell of his territory hit a wall. It was replaced rather suddenly by a different smell, altogether subtle but enough to ignite every warning flare in his mind. He wisely turned around and walked the other way. Part of him was disappointed that he couldn’t reach the river, but there was much to compensate for that in the other direction. With miles of forest ahead of him, he set off to explore it. It took a few nights, each one marking a day when he fought the instinct to kill, but he made it to the end of his territory. He guessed correctly that the he could rely on instinct to bring him back to his cabin.
Something was waiting there for him.
He stepped inside to find a mahogany armoire standing against the wall opposite him, right next to his “mattress”. It was tall, reaching just below the bottom part of the ceiling. The maroon paneled doors stared back at him with their two cast iron knobs, wondering if he would come in and discover what was inside. Once recovered from his initial shock, Jared approached the armoire and opened it very slowly. Hanging from the rack were two very familiar outfits. On the left was the skunk onesie Jared had purchased from Get It Here. Next to it was the wolverine onesie he’d gotten in the mail two weeks ago. At the bottom of the armoire was a folded note. Jared picked it up, unfolded it, and started to read.
Dear Jasmine,
Or are you Jared again? Oh, I’ll probably ever know. I hope you know it’s random what sex you become. I’m not throwing different ones at you all willy-nilly for my own amusement, though I’ll never get tired of finding fun and unique creatures to become. How was being a tiger? Not too lonely, I hope. Maybe you were able to take down some creatures. Not sure if I’d be able to.
You probably expected a new outfit. I assure you that I’ve sent them, but you won’t find them here. You have the option to return to the skunk and wolverine worlds if you pleased, though I think you’ll be much more satisfied with the two I’ve placed in this world. You read that correctly. Two. They’re out there for you to find. They aren’t far, but they aren’t close either. Now that you’re a brave tiger I think you can make the journey. As always, it’s your prerogative.
Sincerely,
Leland Gaunt
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 28 December 2023
Hungry
“Wait… So, they’re really not here?” Jared wondered aloud when he was done reading the letter. He looked up from it and into his closet where the skunk and wolverine onesies were hung. He double checked that there were no others and confirmed that it was the case. He read the letter again. Yes, Leland was telling him to go out and look for the other suits. He said they weren’t far, but they weren’t close either. Way to be vague. What did Leland expect him to do? Go out there stalking though the forest, looking for some animal suits? There were literally millions of acres surrounding Jared, nothing but unkempt wilderness bereft of any manmade landmarks he could orient himself with.
Of course, he’d spent a week traveling his territory end to end. If there was anything worth finding out in the many stretches he claimed as his territory, he could find it. But that didn’t mean Leland had left either of the two suits in his domain. “Not far but not close” could have been just about anywhere. Was Leland playing games with him now? Did he expect Jared to work for his transformations going forward? Maybe him being a tiger helped Leland make the decision. Tigers were supposed to be strong and brave. Maybe he would find some fun in such a challenge. Maybe even a little adventure.
Or maybe not. With the skunk and wolverine onesies hanging behind him in the closet, it made much more sense just to throw one of those on and go back to their respective worlds. He didn’t have to go out and risk stumbling into another tiger’s territory to accomplish that. Life as a skunkette had been easy and was very similar to what it had been like as a human. The wolverine world was a whole lot more brash and scarier, so he didn’t think he’d be going back there. As for whatever the other two suits would turn him into and what kind of worlds they entailed, there was only one way to find out.
Jared folded the letter up and placed it on a nearby table. He strode outside into the daylight, his four powerful tiger legs propelling him along. For a moment he recalled his awkward transition from walking on two legs to four, how he had to rely on muscle memory and forcibly unlearn bipedalism. Now here he was walking around like it was nothing, able to prance, leap, and pounce with all the power and majesty of your average Siberian tiger. He would lose that in the skunk and wolverine worlds. The two suits waiting for him could also very easily take it away from him, but again, he wouldn’t know that until he found them.
His stomach started to grumble. Rrrrrrrrrrrrr. Jared put a paw over it. Throughout the whole week he hadn’t caught or eaten a single animal. He didn’t have the stomach to kill anything, something his tiger instincts continuously begged him to overcome so that he wouldn’t starve. On more than one occasion he had stumbled upon deer and their trails. Instead of relying on muscle memory he would have to start fighting it as his tiger brain went into stalking mode, gearing to take down a juicy deer and eat it. Each time he had fought the urge, much to the chagrin of his empty stomach.
The suits are in the closet, he reminded himself. Three square meals a day plus modern luxury. You can’t beat that. And yet he couldn’t quite tear himself away from this place. A vast swathe of forest he could claim as his own, something he’d earned after a lifetime of fighting. To retreat into a world of leisure seemed wrong to the point of criminal. If he were to leave it eventually, as his growing hunger was starting to insist, he would at least spend one last journey through his territory before doing so. Going back to either the skunk or wolverine worlds meant he might never figure out what was in the two boxes Leland sent, and that wasn’t something he would allow to sit on his conscience.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 01 June 2024
Search
He hadn’t enjoyed the comfort of his cot after his journey before he was determined to restart it, this time in search of something. Not far, but not close. Not hard, but not easy. Maybe he’d find it soon, maybe never. That made him wonder, how on earth was he going to find it in the first place? How did Leland even get it here if there was no mail? By magic, of course, but how did that help Jared? If the boxes were just magically teleported here like it seemed they always were, then there was little chance Leland left a trail of anything.
But that didn’t seem to occur to Jared, not even as he thought it. If something was in his territory without his putting it there, it was there without his consent. His tiger instincts flared at the thought. Coming here and planting things without my permission? I don’t think so. Trail or not, he would use everything in his disposal to find those boxes. It would be his last little adventure in this world where he couldn’t eat or make friends. He did not know what lands the next suits would bring him to, but he they had to be better than this place. Jared had not enjoyed the comfort of his cot before he began another journey into the forest, determined to find out what Leland had in store next for him.
More time was spent eying the earth beneath his feet than the forest around him, looking for possible clues or a trail Leland had left for him. There was the occasional hoof print of prey animal and the sudden, jerking urge to go on the hunt, but nothing proving that a human had been there. Square miles of territory, and I’m supposed to find a couple boxes. Like finding a needle in a needle stack. The doubts rumbled in the back of his mind like a distant thunderstorm but were drowned out by the more prescient roar of indignation by how his territory had been penetrated. Maybe this is why Leland hid the boxes, he thought at one point. He knew I would go after it like this. The old fart is probably watching me right now, having a blast. He kept track of the landmarks as he crossed them. There was the river, some hills, a cliff, the valley. It took hours upon hours just to come to one after he’d left the other, and it would take days, if not weeks, to scour all of it. Just keep searching. Don’t turn back now. You’ve come too far. Not gonna let that mischievous magician have the satisfaction of making me give up.
He came across something at last. In a patch of woods not unique to the hundreds of others that defined his territory, his nose caught the strangest of scents. He couldn’t define it at first, though each whiff of the vaporous clue sent ripples of familiarity through his fur, sending it into a floof. What is that? He sniffed a few times. That’s not right. That’s not something natural to this place. He sniffed some more. But it’s so familiar. I’ve smelled it before. Just a few more deep, chest-swelling whiffs. A store. A building. Thrift shop… The moment it clicked his black-tipped tiger ears flicked upright. Get It Here. Leland’s shop. One last huff through the nostrils confirmed it. Just that ribbon of smell was what threw Jared back to the place where he had met the mysterious old man and bought the skunk onesie, the place that had catapulted him into all this madness. Jared’s tiger tail started to flick wildly. The box. It’s close.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 02 June 2024
Track
He made a slow but inexorable trot towards the smell, his flat, pink tiger nose constantly twitching. Sniff-sniff-sniff. This was his hunter instinct unbridled, that primal part of his brain tapped into. That smell of recently cleaned floors, old clothes, and mothballs grew more distinct with each stride until he’d broken into a full gallop, his heart ready to beat out of his chest. It reached a pinnacle when he came across a small hill with an enormous, rooty tree on top of it. He didn’t see the box, but it didn’t take a supreme detective to know it was hidden there. Was it at the top? Could tigers climb? And even if they did, would he be able to in this body?
No time for questions, he continued his run towards the tree, climbed that small hill, and found himself at the base. There he circled the trunk and saw Leland’s package sitting between two gnarled tree roots. Jared’s name was written in what looked like permanent marker on the brown paper that wrapped around the box, also tied up in string. There wasn’t any letter that Jared could see. Full of elation, Jared came forward and picked up the box before immediately clawing it open. The paper and carboard all came apart in a storm of shreds, exposing the treasure that lay inside.
It was a centaur suit like the tiger one Jared had put on when he was a wolverine; he could tell thanks to the six limbs that dangled from it. As for the species, that was a little less clear. Smooth, blonde fur like a lion’s covered the lower half of the body, but the upper half was completely without fur. It was just rubbery skin like he would expect a Halloween mask to be made from. Though the material was obviously fake, it felt eerie rubbing it between his fingers. He noticed the front side of the torso was textured like a fit man’s torso, featuring squared pecs and cut abs. The hood part was made of the skin material too, but featured a set of long, black hair that came down to the neck. It all would have made sense to him before, but after becoming a tigertaur he would expect the upper half to achieve tigrine (or in this case, leonid) features too, but they were absent here. If this suit would turn him into a liontaur like he thought, then what made it different from the tiger suit?
None of that complexed him more, however, than the pair of feathery wings which grew from the back of the lower half. They hung limply with the rest of it. The feathers were incredibly long like an eagle’s. Jared picked one wing up and stretched it out as far as it would go, achieving a span of about four feet with just that wing. OK, so this is definitely not any creature you can find in the human world. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see what had to be a fantastical creature after what he’d become, but this vexed him completely. He could tell that the tigertaurs suit was at least a tiger and nothing else. What he held in his hands was an amalgamation of at least three different creatures. So what the hell was it?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 03 June 2024
Wear it
Like always, there was only one way to find out. Jared laid the suit out belly-down on the tree roots and saw that the zipper was on the back this time, starting at the root of the tail and going all the way up to the front of the hood, bisecting it. Makes sense. Would be a pain in the ass getting it on with this body if it was in the front. He pinched the zipper tab and pulled it all the way down to the tail. It took some careful maneuvering to get in position over top of it so that his hind legs could fall into their sleeves. The forelegs followed, and he pulled the suit up so that it loosely hung around his bottom half. It took some reaching, but he was able to get a grip on the zipper again and start pulling it up his back. Next, he slid his arms into the torso sleeves, cringing a little as that fake skin texture bounced and wobbled about his fur. Once that was all the way on he pulled the zipper all the way up to the hood and flipped it over his head, completing the liontaur (or whatever the hell it was). Then a thought crossed him. Maybe I should’ve waited to go home first before I-
Shoomp! Too late. The suit sunk into his body, triggering the transformation. There wasn’t much to change this time, at least not with his feline features. The lion skin covering his tiger body simply shrank around that part of him, replacing those many manly stripes with a flat canvas of lion blonde. The musculature and skeleton stayed the same shape, albeit they became slightly smaller. The real changes happened with his upper half. The hood sank around the shape of his cranium like always and began melting across his visage, absorbing it down to the snout. His beefy tiger paws were taken as well, and for a brief moment he thought he would be able to keep their impressive size.
That did not prove to be the case. Across his body was that sudden squeezing sensation like his skin was becoming too tight. It sank into his muscles, kickstarting a rapid deflation of that awesome physique into what was much more human in size. Jared gritted and grunted through the discomfort. A sound like stretching rubber hummed in his ears. Looking at his arms he saw their build become lither, the many tendons and sinews growing more stark. What replaced it was olive-tan skin, perfectly hairless and with a soft glow in the sunlight. A sense of touch floated to the surface, giving him gooseprickles and making him shiver in the open air of the forest. The last of his transformation came when an intense pressure jammed itself into his face, reducing his snout back into a flat human face and making him clench his jaw against the pain.
The transformation ended once his snout was done flattening. All said and done, he didn’t feel terribly different than when he was a tiger except for the chills on his bare torso, a feeling he hadn’t gone through sense his time as a human. He looked at his arms again, then down at where his torso met his lion body. The smooth human skin transitioned into the furrier lion section smoothly. Looking over his shoulder he saw the rest of it standing there amongst the tree roots, his proud lion tail wagging about lazily. Next, he put a hand on his head and felt the soft, long locks that hung from his scalp. Human hair. Weird. Why does it feel so soft?
And there were his wings to worry about. While flexing his legs beneath him they swung out into their full breadth with an incredible whoosh. Jared ducked, thinking that a bird had swooped on him from the trees. He looked behind him and saw those two majestic wings at full spread. They twitched and flexed at his command, being connected right below the part of him where the lion and human sections faded into each other. Muscles he’d never commanded before were hidden in his bottom half. They would flex and contract wildly as he tested them, throwing his wings into a flurry around him. Stop! Stop! Stop! He relaxed, and the two wings slowed to a stop while pointed straight up in the air above him. Muscle memory. Muscle memory. Chill out. Sure enough, the two wings folded down on the flanks of his lion half, resembling that of an eagle at rest. “Whoa,” huffed Jared, smiling. Will I be able to fly with these things? Or am I too heavy?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 04 June 2024
Park
His train of thought was cut by the sudden sweep of a shadow. It blew across the forest floor and blew past him with enough speed to make him duck. He looked up at the canopy and saw what had created it zooming just over the treetops. A bird or… something? Jared hadn’t seen it long enough to tell. Whatever it was, it was big, way bigger than any bird he’d seen during his week as a tigertaur. No way. Was that..? Then came another one, higher up this time and in a different direction. He got a clearer look at its silhouette, like a cat mid-leap, its four legs outstretched, its tail in a straight line behind it. Included were two, massive wings wider than the animal was long. Jared didn’t believe what he was seeing until just a few moments later when another zoomed past, and another not longer after that one.
Excitement building, Jared stormed away from the tree, his four legs thundering beneath him. I’ve got to see more of them. There’s got to be a clearing somewhere. He found one quickly, the trees vanishing suddenly to reveal a sprawling park and the civilization that fostered it. Seated in the fields, walking along the pathways, and flying through the air were people of his own kind. They were sphinxes from ancient Greek and Egyptian myth. Fit, bronzed human bodies were attached to the shoulders of lions with wings like the most majestic of eagles. They went about their day as casually as they would in any other setting. A woman was seated in the grass nearby with a quilt beneath her loafed cat legs. She was reading a book with an intense look on her face. She looked up from it at Jared when he came bursting out from the trees. He realized that he was staring at her, and that she was wearing a white T-shirt around her human torso and a pair of pants on her hind legs. The other folk he saw were also wearing clothes.
It would’ve been a silly sight if Jared’s heart didn’t leap in his chest. Shit! I’m naked! He slapped his arms over his chest, then noticed something odd. Wait. No, I’m not? He unraveled his arms and saw that a black T-shirt was draped over his torso. Emblazoned on the front of it was the logo of his favorite band, one he’d listened to in the universes where there was a civilization. How the hell did that get there? He looked behind himself and saw a pair of jeans on his hindlegs, covering everything up to the hips. His lion tail wagged hung out of it just below the beltline. “Huh…” he said with a smile. I guess that answers that question.
Yet so many more had sprouted around him with the world he found himself in. Was he really able to fly? How did that affect transportation? Surrounding the park were tall buildings like he would find in any other modern city, but here they featured something unique. The buildings had large balconies on every other floor, it seemed. On occasion someone would land on it and casually walk inside. It hurt Jared’s brain just to watch. He pictured himself doing the same thing, though he still had trouble believing it.
“Excuse me.”
The voice startled Jared. It was the woman he had first seen reading a book on the quilt. She had a concerned look on her face. Jared cleared his throat. “Y-yeah?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 05 June 2024
To the truck
“Are you OK?” she asked. “You look lost.”
Shit. I probably am lost. Just act cool. “Um, sorry. I just wandered into the woods behind me and got a little disorientated.”
She smiled at him. “Oh, that’s alright. Are you looking for the entrance?”
That might help. “Yeah. Do you know where it is from here?”
Without taking her hands off the book, she unfurled her left wing out at him. The feathers were a deep black like a raven’s. She pointed with the feather on its tip. “Just follow that path there. Or, if you can fly, just go over the trees and you’ll see the parking lot behind the old church. That’s where the entrance is.”
That raised more questions than it answered. A parking lot? So, there are cars? ‘If’ I can fly? So not everyone can? Jared doubted that he could, so he decided to walk. “Thank you, miss. You… have a nice day.”
She retracted her wing and nodded amiably. “You too.”
Jared made a slow trot towards the path she had pointed to. It wound around the stretch of woods he had come out of which he noticed contained species of trees different than what he’d encountered in the tigertaur world. A shit ton has changed. Am I in the same city as the old worlds? He came around the other side of the woods and saw the parking lot in the distance with a large, cast-iron fence surrounding it. Arcing over the entrance was the name of the park in all capitol letters: BATTERY PARK. Jared sighed with relief. OK, so it is the same city. He blinked the gate out of focus and noticed how far away it was. It was at least two hundred yards away. The sign over the entrance shouldn’t have been readable at that distance, and yet he deciphered it perfectly. I guess that makes sense. Birds of prey have really good eyesight. It also explained how he was able to see people flying onto the balconies and walk inside from an even greater distance. He wondered how much he could see on the ground if he was flying, and if he’d ever get the chance to find out.
More sphinxes passed by him as he continued his walk down the pathway. There were people holding hands, chatting and laughing. A mother rolled her baby around in a stroller, though it was one of those pet types with a flat bottom like he’d seen in the human universe. The baby was peeking over the rim, holding on with its chubby baby hands, its cat half splayed out on the bottom. He saw Jared walking past, then smiled at him. Jared just smiled back, thinking the baby was part adorable, part bizarre. He made it to the parking lot where normal looking cars filled the spaces. Someone walked past him towards their car. Jared watched the man go, noticing the twinge and jerk of the muscles in his lion half. That contrasted with his human section which was much rounder and softer with a loose, white T-shirt draped over his shoulders. He didn’t notice Jared watching him by the time he made it to his truck. He opened the door which stretched the whole length of the cabin. There weren’t any front seats inside, nothing but flat floor space for the man to climb inside. He started the truck normally, then drove out of the parking lot.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 06 June 2024
Driving
The entire sequence was amazing in its banality. Jared had just watched a mythical creature climb into a pickup truck and drive away. After a whole week spent alone in the forest, it was the small things that would strike Jared silent and make him wonder what other oddities he would encounter. It was when another person walked past him into the parking lot that he realized he was just standing there like an idiot. I got to get a move on, but is my car even here? Did I walk or did I drive? Did I fly? He recalled how close Battery Park was to his home in the human universe. It was too far for walking, so maybe he’d driven here. But then again, what might be too far away for walking might not be for flying.
Then he remembered. Keys! He looked over his shoulder at his pants. If I have my car keys it means I drove here. He saw that there were four back pockets lined in a row underneath the beltline of his jeans. That was about the only place he could reach with his arms. Sure enough, one of the pockets bulged around the shape of his keychain. The one right next to it contained what looked like his cellphone, and the one beside that had his wallet. He reached into the pocket with his keys and pulled them out by the loop. They looked exactly like they had when he was a human.
“Awesome!” He pressed the lock button on the fob and heard the beep-beep of his car. It wasn’t hard finding it in the parking lot. It was the same model as before, albeit it had been magically transformed into a coupe with only two extra long doors on each side. When Jared opened the driver’s side, he saw the same thing he had in the gentleman’s truck: no seats but a long, cushioned floor for him to lay his body on. Climbing inside was a bit awkward with him having to duck his head under the roof. He noticed the exact same air freshener from the human universe dangling from his rear-view mirror. OK, so this is my car. How do I drive it?
The pedals were in the same place where they were supposed to be operated by his forelegs, apparently. He sighed. “Shit, this really isn’t the kind of thing I should rest muscle memory on.” He carefully depressed the brake with his right forefoot, ignited the engine, and put the car into drive. “Slow and steady. Slow and steady.” He eased off the brake, easing the car out of the parking spot. A sudden beeping sound stopped him. He heaved his foot on the brake. “What now?” A red light was flashing on the dash. His seatbelt wasn’t on. “Oh shit. Yeah, I should do that.” He saw it hanging from the roof on his left. The buckle was on the floor by his hip. Relative to his massive body, everything was where it was supposed to be. He pulled the belt down across himself and buckled it. But what if I get rear-ended? Do I just slam into the back of the cabin? Maybe crashes aren’t as dangerous that way, but I’d rather not find out.
He resumed his fretful trip out of the parking lot by easing off the breaks again. Once he’d cleared the chalk lines, he put his foot on the gas. Carefully. The car glided onwards with ease, and soon he was driving out of the parking lot like it was nothing. He let out a long exhale through his mouth. “Whoooooooo, OK. We’re good. We’re good.” As he made it to the entrance, he passed someone coming into the parking lot in a massive SUV. On a whim, Jared waved at the guy. He got a weird look, but a wave back too. Maybe this world won’t be so bad.
Another boon to life here was the lack of traffic on the city streets. The lanes were all single, the space between blocks dedicated mostly to pedestrians. If someone wasn’t walking, they were flying which required no sort of infrastructure at all. It made sense to cram the buildings together. Less distance to walk, less distance to fly, less distance to drive. If only the other universes got the same memo. But if it’s less distance to fly, then why did I take my car? Why do I even have one? Jared wondered if that meant his apartment was in a different place. How much different was it physically? What about every other building in the world? Well, I’ve got plenty of opportunity to find out.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 07 June 2024
Apartment
At a stop light he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the GPS app. Luckily, the first option that came up was his apartment address. Only one thing was odd. It said the distance between his location and the park was over 7 miles which was way longer than what was between his apartment and Battery Park in the human universe. That’s weird. At least it says it won’t take me long to get there. The ride was quick and easy like the GPS said, allowing Jared a few nice views of the people navigating the city around him. It was long enough that it felt like an entire journey across the city even though it should’ve been just a few blocks. He didn’t mind, not when it gave him a chance to observe the unique architecture of the world around him.
He came upon his apartment complex. It was different from what it had been, featuring several more stories than before as well as being much closer to the buildings across the streets. It struck Jared how, for as far as he could see, the city continued on for miles and miles. In the human universe his apartment was closer to the suburbs, outside of downtown. It was like the city had experienced a massive growth spurt and absorbed everything around it. Unbothered, Jared found a parking deck on the bottom floor of the building. Praying there weren’t any assigned spots, he found a parking space and got into a very spacious elevator. He pressed the 4th floor button, hoping his apartment was there in this universe too. The elevator took him there, and he stepped into the hallway to begin searching for his living space.
He found it eventually. Relief swept through him as his key fit into the slot and unlocked it. The door opened to reveal his apartment in similar shape to how he left it as a wolverine (God, that feels like years ago.) His old decorations were all there plus the furniture, if altered to fit his leonine frame. The sofa was instead just a long, flat ottoman he was supposed to climb up and lie on. Pictures of himself and his family were all changed to match his species, never an unfunny sight. It reminded him that he had a phone with photos on it. He pulled it out of his pocket and opened the gallery. There were the hundreds of pictures he was familiar with already, each of them featuring him and his friends in sphinx form.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 08 June 2024
Photos
But there were other pictures too, ones he never remembered taking. They were shots of the earth taken from the sky. Beautiful landscapes that included rivers, mountains, forests, and plains. The shot that amazed him the most was that of the city. What looked like a million skyscrapers were stretched from frame to frame, the yonder horizon choked with their silhouettes blued by the atmosphere. Did I take these pictures? They aren’t downloads. He kept scrolling through until he happened upon a selfie of his. He was holding the phone out at arm’s length, capturing himself in a pair of flight goggles and a scarf. The Earth was far behind him, the horizon stretched out like it had been in the other photos. His hair and the scarf were whipped back. He couldn’t see all of them, but he could tell that his wings were outstretched from his back, catching the wind.
Yes, not only could Jared fly, he had apparently gone on multiple vacations doing nothing but that. “Holy shit,” he whispered. He scrolled through more of the pictures and marveled at each aerial shot he had taken. It saddened him that he had no memory of taking any of these pictures. Even more disappointing was how the mechanics of flying were still absent from his mind, or at least from memory. If he really wanted to, he could find an open field and take off for the heavens relying on muscle memory like he always had.
But the thought was still intimidating. What if he lost control and crashed on the ground or into something? What if muscle memory failed him, and he would end up looking like an idiot while trying to take off? It posed far more dangers than just trying to walk. It didn’t make sense to go out there and look for a place to try and learn how to fly.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 09 June 2024
Take off
Apparently, he didn’t have to. Looking up from his phone he noticed a vast space in his apartment where there wasn’t any furniture. It led to a wide pair of sliding doors which in turn led into a balcony. Wait, I never had that. Jared stepped outside and realized it was one of the balconies sphinxes used to land. There wasn’t any fence protecting him from falling to the ground. He very carefully inched his way to the edge and looked down. Greeting him was a 50+ foot drop to the street, a sure-fire ticket to becoming a red splat mark on the asphalt. People the size of ants waltzed by next to matchbox cars.
Oddly enough, Jared wasn’t scared. What should’ve been a heart-palpitating view of a deadly drop hardly made him quiver. He could bring himself close enough to the edge so that his toes were hanging over and not feel an ounce of terror. Leaning forward didn’t either, or the thought of plunging forward. And why would it? He could fly. Not a drop off the tallest cliff in the world should frighten him. He was a sphinx. Nothing could.
His attention was snapped to the building across the street when someone came dashing out of their balcony. They went right off the edge, their huge white wings blossoming across their back into a giant, obtuse V. Their agile curve into the air was casual and practiced, just like hopping onto a bike. Jared watched them disappear around the block. He was confident that they would return the same way they came.
I can do that, he thought to himself. I can do that right now. What was stopping him? The fear of heights? He didn’t have that anymore. Inexperience? He’d taken so many pictures of himself flying to prove that wasn’t true. No, he was perfectly capable of launching himself off that balcony and taking to the skies. What was he waiting for? Jared walked back into his apartment and turned around to face the open sliding doors. He took a deep breath. Muscle memory. That pair of words echoed in his head like a broken record. He repeated them a few more times before leaning back on his paws, ready to launch. OK. Count of three. One… Two… Oh God, this is crazy. Three!
Jared barreled through the apartment, towards the sliding doors, and out across the balcony. In just a few strides he was off solid ground, nothing but air beneath his feet. For just that second the world was weightless, his insides clenching on the suspense of gravity which was already pulling him to the earth. Then he deployed his wings.
Whoooooosh!
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 10 June 2024
Back to the Apartment
The air jerked him hard, pulling the skin of his face off his skull and knocking the wind out of him. His wings stayed straight, so did his heavy cat body. His human half stood erect, the arms out at his sides like he was balancing on a rope. He looked down and saw his forelegs dangling above a slowly panning street. Jared was flying.
“Holy shit!” he hollered. “Haha! YES!” He pumped his arms into the air. “Woohoo!” He got some strange looks from other folk who were flying, but he didn’t care. Like the gentleman he’d seen in the SUV, he gave them a big ol’ wave and a goofy smile, some of which were returned in kind. Jared swooped and dived his way across the block, getting a good feel of what he was and wasn’t capable of. He felt like he could climb to the heavens and then dive to the earth full tilt. Only when his wing muscles were starting to ache did he make the return to his apartment where he stood in the middle of the carpet breathing hard and shaking.
“Wow… Hahaha… Holy shit… Oh my God… That was awesome.” Heart racing like crazy, he went to the kitchen and grabbed himself a glass of water. Once his pulse started to die down, he laid down on the couch and turned on the TV. Now his curiosity was burning again, and he wanted everything there was to know about the sphinx world. It came to him in a whirlwind of channels and internet pages. Everything from the human universe was mirrored like in the skunk and wolverine universes, but with their own mystic flair. The same movies and celebrities all existed, their features sharpened and honed into something more mediterranean.
The biggest shock came when he found out why the city looked so massive in the pictures. All of sphinx-kind was located in different hypercities across the world, one for each major region. The one Jared lived in was on the east coast of what would’ve been the United States. Another was on the west coast, two more in South America, and about a dozen others on the other continents. Between them was nothing but unmolested wilderness, all of it teeming with life unconcerned with urban setbacks or a worsening environment. The sphinx was a wise creature, thus it treated the planet it lived on wisely.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 11 June 2024
The costumes are back
Jared wanted to see it all, but there was no damn way he was going to experience it driving around in a car. He was going to fly through it every day, not giving a damn how tired it made him or how far he would actually get. He was going to quite literally spread his wings and enjoy every second of his freedom like every man should. So that’s what he did. He spent a week in that megatropolis flying everywhere he went, seeing the Greco-Egyptian inspired architecture everywhere in buildings, monuments, parks, and infrastructure. He spent time at the movies and sports games, giggling his head off at how the sphinxes played and acted on their sphinx bodies. He never thought getting to these places would be more fun than being there, his every flight through the city bringing excitement and joy.
Then Leland caught him off guard like he always did. Jared was opening his closet in his bedroom when the sight of three onesies hanging on the rack. Jared had totally forgotten about them. Usually, they didn’t come back until Leland had sent him a new suit and a letter. Did Jared miss them? He went back into the living room to make sure he hadn’t missed anything but saw nothing. A trip to the mailboxes downstairs yielded similar results. Jared flew up to his balcony and gave the place one more look over. He asked his neighbors if they had seen a brown paper package with his name on it. No dice. Jared walked back into his apartment one more time, confused and alarmed. Where is the package? Where is the letter?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 12 June 2024
TV
Jared’s life as a sphinx carried on as normally as it would in any other universe he had at his disposal. The three of them, those belonging to the skunks, wolverines, and tigertaurs, all hung in his closet where he’d first encountered them after a fortnight in that Egyptian realm. Lacking was a fourth option, one that should’ve been given upon the return of the other onesies. A month had passed since then, and no sign of any package or letter from Leland had shown itself. Jared worried if the magician had grown bored of him. There was no way he’d lost track of Jared somehow, not after the extreme feats of locating the drifter which Leland had pulled off three times now.
Jared was disappointed, but not crushed. He could certainly live the life of a mythical winged creature, though the honeymoon phase of discovering such a place had worn off eventually. Flying became as exciting as walking or taking the elevator. Without such an ability in the other universes, he opted not to go back to any of them. Until the opportunity to experience a new universe and creature arrived at his doorstep, Jared would enjoy the eclectic world of intelligent, flying mammals with whom he shared the megatropolis.
Not every day was spent flying or working (his job as a restaurant host carried over to this place too. Go figure.) Time spent at home was more or less the same as it had been when he was a human: either curled up on the couch and watching TV or in front of the computer. The only difference here was the nature of his furniture, that being simple cushions for him and his big quadrupedal body to lie down on. All the television shows that existed in the human universe existed here as they did in all the others (sans the tigertaur one) albeit with a certain sphinxian flair. Not only were all the cast sphinxes, but there seemed to be a shift in tone and line delivery, kind of like the actor or the writer was speaking directly to the audience as if on stage and not on screen. Perhaps the sphinxes hadn’t quite escaped their Shakespearean phase.
With the novelty of it all having long since worn off, Jared was left to browse channels and stream as aimlessly as he once would when there was nothing to watch. He’d rewatched just about all his favorite movies and TV shows. It was time for something new. Jared was atop his TV room cushion with his lion legs loafed beneath him. He thumbed away at the channel paddle, his bored expression appearing and then disappearing to the flash of the TV screen. A journey through what Netflix and Max had to offer yielded nothing of interest. Regular TV was no better with nothing catching his interest. I could be outside flying right now, he thought to himself while imagining the muscles in his body actively atrophying. But going out to fly required removing himself from the comfort of his pillow. In this world, flying was like walking. Why go out and do that when there was a perfectly good TV to rot his mind with?
His journey through the channels continued at a tepid pace, and the hopes of finding something to watch gradually dwindled. At this point I should just get on my computer and go to YouTube, he thought dismally. No point in languishing here all night. There ought to be- The thought was cut short by something on TV. His Nubian eyes went wide, and his torso snapped to attention. The legs beneath him came out from beneath his body, ready to stand because he’d been so startled. What the hell was that?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 01 September 2024
Pokemon
It was just for a moment, barely a flash, but beaming from the television was a peculiar smell. Jared didn’t see what channel it was. In his haste to scroll through them all he’d passed it by three whole spots. He backpedaled one by one until that aura was beaming out of the screen again. He hadn’t imagined it. It wafted out at him like he’d opened a window. The undeniable smell of nature, that of trees, grass, animals, and open fields made his nostrils dilate. An automatic whiff inflated his chiseled chest, filling him with vitality. What the hell is this?
The aroma was real, but what the TV depicted certainly was not. In the opening seconds of the channel being displayed he saw the info bar at the bottom. It read, in bold, capitol letters, POKÉMON. It certainly looked that way. Jared recognized the art style of the anime he used to watch all the time as a kid. It was a static shot of an open field surrounded by woods. The trees swayed with the coming breeze. Bird Pokémon droned past in the background. The humming tune of nature tweeted out of Jared’s speakers. It was the Pokémon anime, alright, but why the hell did it smell real? Why was it just this shot of an open field? Lastly, what the hell was that folded up suit on the floor?
Jared’s stomach twisted. No way. He rose from the pillow and approached the TV on his lion feet, drawing deeper into that pleasant outdoor smell. His eyes were focused on that folded up bit of clothing which settled atop a nice clump of grass. It had been put there deliberately with its perfectly folded shape and frontside facing upwards and towards Jared, the viewer. Jared couldn’t see all of it, but he could recognize the bottom part of a hood which was tucked under one half of the outfit.
Another onesie. There was no mistaking it, but it didn’t make sense. Why in the TV? How is it making a smell? Is Leland doing this? It had to be the magician, but this was weird even for him. Just when Jared thought he was done being surprised, Leland goes and springs this weird shit on him. How am I supposed to get to it? Is this some kind of hint to where it is? Jared stared deeply into the screen. He noticed how crisp the image was when focusing on the animation lines. Looking at the background trees he saw how smoothly they would jostle in the wind. Even the most talented team of animators couldn’t produce something so natural. Is it even animation? What the hell is Leland trying to pull?
The only way to find out was to get to the onesie, but how? Nothing in the shot popped out as a clue to lead Jared to it. There weren’t any letters either. Wait. I should check my mail. Jared was ready to perform an about face and go downstairs, but something kept him glued in front of the TV. No, if he wanted answers, he was going to have to find them right there. The smell of nature was still radiating, slapping him in the face with its allure So rich, so real, he could almost reach out and grab it. Jared’s hand came up slowly and came towards the screen. I’m not actually trying this, am I? But he was, and the moment his fingertips were supposed to touch glass he instead felt the cool kiss of an outdoor breeze.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 02 September 2024
Vaporeon
The outfit sat snugly around his body. With no mirror to inspect himself in, he turned the TV off and looked at himself in its black screen. His bronzed face was all that poked out from the tightly wound hoodie. Referring to another Nintendo character, he looked like Samus Aran in her Zero suit. It felt strange having just that section of his body covered while the rear portion of his bottom half was left out in the breeze. It wouldn’t be that way for long. Suddenly he felt the onesie squeeze on him more tightly. Its faux fish scales began to creep their way down his lion body, tickling him along the way. The transformation had begun.
Jared was a veteran by this point, having gone through four transformations. However, this was the first time he would be going from a quadrupedal body to a bipedal one. Instead of gaining a large portion of body, he would be losing it. Some trepidation made his stomach clench as he looked over his shoulder to watch the blue Vaporeon skin creep its way down his fur towards his hind legs. Is it gonna hurt? It’s not gonna sever anything, right?
Distracting his concerns was the hoodie melting down his face like liquid tar, his human skin disappearing follicle by follicle until it had all been consumed, ending with the very tip of his nose. Looking back into his TV reflection he saw his cerulean face still harboring some Nubian features. Those quickly began to melt away as the whites of his eyes were poured over by a sinister ink which covered everything to the pupils, leaving his peepers a pair of onyx marbles blacker than the unlit screen he looked at himself in. He regrew another snout once the suit started pulling at his medulla. It was short and stubby, but pronounced enough that he reached up to feel it beneath his fingers. Doing so had him noticing the thin, blue-translucent membranes which stretched between his digits. Looking down he saw the same thing between his toes which were now much daintier than the giant lion mittens they were just a few moments ago.
Jared was officially a vaporeon, but the transformation was not complete. The onesie had yet to consume his lion half, its fishy scales still creeping down its length and reaching the hips. Jared looked over his shoulder and watched that part of him being consumed. As of now there wasn’t any pain, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any. The scales swept down his lion tail, swallowing the brushy tip and finally the toes. It still didn’t hurt. In fact, Jared didn’t feel anything back there. Everything behind his human part, excluding the forelegs, was completely void of sensation as if he’d been paralyzed. Despite the overwhelming numbness he maintained balance on his forelegs while the hindlegs remained upright.
Then it all started to shrink. At the same time his tail began to shorten like a burning fuse into his tailbone the hindlegs did the same, forcing his lion half to sink slowly to the floor. The main body grew skinnier like a deflating balloon. The many great muscles and bones that defined its shape disappeared into the center, reducing that part of his body into nothing more than a long, thick sausage covered in blue fish scales.
At the end of it was a tall, dark blue caudal fin perfectly resembling what Jared would see on a shark. Sharp and dense, it drew closer to Jared as what was once his lion half shrank into a lengthy, muscular vaporeon tail. Its completion was punctuated by a sudden return of sensation which swept through it from hilt to tip, a jolt of feeling so abrupt it made Jared jump a little. The tail performed a dramatic flail upon its induction, audibly whooshing through the air with its prehensile strength. “Whoa,” hooted Jared who had to wrestle control over it. This was much more significant than his lion tail which he’d just lost. It was not only thicker and longer but denser too. Woven inside of it was a highway of dense sinews perfect for propelling Jared through water.
Jared looked back at the TV. He touched his face with his hand. It was moist, roughened by the texture of his many delicate scales. His body was lighter and more limber. Moving his limbs and his tail gave the sensation like they’d just come out of a plaster cast. This body is meant for moving through water, he realized. Moving it through air makes it feel lighter than it is. Jared looked up from himself and saw the apartment still intact around him. It should’ve disappeared the moment he took his attention off it, but here it stood. Outside the sphinx city remained with its great towers and balconies. I can’t stay here. I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Am I just stuck here like this?
Then he remembered. Turning around he saw the TV remote on the couch cushion. He squatted to pick it up before hitting the power button. The blank screen flickered to life, bringing back that shot of the Pokémon world plus its alluring sounds and smells. A rush of excitement made his chest swell. The image of home was reflected in the dark black pools of his eyes. That’s where I have to go, he thought with instinctual certainty. It’s a portal, a portal home.
With hardly another thought Jared stepped towards the television. The remote thumped hard against the floor when he dropped it. His hands clasped the edges of the TV screen, reintroducing his fingers with the cool outdoors. Jared pulled himself closer. The 2D image grew closer and brighter. He braced for the punch of glass against his nose, but it phased through without error. The screen shimmered over his eyes, and replacing the anime-style forest was a perfectly real, perfectly brilliant swathe of nature where he belonged.
Jared’s eyes went round with wonder as he continued to pull himself inside. His tail climbed up behind him as he got his feet beneath him and stood up to fully immerse himself. Pokémon… They’re real here. I’m one of them. It struck him more sincerely than when he’d turned into a sphinx. Somehow entering a fictional world he’d known about since he was a kid managed to be surreal even after he’d changed realms four times now. Pokémon, magical creatures with magical powers, they shouldn’t be real, and there he was standing amongst them, one of them.
The thought was orgasmic. Jared’s fists clenched, wrenching the tendons in his forearms where the power of a Pokémon surged resolutely. This is fucking awesome! He meant to say it aloud, but what came out was the name of his species. “Vaporeon!” High and squeaky, it sounded like nothing a human would make. He ducked his head and covered his mouth like he’d said something naughty. What the hell was that? His paw came off his mouth to let out another word. Hello, was what he meant to say, but another timid “Vaporeon” was what came instead. Well, looks like I’m going to have to get used to that. Of course, that’s how the Pokémon talked in the show. Am I going to understand other Pokémon? Am I going to understand humans? Are they even in this universe?
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 03 September 2024
Exploring
Jared remembered his apartment looming behind him. He turned around and saw that the screen portal between the two realms was missing like it had never been there in the first place. Well, shit. Looks like I’m not going back there anytime soon. He thought another week would pass when another onesie and the others he’d collected would appear, but would they? It had been more than a month since this Vaporeon suit had showed up. Worse still, he didn’t have a home to send a suit to anymore. Even in the tigertaur universe where he roamed an entire swathe of territory on his lonesome there was a bit of shelter for Leland to send his letter. If this is anything like that time, I’ll probably have to go looking for it. That’s if he sends me anything this time.
But that was a concern for a later date. Right now, Jared had a whole new realm to adventure through. The forest clearing he’d found himself in offered an infinite set of directions for him to go through, lively trees having surrounded him. Pokémon birds tweeted in the sky above him. Leaning his head back and squinting into the blue sky he saw their shrunken black silhouettes droning past. “Sparrow! Sparrow!” they would squawk and squeak. Part of Jared wished he had a pokédex like in the anime to help him catalog everything he saw. Maybe I’ll bump into Ash Ketchum, he mused. He can let me borrow his.
Before Jared went searching for any anime protagonists, first he was going to do some exploring. He did an about face, swinging his broad tail out behind him and heading towards the bit of forest closest to him. The trip, however short, took a bit longer than he expected given the brevity of his legs. What should’ve been long strides as a human or other such bipedal species were now short waddles. They could walk upright, but these limbs were made for swimming. Just trudging his way through the grass triggered an instinctual need to dive into some water. If I found a pond or a river right now that would be so great. God, I feel like a little kid.
He wasn’t going to let it stop him from exploring. Into the tutelary trees he expected a muffling of the open breezes which lofted the birds and their songs. He found the opposite, a menagerie of colorful Pokémon big and small, their dwellings among the trees, their roots, their branches, and the very Earth beneath Jared’s feet. Like walking through a busy city street he had to be mindful of his tread lest he bump into or step on some unfortunate creature. A starly tweeted in the branch above him. A spinarak descended from its string of web. One curious bunch of dugtrio burrowed their way out of the dirt, shook the loose grains from the top of their bald heads, then regarded Jared curiously.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 04 September 2024
Exploring
Dugtrio,” it said in a nasally voice, one Jared understood. Look, a Vaporeon, the larger diglett told his two comrades.
A surprised Jared physically leaned back. He heard nothing but the Pokémon’s name and yet it rang in his mind as clearly as someone speaking English. He tried talking back to it. “Em, Vapor. Vaporeon?” Um, hello. Can you understand me?”
The dugtrio gave each other a confused look. “Dug, dugtrio.” Yeah, we can.
Jared’s blackened eyes widened with wonder. “Vaporeon!” Holy shit!
That seemed to offend the three little creatures. One of the smaller two advised that they should get out of there, this Vaporeon was a weird one. The other two agreed, and then they shrank back into the Earth with a perfectly cut hole in the ground left behind.
Jared’s heart was racing in his chest. Holy shit. Holy shit. I just talked to a Pokémon. I just lived every kid’s dream. It could’ve gone better, for sure, but it was a start. Jared continued his meandering through the densely populated forest, greeting every resident he passed along the way. It was like going through the center of a small town where every face was familiar and friendly. He did not know a single Pokémon personally, and yet he recalled their names from the well of his childhood memory. Paras, butterfree, bidoof, poochyena, and so many others. A forest like this would not have been so rife with fauna in any other world, but this was no regular place. This was the universe of a human’s imagination, a place where every tree and upturned rock yielded the fruits of life, creatures of intelligent design yearning to be discovered by an adventurer’s hand. Such was the premise of Pokémon, finding and catching all these fantastic animals. Gotta catch ‘em all.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 05 September 2024
Swiming
Jared’s journey came to a stop upon the discovery of a large pond at the end of the forest. He seemed to stumble upon it accidentally, but something told him that wasn’t the case. His Vaporeon instincts, those buried within the very inner crevices of his brain, demanded he find some place to swim as was made mandatory by his bodily structure. Plus, his jaunt through the woods had made his scales start to go dry. It wasn’t serious, but it drew him to the water like some addictive chemical.
It was time to splurge. Jared ran as hard as his stubby legs would allow him into the water. His feet paws splashed into the outer shallows and sank deeper until the surface sloshed around his knees. From there he let instinct kick in, and he performed a perfect face-first dive into the water. The surface smacked him in the face, muffling the sound of the outside into a dull murmur. Bubbles tickled up his scales and fizzled at the surface, above where his streamlined, ichthyic body began a rapid descent into the pond’s murky depths.
I’m swimming. Just like a fish. His body wafted downwards onto the pond bed, guided their by the stiff rudder of his tail. It was dark down there, deep enough that he felt the pressure across his body like the strict squeeze of a blanket. His eyes were wide open and yet they did not feel the sting of water that he would’ve if he were anything else besides an aquatic creature. The air in his lungs bubbled out through his nose, trailing their silvery bodies to the surface in a slow upwards float. The pressure intensified around his chest, but the need for oxygen did not arise. I can hold my breath down here for hours, I bet.
He would need that long to explore the pond which proved to be a den of wildlife just as thriving as the forest he’d walked through. Amongst the green plants which waved and wafted in the gentle currents were fish of all kinds, magikarps, feebas, remoraid, even a singular sharpedo. They would dart away from him as he gently kicked his legs and propelled his tail, motions performed as naturally as walking. Gliding above the sandy lake bottom where the glowing surface veins rippled, and his shadow followed him produced a euphoria on par with his first flight as a sphinx. A giddy smile lit his features. This is so fucking cool!
He looked up to the surface above. There the light of the sun was refracted into sprawling beacon of glowing white. Even through the however many meters of water he could feel its gentle heat. An idea popped into his head, and without another thought he made a mad dash for the surface. The water roared past his ears. His fins fell flat against his body, creating a hydrodynamic body launched skyward by the furious whip of his tail and kick of his legs. The surface grew closer and closer until bloosh! His beaming face broke the tension and sent a geyser of water droplets spewing out around his body. The ascent brought him several feet into the air where he floated for just a moment, tilting backwards so that he faced the brilliant blue sky above, warming his tummy in the sun.
“VAPOREON!” Wahoooooo! His sprawling body leaned all the way back until his head was the first thing that came back down into the water. Splooosh! Without missing a beat, he resumed his heated race through the lake. Every trick he could think of was performed with gusto and flair. The resident fish of the lake learned quickly to make way for his antics, their bubbling streaks and mighty splashes making a ruckus unseen in that lake.
It tuckered him out eventually, forcing Jared to the surface where he floated about lazily with just his face poking out to breathe. The environment continued to thrum around him. Birds singing, Pokémon migrating and surviving, a whole world of powerful creatures to document. All of that and Jared was content to float about like a lazy alligator, his stresses and worries melting away with the lake’s most gentle current. His eyes closed at the same time a merry sigh hummed out through his nose. Oh yeah. I could get used to this. Feeling happy and safe there on the lake’s surface, Jared fell asleep. He dreamed of flying.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 06 September 2024
Eat
Jared woke up to the sun rising the next morning. It was jarring to find himself floating in the water still. Apparently, he could literally regulate how he floated and breathed in his sleep. A wave would come over him and his nostrils would close like a seal or a dolphin’s blowhole. He started paddling around the water when the rumbling of his stomach alerted him to how hungry he was. What does a Pokémon eat? The show never had them eating each other. So, what am I supposed to do?
Like he had with the tigertaur body, he surrendered himself to instinct and followed where his subconscious told him to go. It brought him to the lake’s shore where the shrubs and thickets thrived, their thinning twigs and branches yielding the shrimpiest vegetation. That was enough for Jared who felt his stomach rumble upon just looking at the few berries the bushes had to offer. It made sense. He faintly recalled collecting berries when he played the video game on his DS as a kid, though it didn’t explain the meats he’d seen the characters in the anime eating. Best not think about it, he thought while crawling up the lake’s bank. There he took a squat beside a particularly fat bush whose branches groaned with fig-like berries. He grabbed one and nibbled on it. Sweet and ripe, its juices blossomed through his mouth and elicited a delightful burst of endorphins. It went down with a hearty swallow at the same time he reached for another.
Soon that shrub was half barren of its fruit, leaving Jarred slumped on his behind by the lake’s edge, his tummy portly with berries. Aw shit… I think I ate too much. It was worth it, though. Much of the bush still had berries left on it. If he got hungry again- which probably wouldn’t happen for the rest of the day with how much he’d just eaten – he could just come back here and engorge himself again. Though that means finding another bush with berries on it. It can’t be that hard. With a lake this big and so many Pokémon living around there should be-
“Oh! Look over there!”
The voice of a child tore Jared out of his stupor. He swung his head to the left where the forest was. Standing there were a couple of human kids, neither of them older than 13, one girl, one boy. They were dressed for a hike with big boots, backpacks, and shorts. Suddenly the boy made to run after Jared, but the girl stopped him. “Wait! Calm down. You don’t want to spook him.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 07 September 2024
Retreat
The voice of a child tore Jared out of his stupor. He swung his head to the left where the forest was. Standing there were a couple of human kids, neither of them older than 13, one girl, one boy. They were dressed for a hike with big boots, backpacks, and shorts. Suddenly the boy made to run after Jared, but the girl stopped him. “Wait! Calm down. You don’t want to spook him.”
Jared was definitely alarmed, but they hadn’t frightened him into swimming away. Um, hey there, was supposed to be his greeting, but the usual “Vaporeon” came out instead. Shit! They’re not gonna understand a word I say. Jared scurried to his feet and faced them with his hands held up as if to show he was unarmed.
The girl came forward slowly with one hand reaching into a waist bag that hung from her belt. “Easy now, we’re not gonna hurt you.” Her hand came out of the bag with what looked like two marbles at first. Then she clicked a button on them both, causing them to expand into two red and white orbs.
Jared’s heart sank when he recognized the two Pokéballs. Wait! Hold on! “Vaporeon!”
The girl wasn’t listening. She took one ball and hurled it at the ground in front of her. “Grotle, go!”
The ball burst open and unleashed a beaming red energy which materialized into a stout turtwig. It stood at a wide stance on his hind legs, the look of determination sharpening its features. “Grotle!” Ready!
That wasn’t good. Jared addressed his opponent. Hey! Buddy! Can you tell them to back off? I’m not a Pokémon! It frustrated Jared to no end hearing his pleas come out as nothing but his species’ name.
The grotle shot him a confused look. The hell do you mean? You look like a Pokémon to me, and me and my master are about to capture you.
No! Wait! You don’t have to!
The grotle shrugged. Sorry, buddy.
The girl shouted her first attack. “Grotle, use razor leaf!”
“Grotle!” He fell into a sharp squat and leaned his body forward, exposing the shrubbery atop his shell and aiming at Jared. Its leaves began to glow white, and out forth shot a hurricane of green scythes barreling straight for Jared.
That was his que to retreat. Jared spun around as hard as he could and sprung for the water. He felt and heard the whizz of deadly leaves past his ears, ripping chills across his skin in the short but crucial moment before he splashed into the water. The moment he hit the surface he kicked his legs and his tail for dear life, propelling himself farther and deeper until his image blurred to nothing.
He did not come to a rest until he was at the very center and bottom of the lake. There he floated upright, heart pounding. That was too close! Why didn’t I think about Pokémon trainers? Are there more around here? Are those three still up there? He didn’t want to expose himself above the water to check, but the need for air pinched his lungs and drew him upwards. His eyes breached the surface as subtly as he could make them. Scanning the lake’s shore he saw the two trainers make a disappointed retreat into the forest. The grotle was nowhere to be seen, apparently back in his Pokeball.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 08 September 2024
The next Suit
I do not want to find out what it’s like to be captured. That grotle had been so confident and unwavering in his service to his trainer. Now that he thought about it, so was every Pokémon in the games and in the anime. If I’m captured, will I lose all my free will? Will I be forced to fight other Pokémon? Just like that, this universe’s Libertarian allure had crumbled under the threat of captivity. Jared would have to tread carefully for as long as he lived here, and there was still no way to know how long that would be. A week at least, he thought dismally. I’ll have to avoid capture for that long. This won’t be easy.
Nor was it. Jared made home of that lake, swimming about and exploring its shores and surrounding forest for the remaining fortnight while being wary of whomever or whatever would come walking around every tree and corner. Food was abundant but taking the time to sit down and eat meant exposing himself to a potential captor. He would strip just a couple branches of their berries before making a hasty retreat for the water where he was safe. The sight of humans, however seldom, would always send him scurrying. Once he saw the same pair of kids he’d first encountered. Perhaps they were after him to make up for their previous failure. Jared didn’t want to find out, thus he kept a wide berth in the middle of the lake.
One long week of paranoia made him forget about the worlds outside this one. His reminder came in the form of a package lodged in the sandy lake shore where he was foraging for food. Seeing it brought a flood of memories, those when he was another creature living in another world. Leland… The wizard bastard hadn’t forgotten about Jared after all. Or at least somebody hadn’t, because this package, like the Vaporeon suit, lacked a letter for him to read. No matter who sent it, Jared was eager to see what awaited inside for him. It was time to get the hell out of there.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 09 September 2024
Seal
Jared ran as fast as his two stubby legs could carry him towards the package. He snatched it out of the sand with the bottom paper rendered see-through from the water and having grains glued to it. It was big and cumbersome in his short arms, but he managed to lug it over to the nearby treeline where he would have some privacy from any wandering humans. A week of dodging trainers eager to catch him had instilled an instinct for finding the best hiding place. The pond was good for diving, but with this package in tow it was best to retreat into the woods where he could keep it dry.
Deep in the company of trees he found a spot to sit cross legged with the neatly wrapped package in front of him. It came undone slowly and carefully so as not to make too much noise lest he attract the attention of a passing trainer. Though he took his time, Jared’s imagination went wild guessing what he’d find. A new Pokémon? Some other fictional creature? A regular one? Anything was possible with the recent track record of bizarre beings and places Jared had been put in. The only thing he expected was the unexpected.
The string and paper blossomed out from beneath the box without so much a tear before Jared lifted the cardboard lid and laid eyes on the suit within. What greeted him was the mottled, smooth underbelly of a creature covered in fine, miraculously fine fur. A velvet sheen glistened in the dim forest light, waving when Jared ran his hand across its exquisite softness. A closed zipper ran down the center from the collar which he took a moment to run his finger across. What is it? He grabbed the suit by its shoulders and lifted it out of the box, allowing the arms to swing out to the sides. Opposite of the underbelly it was a much darker graphite, though the dappled pattern remained. He still couldn’t piece together what it was, so he stood up with the suit hanging full length from his fists.
That’s when he noticed something strange with the legs, that being there weren’t any. Where there should have been two bottom sleeves for his legs to fit there was only a convergence in the suit, forming something like a sleeping bag. It tapered inwards to a point that had two deflated flaps of skin dangling. Jared pulled the suit further up for a closer look. Upon inspection he recognized a pair of dainty seal flippers complete with webbed fingers. “A seal,” he said out loud to himself. He thumbed the flippers and their bony digits. “Really continuing with the aquatic theme, I see.”
What kind of world would this bring him to? A seal civilization? A sealvilization? Maybe it took place entirely on the shores, or underwater. It couldn’t be on land, not without any legs to walk on. Then again, it might not be a civilization at all. Where I’m at right now definitely isn’t any vaporeon planet. He worried about living in the wild like he did here, having to dodge sharks, orcas, and more humans. The Pokémon world carried the threat of being captured. This world carried the threat of being killed.
But he didn’t know that. It was just his cautious side warning him of what could happen. The past week had been hard on him, drilling him into a permanent state of caution. Around every corner could be a threat, as well as a whole slew of them waiting within the confines of this onesie. Or am I just being paranoid? As always, there was only one way to find out for real. He’d grown tired of all the running, swimming, and fighting for his freedom. I can make it a week as a seal, right? How hard can it be? If he’d been told he would be opting to leave the world where he lived as a Pokémon he would’ve slapped someone. Now here he was pulling the zipper down and bringing the suit down to his knees so that he could step inside.
It was awkward given the lack of legs which forced him to get on his butt and pull the onesie up his body like a sleeping bag. His stubby vaporeon legs couldn’t make it to the bottom, but the tip of his tail did. Nor could he reach all the way through the sleeves without scrunching them up. Jared was left lying there on his back awkwardly, unable to stand up or go anywhere. Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long for the transformation to begin. He looked down at his chest and saw that the zipper had disappeared. On cue, the seal skin sank into his body like shrink wrap. Here we go, he thought per tradition.
His legs and tail were crushed together by the gripping skin. The wrinkles in the sleeves flattened out along his arms and the spines and fins that grew from his head were smushed flat under the hood. His jaw clenched out of discomfort, this being a slightly different process from what he was used to. The onesie made a slow crawl down his paws, covering the smooth blue scales with that dappled velvet. He tried wriggling his legs, only to realize the sensation and mobility had been robbed from them. Trying to move his tail just made the flippers attached to the onesie twitch. A mixture of numbness and pressure ebbed and tugged at his lower body, bringing a grimace across his face which was quickly absorbed by the shrinking hood.
“Ah…” The seal skin fell about his snout and jaw, covering all of what had been a vaporeon. The spines and fins flattened and dissipated into his body underneath the all-encompassing grey. It was especially tight around his arms which he felt were being sucked into his body. With the suit having absorbed all his features it began tugging at the flesh with its usual curtness. More grunts and wheezes escaped through Jared’s clenched teeth as his legs and tail melded into one elongated torso. So too did his arms begin to visibly retract into his shoulders like the reverse timelapse of a sapling.
He tried calming himself through the ordeal. OK. OK. No big deal. This isn’t your first rodeo. Not by a longshot. Trying to lift his feet succeeded in making his new flippers bounce into the air. What had been his toes, now a set of long spines which segmented the webbing, pointed up at the forest canopy in a lazy fan. There was no tail to move anymore, it having been devoured by the length of body that had become his trunk. His arms fared no better, having sunk up to the mid forearm by this point with his hands having become limp and useless too. They stopped at the wrist which was now the base wrung around by a fold of soft blubber. Moving them around created nothing but a hilarious flapping motion which clapped his debilitated fingers against his chest.
Jared was glad he didn’t have a reflection to look at this time. He had to look ridiculous. He certainly felt that way without any agency in the middle of the forest, flipping and flopping like a fish. The final humiliation came when his torso began to bloat like a balloon, his added layer of blubber growing thicker and thicker until he was but a furry meat sausage with a puppy head attached to it. Then the transformation stopped, and Jared was a seal. It left him on the forest floor, on his back with his neck fat folded up as he looked down at his bloated, tubby body. He flapped his flippers around, patting them against his skin while going nowhere. With the pond several yards away, it was going to be a while before he could make any significant locomotion.
Well, this is a pickle. That’s what Jared meant to say out loud, but what came instead was an animalistic grunt that blew out his lips. What the hell? Jared flexed his mouth, flaring the gummy inner pink and sharp rows of teeth in his mouth. Can I not talk with this mouth? Another attempt came with him trying to recite his ABC’s. The results were similar, each consonant rumbling his lips while the vowels were nothing but grunts. Jared laid there flustered and confused. Did the suit turn me into a full animal this time? I guess I should have seen that coming with how the suit was shaped.
But his lack of speech was the least of his problems. His portly seal body was worthless and vulnerable on the forest floor. If he wanted any hope of escaping danger, he was going to have to make it back to the pond, and fast. I doubt there are any pokemon trainers still out there, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a human walking around with a harpoon or a club. Jared rolled over onto his stomach, the prepatory move to push himself to his feet. Of course, he had no arms to push with nor any feet to stand on. Shit! How do seals move? He focused on ol’ reliable: muscle memory. Push yourself forward. This body knows what to do. It did, but it still wasn’t easy. Jared’s upper body would jerk upwards into the air, dragging the rest of him forward before his belly and chest came flopping back down onto the dirt. Whumpf! It took some big effort, but each lift would only drag him forward a foot at most. After just a few flops his core muscles ached. Jesus, it’s like doing the worm.
But he wasn’t about to stop, not until he was at the safety of the pond. Looking forward he saw it through the trees and heard its gentle sloshes against the shore. Something was off, however. The expanse beyond the woods where the pond should have been looked brighter and more open like the clearing had been expanded tenfold. Huffing through his nose, Jared picked up a new scent. The air was thick with the saline smell of the ocean. I’m not at the pond anymore, he realized. Of course not. Seals don’t live in ponds. In the distance there came the high pitched squawk of seagulls. As he got closer to the shore he realized that the lap of water was not a gentle trickling sound like it had been at the pond, but crashing waves that rumbled and roared.
After what had felt like a mile of struggling, Jared made it to the treeline where the sea greeted him. Between it was a rocky shore strewn with boulders and layered with moist, darkened sand. The steely, blue-green waves burst against the rocks into a white froth, boiling across the sand before receding. Above it all was an overcast sky, broiling gray rippled through by the enigmatically positioned sun. The seagulls Jared had heard earlier hovered over the water in the distance, towards another shore opposite where he was.
His attention was drawn there. It wasn’t far, maybe half a mile away, featuring a sandy shore in front of a long horizon of grass flat for as far as the eye could travel. To his right the land jutted into a narrow peninsula strewn with boulders. Flocks of seagulls were landing and taking off there. That wasn’t all there was. Among the rocks he saw figures mulling about, either walking or lazing on the sand. Seals? His eyes could not focus to tell for sure, but many of the prostrate figures he saw moving definitely resembled the portly sausage body of his own. But that didn’t explain those which walked upright and maneuvered through the rocks. That certainly wasn’t something a seal was capable of, nor did their colors resemble anything of the sort. Jared thought he saw the pale flesh color of human skin, but he wasn’t sure. In spite of all the mystery, there was something oddly familiar about the location and its apparent denizens. There wasn’t any concrete memory of the place, but while looking at it there came an odd sense of familiarity, like he’d seen it a million times, like home.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 13 October 2024
To the shore
With nowhere else to go and not wanting to remain exposed on the beach, Jared sought to go over there. Maybe I’ll make some seal friends. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone of my own kind, and that was a sphinx. He worm-waddled his way into the surf where the breaking waves splashed and fizzed against his belly. The confidence of swimming as a vaporeon for over a week meant he did not hesitate or worry about being underwater, but he knew it would be different. Remember, muscle memory. If I had a nickel for every time I thought of that term. It’s starting to lose all meaning.
He went deeper into the water, and the waves started crashing into his chest and face. His nostrils would shut automatically but his eyes remained open. The first chance he had he dove his face straight into the water, drowning out the sound and greeting himself with the sloping sand bank which gave way into a long oceanic darkness before him. He surrendered himself to neutral buoyancy and droned ahead like a torpedo. All four flippers propelled him forward, and with a much better grace than what he had on land he zoomed through the open ocean, towards that peninsula and its colony of unknowns.
He'd grown used to being underwater during his week as a vaporeon, but the ocean was a whole new treasure trove of wonders. However deep and dark it was, he could look in nigh every direction and see what looked like the infinite. Above him was the toil of the ocean surface. He gazed through it with his belly upturned, gliding effortlessly with his spotted torpedo body. No longer some blubbery meat sausage, he was a hyper efficient swimming machine within its element. The freedom he felt when first swimming as a vaporeon was reinvigorated here, and though his seal form was devoid of almost all human expression, something like a goofy smile rode his face as he knifed forward so quickly.
He resurfaced for a brief moment to take his first breath. In one loud snort he jettisoned a dual spray of seawater from his nostrils before inhaling quickly and diving back down. On the third breath he noticed he was close enough to see who or what was on the peninsula. With his head poked above the surface and bobbing amongst the waves he recognized what were in fact a bunch of seals on the beach and also some humans sitting around or walking, doing whatever. The queer thing was that they all appeared to be nude with extra long hair that reached all the way down to their buttocks. It looked wavy and frizzed, perhaps a byproduct of the seawater. They didn’t seem bothered by the seals, nor vice versa. The only ones looking out of place were the seagulls who continuously flew around and landed like flies on rotten fruit. Jared saw one human shoo one away.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 14 October 2024
Jasmine
So… is this some kind of mutually beneficial colony or something? I’m not going to get clubbed or mauled if I show up on that beach, right? Nothing sparked any evasive instincts, and that familiar feeling remained. This is where I live, isn’t it? One way to find out. Jared dove back underwater and resumed his swim to the shore. The sand bank jutted up from the ocean floor, and Jared resurfaced one last time through the waves to finally crawl onto the beach, out of the froth.
There were about a dozen other seals lazing about the beach in both directions ahead of him. The humans were further up shore, doing what they had been when he first spotted them. Looks good so far. He jerked his way up the beach and onto the sand which stuck to his belly. An annoyed snort blew through his nose. There’s gotta be a better way to move than this. If only I had some legs to walk on.
Halfway up the beach he was spotted by one of the other seals. It let out a hoot, getting the attention of the others as well as the humans nearby. All at once the seals and the humans lifted their heads and saw Jared making his tenuous crawl. Then, to his surprise, they lifted their hands/flippers and gave him a wave. From the seals came a chorus of loud moos, and from the humans a collective, “Hey!”
Jared heard one of them say clearly, “Jasmine’s back!”
He came to a halt. Jasmine? I’m Jasmine again? It never occurred to her to check the suit’s gender. How was she supposed to know the difference between a guy and girl seal? Whatever. I’m used to whatever gender gets thrown at me by this point. Nor did she have to worry about a hostile welcome, these clearly being people she knew. Maybe I’m a pet? Shit, I hope they don’t treat me like cattle. Jasmine continued a slow trek through the sand on her belly. It was starting to get exhausting. Jesus. The moment I’m up the beach I’m laying my ass down and falling asleep.
But as she was making the climb he noticed something. Across the humans were a bunch of strange looks like she was doing something wrong. Jasmine came to a stop. Am I doing something wrong? One of the humans approached, her terrific length of black hair draped down her shoulders to her hips. “So, are you gonna take that off or are you going to stay like that?”
Her voice hit Jasmine hard. Maria? Jasmine hadn’t spoken to her sister since the skunk universe. She just now recognized her face, though she could be forgiven with how much was hidden behind those extraordinarily long bangs. Has she been carrying over with me to the other places this entire time? Jasmine couldn’t dwell on it long with Maria’s question requiring an answer. Take this off? Take what off? Jasmine gave an uncertain ruff sound, seal talk for “I don’t know.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 15 October 2024
Selkie
“Well, you’re more than welcome to keep it on,” Maria said. “It’d just be a lot easier to walk on your human legs than crawling all the way up here.” She turned around to head back to the rocks. “Whatever. You do you.”
Jasmine laid there perplexed. I have human legs? Where? She did a half roll and looked down at her belly. There were no legs to speak of. Nothing but tubby seal skin. She said take “that” off, but all I have is my skin. Is that..? If Jasmine had anything to take off, whether it was her skin or something else, this body had to have had the muscle memory to do it as always. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Maybe think about taking a shirt off. What came to mind was squirming out of her seal body like coming out of a zipped-up sleeping bag. She was just about to think about how it didn’t make any sense before she started trying. Like a snake shedding its skin, she thought as an inner body began to squirm forth towards the snout, splitting its jaws and crowning it around the hairy top of a human’s head.
Just like that, Jasmine felt the control come back to her human form. She was no longer lying nude on the beach, but inside a tightly wound sack of warm, soft skin. Her vision faded from the seal’s eyes and into the blossoming image of the inner mouth and the sea shore surrounding her. The seal head, now deflated and lifeless, stretched around her head until it was free. Jasmine the human poke out with bugging eyes and long, wild brown hair. “Woah,” was all she had to say as she looked out, not entirely sure what to do next. Realizing there were people watching her, she resumed a casual exit from the seal skin from its mouth. More of her bare body and its pale skin came to light. She came out onto the sand on her belly, those extravagantly long locks of seawater-strained hair coming spilling about her skin until her buttocks were free. Finally, her bare feet came out, and Jasmine was no longer a seal.
Jasmine flipped onto her back and looked at the deflated seal skin laying flat on the beach like an empty balloon. The eye sockets were empty. Hilariously, the tounge was blepped from the lips like a tired dog, but Jasmine wasn’t laughing. “What the fuck is going on?” she said to herself. It took some effort standing up given how long they’d gone without being used. (God, I feel like the Little Mermaid.) She picked the skin up and wondered why it wasn’t like the onesie she had put on as Jared less than an hour ago. How am I supposed to get back into this? Why am I able to get out as a human? Just what the hell am I?
“That’s a lot better,” called Maria from behind her. Jasmine turned around to see Maria waving her over. “Come sit over here. We’re knitting and we could use your help.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 16 October 2024
Knitting
Knitting? Has Maria knitted anything in her entire life? Have I? So many questions. Oddly enough it was kind of exhilarating, being tossed into a life Jasmine knew absolutely nothing about. Not even the tigertaur realm nor the sphinx world offered this much mystery right off the bat. “OK, OK. I’m coming.” She made her way to the rocks where everyone was seated with the seal skin bundled up in her arm. Looking around Jasmine estimated there to be at least a hundred folks scattered around the peninsula, each one of them featuring long hair like her own. She was partly conscious of her nudity even though everyone else was just as bare as she was.
Maria and two other women, named Valeria and Priscilla, were seated in a circle atop some rocks. Around them were big piles of what looked like seaweed or kelp. They where weaving the threads together into what looked like mattresses, blankets, and ropes. Jasmine stood just a few feet away, watching in silence before Maria noticed her. “Well don’t just stand there. Join us and help.”
Jasmine came back to reality with a jolt. “Oh yeah. Sorry.” With no boulders to sit on she sat down cross legged in the sand. In one thoughtless motion she brushed her hair aside so she wouldn’t sit on it. I bet I’m used to doing that in this world.
“Grab as much as you need,” Maria said casually. “We’re just making whatever.” She wove together a long strand of green sea rope. Her fingers moved deftly and without error.
“Oh, alright.” Jasmine looked into the giant pile of twiny green strings that was piled on the sand between them. I have no idea what to do or what to make. “Um, if it’s alright. I’ll just chill with you guys. I, um, don’t have anything I need to make.”
Fortunately, Maria shrugged. “Suit yourself. We can just chat.”
Jasmine smiled with relief. “Yeah, cool.”
“So, did you find anything on that island?”
“The what?”
“The island. You said you were going to check it out and forage there. I noticed you didn’t come back with a sack. Did you lose it?”
Jasmine realized the island Maria referred to was the place where she’d swam from. But I don’t remember any sack. I’ll probably have to swim back for it. “Uh, no. I didn’t find anything, and I think I forgot my, uh, sack.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 17 October 2024
Talking
Laughter from the other girls. “Well, you better go get it, or else you’ll want to make another one right now,” said one girl.
“Yeah,” said an embarrassed Jasmine. “You’re right.”
“You forgot your sack but you brought your skin all the way up here. You don’t want to put it by your cot?” Maria asked.
Jasmine had forgotten she was holding it. It was in her lap, all bundled up like a sweatshirt. “Oh, I guess I’m too lazy to go all the way over there.” I guess it’s like carrying around a jacket without wearing it. She pulled it off her lap and set it aside. I’m doing a lot of things wrong right now. I still don’t know what I am exactly or what’s in this world. It doesn’t look like me or anyone else has a phone to look it up either. What the hell am I supposed to say or ask that won’t make me look weird?
She decided to sit there and remain quiet while the conversation between Maria and her two friends carried on. A few names Jasmine recognized were mentioned, them being friends of hers as well as family members. Nothing too revealing came up in conversation until one of the girls, Valerie, mentioned a fellow named Jamie. “She told me she was going to try and swim through the waters around the fishing wharf again. I told her she’d have to be insane to try that after getting herself caught in a net like last time. I don’t think it matters how many times we tell her that humans and selkies don’t mix. She’ll be reminded the next time a hunting party comes marching into camp.”
Jasmine perked up in her seat. Selkies? What are those? Is that what I am? It was different from a human, whatever it was. She had to probe further. “So, Valerie, remind me what happened with Jamie? Why don’t Selkies and humans mix?”
Upon that second question she got a trio of bizarre looks like she’d asked where the sun went at night. “Because they’re dangerous,” Maria said bluntly. “Don’t tell me we have to remind you too.”
Shit. I really pushed the wrong button on that one. “No, no, no. I know that. I just wonder why Jamie has to be reminded that. Why’d she think it was OK to go to the fishing wharf?”
Valerie scoffs and shook her head. “Because of all the fish there, but the humans have a monopoly on it with all their boats and nets. One of them got their eyes on her and nearly stuck her with a harpoon. She’s lucky to have gotten out of there alive. Worse, she might’ve led them right to us. That’s why we sent you to scout that island, remember?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 18 October 2024
Rest of the day
No. “Oh yeah, duh.”
Maria shook her head. “If we have to move places again, I’m going to be sick. All these humans nowadays. They spread like the plague. Won’t be long until there’s nowhere else to go.”
Dread made Jasmine’s stomach turn. “Can’t we just turn into seals and swim away?”
“I mean, sure, but for how long? We can’t swim forever. They’ll find us on the beach and either club us or tear us right out of our skins and make us their wives.” Maria sucked her teeth. Her weaving turned more aggressive. “Damn fishermen. Can’t breed with their own kind, so they grab us. It’s not our fault we’re prettier than their own women.”
Jasmine couldn’t parse the mechanics of everything Maria said, but it wasn’t good. This must be what animals feel like in real life. What about them finding our skins and marrying us? Is that some kind of rule? “How far away are the humans from here?”
“Not far enough,” Valerie said bitterly.
“About two days’ swim,” Maria answered. She scowled at Jasmine. “Don’t you go to the wharf with Jamie, you hear? It was dangerous enough sending you to that island alone.”
Jasmine shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.” That she swore, and yet she already wondered what she would find at the wharf. Humans, she thought. It’s been a while since I’ve seen those.
Jasmine spent the rest of the day sitting with Maria and her friends, watching them weave items out of the vegetation. At one point she got up to find the cot Maria had mentioned. It was among a clearing in the grass behind the rocks were dozens of other cots woven out of grass were hidden. Atop almost every cot was an empty seal skin like what Jasmine carried, all of varying colors and sizes. After determining which cot was hers based on a sense of familiarity, she laid her skin down on it and returned to the colony.
There she found cliques of people she knew hanging around, chatting, laughing, enjoying the calm and balmy weather. A few folk came up from the beach carrying their skins. They were the ones Jasmine had seen laying on the beach as seals earlier, probably resting after a long day of catching fish in the ocean. I guess I’m going to do some of that tomorrow or someday. I hope it’s not too hard.
As the day waned into night and the overcast sky became a uniformed black the colony began retiring to their cots. Jasmine had spent the last few hours catching up with friends, those she’d known for years but also just met. That felt like ages ago, when reality as she knew it did not fracture itself so regularly into a barely recognizable mirror of similar yet different fractal images. She could ease her mind with the company of her friends and family, feeling like she was hanging out with them on some special occasion, even though this appeared to happen regularly. It came to an end eventually, and the colony went together at once to retire for the night.
But before Jasmine went to bed, she sought out Jamie to ask her a few questions.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 19 October 2024
Back to the peninsula
Everyone woke up to the rising sun and marched towards the shore with their seal skins in tow. Jasmine, not sure what was going on, followed suit and gathered with everyone at the beach. There they opened the jaws of their skins and stepped inside to pull it over their bodies and assume their seal forms. They made it look so normal, like putting on clothes in the morning. Jasmine did the same, feeling odd as she sat in the sand and pulled the empty husk up her legs and body. It came all the way up to her head, pitting her in darkness until she opened her seal eyes to see the land in front of her. Back to being a seal.
Most of the colony bounced their way into the water for the morning hunt, leaving a few behind to guard the peninsula. Jasmine joined what looked like an armada of hungry seals off to catch breakfast. Communication was mostly visual while underwater, utilizing what Jasmine titled flipper signs. For the most part she just followed Maria who swam in a jet-black seal body. The thought of munching on a fat mackerel fueled her forward. Never had to work for breakfast before. I hope we don’t have to travel too far.
It was a much longer trip than what Jasmine had travelled between the island and the peninsula, but eventually she and the others happened upon a school of mackerel. They dashed into the silvery school from all directions. The mackerel would flee and remain untouched almost every attempt, but Jasmine and her fellow huntresses did not quit. Jasmine caught her first fish. The crunch of bone and scale between her teeth was the most sumptuous reward which she gobbled down whole in just three chomps. Invigorated, she set upon the mackerel with even more vigor, depleting their ranks until her stomach was full and she could hardly swim anymore.
Maria and the others could tell she was full and motioned for her to return to the colony. A portly Jasmine left the scene, but not for the peninsula. She came to the island from yesterday where the sack Maria mentioned was waiting for her not far from where she’d put the suit on. It held just a few berries she’d foraged apparently, though she could find no other bushes to pluck from. Giving up on the island, she strapped the sack to her seal skin, got back inside, and headed back to base. Damn, this is starting to be really fun.
But the real excitement awaited her in the next few days. Hidden in the grasses on the peninsula was a human dress Jamie had found washed up on the beach one day, presumably from a nearby shipwreck. “This is what humans wear!” Jamie had said proudly that night while holding up the simple white dress. “At least the women do.” Jamie had been in the waters around the humans settlement looking for a way to sneak in and put the dress on. That the wharf had more fish was just an excuse. “You promise not to tell anyone, right Jasmine?”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 20 October 2024
Town
Jasmine promised, though it meant breaking the one she’d made to her sister. Jamie’s inexperience with humans meant she wouldn’t ever be able to blend in with the humans, but Jasmine had no such weakness. I’ll just visit and see what it’s like. In and out, no problem. Jasmine would wait until the next day after the morning hunt and say she was going to scout the island again for anything she’d missed. Maria volunteered to go with her, but Jasmine dismissed her. “It’s no big deal. I just want to make sure there’s nothing I missed. I might be a while, but I’ll come back safe.”
“You better,” warned Maria.
Jasmine swam from the peninsula in the direction of the island, but only for a few hundred yards before cutting westward like Jamie told her to do. She’d rolled a cot of weed and tied it to herself for the night or two she would spend during her travel. Bundled with it inside a watertight was the dress Jamie had found. It was wet every time Jasmine stopped to rest and required drying for the next leg of the journey. On the first night she knew she was headed in the right direction when she saw the long arm of a lighthouse’s beam sweeping the horizon and blinking at her every few seconds.
Jasmine got a clearer look at it the next day when the human settlement came into view. Massive ships and trawlers pulled in and out. Standing tall among a clot of wooden houses was a white, octagonal lighthouse currently dormant within the seaside light. Jasmine crawled onto land about a mile out to take off her skin and let the dress dry. It wouldn’t lose all its moisture, but she could at least wander into town once it was damp. A road leading down the shore held no traveling humans for as long as she hid in the grasses flanking it. That was good as it meant no one would find her skin while she left it here. Once the dress was finally dry enough, she located a dense clump of grass and placed her folded seal skin inside it. After that she wandered onto the road and began her walk into town, feeling slightly uncomfortable in clothes after being nude for so long.
What discomfort awaited her in the town was much worse, however, and her fears of looking unacceptable in a wet dress were squashed by what she saw what conditions the humans were living in. Through every street was a quagmire of mud and folk struggling but somehow surviving amidst the squalor. Jasmine earned every eye she passed by in her comparatively exquisite attire, that which was as wet as everyone else’s. The way the men seemed to appraise her when she walked past generated no small level of unease. Without the muck and grime the towns poverty had painted each citizen with, she was positively darling.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 21 October 2024
Back to the suit
In just a very short amount of time, her curiosity had been satiated and she had to get out of there. At the first chance she turned around and headed down the road she came at a brisk pace, praying to whoever would listen that her skin would be in the place she’d left it. This was a bad idea. These aren’t my people anymore. Valerie was right. Humans and selkies don’t mix. Her walk out of town felt longer than her swim from the island, but at last she came upon the tuft of grass where she’d hidden her skin. With great anticipation she made a quick dash towards it and parted the blades. There, folded neatly exactly like she’d left it, was her dappled seal skin.
A relieved sigh blew out of her. “Oh, thank God.” Jasmine bent over and picked the suit up. Now to get out of this stupid-
“Now!”
It was a man’s voice behind her, one that struck terror into her bones and heralded a storm of boots rushing after her. Jasmine spun just in time to see a squad of men bursting from the grass, wielding ropes, harpoons, nets and crooked gazes looking wild. Jasmine let out a scream. She turned hard for the water, holding the skin to her bosom as if it would protect her. She did not make it far before the view of the ocean was draped over by a net. She came down like a sack of rocks, squirming and screaming inside her restraints. The men hooted and hollered with glee. They all surrounded her with half-toothed smiles.
“We got her!” said one.
“I knew she was one of them with all that hair!”
“Damn, ain’t she pretty?”
“Yer a lucky man, Sid!”
“Shut up and get her skin! That’s all that matters!”
At once they bent over to pull the net off her, and Jasmine screamed. She could not make it anywhere once it was off before the man named Sid, a gray-haired fellow with deep etches in his grizzled mien, ripped the skin from her hands. He looked at it like some long lost treasure, a life achievement glowing before his eyes. “I got me a selkie!” he cheered. “A selkie’s gonna be my wife!”
His pals joined him in his celebration with the terrified Jasmine left to curl into a ball and whimper by their feet. Suddenly she was pulled up and made to stand with one man on both sides of her, holding her arms. She was marched back into town, weeping, forced to watch Sid carry her freedom on his back like some slaughtered game. The group and their captive were met with a roaring welcome back in town. Jasmine, the fool, was the first selkie captured in decades. Per some contract unwritten but hardwired in this universe, she would become her hunter’s wife
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 22 October 2024
A new costume?
The next few days she would remain locked in Sid’s house, forced to suffer the preparations of the coming wedding. A brighter, more proper dress was fitted on her for the occasion. Bridesmaids selected for her came one day and tried trimming the great excess of hair she had, but found not even the sharpest of shears able to cut through those locks. Worst of all were Sid’s promises to make her a happy wife. “Just like you’ll make me a happy husband with all the pretty babies yer gonna make me,” he would say with that hole-ridden grin of his that would make Jasmine want to puke.
Jasmine went to sleep each night wishing she wasn’t so stupid, regretting not listening to her sister, and for not accepting her new life as a selkie better. Valerie’s statement about the dangers of mingling rang in her head on repeat. There was nothing Jasmine would’ve done just to dive back into the open ocean, to make her way back to the colony where she belonged, where her friends and family must have worried sick about her. Those few nights of captivity she would cry herself to sleep, thinking that she would never see Maria’s face again.
It was the morning of the wedding when Jasmine woke up to see a package waiting for her on the window sill next to her bed. She rocketed upright at the sight of it and almost knocked it out into the street when she grabbed it. Even more shocking was the letter attached to it. So the son of a bitch remembered me after all. She tore the envelope opened and read through some very familiar handwriting.
Dear Jasmine,
My sincerest apologies for my absence these past few weeks. You see, you’re not the only soul I have wandering the mulitiverse. Since your arrival in the sphinx world, I thought you’d found your perfect home, a place where you could fly and truly be free. That was until I saw the state of ennui you’d assumed. I tried something new with the Pokemon universe but came back to find you fearful and paranoid. I thought perhaps a life at sea with your family would be better, but now I see how terribly wrong I was. You’ve gone and gotten yourself locked in some godawful contract which I forgot existed with the selkies. Please do not blame yourself, for I did not assume you’d interact with the humans. You were just being curious Please forgive me and take this new outfit as recompense. . I promise it will be free of any humans.
Sincerely,
Leland
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 23 October 2024
The end (for now)