I rested within the comfortable confines of my bed, the warm mattress and pillows failing to bring me to the precipice of sleep. I, however, was undeterred by the prospect of falling asleep late into the night again, mainly because I finally did it.

I was at last done with university until late January, the free time available as a result making my head spin with possibilities.

A night of tabletop games coupled with hard booze was definitely a must, it's been a tad too long since our last get together.

Next on the list? Probably bowling. Last time we went turned out to be great fun, and it was worth going there again if only to gawk at the absurd score animations.

I was about to ponder what to do next, when a pesky itch on the back of my palm made itself apparent once again. I groaned in annoyance, getting up to head to the bathroom, where a freshly bought bottle of hand creme resided.

I scratched at the irritated skin as I walked, not particularly bothered by the tiny black spikes protruding from the skin's surface, each one around a centimeter long. Half of my class had this weird germ, whatever it was, and so far only Alex had called in sick, deciding to visit a doctor. Whatever, that guy always was a bit of a germaphobe.

I swore under my breath as one of the spikes broke the skin of my fingers while I was trying to scratch it, my pace quickening as a result.

I squinted at the darkness of the hallway, my hand tracing the wall in an attempt to find a lightswitch, to no avail. The way definitely took longer than I remembered, the itch growing more worrisome as I approached the bathroom.

My feet clicked against the tile floor, the cold sensation dulled somehow. I searched for the lightswitch once more, the plastic surface jutting out of the wall just where I expected it to be.

Warm light illuminated the bathroom with a soft click, allowing me to observe myself in the mirror.

Long black spikes jutted out at odd angles from my body, a dozen of smaller ones peppering my skin in tiny clusters. The rest of my skin, unoccupied by the angry looking protrusions, was a few shades paler than I remembered it being. The hair on my head were replaced by more black spikes, these protrusions forming a rough outline of what my hair used to be.

I recoiled from my own reflection, the look of fear and disgust morphing into an angry grimace. As if on cue, my body reacted violently to my change of temperament, the spikes growing longer, pulsing red streaks making their way from the base of the spikes to their tips. At the same time, what little skin wasn't marred by the disgusting mutations turned dark, a sort of black carapace coating the skin.

I looked down at my arms, only to see the tips of my fingers turning black, black spikes jutting through the carapace and out of the tips of my fingers. I yelled in fear and anger, the sound coming out akin to a rabid howl.

Swiping at the accursed visage, my claws sank into the wall-mounted glass, cracking it and showering me with a dozen small, sharp shards.

I fell to my knees, the glass' remains sliding harmlessly off of my freshly formed carapace. I tore into my new body, a disappointed shriek escaping me as my claws failed to pierce the carapace.

I curled into a fetal position, continuing to claw at my body, heavy tremors approaching from the corridor.

To say I awoke would only be partially correct. In a sense it was true, I came to my senses, as much as I could anyway given my current form. But that didn't mean that I was unaware of what was happening to me during my "sleep", I still felt all of me slowly spreading through the ground, apparently stumbling onto a grove of trees. It felt more like a blackout, a temporary loss of consciousness but not memory, the past few uneventful hours imprinted in my mind.

The nightmare seemed more appealing by the minute.

Speaking of, what the hell was that? I turned into some kind of demon hedgehog from hell, what's up with that? If dreams are supposed to have meaning, I'm not put out to interpret them. Probably need a shrink for that.

Scratch that, I'll definitely need a shrink after all this settles down. If it ever does.

My musings were cut short by a series of rhythmic vibrations spreading through the ground, their owner, a quadruped, judging by the strange pattern, soon enough stumbling upon me, actually stepping into the small puddle of me.

That sounded mighty odd.

It seemingly recoiled, the sticky sludge refusing to let go of the furry appendage. Curiously, as the animal jerked its limb away, finally tearing free of the sticky coating, a piece of it stuck to its fur, soon finding a micro tear in its skin to slither through.

It all happened without my input, mind you, the action akin to a reflex.

The creature backpedaled away from me with frantic steps, soon turning around and running away, frightened by the weird sludge.

And so I was alone. Again.

Hey, maybe that animal had an owner? I slithered over to the imprints it left in the soil, the shape distinctly hoof-like.

Alright, so it was a horse that elevated the odds of a human stumbling upon me. And that was good, right?

Come to think of it, what good would a human finding me in my current state do? If I found something like that on my property, I'd most likely either attempt to kill it with fire, or call professionals to get this strange mold removed.

So, in the end, my situation could only become worse. It was a welcome thought, that I didn't hit the bottom of the barrel.

Before I could begin to brood in earnest, I felt a light ding in the periphery of my awareness, something close to a tap on my shoulder, or the ringing of an alarm clock in the morning. I turned my attention to the source of this ding, only to find it to be from an errant clump of bacteria cells, currently moving away from me at an accelerated pace.

It took me a second to realize what that signal was, my confusion cleared by another ding, this tap on the shoulder coming bundled with a plethora of information. Fur and skin, flesh and blood, vital systems and organs flashed through my mind's eye, my alien physiology acting on its own as it scanned the insides of the animal that stumbled upon me not too long ago.

Just then, I felt that a distant part of me reached out to reconnect to its bigger part, offering me control over its/my actions. It was a wholly alien sensation, controlling something so far away from you, all the while feeling all that it experienced. I felt the pressure of blood from all sides, felt each beat of the creature's heart propelling me through its arteries, felt its T lymphocytes attack the antigen, only to be consumed by my bacterial cells.

I didn't control it, per se, that would require a vast amount of fine cellular control, something I wasn't capable of doing at the moment. Instead I simply nudged it in the right direction, letting the cells do what came naturally. The bacteria reacted almost instantly, latching onto the wall of the artery it currently resided in, beginning to grow slowly.

Allowing the antigen to take its sweet time, I turned my attention elsewhere, my metaphorical eyes setting on the place of my arrival. By now my 'skin' had spread over a good part of the grove, much of it beginning to spread deeper into the trees. My skin slithered through the cracks in the bark, dissolving through the cambium layer and infiltrating the xylem and phloem, perforating through the heartwood, some of the cells arriving into what I theorized to be apples, judging by their form, anyhow. The cells ran down the xylem and into the root system of the trees, spreading deeper into the ground to rejoin a much denser root beneath the hard carapace I arrived in.

It was quite a welcome development, the continuous flow of nutrients being a great backbone to my continued survival. My curiosity was piqued as I began to feel out each and every tree, traveling through the grove from tree to tree, simply exploring my newfound abilities. Trying to make the best out of a bad situation, I lost track of time, having no way to tell it in the first place, the arrival of day heralded by a familiar, yet unwelcome sensation.

Burning hot pain seared my skin away, the bacterial cells burning in the ultraviolet rays, the lucky ones retreating deeper into the tree, hiding behind the hard bark. A pained scream echoed through my mind as I felt myself erode away, the scream turning into an angry holler as the realization of all my efforts being wasted hit me like a freight train.

I took a deep metaphorical breath, calming my nervous system in an attempt to arrive at a logical conclusion. I observed what remained of myself, the only 'skin' cells remaining being the ones that managed to retreat into the confines of the apple trees. My gaze turned to the other part of me that survived, the hardened carapace unaffected by the sun's deadly rays.

An idea sparked within me, one that theoretically could save me the trouble of having to retract my skin during the day. If the sludge-like skin managed to harden into the sun-resistant carapace when I arrived, what was stopping it from doing so again? It was worth a shot, I wagered, gathering my mental strength and preparing for an hours-long session of throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck.

It wasn't the best way to spend the morning, that's for sure.

God damn fucking shit!

One upside of no longer being a normal human being was my newfound ability to multitask, to an absurd level, might I add. I delegated a cluster of cells to count seconds to keep track of time, keeping me at least somewhat grounded, while the rest of me set out to fix the disastrous situation I was in. My first attempts to layer cells in a cellulose microfibril like pattern were met with failure, the density of cells didn't seem to matter, ultraviolet rays tearing through the structure with little effort.

Deciding not to reinvent the wheel, I turned to the resilient carapace already present in my ecosystem - Shit, I was an ecosystem now? - deciding to replicate its cellular structure. It turned out to be way harder than I anticipated, so much so I initially failed to grasp what the damn thing was made of. One painstakingly long memory deep-dive lended me a solution, one I'd never come to if not for my tendency to go down wikipedia rabbit holes.

Apparently, the carapace was partially composed of chemically inert materials, extremely long-chain proteins woven into a non-protein molecular scaffold, the whole structure further hardened by a polymer catalyst. Truth be told, if not for my innate ability to synthesize materials, I would've been up shit creek, the complex molecular structure leaving me unable to synthesize it manually.

Thankfully, with the apple grove under my control, I had ample time to accumulate enough materials to begin synthesizing the required proteins, albeit at a rather slow rate. To test out the viability of this newly synthesized carapace, I targeted one of the trees, willing it to be encased in the biological armor.

Slowly but surely the bark crystallized, the cells mutating and hardening, encasing the apple tree in a thick layer of highly resistant cells. With bated breath I watched the ultraviolets rays bombard my freshly grown carapace, squealing with joy as the armor remained inert, unaffected by the sun's deadly presence.

Bingo! All I had to do now was wait, and soon enough I would've been able to secure myself a steady source of nutrients, securing my continued survival.

Only one question pulsated in my mind, making me shift in my metaphorical seat.

What now?

Braeburn galloped towards his house, rushing past confused farm animals, the door all but flying off its hinges as the stallion barged into the bathroom. The stallion turned the faucet on, sticking his hoof under the waterflow, using his other to violently rub the appendage with soap. His heart pounded in his ears as the water bubbled, washing away the dirt and sand, the stallion's breath hitching as he watched the water clear, revealing a normal-looking hoof. Braeburn squinted, trying to see if the frog of his hoof was harmed in any way, letting out a sigh of relief as he found nothing.

He'd have to get somepony to remove that nasty mold from his farm, maybe get a unicorn to check up on the health of his apple trees, but most importantly, the stallion considered the crisis to be averted. Braeburn headed for his bedroom, an innocuous cough following him in his wake.

Author's Note

Had a bout of inspiration, hope you enjoy this chapter