For Her
By FinchTale & Amelia
1285 Words
2024-11-21
She woke up to a deserted camp in the middle of the day. The only things left was the tent and an empty food pack, which was covered in a weird goo-like substance. Goo that was also surrounding her.
Her friend was nowhere to be seen. Maybe it got him too? Whatever that creature was… that monster, it was huge, like nothing she’d ever seen before. It came after her in the middle of the night and attacked without warning.
It attacked her and yet, she didn’t really feel any pain. She felt pretty fine actually. Maybe just a bit off somehow. Oh well, she could figure that out later. For now, she had to get up to look into going back out of these woods.
She pushed herself up and paused for some time.
…
Oh no.
No matter how many times she tried to wake up, she was stuck. Stuck in this nightmare where she was one of them, one of the monsters that attacked her last night. No matter how much she wanted to, there was no denying it; She had thick cream colored fur covering her entire body. She had a tail. She had an extra set of arms. She had huge teeth and a forked tongue. She had huge ears on the top of her head. None of it felt right. None of it was her, yet there she was, stuck as a monster stranded in the middle of the forest.
She laid back down with tears rolling down her cheeks, feeling lost, hopeless and helpless. She couldn’t get back to the city like that. People don’t tend to do well around monsters. She had read enough stories with the premise to know that this was not going to end well for her. Experimented on, exiled, killed, treated as sub-human and probably more.
She knew for sure that being treated as sub-human wasn’t just in stories, that it was what would happen even if society was accepting enough to keep her around. She knew about peoples’ vile tendency to reject anything different from themselves. She probably did it herself more than once without realising, even. She knew that if she was stuck like this, she could never go back.
She let the thought sit for a moment. Never going back would mean… losing everything. Her friends, her family, her home, her job. The only things she had left were her mind and this strange alien body. Then again, how long would her mind even stay with her? That other creature who attacked her last night could’ve very well been someone just like her once. Someone who lost all sense and reason over time after waking up in a strange body one day.
A noise snapped her out of her misery: Footsteps coming her way, and she knew those footsteps! They were her friend’s!
She got back up, preparing mentally to greet him. The closer the footsteps got, the more anxious she got. What if he doesn't realise the monster at the camp is her? What if he does? What if she accidentally hurt him?
That last thought echoed in her mind. She could easily hurt him with a body like this. Way too easily. She didn’t know what it was capable of yet, but she has been on the receiving end already and it is not exactly pleasant.
She didn’t want to hurt him, but the closer he got, the higher the risk of it happening became.
That’s when he came into view. He looked like a mess but, at least, he was still human.
He had seen her but seemed cautious and unsure. He was presumably afraid of her, if she had to guess. She waited for him to do something, anything. But nothing came. The air felt very tense. After moments that felt interminable, he finally started approaching her cautiously.
Immediately, her ears perked up. He kept on walking towards her and, clumsily, she approached him as well.
As they got within a few feet of each other, he reached his hand towards her head and slowly stroked it.
Feeling his fingers run through her fur made her more aware of her new form than ever, feeling every little thing that just felt out of place as he touched them. It felt wrong, but it also felt comforting. Right now, out of anything, comfort is probably what she needed most.
They sat together for a while, simply enjoying one another’s company as they’ve seemingly always done.
She was still a monster, but he had managed to ease the anxiety welling up inside her. She felt safe with him. Maybe, somehow, this nightmare was going to have a good ending.
Feeling a bit more comfortable, she closed her eyes and yawned widely. As she had come to expect, it felt odd. Her mouth opened way more than it ever would have been able to previously. As she snapped her mouth shut, it was met with some unexpected resistance.
She opened her eyes back up, and saw her friend, visibly in pain. She could tell he was putting in a lot of effort to keep his composure.
It took a few seconds of staring at each other for her to put together what happened. Her teeth were sunk pretty deep into his arm. That’s what the resistance was.
As soon as she realised what she did, she released the arm from her jaw. His arm was covered in blood. Did she do that? Did she really bite him that hard? How did this even happen? She wasn’t that close from him before yawning…
She looked up at his face. Was he.. smiling? No... Nobody could possibly be happy about this… Right?
Nobody in their right mind should be happy about this and yet, there he was, with a gentle smile across his face.
The entire situation just felt wrong. She just stood there, watching her friend in disbelief. Unsure what to do, what to think. She snapped out of her daze when she heard him cough loudly.
The smile had vanished from his face. He had just coughed up some blood. Glowing green blood. Whatever was happening in this forest just kept getting weirder and weirder. Nothing made sense.
He collapsed on the ground, squirming in pain. Whatever was happening to him, he was not having a good time with it. She was frozen. Unable to look away, unable to step in to help. All she managed to do was keep staring at her friend. Staring as the pained expression on her friend’s face became more relaxed as he faded from consciousness.
She considered trying to stop the bleeding but when she looked back at his arm, it wasn’t bleeding anymore. It was actually covered in dark fur that was slowly spreading across his body.
She kept watch on him, waiting for him to wake up. The guilt from biting him like that was unbearable. Worse than that, only adding to that guilt, there was a hint of relief in her from seeing the fur spread across her friend. She wouldn’t have to be alone. They could figure it all out together.
Hours passed before he woke back up. She had fallen asleep by his side while waiting, exhausted from her stress-filled day.
He sighed in relief when he saw his changing body and his friend still by her side. He reached for her paws with his own and waited for her to wake up while the last changes were coming to his body.
Maybe it was foolish for him to take such a big risk, to make such a big sacrifice, but… it was all worth it. For her.
Previous
Author's Notes
A story that Amelia came up with this summer. It took us a while to get it somewhere we’re happy with, with many revisions before getting here, but it’s now a story we’re pretty proud of :3