Back at home
Daniel awoke not screaming, surprised, or shocked, but in a relative haze as he yawned,one arm lifting to rub at his forehead. He lazily blinked back sleep in the darkened, another soft yawn escaping his mouth, and then his ears twitched.
Immediately he sat up, both hands flying towards either side of his face. His fingers scrabbled up his neck and cheeks before they found his ears--or where his ears should have been. Instead, there was more hair than he was used to there, shaggier and thicker too. His hands crawled further up his head until they met his ears near the top, and they weren’t the ears he remembered.
He felt his ears up, and found they were warm and fuzzy and long now. They were differently shaped too, furry triangles that extended a little over half a foot from his skull. Over the next few seconds, he explored his ears further, feeling their fuzziness, running his fingers up and down them to estimate their actual length, and wondering if these new ears had affected his hearing. He dug a finger a little bit too deeply into one of his ears and it twitched irritably. He pulled his hand away and wondered in bewilderment why that twitching felt so normal, and then he began to wonder why nothing at all felt alien about the ears. Sure, the sensation of fingers on fur felt a little strange, but the ears just felt...right. As if they were supposed to be there, as if they had always been there, as if he had never possessed anything but furry, triangular ears to aid him in hearing.
Daniel leapt out of bed and headed to his bathroom, thankful that he had his own one right so close unlike so many of his friends. If his parents saw him like this…!
He entered the bathroom and fumbled for the light. Even in the dark, he could see the reflection of his ears in the mirror but he wanted to see them as if it weren’t dark out and…
His fingers closed on the light switch, but he hesitated. Something seemed wrong…
He flipped on the light anyways, blinking away black spots in his vision from the sudden illumination. When he could finally see, he peered into the mirror and saw what he had felt. Atop his head were a pair of foxlike ears, red in coloration save for some black fur near the tips. His hair too had grown out, definitely noticeably longer than it had been yesterday.
Yesterday. He blinked and thought suddenly of the dare, Area 50, and the green glow. Had that glow caused this or had that been a dream? Then what was this? Another dream?
He shrugged and turned the lights off. It was still dark out, which meant it wasn’t quite near the time to wake up for school. He’d go to sleep now and see what happened in the morning. If he didn’t have ears, then it was just a dream. If he did, well...he’d let future him figure it out. He was a little too sleepy still to think straight, the adrenaline of finding out about his new, yet familiar ears having worn away minutes ago. He yawned once more, and fell asleep not soon after.
Written by skiesofsilver on 08 February 2017