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It was a… surreal feeling. I was walking through the hallways of my school again, after weeks of being absent. It felt weird being back after such a long absence… and of course, the fact that I was covered in fur, walking on padded feet instead of wearing shoes, had a very visible tail, and a muzzle topped with a snout.
Jackie and I walked beside each other, hands clasped. I could tell she felt extremely nervous, and I did too - but I also felt more at ease than I had been expecting. It wasn’t like every other person had contracted the virus, or even something like one in ten. The number of anthros though was still more than I would’ve guessed.
There were people who’d become like labradors, others were beagles, and there were several border collies - I smiled and waved when I saw a golden retriever boy. He kept his head down, a dark look in his eyes. Most of the time, I could usually spot at least one other anthro in my range of vision, especially in more open areas of the school.
Apart from the obvious, that there were a number of anthro students now, and a few faculty that had gotten the virus, I noticed other things. Drinking fountains were taped off. Posters with graphics about preventing canis were spread throughout the school, especially in bathrooms. When I walked into homeroom, we were all required to use hand sanitizer. It did not feel good on my furry paw-like hands.
The worst class for safety measures was chemistry, where despite the fact that it wasn’t like we were drinking anything we were working with, me and the three other anthros in the class were forced to wear these old gross lab coats, as our fur presented a fire hazard. My only comfort was that Jackie and I texted each other about how things sucked throughout the day.
Lunch was a nice break… apart from, again, all the safety stuff. Jackie and I, being anthros, had to go through a check in station, where we had our temperature checked and were asked about how long it had been since we’d changed. Thankfully, Jackie and I had sack lunches, so the slog through more check ins was over. For a moment, at least.
I let out a long groan as we sat down in a circular booth, my tongue sticking far out.
“This…,” Jackie said, “is going to be hard to get used to.”
“I can only hope that it will only be temporary.”
“What?” Jackie smiled as she pulled out her lunch, “the screening or doing classes in general? Cause I guess that school is kinda temporary in a way.”
I laughed, and made joking sobbing noises at the prospect of the rest of high school and then college after.
“Well,” Douglas said, sliding into my side of the booth, while Lexi took the other side with Jackie, “at least it’s very easy to pick out where you guys are in the lunchroom now.”
Douglas and his girlfriend had now fully changed. Their black and white patterned faces made them unmistakable as huskies. I was just glad they didn’t have the odd super bright husky irises.
I was taken aback as I saw Douglas take something out of his lunch bag.
“Are those… beggin’ strips?” Jackie asked, pointing at a ziploc bag.
Douglas shirked back a little. “So I got a little hungry in quarantine, so I happened to find these in the back of the cupboard… and so -”
“You have been eating dog treats,” I said incredulously.
“I am not a dog Matt,” Douglas said, taking one of the very processed looking pieces of bacon and… and putting it in his mouth.
“I…,” he chewed it readily, “am Douglas. So technically, they are Douglas treats.
“Doglas,” Lexi whispered to Jackie, prompting stifled laughter.
“Ha ha ha,” Douglas said. “You guys are just too scared to try.”
“You do you man,” I said, “just… please don’t go any worse.”
“Even if he does,” Lexi said, “he’ll still be my cute husky boy.”
Douglas smiled at his girlfriend, then glanced to me.
“So Matt, how’s your family doing?”
I sighed. “I dunno. I have mixed emotions. Ashley isn’t really in the best place right now since finishing her change. I see her keep reaching up occasionally and touching her snout, with a sorrowful look in her eyes. She is convinced that she is beyond any kind of love or friendship it seems. I’m worried about her.”
“Well,” Jackie said, “I’ve known your sister for a while now, and I know that she can fight fiercely.”
“If she wants to,” I said. “And… I’m also worried about my Dad.”
Jackie’s ears perked up. “Really? I would’ve thought he’d handle it well.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not that. It… it is really weird getting used to my Mom and sister having canis - but my Mom seems to be managing just fine. She’s almost finished changing. But my Dad… I haven’t seen him a lot in the past few days.”
Douglas shrugged. “I guess they’re just really busy working on a cure.”
I had told them some - but not all. I told them my Dad was working at a new lab trying to solve the problems with canis, but no much else - like the murky legality of stuff he was doing.
I leaned back against the booth, and looked around. My ears perked up as I listened to the vast amount of sound in the cafeteria, and could pick out a surprising number of conversations - a number of which were about canis. Not all of them were very kind to those who’d contracted the virus.
But I also saw a number of anthros - who again seemed to congregate together. I had found in the time since I developed my snout that I could smell anthros too. The cafeteria had that scent mixed in with that of all the different foods people were eating. A girl near us was eating something with caesar salad dressing. It no longer overwhelmed me anymore, my improved senses - but it was another one of those moments where I “woke up” and realized just how much had changed.
“All this…,” I said, “is going to take forever to adjust to.”
Lexi folded her arms and rested her head on them. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever adjust.”
There was a really depressing silence for a moment or two. We all looked at each other, all of us weird human dog hybrids. A month ago the sight of this would’ve seemed absurd. The fact that I now had a tail would’ve seemed absurd. But it was real. It was very real.
Our moment of silent depression was broken with Ted and Wendy walking up to our booth. We gave a half hearted hello, and it was immediately obvious that they were trying to talk about anything but the fact that their friends were now dog people. I felt a pang of guilt for how I’d often viewed Ted - in this moment he seemed to be trying to spare us a reminder of the situation. He wanted to give us some normalcy.
But I didn’t need a reminder when there were a number of reminders all attached to me. I ran the black padded tips of my fingers along my fur covered arms. It all… was surreal. But then, it also felt normal. I’d stopped having moments where I would touch my face and expect smooth skin, or be dressing for the day and forget to navigate around my tail - no, that was all normal now too.
Even in my dreams, everyone in my family were always dog people - even when I had a dream about a past memory, they were retroactively golden retrievers.
I took out my phone as Wendy was telling the others about a really stupid group project she was having to do. I scrolled through my photos. Very few recently - it wasn’t like there was much occasion to take pictures lately. And then the older pictures. Photos of my sister and my parents, with normal human faces. Looking at pictures from Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, there was another obvious difference - we all were happy.
My Dad wasn’t burdened with having to somehow gain control over the crisis he’d helped create. My Mom wasn’t filled with grief about how to save her children from an unstoppable virus. Ashley wasn’t crumbling into depression after changing to look like an animal.
And then I looked at pictures of me. I smiled with them at Christmas and such - but then I remembered looking at another picture, where I did not have a smile. My family enjoyed going ice skating in the winter, but the outdoor skating rink we always went to on Christmas Eve had been closed due to the weather being too warm. I had not been happy.
More memories passed through my mind, of holidays and vacations where I had been a stick in the mud because something hadn’t gone the way I wanted it to. Now it had happened to my entire normal life. I knew that I acted like a grumpy idiot sometimes, and people pointed it out to me - but what felt so painful was that I felt like I wasn’t that person. I felt like the person who had comforted Jackie as she had changed.
But I also didn’t. I felt like a hypocrite. For someone who claimed to be an optimist, I sure did complain a lot. I sure did make life miserable for those around me. Maybe I had acted selflessly for a short time, but what would I be like if a normal life really did return? How would I treat my friends and family? Would I bristle and get angry if someone teased me? Would I slack off on responsibilities because I was too upset about something to actually work?
I felt cold. I grew colder. It was an icy tendril from within, creeping through my body. I felt my fur stand up on end all over me.
What was normal to me? Did I want normal? I wished that everything had gone back to the way it was before. Did that include me? Did I want to be that self centered pouting child? I felt like it was going to eventually reach that point anyway. I felt guilt and anxiety right now, but what would happen when I grew more comfortable again? How would I feel when things went wrong?
I knew what I would feel like. I knew who I would be. I would be Matt. Matt, that person who ruined other people’s enjoyment of life.
I told my friends that I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t come back.
Previous: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44709685/
Next: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44777657/
First Part: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43399487/
Join my discord server for canine furries and friends! : https://discord.gg/xGhR89y2mW
Jackie and I walked beside each other, hands clasped. I could tell she felt extremely nervous, and I did too - but I also felt more at ease than I had been expecting. It wasn’t like every other person had contracted the virus, or even something like one in ten. The number of anthros though was still more than I would’ve guessed.
There were people who’d become like labradors, others were beagles, and there were several border collies - I smiled and waved when I saw a golden retriever boy. He kept his head down, a dark look in his eyes. Most of the time, I could usually spot at least one other anthro in my range of vision, especially in more open areas of the school.
Apart from the obvious, that there were a number of anthro students now, and a few faculty that had gotten the virus, I noticed other things. Drinking fountains were taped off. Posters with graphics about preventing canis were spread throughout the school, especially in bathrooms. When I walked into homeroom, we were all required to use hand sanitizer. It did not feel good on my furry paw-like hands.
The worst class for safety measures was chemistry, where despite the fact that it wasn’t like we were drinking anything we were working with, me and the three other anthros in the class were forced to wear these old gross lab coats, as our fur presented a fire hazard. My only comfort was that Jackie and I texted each other about how things sucked throughout the day.
Lunch was a nice break… apart from, again, all the safety stuff. Jackie and I, being anthros, had to go through a check in station, where we had our temperature checked and were asked about how long it had been since we’d changed. Thankfully, Jackie and I had sack lunches, so the slog through more check ins was over. For a moment, at least.
I let out a long groan as we sat down in a circular booth, my tongue sticking far out.
“This…,” Jackie said, “is going to be hard to get used to.”
“I can only hope that it will only be temporary.”
“What?” Jackie smiled as she pulled out her lunch, “the screening or doing classes in general? Cause I guess that school is kinda temporary in a way.”
I laughed, and made joking sobbing noises at the prospect of the rest of high school and then college after.
“Well,” Douglas said, sliding into my side of the booth, while Lexi took the other side with Jackie, “at least it’s very easy to pick out where you guys are in the lunchroom now.”
Douglas and his girlfriend had now fully changed. Their black and white patterned faces made them unmistakable as huskies. I was just glad they didn’t have the odd super bright husky irises.
I was taken aback as I saw Douglas take something out of his lunch bag.
“Are those… beggin’ strips?” Jackie asked, pointing at a ziploc bag.
Douglas shirked back a little. “So I got a little hungry in quarantine, so I happened to find these in the back of the cupboard… and so -”
“You have been eating dog treats,” I said incredulously.
“I am not a dog Matt,” Douglas said, taking one of the very processed looking pieces of bacon and… and putting it in his mouth.
“I…,” he chewed it readily, “am Douglas. So technically, they are Douglas treats.
“Doglas,” Lexi whispered to Jackie, prompting stifled laughter.
“Ha ha ha,” Douglas said. “You guys are just too scared to try.”
“You do you man,” I said, “just… please don’t go any worse.”
“Even if he does,” Lexi said, “he’ll still be my cute husky boy.”
Douglas smiled at his girlfriend, then glanced to me.
“So Matt, how’s your family doing?”
I sighed. “I dunno. I have mixed emotions. Ashley isn’t really in the best place right now since finishing her change. I see her keep reaching up occasionally and touching her snout, with a sorrowful look in her eyes. She is convinced that she is beyond any kind of love or friendship it seems. I’m worried about her.”
“Well,” Jackie said, “I’ve known your sister for a while now, and I know that she can fight fiercely.”
“If she wants to,” I said. “And… I’m also worried about my Dad.”
Jackie’s ears perked up. “Really? I would’ve thought he’d handle it well.”
“No,” I said, “it’s not that. It… it is really weird getting used to my Mom and sister having canis - but my Mom seems to be managing just fine. She’s almost finished changing. But my Dad… I haven’t seen him a lot in the past few days.”
Douglas shrugged. “I guess they’re just really busy working on a cure.”
I had told them some - but not all. I told them my Dad was working at a new lab trying to solve the problems with canis, but no much else - like the murky legality of stuff he was doing.
I leaned back against the booth, and looked around. My ears perked up as I listened to the vast amount of sound in the cafeteria, and could pick out a surprising number of conversations - a number of which were about canis. Not all of them were very kind to those who’d contracted the virus.
But I also saw a number of anthros - who again seemed to congregate together. I had found in the time since I developed my snout that I could smell anthros too. The cafeteria had that scent mixed in with that of all the different foods people were eating. A girl near us was eating something with caesar salad dressing. It no longer overwhelmed me anymore, my improved senses - but it was another one of those moments where I “woke up” and realized just how much had changed.
“All this…,” I said, “is going to take forever to adjust to.”
Lexi folded her arms and rested her head on them. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever adjust.”
There was a really depressing silence for a moment or two. We all looked at each other, all of us weird human dog hybrids. A month ago the sight of this would’ve seemed absurd. The fact that I now had a tail would’ve seemed absurd. But it was real. It was very real.
Our moment of silent depression was broken with Ted and Wendy walking up to our booth. We gave a half hearted hello, and it was immediately obvious that they were trying to talk about anything but the fact that their friends were now dog people. I felt a pang of guilt for how I’d often viewed Ted - in this moment he seemed to be trying to spare us a reminder of the situation. He wanted to give us some normalcy.
But I didn’t need a reminder when there were a number of reminders all attached to me. I ran the black padded tips of my fingers along my fur covered arms. It all… was surreal. But then, it also felt normal. I’d stopped having moments where I would touch my face and expect smooth skin, or be dressing for the day and forget to navigate around my tail - no, that was all normal now too.
Even in my dreams, everyone in my family were always dog people - even when I had a dream about a past memory, they were retroactively golden retrievers.
I took out my phone as Wendy was telling the others about a really stupid group project she was having to do. I scrolled through my photos. Very few recently - it wasn’t like there was much occasion to take pictures lately. And then the older pictures. Photos of my sister and my parents, with normal human faces. Looking at pictures from Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, there was another obvious difference - we all were happy.
My Dad wasn’t burdened with having to somehow gain control over the crisis he’d helped create. My Mom wasn’t filled with grief about how to save her children from an unstoppable virus. Ashley wasn’t crumbling into depression after changing to look like an animal.
And then I looked at pictures of me. I smiled with them at Christmas and such - but then I remembered looking at another picture, where I did not have a smile. My family enjoyed going ice skating in the winter, but the outdoor skating rink we always went to on Christmas Eve had been closed due to the weather being too warm. I had not been happy.
More memories passed through my mind, of holidays and vacations where I had been a stick in the mud because something hadn’t gone the way I wanted it to. Now it had happened to my entire normal life. I knew that I acted like a grumpy idiot sometimes, and people pointed it out to me - but what felt so painful was that I felt like I wasn’t that person. I felt like the person who had comforted Jackie as she had changed.
But I also didn’t. I felt like a hypocrite. For someone who claimed to be an optimist, I sure did complain a lot. I sure did make life miserable for those around me. Maybe I had acted selflessly for a short time, but what would I be like if a normal life really did return? How would I treat my friends and family? Would I bristle and get angry if someone teased me? Would I slack off on responsibilities because I was too upset about something to actually work?
I felt cold. I grew colder. It was an icy tendril from within, creeping through my body. I felt my fur stand up on end all over me.
What was normal to me? Did I want normal? I wished that everything had gone back to the way it was before. Did that include me? Did I want to be that self centered pouting child? I felt like it was going to eventually reach that point anyway. I felt guilt and anxiety right now, but what would happen when I grew more comfortable again? How would I feel when things went wrong?
I knew what I would feel like. I knew who I would be. I would be Matt. Matt, that person who ruined other people’s enjoyment of life.
I told my friends that I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t come back.
Previous: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44709685/
Next: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44777657/
First Part: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43399487/
Join my discord server for canine furries and friends! : https://discord.gg/xGhR89y2mW
Category Story / Transformation
Species Dog (Other)
Size 120 x 80px
File Size 53.7 kB
Oh boy have I got a lot to say!
First of all, wow, you are a freaking natural at stories. There's only one thing you can do and that's grow in popularity.
Secondly, I can't help but notice all the little things that have to do with covid, and I hate it. Look, I know it's kind of the point of the story, but I always struggle reading anything to do with that and I'm sure there are others who have the same problem.
Also I wanted to compliment the speed that you're writing these chapters. It's quite incredible. I did find some grammar errors though, so remember to look that over before posting the story too.
Despite all the criticism, I can't thank you enough for giving us all such an incredible story, it's truly amazing.
First of all, wow, you are a freaking natural at stories. There's only one thing you can do and that's grow in popularity.
Secondly, I can't help but notice all the little things that have to do with covid, and I hate it. Look, I know it's kind of the point of the story, but I always struggle reading anything to do with that and I'm sure there are others who have the same problem.
Also I wanted to compliment the speed that you're writing these chapters. It's quite incredible. I did find some grammar errors though, so remember to look that over before posting the story too.
Despite all the criticism, I can't thank you enough for giving us all such an incredible story, it's truly amazing.
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