Paul yawned. Immediately after, a spike of pain shot through his skull.
Oh. It's going to be one of those mornings, is it? he thought, fully prepared to pick himself up from wherever he slept last night.1 While, normally, Paul's daily routine involved a healthy dosage of coffee, on this particular morning he found that he was unable to open his eyes—let alone stand up and brew a cup. At first, he attributed his case of S.A.D.S2 to his splitting migraine, but he quickly realized that something had gone horribly wrong. Paul couldn't even feel his eyelids opening and closing, no matter how hard he blinked. As a matter of fact, he couldn't even feel himself anymore. His proprioception was entirely shot, which was not something any unfortunate college student should ever have to experience. Paul came to a startling conclusion: his body was gone. He was nothing but a consciousness, floating within an immense void.
Any normal person would have begun screaming in terror. Paul was a normal person, however, he had no mouth (or lungs) with which to scream. Instead, he "sat" there mutely, wondering where his life had been horribly screwed over.
Am I dead? Is this what death is? A massive place full of nothing, where my mind is forever doomed to wallow in self-pity?3 he thought, his inner voice starting to panic. Wait...what is that? A light! I see a lig—wait a second, that must mean I really am dead! But, I don't want to die! Oh, God, why me? What did I ever d—it's getting closer. Oh my God, the light is coming closer! Paul was seconds away from a mental breakdown as the soft yellow glow floated closer to his "head," pulsing slowly as it drew near.
Please, not now! I have so much to live for! I'm sorry for whatever it is I did to deserve this! he thought loudly. As the pulsing orb of yellow luminescence drew near, Paul realized he could see something within. It appeared to be some kind of four-legged animal, with a long neck ending in a point, and a long tail. His train of thought derailed as he tried to see what was within the glow. Without further adieu, the orb reached his point of existence, and Paul felt a tug at the back of...himself? His mind? He wasn't sure anymore. His vision was suddenly filled with a bright yellow light. A distant hum permeated the fabric of reality around him, and he could almost hear a male voice speaking in a strange tongue, sounding urgent...in pain, even. Before he could think of what to say to any gods that might have been listening, his sight turned completely white and the void around him faded away...
When Paul came to, he found that he could see once more. The thought alone brought him joy, but several of his questions had yet to be answered. He knew what he had just experienced was no mere dream—he had never been self-aware in those dreams, and had never actually "felt" dead before. He understood, on some fundamental level, that he had just died and was now reborn. He began to take stock of his surroundings—or, he would have, had he been able to move his eyes very much. For some reason, trying to so much as look around felt like he was trying to lift a great weight; his movement was sluggish at best, and weak for something as simple as moving an eyeball.
It was then that Paul noticed the large, yellow pointy thing protruding from his face.
Credit where credit is due: Paul did not scream. He probably would have, but he couldn't muster the strength to make a sound. As it was, his mind was in a flurry of conflicting information. Before he could declare himself insane, however, he remembered a key detail from not too long ago: the yellow orb. It had contained a picture of a quadrupedal creature with a pointy face and a long tail, which means that whatever was in that orb was what he now had become. Paul mentally took a deep breath and tried his best to calm down. This was no dream, he was now absolutely certain. Nothing he could dream of was ever this vivid, thanks to his rather underwhelming imagination.4 His first goal was simple: figure out exactly what he now was. Before he could so much as start on that, however, he heard a deep voice moan in discomfort.
"Urk...my head...that's the last time I go out drinking with Beiro...I swear..." the voice mumbled. Now that the voice mentioned a headache, Paul realized he could actually feel a solid pressure in his new head. As soon as he noticed that, he realized that he could actually feel his entire body. He could tell that he was big: not as tall as he was before, but definitely longer and broader. He could feel two unfamiliar protrusions along his sides, and what he presumed was his tail flopping about in discomfort beneath the sheets of the bed he was lying in. Other than that, he still had two arms and two legs, even though the creature he had seen was quadrupedal.
Perhaps I'm some kind of strange, angelic creature? I swear the things on my sides are wings, although I don't know how I know that— his thoughts were interrupted by the voice from before screaming.
"Ahhh! What in Tartarus is that?! Is there something in my head?!" the voice shouted, out loud, to the still bedroom air. Suddenly, Paul's new body jerked out of bed and landed, on all fours, on the floor nearby. His two—wings?—were splayed out away from his torso.
What do you mean, "What in Tartarus is that?" Who are you? Why can I hear you but not see you? Why can I barely move? Why did I *just** move? What even am I anymore?!* Paul thought rapidly, beginning to panic alongside the stranger.
"What is going on?! Who are you? Are you my conscience? Am I more drunk than I thought?" the voice asked, beginning to calm down somewhat. Paul felt his arm—tipped with a clawed hand, he noticed as it rose up—come up to scratch at his head. "...What is your name, anyhow?" The voice—his body, but not his mind, as he realized with a jolt—asked, now more curious than worried.
My name is Paul Foster. I think I just died, and my consciousness got stuck inside your head somehow. At least, that's the best guess I have as to why I'm now inside the mind of a...what exactly are we?
"I am a griffon, well, I suppose we are," the griffon said, slowly gathering his thoughts. "My name is Invini. I don't recognize your family name. What part of the Empire are you from?"
I'm not from any kind of empire. I'm just from America. Chicago, in fact. came Paul's slightly confused reply.
"I have no idea what an 'America' is, or a 'Chicago,' so I'm just going to assume you're not from around here," the griffon said. "You didn't seem to know what a griffon is. Have you never met one before?"
I'm pretty sure if I had met a griffon at some point I would be locked up in the loony bin.
"What? Why would they lock you up for meeting a griffon? Are we disliked where you lived? ...It wouldn't be a first, to be honest," Invini added, scratching his ear. Paul felt his...Invini's...their body begin to walk forward and out of the bedroom. Past a short hallway and one bathroom, Invini had relocated them to the kitchen area, where he had begun to pull some type of breakfast foods from some of his pantries.
No, it's not that. It's more like, there are no griffons where I'm from. Only us humans, and nobody else, Paul replied. He noticed with no small amount of trepidation that there were no electric outlets, and yet he could plainly see a toaster. There was no refrigerator, but he could see something that looked like an old-fashioned icebox. He wondered, not for the first time, just where the Hell he was.
"I also don't know what a 'human' is, so I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a loss," Invini shrugged, while pouring some milk into a bowl full of some kind of grain-based cereal. "Say, Paul, what is it like being stuck inside my head?"
It's surreal, that's what. Everything you do, I see as if I were watching a film uncomfortably close to the screen. How do you not know what a human is? There are seven billion of us, you would thi—WOAH! Paul was cut off when Invini suddenly sprayed his mouthful of milk into the air before them.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'ONLY SEVEN BILLION OF US'?! WHAT ARE YOU?!" Invini shrieked, staring blankly into the air as if Paul's face would suddenly appear in front of him.
Calm down! Why is seven billion so bad? What, is that, like, close to extinction or something here?
Paul felt Invini gulp. He felt like gulping as well, but he wasn't strong enough to, anyway.
"Paul...there are only one hundred thousand griffons on the entirety of Equus," Invini said with a shiver.
...What is an 'Equus'?
