Chapter 3: Chapter 1

                It was pitch black around me, yet it felt oddly nice, warm, and comfortable. I opened my eyes, or at least tried to, but nothing happened. I tried to move my limbs and still nothing happened.

                That’s odd, I thought. Where am I, and how come I can’t move or see or even hear anything? Let’s see, what was the last thing I remembered doing? Oh right.

                I mentally sighed while feeling the frustration and disappointment in myself. The last thing I remembered doing was going to a bar after being informed that I was getting fired from my job. I usually don’t drink, especially since I weigh 48 kg (that’s about 105 pounds for those of you who insist on using freedom units) and have barely any tolerance to alcohol, meaning I get hammered very easily. I just wanted to forget about losing my first job that I have been in for only six months because I “wasn’t performing well enough,” and when asking my manager exactly what that meant I never got any concrete answers.

                I asked her, “Did any of the customers complain?”
                “No.”

                “Did I somehow accidentally spill food or a drink on a customer’s shirt?”

                “No.”

                “Did I not clean the tables well enough or something?”
                “No, it’s just that we don’t feel that you are the right fit for the job. Just because none of the customers complain doesn’t mean that you are doing a good job. We have standards and you are below that. I was walking by and hearing you take orders from our patrons, and I felt your service quality just wasn’t good enough.”
                “What exactly did I say that was problematic, and how can I improve?”

                “You didn’t say anything wrong, it’s just that we feel that it wasn’t good enough. For improvement, just learn from the other waitresses around you, except you don’t need to worry about that, since you are leaving.”

                Just thinking about it made my blood boil. Anyways, that night, I decided to go to a local bar and ordered whatever alcoholic beverage that was being promoted. I honestly don’t remember drinking that much, but I did remember starting to feel a bit drunk, but after that, I couldn’t remember anything.

                Thinking logically, this probably means I’m in a hospital or something in something like a coma. Did I really drink that much that I suffered brain damage or something? Or is it something like I fell down and broke my spine? Hmmm, but I feel like I can still think rather clearly.

                I tried calling for any nearby nurses or doctors, except my mouth also refused to move.

                Oh well, I thought. I guess I’ll just wait until the doctors notice I’m conscious or until I can communicate that I’m not a vegetable.

                A long time passed. For all I know, it could have been just hours, or it could have been years. It just felt like a long time. I dozed off intermittently, and just laid there getting bored and more frustrated as time went on.

                Can’t the doctors run an MRI scan and notice my brain activity is more active than a vegetable’s? Or is it that they can’t do anything to help me and I’m stuck like this till I die. No visual or auditory information, just this sensation of being warm and comfortable. I mentally shuddered. That doesn’t sound like a fun way to go. If that’s the case, I’d rather them take out life support. I’m pretty sure I’ll go crazy with this complete lack of stimulation.

                Eventually, I finally felt like I managed to roll myself around, which brought up more questions than it answered. Wait. If I was in a standard hospital bed, there is no way I would be rolling like this. For one thing, even though I feel myself rotating, I don’t think my center of mass is moving. It is as if I was flipping myself upward in a pool or something. Images of a futuristic glass tank filled with some special media with me inside it, with various tubes connected to me flashed in my mind. So did years actually pass and they moved me into some sort of futuristic pod or something? Good thing that the restaurant I worked at actually forced its employees to get long-term disability insurance, otherwise there would be no way I could afford something like this. Also, I should stop arbitrarily rolling around, lest I accidentally strangle myself with the tubes, even though I can’t feel them. Unless all they need for life support is whatever liquid I’m floating in? Oh well, since I apparently can flip myself around, if I ever wanted to commit suicide, I could just keep rolling till I strangle myself or the life support tubes snap off or something.

                Another lengthy period passed. I was starting to get really bored, then a thought suddenly came into my mind. Wait a minute. If I was in a futuristic pod or something, shouldn’t I actually keep rolling around so the doctors or whatever would realize I’m conscious and awake? I’m pretty sure if the tubes or wires, if they exist, do break off, someone would notice my vital signs are missing and check what happened.

                So I proceed to roll. I rolled until I felt dizzy, which made me realize that there are no tubes or anything connected to me. Wow, the future is amazing! They managed to keep an adult alive just through being submerged in some liquid. I can’t feel myself breathing, so they managed to even have humans get enough oxygen from water. Too bad I can’t really enjoy it in the state I’m in. Although this does give me hope, since if scientists can come up with this, surely finding a cure for whatever is causing me not to be able to see or hear anything and not be able to move much.

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                After my appreciation for the future subsided, fatigue struck me. Looks like I’m out of shape if a bit of rolling around is enough to tire me, I thought as I felt myself drifting into sleep

                When I woke up, I realized that someone should have noticed my movements earlier and that I am in fact, not a vegetable. I began to worry about the healthcare system I’m under. Why hasn’t anyone tried to contact me, explaining the situation? Or is it that they tried, and since I can’t see or hear apparently, they haven’t bothered? At least try to communicate in braille or something, not that I actually would understand that.

                More time passed without much change in the situation. The only difference is that I feel like I can kind of wave around my hands and feet a bit. Maybe this liquid I’m floating in contains the cure for whatever is causing me to have limited senses and motor function? Good thing, since that means the end of this never-ending darkness is in sight.

                As time went on, I slowly started to be able to hear noises. They didn’t happen too often, since apparently whatever environment I’m in seems to be silent most of the time. Unfortunately, the noise in question wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for (which was someone telling me about my condition and what to expect), but background noises, weird scratching noises, and what sounds like really bizarre singing. The combination of notes destroyed anything I learned in music theory and frankly did not sound like music to me. Is this what old people think of when they hear the more contemporary pieces these days? Unfortunately, I can’t appreciate this new style of music. Looks like I can now join the old grandmas and talk about how music was so much better in the olden days. This is actually really depressing. How old am I now? I didn’t even get to enjoy my youth!

                This cycle went on for a while, until that one fateful day. It began rather typically. I heard thumping noises, followed by weird scratching noises that sounded like someone scraping the walls of the tank I’m in, and then eventually the bizarre singing. From there, it started to diverge a bit. Usually the singing stops for a while, then starts back up again, but this time, the silence went on for a period longer than usual. Suddenly, I felt the sensation of falling, followed by a loud cracking noise. Light flooded into my closed eyes, as well as a sensation of pain and intense cold all over my body. I know I was wishing for more external stimuli, but this was so overwhelming, I couldn’t really think much. A few seconds passed and I felt as if I were suffocating, which brought attention to the fact that I wasn’t breathing. Unlike my eyelids which refused to budge no matter how hard I tried, I could actually force my diaphragm to move, albeit with difficulty. What just happened, and why is breathing so hard? I thought as I continually forced myself to inhale and exhale.

                While I was suffering on the floor, I heard footsteps and that strange singing again. Except this time, it seemed like it came from a different person. Not long after, I felt myself being enveloped by some warm, soft fur and then lifted upward. At this point, the pain subsided a bit and breathing became a lot easier and now automatic, so I succumbed to the fatigue I felt and drifted off into dreamland.

                When I came to, I was comfortably wrapped in a nice warm blanket. A really strong scent of grilled meat entered my nose, as someone tried to shove something in my mouth. I had no idea about what kind of meat this was, but it did taste like a less juicy, but firmer and smoother version of beef. Unfortunately, I was too weak to actually chew on the meat properly, and whoever fed it to me noticed and removed it from my mouth. Moments later, another piece of meat was shoved into my mouth, and while it had the same smell, this one seemed to have been processed somehow so that I could just swallow it without chewing. In the end, I was alternatively given processed meat and water directly in my mouth, until I couldn’t ingest anything more. At this point, I felt tired yet again, and before I fell asleep, I thought, Why do I get tired so easily? And why would my caretakers give me meat of all things for food? Couldn’t they just feed me intravenously, or at the very least, something like chicken soup? Oh well, at least I finally get to actually interact with the world instead of like before.

                I ended up living a cycle of sleeping, eating, drinking, wetting myself and more, and consistently listening to weird music (actually I’m having doubts whether it is supposed to be music) as well as chirping birds for weeks, until one day, I finally could open my eyes. What first greeted my eyes was a blurry brown ceiling, and when I tried to raise my hand to shield my eyes from the light a bit, I noticed that my hands were covered in grey fur. …What?

                I wiggled my fingers. The tiny grey hand in my vision also moved its fingers. I used my other hand and try to see if I’m wearing gloves or something, which turned out to be unlikely because tugging on my hand doesn’t cause anything to leave and more importantly, I could actually feel it when I touch the fur. What in the world is going on I tried to say, except what actually escaped from my mouth was incoherent noises. I give up, I’ll just go to sleep and think about this later.

 

                When I woke up, the first thing I saw was three wolves looking down at me.

                “Ahhh! Please don’t eat me!” I tried to say, although what came out of my mouth was gibberish.

                When I did that, their ears perked up and they excited began “singing” at each other. As they continued making those incomprehensible noises, I thought, Is what I thought as “singing” actually the way they communicate? while trying to ignore the nagging suspicion in the back of my mind of what actually happened to me. Afterwards, one of the wolves brought its hand and started poking me in the cheek. Wait why do wolves have hands?, I thought while trying to swat away the incoming grey finger covered in fur. Comparing my hand to the wolves surrounding me made me realize they look kind of similar.

                At this point I thought I should verify the suspicion, so I decided take a quick glance at my body. I saw white fur covering the area from my neck down to around my legs, which covered in grey fur. Looking back up, that matched exactly like the “wolves” standing around me.

                No way, did I actually reincarnate as a werewolf?!

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