Ask for Truth
“My turn? I want the truth Gassain! What is going on here?” Daniel shouted while trying to swing his feet under himself. Wobbly coming to a stand.
“We are simply playing a game.” Gassain answers without the slightest hesitation.
“Oh! My turn.” Went Jake, his hands waving close over his chest as if he were about to clap in excitement, but the palms never actually touch. “Truth or dare Daniel.”
“Dare.” The half-lion growls out.
“I dare you to flap your wings.”
“Bw … I don’t have any wings you je-OH COME ON!” he didn’t even finish the sentence before he could see two feathery appendages snapping together in front of his chest, then folding back over his shoulders. His chest felt sore at the sudden effort, and his only real comfort was seeing the wind from his flapping messed with everyone else’s hair. The cup of soda is knocked over. No one seems to care.
“My turn! My turn!” David grinned. Once more asking that fateful question. “Truth or dare, Daniel?”
Daniel looked over his shoulders to see two bird-like wings jutting from right under his shoulder blades. Or maybe that was in the shoulders? They felt separate from his arms and didn’t seem to stretch his skin as he moved. Torn between surprise and resigned irritation, the youth’s voice just about cracked as he shouts back.
“Explain! What is going on! NOW! I’ve had just about enough of this hallucination nonsense!”
“It’s not your turn Daniel.” Pammy continued in that same Monotone. “Now choose.”
“No! Stop this!” the winged half-lion shouted, feeling awkward to stand on two legs with his wings flexed out behind him. They flare wide and flap on instinct as he gets more upset, the left wing bashing against the wall and the right wing knocking off a desk lamp. The lights grow dim and shadowed, half of the room in darkness thanks to the lampshade while the practical spotlight was on Daniel himself. He could see all four friends, the bottom of their faces illuminated while errie shadows covered the rest.
None of their expressions changed.
“Truth. Or. Dare” David repeated. He was slow. Almost menacing. His lips curled into the barest hint of a smile.
Daniel put both palms over his face and groaned, stomping forward on two wobbly legs. The toes and pads were wide making it seem like walking in snow shoes, the digigrade heel design left him with the sensation of tip-toeing toward them like a cartoonish thief trying to sneak around, and the elongated heel left him constantly leaning forward. The wings served as something of a counter-balance, but it was also added weight high up on his back.
“Dare.” He growled, knowing exactly what he should demand the moment his turn comes up. He simply has to make it through whatever change the swimmer decided to enforce. Daniel was long past fooling around right now, and being the only one standing up in a room full of mostly expressionless people that kept locked in their circle was something of a confidence booster. He was the tallest one there, more so thanks to the new legs, and everything was a bit less intimidating when you have to look down at it.
“Rub yourself.” Came the command.
“W-what?”
“I dare you to rub yourself all over.” David replied, glancing to the other three for backup.
“Well this should be good. Where did I leave my camera?” Jake droned.
“It is the dare, Daniel. You have to do it.” Gassain added.
“Begin rubbing. No hesitation Daniel.” Pammy confirmed, hers somehow having the air of authority. She was the most confident, she was the spokesperson who pushed the hardest. Clearly this had to be her idea, if not hers alone then her forcing it the most strongly. Maybe she drugged him? Did something with the water. A witch maybe.
Daniel had his solution though, if they weren’t going to explain what was happening even when he asked for truth, then there was something else he could ask for with equal desperation.
“Fine. Rubbing. Got it. Should I at least get new pants for this?” Daniel quipped, feeling clawed talons scratch ever so gently onto his stomach. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Talons. And more fur. He looked down to see his shirt was missing completely, his boxers were gone, he didn’t even have sleeves or a jacket. Everything was covered in fur from the neck down, his shoulders a tawny yellow that cuts off at about his elbow. Beyond that the fur distorts into redish brown feathers, puffing up with a bristling fluff, the feathers seemed to move and flex as his skin stiffens. They taper off to turn white around his wrists, with the hands and fingers completely replaced.
Talons. Hard, scaly, a bright yellow with pitch black claws on every finger. He still had five of them. Four fingers and a single thumb, the knuckles in the right shape but the fingers were so much longer than they should have been. He couldn’t curl them into a fist, not really, his clawed fingernails reached all the way to his forearm when he tried. He spread them out, moving each finger and flexing, to see his hands were about half as large as his head.
He could effortlessly grip onto a tree branch with how tightly the new fingers curled, he could envelop a street lamp all the way around. But closing them around something smaller would be a distinctly awkward proposition.
The chest was a different color fur than the rest of him, lighter and softer that trails down his stomach. He had to lean forward to look past his chest, the extensive fluff making it appear as if he might have breasts underneath.
A touch? No. And it wasn’t just fluff, his entire chest was jutting forward. The skin under that fur was a thick banded muscle, as were the abs directly bellow. He felt, padding through the fur, as the muscles wrapped under his armpit and back around into his shoulders. The arms themselves were just as noodly as they’d always been, while this new bulging muscle beneath the fur looked like someone one expects on a bodybuilder.
With fur making it hard to see the creases under the smooth and fluttery lines, he looked more like a woman than ever. A fact that his complete nudity did not make for a pleasant thought.
He continues rubbing, turning, feeling the fur over his upper body and spinning to look behind him.
“Okay! I rubbed, now it’s mine turn. Truth or Da-“
“You didn’t rub all over.” David interoupts.
“Yes I did!”
“No. You need to rub your legs too.”
Daniel stared at him, remembering the plan. With a grumble he takes his clawed talons and start sliding them down his back, down his thighs, lifting up one foot to rub his palms across. The scales were smooth but insensitive, hard to make out much of the texture. The fur was warm and soft, bending like grass under his touch. By the time he was finished he could feel his tail twitching in agitate- …
“Okay that is just not fair!” Daniel shrieks as soon as he realizes what was coming out of his backside, looking over his shoulder to see a long, cat-like tail that obviously was not there two seconds ago.
“That’s the rules.” Pammy chides, her voice still the dull monotone. “If you don’t like it then don’t play.”
Daniel’s face brightened at the prospect of not playing, his first thought being to end the game immediately before any more transformation occurs. But then he stopped to think, his mouth already open and a finger raised. Did the transformation stop when the game did, or would he remain some winged lion with a human face even after all of this stopped. He had his chance now, and he wasn’t about to give it up.
“No. This is my turn Pammy. David, truth or dare?”
David’s grin seems to falter. His voice as before a deliberate monotone. “This time I’ll pick dare.”
“It is what D-man picked after all.” Jake piped in.
“Which one is the D-man?” Gassain questioned.
“The one who’s name begins with the letter D, for uuhh”
“We both begin with a D, my name is David.”
“So that means the two of you together can be Deedee?” Jake grinned.
“ENOUGH! David it’s my turn, right?” Daniel asked, his wings flapping once more. He steps around the spilled soda and gets closer to the sitting quartet.
“And I’ve picked dare.”
“D with D with another D, if this keeps up we need to get a penguin with a hammer who fights killer marshmallows.” Jake muses.
“Then I dare you to change me back.”
“Uuhh … pick another one.”
“Wh, I’m not going to pick another one!”
“You have to pick something else Daniel, that’s the rules.” Pammy interjects.
“None of you picked something else when I asked!”
“You did not ask us to pick anything else, you have simply been bad at the game.”
“Wh … oh come on! Change me back. Right. Now.”
“Pick another one Daniel. I’m not doing that.”
“Another wha … I’m not picking another one David! You guys are doing this somehow and I want it reversed. You think I want to go to school tomorrow and watch everyone laugh at me? Do you think I want to explain to Jake’s silly little club that this isn’t a fursuit? What! WHAT! You’ve seen how they treat the football mascot, are you trying to get me to take his place?”
“So you do not want anyone to see you like this.” Pammy questions.
“Of course I don’t! I want to be normal, with hands and feet and some god damned clothes! Now this is truth or dare and you just picked dare, David. You know exactly what I’m asking so just do it!”
“If that’s what you really want.” David shrugs, for once not an emotionless monotone. “Okay now it’s Pammy’s turn.”
But as Daniel looked down at his talons, his fur, his paws, he could see that nothing had changed at all.
“It’s not … this isn’t back to normal!”
“Truth or dare, Daniel.” Pammy asks.
“We didn’t even finish the last dare! We’re still on david’s turn!”
“Dare, you say. Very well then.”
“Its not your turn, no! We aren’t done with David, he still needs to actually finish his dare!”
“I dare you …” Pammy continues unabated. This time standing up, her arms folded neatly and submissively behind her back. “I dare you to sleep, little kittycat.”
“You guys won’t even obey your own rules? It’s the rules Pammy! He was given a dare, that means he has to. Make him change me back!”
“Sleep.” She repeats, more forcefully.
“You think I’m just going to pass out on the floor? Pammy what has gotten into you, all of you?”
“Sleep.” She furrows her brow, raising her voice.
“None of you are acting like you, not one of you are making any sense. Where are your parents, what sort of game is this? What on earth did you do!”
“SLEEP!” She shouts, the other three now moving away from the cheerleader. The sound of thunder crackles outside, and the building seems to shake.
“Who are you!” Daniel shouts back! Wings flared, claws ready, standing firm in a wide stance as his new leg design didn’t allow for anything more subtle. He was leaning forward enough that were it not for his wings and tail acting to counter-balance it would be hard to not just touch his palms to the soda stained floor.
“I. Said. Sleep.” Was all the woman repeated. And immediately any semblance of a fight was destroyed.
Daniel could see his eyes watering, his muscles laxing. It was so hard to stand now. His wings drooped like cloth down the side, his tail bumped into his calves. He glanced left to see his other three friends as mere shadows in the strange lighting of an empty house. And before his eyes they faded away as if nothing was there.
Too tired to see. Too tired to think. He didn’t get out a next reply to Pammy before he felt himself falling.
He never remembered hitting the ground.
Written by Arbon on 23 May 2016
