The first thing I felt was the water.
I laid there for a moment or two, mind empty, vision dark. I could feel a dampness clinging to me, a heaviness weighing me down. Seconds later came the feeling of raw cold, clinging to my entire body. Still blank to the world, I curled up, desperate to find some sense of comfort. Finding none in the action, I finally opened my eyes.
A grey sky greeted me, a dull blanket smothering any hint of warmth from the hidden sun. Cool rain drops splattered on my cheeks before finally landing in my eyes. I reached up to clear them; my arms felt phantom-esque, like when you wake up after having slept on them and flail around lamely. After a few seconds of awkwardly wriggling them on the ground, my right arm finally came into view. Strange, I thought - through the blur of the water, my arm looked so different. Oddly thin, and somehow … brownish? And yellow? My brain still wasn’t fully engaged, so I didn’t think anything of it. After some more clumsy movements, I was able to rub the water from my eyes. The sensation was strange - not smooth like you’d expect, but coarse and hard. With my vision at least partially restored, I looked to my hand.
It was not there.
There was a talon.
***
Now, unless you read a lot of self-insert/Mary Sue fan fiction, you’re probably not familiar with the idea of waking up in strange places with new body pieces - or, you know, you could be into some weird shit. It’s cool, I don’t judge. Regardless, I’ll try to describe it.
First there’s a panicked numbness. The calm before the storm. That was my experience, anyway — Just staring dumbfounded at this thing that had replaced my favourite nose-picking hand. Your mind becomes as still as an undisturbed lake, as empty as Kim Kardashian’s life.
Then there’s the panic.
“FFFFUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!” was the first eloquent statement that I could conjure up from my graceful lips. All that fog in my brain had dissipated, along with every other thought or memory that might lie in there. For a few moments, all that I knew about the world was that there was once a hand here, but it was gone now - replaced by this alien appendage that most certainly didn’t belong there. My breathing became shallow and rushed as I began to hyperventilate. I bolted upright in attempt to make breathing easier. That’s when I started to see the rest.
Where there was once a pair of stubby, jean clad legs were a pair of even stubbier ones. And instead of being palely white, they were now a light brown. Most disturbingly of all, though, was the difference in my feet. My little piggies were gone, replaced by fat clumps with barely a gap between them. My torso was different, too; strangely thin considering how squat I normally was, and covered in the same brown as my limbs. Dumbstruck, I gingerly stroked my belly with the talon-thing. The sensation was strange; It didn’t feel like skin at all, the texture being much more reminiscent of … fur.
This was getting too heavy. It’s a habit of mine that when I’m anxious, I need to move about. Otherwise, I end up doing something reminiscent of a little Irish jig on the spot. Instinctively then, I tried to get to my feet, trying to block out the sight of the brown belly that had replaced my standard, non-furry beer belly. Once all my weight was distributed on my legs, though, I felt like I was on stilts. Standing upright felt awkward; my body seemed to naturally lean forward, and the weight distribution on my feet felt unstable. I took a few moments to steady myself and, still not completely comfortable, moved one leg forward.
My weight distribution went completely wack. My body started leaning forward too far, my arms flailed in an attempt to balance myself, and in a few seconds I smacked face first into the ground. Had the ground not been so soaked, I’d likely have knocked myself out. Still, the feeling of cold mud soaking into me wasn’t all that welcoming. Lifting myself up on to all fours, my body seemed to reach what felt like a natural position. Not eager to fall again, I took a few steps. It was awkward, as expected from someone who’s normally bipedal, but it was much easier than trying to walk normally.
I paced forward – no destination in mind, I just had to move. Not that I’d have been able to pick one, anyway; looking around, there was nothing of note – no towns or landmarks to head towards. Instead, dark fields seemed to roll out in every direction, uncut grass and a lack of crops hinting this wasn’t farmland. Where was I? I didn’t live anywhere near the countryside, and had no incentive to travel out there. How, then, did I end up here?
Racking my memories, things felt … hazy. I tried to recall the last thing that happened before I woke up, but couldn’t conjure anything up. Most everything was there – the names of family, birthday parties, obscure solutions to Resident Evil puzzles – but for the life of me, I couldn’t recall anything recent. The more I poked at my memories, trying to prompt some revelation, the more clouded they seemed to get. Feeling the onset of a headache, I gave up on my recollections; the last thing I needed was to start feeling ill. The priority for the moment was to try to find help.
My first thought was to reach for my phone, which I did near enough instinctively. When a talon awkwardly brushed against my leg, though, I realised that not only was it not there, but neither was any clothing. I’d been so taken back before that I hadn’t even noticed. Instantly I felt incredibly self-conscious – what if I was strutting around nude!? True, there was no one to see me, but I still didn’t like the feeling. I reasoned with myself, though, that no matter what I was wearing, people would be more concerned with what on earth had replaced my regular appendages, and why I was walking like a dog.
With a phone out of the question, I was in a pickle. Had I been Bear Grylls, I’m sure I could have lit a signal fire, or made a Bat-signal out of some fishbone and urine. Unfortunately, I had a sociology degree, so my skill set didn’t extend that far. Out of options, then, I picked a direction and just started walking. If this was good ol’ Blighty, I’d come across a village, motorway or landfill site soon enough. However, that did leave an issue…
I looked down at the furry brown arms and yellow talons, and my feelings of anxiety came flooding back. No way this could be real. Sure, people wake up in strange places, having done even stranger things. Nobody, though, has woken up with new limbs, quadrupedal, and dumped in the middle of the field. If this wasn’t real, then, that left two options; either I’d lost my mind and gone bonkers, or I was dreaming. I was skeptical of both; my thoughts, though panicked, felt too clear to be that of someone gone insane, and my dreams were generally too trippy and incoherent to ever resemble something like this. It had to be one of the two, though; I just hoped it was the latter.
Because this, of course, couldn’t be real.