Strange Happenings
Midnight. They always came at midnight. The chimes from the old grandfather clock in the den jolted Daniel out of his restless dreams. It wasn't the chimes that woke him so much as the knowledge that They were coming. It was the same horrifying ritual, every single night.
The room was illuminated by an eerie pale green glow. Three figures in haz-mat suits stood around his bed. One of them held a large briefcase, another held a gun, and the third--the apparent leader, from the way he acted--was making entries into a large handheld computer. Daniel tried to escape, to run, to even move, but some unseen force held him in place, as immobile as the bed itself. The leader looked up from his computer and signaled to the one holding the briefcase, who set the case down and began to open it. Daniel strained to see its contents, but couldn't from his position. If only he could move...
The leader reached forward, grabbed the bedcovers and--
The shrill blast of Daniel's alarm clock filled the room. He'd had that dream again, the same one he'd been having every night for nearly a month. Except that it didn't feel like a normal dream. It felt more like a memory, but one that had been partially forgotten. Anyway, Dan had more important things to worry about, so he pushed whatever it was aside for the moment. Today was the last day of school, finally. All he had to do was survive his last few final exams, and he'd be home free. He wasn't about to let a creepy dream get him down.
***
Dr. DiCaoz glanced over his biology classroom. "Is anybody still working on the final?" he asked tiredly. He paused for a moment, then said, "If everybody is finished, you may talk quietly amongst yourselves for the remainder of the period." As the class erupted in chatter, he went back to nursing his hangover.
Daniel loved his biology class. It wasn't just that he was good at it, or that it was the last class of the day. By some bit of luck or fate, he happened to be in the same class as his four closest friends, Gassan, David, Pammy, and Jake. Gassan, David, and Pammy had become absurdly popular since coming to high school. Gassan was Lebanese and therefore "exotic," David was a star swimmer, and Pammy was a cheerleader. In retrospect, popularity was an inevitability. To the other popular kids, Jake an avid follower of the Furry subculture (he called it a craze, but nobody else did) and Daniel, the introspective writer, were social liabilities. Still, Gassan, David, and Pam never let their newfound "friends" keep them away from Jake and Dan. Privately, Daniel was grateful that he had managed to befriend the four people who appeared to be immune to high school drama.
"So, what'd you guys think?" Pammy whispered.
"I'm pretty sure Dr. Di is a nutcase," Gassan answered quickly. He was met with a chorus of approval from his companions.
"Anyway," Pam continued, "are we having our annual Thank-God-The-Schoolyear's-Over party tonight?"
"I can't go," Jake said, "I've got a convention."
"I can't go either," said David, "My dad's taking me camping. He's on a back-to-nature kick."
"I'm visiting my grandma," Gassan said. Pammy rolled her eyes.
"Alright," she sighed, "when do you guys get back?"
"Sunday"
"Sunday evening"
"Sunday, but it'll be late."
"So," Pammy continued, "is Monday night alright with everyone?"
***
The days passed quickly. By the time Monday arrived, he had gone an entire weekend without his mysterious dreams. He was mostly relieved, but part of him wished the visitors would come back so he could find out what they were up to.
The streets were charged with an eerie calm. A summer storm was coming. As Daniel reached Pam's door, he couldn't help but feel a strange foreboding. Something was decidedly wrong. He rang the bell.
"Come in," called Pammy. Dan opened the door and found friend sitting on the floor in a tidy circle. They were all staring at him, an unsettling hunger in their eyes. "We are playing Truth or Dare," Pammy intoned mechanically. "Please, join us. Truth or Dare?"
"Please choose Dare," Gassan said, in the same unearthly voice.
"The Truth is never any fun," agreed David, still in the same tone. Throughout the exchange, none of the four took their eyes off of Daniel.
"Is everything alright?" he asked. "You all seem...different."
Pammy answered in the same monotone as before: "We are collectively unnerved at a series of recurring dreams we have been having. Perhaps you too are experiencing these visions?"
"Yeah," Dan said, "but I'm not acting that weird about it."
"Perhaps," Pammy said, "All will be made more clear if you answer this simple question: Truth...or Dare?"
Written by Zodiac on 31 May 2008
Truth
Daniel took a deep breath and figured his friends were just messing with him. The bit about the dream had certainly caught his attention, but he decided to play along for a while.
"Well then, I chose Truth." Said Daniel as he sat in the floor next to Jake and David.
"Tell us your name." Came Pam, almost mechanically.
"Really, Pam? You could have asked anything and y-"
"What is your name?" Barked David.
"Listen guys, I-"
"Your name." Said Jake, violently.
"Alright, fine! Fuck... Daniel, it´s Daniel, ok?"
They all sat in silence for a couple of seconds, eyes locked on Daniel as he started to wipe the expression of annoyance out of his face.
"You can´t lie to us." Said Pam without breaking eye contact.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"What is your name?" Barked David one more time.
"Guys, come on... This isn´t funny anymore".
"You chose Truth, so now you have to answer our question." Came Jake.
Daniel cursed under his voice and clumsily reached for his pockets, he then noticed he had left his wallet at home. Still, he took out a small leather journal and threw it to the middle of the circle.
"See? There it is, right on the top. My father gave me that journal and had my name engraved on the cover. Are we done yet?"
His friends leaned into the circle and carefully read the engraved letters. They then went back to Daniel while keeping their emotionless demeanor.
"Yes, the journal is right. So, what is your name?" Said Pam without flitching.
"For the love of god... are you guys high? Can´t you see? D-A-N--"
Daniel froze as he himself took a good look at the journal. The familiar binding he had seen a thousand times was still there, but the engraving showed something different. It used to read "Daniel", yet somehow a couple of characters had been added to his name. He never thought he would ever feel so eerily disturbed by two letters stitched on a piece of leather, but still, the fact that his beloved journal now read "Danielle" certainly sent a shiver down his spine.
"You guys are dicks." Said Daniel as he stood up and bolted towards the door.
"Don´t knock anything with your tail on your way out." Came Pam.
"My wha-? Just fuck off, Pam..."
Daniel was truly mad. At first, he thought his friends were just pulling an elaborate prank on him. However, after reading the engraving on that journal, something certainly felt amiss.
On his way back home, Daniel felt way hotter than usual. That was particularly strange considering it was really cold outside. Not only that, but he felt itchy all over. He thought about taking off his coat or his winter-globes, but then he figured he might just be coming down with a fever and decided to hurry and get in bed.
"Hi sweetie, I thought you were staying out late." Said Daniel´s father as soon as he opened the door.
"Erm... I felt a bit under the weather, I think I´m gonna take a nap".
"Alright, let me know if you need anything."
"Yeah, sure..."
Daniel was a bit confused, his dad had always been nice to him, but that was probably the first time he called him "sweetie". Daniel did not think much of it and went upstairs to his room. Once in, he mindlessly took off his coat and globes and dove head first into his bed. He was actually feeling sort of sick, so he just dozed off for a while.
After a couple of hours, he was woken up by a loud knocking on the door.
"Honey, dinner´s ready. Your mom made lasagna!"
Daniel sat on his bed and rubbed his eyes. He was still pretty much asleep, so he just robotically walked towards the bathroom to take a leak. Once inside, he pulled down his pants and tried to go about his business as usual. That´s when it hit him.
Written by crimsonstar on 24 February 2016
Tigress
Daniel was horrified. For a second, he couldn´t speak or move. He touched himself, struggling to reach for something that evidently wasn´t there. He stared at his groin for a good two minutes, desperately trying to make sense of it all. Not only was he unable to find the genitals he was born with, but everything seemed to be covered by a dense layer of orange fur.
He closed his eyes and moved towards the sink while mumbling under his voice:
"This is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream, this is a dream."
Once there, he soaked his hands in water and practically slapped himself in the face. Facing the mirror, he slowly started to open his eyes. And there it was, something so inconceivably unreal that Daniel couldn´t help but to take a few steps back and lay on the wall behind him. He could still see himself clearly, a couple of wet whiskers in a protuberant muzzle, a pair of deep green eyes, and two small black ears, very much like those of a cat, coming out of his fur covered skull. Deep inside, he was hoping to snap back to reality in any second, but when he realized he could move those small cat ears at will, everything became just way too real.
He wanted to scream, but at that point it seemed quite useless. He stood back up again and, out of curiosity more than anything, disrobed completely. The shower screens were made up of reflective glass, so he got a chance to take a good look at his new body. Everything was completely covered in orange fur, with black stripes all over his back, legs, arms and face. A long and fluffy tail that he hadn´t noticed before extended out of his tailbone. He was as tall as before, and besides his feline head and tail, the rest of his body pretty much resembled that of a human. Not any human though... The hourglass shape of his anatomy and the two humble breasts that protruded from his chest were unfaltering female, that and, of course, the fact that he was missing the essential parts that once made him a boy.
Daniel was mesmerized by his own image, slowly exploring his new shapes with a sense of absolute wonder. But then another knock on the door came in and broke his dreamlike state.
"Danielle, honey, is everything ok?" Said Daniel´s mother from the hallway. The bathroom door still closed.
"Oh, shit..." Said Daniel under his breath.
"Honey, what are you doing?"
"N-Nothing mom! I´ll be out in a minute!"
"Alright honey. Don´t forget to dry your tail if you took a bath!"
"My ta- Sure mom..."
A truckload of questions swarmed Daniel´s head. How did she know about the tail? Why wasn´t she freaking out? Did she just called him "Danielle"? All that uncertainty coupled with the sheer madness of the situation would have sent anyone else to the psych-ward. But Daniel managed to keep it together. Hastily, he put his pants and shirt back on and opened the bathroom door. After taking a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down, he made his way downstairs, unsure of what would happen.
"Your mom made chicken lasagna. I know you like the beef one better, but she says the store had ran out of beef." Came his father nonchalantly as Daniel shyly took a sit on the table.
"I don´t need you to make up excuses for me Robert! Besides, she likes chicken too. Isn´t that right honey?"
Daniel took a couple of seconds before realizing his mother was talking to him.
"Heh... yeah, sure. Chicken is fine".
"See? Now eat up before it goes cold! Oh, and honey, I love your fur today. It looks wonderful. Did you use that new shampoo I got you?" Said Daniel´s mother as she served the food.
"T- Thanks mom. I don´t know, maybe..."
Daniel was still trying to get in terms with the fact that his parents were not even slightly concerned by his transformation. As a matter of fact, it would appear as if he had always been like that.
"Well, you better use it. It´s supposed to make your fur shinier!"
"Yes mom..." Came Daniel under his breath.
"By the way, I got the bug spray you asked me for a couple of days ago. They only had the big bottle, but you can share it with your friends".
Daniel nodded without taking his eyes off his plate. In a way, he still feared that if he looked up, everyone would see the animal he had turn into and act accordingly. Still, everything was just... normal.
Daniel finished his meal and went back upstairs. An aura of sheer fantasy still surrounded the whole situation. He sat on his desk in silence, doing absolutely nothing for more time that he would have cared to admit.
Written by crimsonstar on 25 February 2016
Peace
However, after contemplating existence, he decided to make peace with his new self. He may have thought it was curse at first, some perverse twist of fate concocted by the devil himself, but since nobody was making a big deal out of it, he figured he may as well just try to make the best of an extremely awkward circumstance.
He stood up and walked straight to his backpack. After empting it on the bed, he frantically snooped through all his belongings. Everything seemed to be in order, his notebooks, his pens, his books and his notes. Even the hand drawn cartoons he made when he was too bored in class were just where he left them. However, the one eerily different thing was that every instance where his name was written had suddenly changed to "Danielle". It was his very own handwriting, and he was absolutely sure nobody had tempered with his stuff. He tried his luck on the computer just to find the exact same problem. All his social media, all his digital assignments, even the nicknames for the games he played had morphed accordingly. He tried one last place, the photographic archive of his teenage years spread across several digital networking platforms. He expected to find his old self, maybe a couple of pictures from when he just started high school, a couple of pictures of him being a boy... a human boy.
He found them, but just as his name had changed, his body did too. Every picture and video showed a small tigress where he should have been. He even remembered the clothes he was wearing, some of them were dresses or otherwise girly clothing. It was bizarre, he was sure he never wore those things as Daniel, but the memory of Danielle, or more specifically, the memory of being Danielle had started to surface in his confused teenage mind. For a second, he himself felt as if that new body had been his all along. Still, the image of Daniel stood strong among those strange flashbacks of the female cat.
However, a lot of questions remained unanswered. Was he the only one? Why weren´t there any other anthropomorphic animals in the pictures? Why was the entire world disregarding his condition without saying anything about it?
He turned off his computer and fell on his bed like a log. He almost passed out, waking up the next morning with nothing but even stronger doubts pestering his head. His situation refused any form of logic, and yet there he was: a tigress walking among humans, a boy in a body that wasn´t his. Daniel tried to rationalize the situation, find whatever silver lining he could find to cope with the disappearance Daniel. Yet, what worried him the most was that maybe those new memories, the ones that appeared to be surfacing faster as time went by, would end up replacing everything. He feared that in a couple of days, there wouldn´t be any Daniel left... just Danielle, just the tigress.
He allowed himself to be tormented by that thought for a couple of minutes, only to realize that perhaps it was for the best. Perhaps he didn´t need to make sense of anything, but rather learn to forget and move on. Perhaps that gross simplification of life would make him happy.
Then came another knock on the door, ending Daniel´s emotional rollercoaster of existential angst. He quickly hopped to his feet and got to the door in a, suitably enough, catlike manner. He opened it up just to find Jake on the other side.
"Hey Danielle, what´s up?" Said Jake as he made his way into the room without waiting for an invitation.
Written by crimsonstar on 26 February 2016
Grumpy
"Don´t call me that."
"What, your name?"
"Just don´t, ok?"
"Jeez, ok... Grumpy much? Anyway, are you ready for our camping trip? Don´t forget it´s the day after tomorrow. My parents would kill me if we have to reschedule again!"
"Yeah, sure the camping trip..." Came Daniel as he started to remember the plans he had made with his friends about a week ago.
Nobody really liked camping, but it was the first time their parents allowed them to take a trip by themselves. They would borrow Jake´s pickup truck and camp by the forest in the outskirts of the city. And, of course, they would get enough booze to shame a frat-party.
"My mom got us enough bug spray to sanitize a homeless person..." Said Daniel jokingly. It was actually the first time he had cracked a joke since his transformation.
"Sanitize a homeless pe- what´s up with you Danny, you seem even grittier than usual." Came Jake while grinning.
"Nothing, I´m alright."
"Well, you know what would make you alright-er?" Jake´s grin intensified.
"Got something for me, Jake?"
"I wouldn´t ever visit a lady empty-handed!"
Jake´s remark was a little off-putting. Daniel was still getting used to his new body, and being treated like a woman was still quite awkward for him. However, he knew exactly what Jake was talking about.
"Where did you get these from?"
"I stole them from my brother. It´s supposed to be the good shit."
"That´s fucking brilliant, mate!"
"Don´t do that Danny... your British accent sucks balls."
"Just open the window and light it up, and try not to be a dick while you do it."
"Jeez, chill sister!"
Daniel laughed and reached for a hoodie. He even forgot about the whole tigress situation for a second, it was as if everything had gone back to normal. He was about to smoke a joint with his best friend by the window, and talk shit and then eat junk food. Jake was the same laidback duffus he had always been, and Daniel, even if it was only for a moment, was just Daniel.
They lighted one up and started talking about some anime they had both been watching. However, a couple of hits later, Daniel decided it was about time to ask someone about his condition.
"Jake... do you remember when we played Truth or Dare at Pam´s house yesterday?"
"Yeah, you were being a total bitch."
"... so, do you remember anything strange happening?"
"Yeah, you were being a total bitch." Jake laughed.
"Come on, I mean it."
"Well, you came in late, got mad for some reason and left. I was about to go after you but Pam told me to give you some space. Girl things I guess..."
Written by crimsonstar on 27 February 2016
"Didn
"Didn´t you feel funny at any point?"
"I felt funny as fuck after you left and we cracked open one of Pam´s father José Cuervo bottles!"
"... so everything was normal?"
"Sure, I guess."
Jake took another hit and started playing some music from his cell phone. Daniel simply couldn´t understand why everyone´s world was still the same, as if nothing had happened.
"I would suck a dick for a good burger right now..." Said Jake out of nowhere.
"Well, suck mine."
Daniel answered almost instinctively. That was the kind of joke they used to crack on each other since they were kids. Still, as soon as Daniel remembered his current situation, he froze for a second and waited attentively for Jake´s reply.
"Sure, as soon as you grow one..."
Strangely enough, that was the exact same answer Jake would have given him not three days ago. Daniel could tell Jake was fully aware of the fact that he was a walking tigress, and yet, he was still his best friend, and he wasn´t treating him any differently.
"I may need some help with that. How is yours coming along? Are you done or is it still a work in progress?" Said Daniel jokingly.
"Oh, fuck off..."
They both stayed there for at least two hours, laughing like kids and smoking like grad-students. Eventually, Jake passed out on Daniel´s bed, and Daniel decided to just doze off next to his friend.
By noon, Jake woke up violently and ran back to his house while rambling about how his parents were going to kill him. They probably would, but still, after being left alone in his room, Daniel felt an strange sense of peace that he hadn´t felt since the transformation. It was as if everything was going to be just fine.
"Danielle, get down here!" Screamed Daniel´s mother from the first floor.
Daniel was already awake, but it was still hard for him to muster the courage to go downstairs. His mom was a really nice lady, but when she got mad, she got really mad.
"Yes, mom...?"
"You are in real trouble young lady!"
"Troub- Why? What did I do?"
Daniel´s mom held an unnaturally stern face, way out of character even if she was actually livid. She looked at Daniel right in the eye for a good ten seconds and then slipped into a short burst of laugher.
"I´m sorry sweetie, Jake told me it would be fun to do that... If he could have seen the look on your face..."
"Really...?"
"Come on, don´t be such a downer!"
Daniel´s mom loved Jake, she had known him since he was a little boy, and their relationship was a bit too close even for Daniel´s liking.
"... is that all?"
"No, no... he also told me to give this to you when he left. He said that you would like it." She was still giggling.
"What is it?"
"I don´t know, it looks like a book."
"Erm... alright... thanks, mom."
A book? Jake wouldn´t read a book out of his own volition even if he had been stranded in a deserted island. Still, it was quite a thoughtful detail. Daniel took the package back to his room and unwrapped the plain brown paper covering with an almost morbid curiosity. A geographical history of tigers and how to tame them. It was definitely a flashy title, and the book seemed old and used, as if it had been read more time that it should have. Daniel started to read the first the page, but before he could get even the slightest gist, his father´s voice boomed through the corridor:
"Danielle, we´ll be leaving in fifteen minutes, with or without you!" He said jokingly.
Written by crimsonstar on 28 February 2016