 |
~~~~Sans Mask~~~~
~~~By KitsuneKit~~~
It’s been about three moon cycles since I turned into a human. Actually, let me retrace my tracks for a moment here. Hello, my birth name is Ryan, I am two winters old, and I used to be a raccoon.
As I have warbled, I mean, said, it has been three moon cycles since I turned human. I used to have an easier life. Let me tell you about how I stopped being a raccoon.
It all started a couple of ... what do humans call those things... Ah, weeks! It all started a couple of weeks ago. My parents and I had an argument over the fact that I wouldn’t share my fish with them. I got angry, my mother hissed at me, and I ran out of the den, upset. Looking back, it was really stupid of me. That night, I ran into a part of the woods that I have never seen before. There were these large trees that were a wide as a hill and had no leaves growing on them. There were these large hairless creatures that were living in these large “trees." It wasn’t until recently that I found out that these large, leafless trees are called... um... “Two Story Ranch Style" or something like that and when there are a bunch of these dwellings are grouped together they are called a “Suburbia." I also remembered my dad talking about the creatures that lived in such a dwelling; he called them “hyoo-man." I also remembered him talking about how these creatures have lots of food that they keep stored in these shiny, hollow stumps on the side of their trees. My dad said that the “hyoo-mans" look funny and that they wear fake fur over their skin but he warned that I shouldn’t go near these creatures because they can summon small suns to give them light and that the “hyoo-man" are very powerful and not to be messed with.
I was too hungry to care how strong they were (I never did get to finish that fish). I approached the shiny stump and all of a sudden, it was daytime again! One of the “hyoo-man" has summoned a small sun and was shining its light directly on me. I was frozen solid in sheer terror. The “hyoo-man" looked like an older female (but how can you really tell?) and she seemed shocked and said something. I couldn’t understand her. I want to say that she said something like, “aww, look a raccoon. something something... so cute." Back then, I had no idea what she was saying. After all, I didn’t speak human. It all sounds like blah, blah, blah anyway. Actually, I had an older sister, Holly, who would do a good impression of a human. She would stand on two legs, puff up her tail, act all scary and go “blah, blah, blah" and, of course, as a young cub, I would squeal and chitter with joy. Then she moved out of the den to be with her mate. I miss her.... actually, I miss them all... Oh, but where was I? Oh, right! After the human said “so cute" I bolted. I ran as fast as my paws would carry me away from there and into the woods. I was very afraid of these “hyoo-man" and I didn’t want to get killed by them. I heard that they were powerful, but I never imagined that they could actually summon light like that. I envied them. I envied them and their power.
I wound up running deep, deep into the woods and I was about to go home, but then I smelt this wonderful smell coming from the inside of a single small “hyoo-man" dwelling that was deep in the woods, called a cabin. I looked into one of the open holes of the cabin (which I believe they call a “Windex") and their were this one female “hyoo-man" and one male and they both had black fake fur. They were making markings in the ground in the shape of the moon, but with triangles in it and they were looking at a book that they had open. They were saying something, but I couldn’t understand them. There was then this sound that went “beep!" and they got up from what they were doing and went over to a.... let me see if I can pronounce this correctly... “Mike-Row-Wave." The broke this device open and a wonderful food smell came out of it. I couldn’t take it anymore, I didn’t care how powerful they were, and I wanted that food. I jumped in the cabin’s windex and tried to quietly sneak across the floor toward the smell of the food. Fortunately, they didn’t notice me... Unfortunately, my paw came down on the markings that they were making. That’s when all my problems began.
The markings started to glow a silvery yellow (the same color as the moon) and the two humans in black turned around and gasped in shock. I wanted to run at this point, but I couldn’t, something was keeping my paw stuck to this marking. The light grew brighter. The humans started to make loud noises at each other. All I could catch was “Oh Something!" "Something something something a raccoon in here!?" “Something the spell is ruined!" “Something not my something fault" While they were busy yelling at each other, I was just yelling in general. My entire body started to tingle and I felt like everything was getting smaller. It took me a bit to realize that it wasn’t everything else that was getting smaller, it was I that was getting bigger. I also lost my fat that I had been storing up. I suddenly felt a very cold chill go though the air. I was losing my fur. All my salt and pepper colored fur was disappearing into my skin. It was being replaced by some pinkish colored hairless skin. The new skin felt cold and it didn’t seem like it would protect against much. I wondered what I would do in the next winter, but that was soon going to be the least of my problems. All four of my paws started to ache and they too started to transform. My claws grew less and less sharp and my digits grew longer and became more dexterous, but my paw (well hand now, was still stuck to floor). My hind paws followed suit. They changed. I lost my wonderful sharp raccoon claws and they were replaced with these dull human claws. My arms lengthened and my hind legs stretched out into more human like legs. The only things that remained raccoon about me so far was my head and my tail. The markings glowed even brighter and my head started to hurt. I could feel my face changing. My face was felt like it was wedged in-between two rocks and I could feel it pushing in. I felt my face with my free hand and I my nose no longer felt cold and my teeth were no longer sharp. “How am I going to eat things now?" was all that I could think about. The two humans were still yelling at each other but they suddenly became more and more quite. Feeling the top of my head, I found out why. My ears were gone. They became oval shaped and moved down to the side of my head. I had no more fur left on my face, my family eye marking even disappeared, but I still had fur on the top of my head, but it felt different than my normal fur. The fur on the top of my head was longer and its texture felt different. I thought to myself, “I must look really silly, but at least I still have my tail." Sadly, it would also leave me. My lovely, lovely tail was shrinking. I watched in horror as it shrank from 4 rings to 3 rings to 2 then one and then final it was gone altogether. The glowing stopped and finally the changes stopped and I fell into a heap on the ground. The last thing I remember seeing is the two humans rush to my side before I passed out all together.
***
When I awoke, I saw that sun was up. Thinking that I woke up in the middle of the day, I thought about going back to sleep until night. Then I remembered what happened last night and I tried to figure out what happened. I found that I was lying down in a very soft square nest and I was covered up with something that called a blanket. The humans were sitting next to the bed with their backs facing me; they weren’t wearing their black fake furs and were dressed in different fur. I saw that the female had longer brown fur on her head and the male had shorter black fur. They were talking to each other.
The female said, “I don’t know what we are going to do with him."
Then the male responded with, “Well, we can’t just leave him. How were we supposed to know that that spell was real? I mean it was just supposed to be a joke, you know? Come out the cabin for a weekend and try some magic during the summer solstice. Now, we turned a raccoon into a human. A freakin’ raccoon! How are we going to explain him?"
“Well, you could try asking him," the female said noticing I was awake.
The male jumped up in a panic and backed against the side of the cabin, “Holy!"
The female tried to communicate with me, “Hello. Can you understand me? My name is Megan and this is my fiancé, Sean."
I was shaking, partly from fear, partly from cold. “I can understand you. How is it that I can understand you? Where am I? What happened? What’s a ‘fee aunt’s say’? Are you going to eat me?"
I heard Sean’s voice from the other side of the room, “I would like to ask you the same question."
“I-I don’t know what’s going on..." I said feeling very hopeless.
Megan, the female, tried to council me. “No one’s going to eat anyone. You are in a cabin out in the woods. Sean and I were trying some silly spells from the book about magic that we found in our attic and you kind of stepped on our magic circle and transformed into a human. We didn’t mean for it to happen. What about you... What’s your name?"
“My name?" I asked.
“What can we call you? What do other people call you... well, I guess, what do the other raccoons call you?" Megan questioned.
“Oh, I’m... uh... I guess... my name is... Ryan." I said. I never really had a name. I mean raccoons don’t really use names all that often. I mean sometimes, our mothers will when they are calling us, but other than that it’s normally something along the lines of “hey, you!"
Sean, the male, rejoined the group, “A raccoon named Ryan... typical."
I responded back with, “I’m scared." This was an understatement. It was at this point that I realized that I had some fake fur on my legs and my chest.
“What’s this stuff on my body?" I asked, pulling at the fake fur.
Sean looked at me, “Dude, those are clothes... my clothes by the way. You wear them. We put them on you when you were asleep."
“But why?" I asked.
The female blushed, “Well... heh, heh... you see... um... well, humans don’t have fur and we need something to keep us warm and to protect our skin."
I looked down, “How sad."
“You may want to look at yourself in the mirror," Sean said.
“What’s a mirror?" I asked.
Megan pulled something out from under the nest that I was lying in and pulled out something very shiny, “I guess you won’t know what a mirror is, living in the wild and all."
“Hey! There’s another ‘hyoo-man’ in this thing!" I exclaimed.
“First of all, it’s pronounced ‘human,’" Megan explained it to me, “Second, that human and you. It’s like you know how you can see yourself when you look into a puddle of water, well, a mirror is just like that."
“Oh, I see." I used the mirror to look at what I had become. I had no fur, no tail, no claws, no snout and my ears were small and my body was huge. The fur on the top of my head was still salt and pepper colored and it did become a bit longer. I would guess that it is about the length of a normal blade of grass. I didn’t look that old for a human, but I wasn’t that young. Megan explained to me that I looked about 15 years old... whatever that means. Megan explained that humans ages are measured in ‘years.’ and that she was 23 as was her ‘fee aunt’s say.’ Looking at myself in the mirror, I could only say one thing, “I-I can’t believe it."
“It’s true, bro, you’re human now," Sean said to me.
“I’m not your brother..." I then realized something, “I have to go! I have to get back to my family!"
Megan’s eyes grew wide, “Oh my god, he has a family."
“NO! We can’t let you go!" Sean said blocking my path out.
“But, I have to see my family! What will they think when their son doesn’t come back?" I explained.
“You don’t understand, dude. We turned you human, you are our responsibility now. I can’t let you leave." Sean said and stood steadfast in my path.
I jump out of the next and stood on two legs, barely. I used my arms to keep from failing down. Humans don’t have tails to keep them balanced. I then regained my stature and tried my best to puff myself up and look menacing. I tried hissing at Sean, but it felt kind of silly without any claws or fangs to back it up.
Luckily, Sean was still frightened of me and backed away when I came charging at him. I got outside of the cabin, Megan and Sean following after me and did my best to find my way back home.
Running is difficult on two legs. I stumbled several times, but I didn’t fall. I was very hard to find my way around in the forest. The woods look different from this height and different during the day and my raccoon sense of smell was gone. Megan and Sean were still following me, but I didn’t care, just so long as I could make it back home.
It took a little bit of time, but I found my family’s den at the base of the tree. Two raccoons were there, my parents. I tried calling out for them. They scampered up the tree. I tried calling again, but my dad just hissed at me. I couldn’t understand him anymore. I mean, I could make out bits and pieces like “go away," and “leave us alone" but the rest was lost. I tried by hardest to say something in raccoon to them, but my stupid human tongue wouldn’t make any of the proper sounds. I called to them, “don’t you recognize me?" They swatted their paws as a warning. I tried to climb the tree. I got a little bit up the tree before I fell and landed on my back. I tried again. I called for my parents. I tried to make them understand who I was. I fell again and my parents growled warnings at me and threatened me. With tears running down my eyes, I tried to climb the tree again. I fell and hit the ground hard. My parents sat, perched up in the tree, not knowing who I was. I sat at the bottom of the tree and began to cry. The last thing my parents are going to remember of me is the fight that I had with them. They will never know what happened to me. I could have gotten eaten by a larger animal or hit by one of those cars creatures and they would never know. I looked up for a moment in between tears to see that Megan and Sean were standing not to far away. They saw the whole thing. Megan was also crying and when Sean saw that I was looking, he turned away. I began to bawl.
***
Later, back at the cabin, we all tried to figure out wait to do.
I had my head down on a table, “Can’t you just change me back?" I asked.
Megan explained it to me, “We tried that already, after we turned you into a human. It didn’t work. The book said that the spell can only be performed once on a subject."
“So I’m stuck as a human?"
“‘fraid so." Sean said.
“Where am I going to live now?" I asked.
“Well, Megan and I have been talking about this and you could stay with us in out apartment, if you want," Sean offered.
“I can’t ask you to do that," I said humbly.
“Trust me, it’s the least we can do after we took your raccooniness away from you. We will find someway of explain you to our landlady. We could say that you are one of our brothers or something" Sean said.
“Well, I guess, I can live with you... but how will I hunt? I mean I can help you scavenge, but I’m still not that good of a hunter," I explained.
Megan’s face turned red, “Um... well, you don’t have to worry about that. You see, humans don’t hunt."
“Oh... um... okay..." I couldn’t understand this. Sean and Megan then tried to explain grocery stores to me and that these places took green leaves and give you food in return. Then they tried to explain “Mike row waves" to me and how they “cook" the food and I got totally confused.
I then asked, “Well, if you don’t need someone to help you gather food, what can I do?"
Sean and Megan looked at each other.
“Well..." Megan started.
“I guess we would need to enroll you in high school," Sean finished.
I perked up at this, “Ah, ‘high school.’ I like climbing trees, those are high!"
“We’ll explain it to you later," Megan told me.
Sean then held up a ‘glass’ from the table and said, “Here’s to a new beginning!"
Megan then held up her glass and said “Here’s to a new friendship!"
Not to be left out, I held up my glass and said “Here’s to... uh... raccoons!"
Megan and Sean then started to drink the contents of the glass. I tried to, but I couldn’t figure out how to hold the glass and tilt my head to drink it. So I just dumped the liquid on the table and started to lap it up. Megan and Sean laughed at this.
***
Well, now I’m living with Sean and Megan in their apartment. I couldn’t believe how big it was. They said that it’s actually small for an apartment, but I think it’s huge. I even have my own ‘room.’ Sean taught me how to dress myself and showed me what clothing goes were. I can now do it on my own. I’ve even gotten used to sleeping at night and waking up during the day. Megan or Sean will occasionally leave during the day to go to ‘work at the restaurant.’ Which they said is kind of like scavenging for those green leaves. I still don’t fully understand that.
I still miss my parents and we keep looking for a way to turn me back into a human, or at least find some way of telling them what happened to me. Until then I can do nothing but cope with what has happened.
In fact, next week (7 times of night and day) will be my first day in high school. Megan and Sean said that I will get to meet a whole bunch of other humans. It should be pretty interesting.
|
 |
Reply
