I was sort of tired of the writer's block (which, it turns out, does not exist) so I read Fae's guides to writing furry, about writer's block and motivation. I made a list of Poetigress's Thursday Prompts, and started writing whatever I thought of on a topic.

So essentially I was stuck, I didn't feel like writing the Airbourne series, but I wanted to write, I had told myself I would finish the series, and then I though, well f*** it! I'll write what I feel like writing when I want to!

And so I wrote. And this is the result. Pure and unedited, The Last Day.

The Last Day

I remember it very clearly. The Last Day. The Last Day I was home. The Last Day I was human. The Last Day.
The Last Day. Pwah. You’d expect the Last Day as in the day before I die, right? Well, in a way, I guess that’s sort of what happened. But I didn’t die. I a way, it’s kinda worse. I’m dead to my parents. I’m dead to my friends. I’m dead to everyone. But I’m not dead.
You know, you’d think the last day was something majestic, something memorable, something, I don’t know, grandiose or something. But no. As last days go, mine was pretty dumb. I woke up late, of course. I took a bus to school, thinking up excuses for why I’d be late, but I never got to pick which one I’d use.
I guess it’s one of those moments, like a pivotal point in your life where everything changes in an instant. So many what if’s. What if I had woken up earlier? What if I had woken up later? What if I hadn’t run to catch up to this bus, just as it pulled away? What if I’d have taken the next one? What if it hadn’t happened when we were passing the River’s Gorge? If it had been just a few minutes earlier or later, if the bus had just not been on the outskirts of the town just then... I guess I’ll never know. It’s one of those moments where everything changes, and you can’t ever go back.
Somebody started Changing.
No, not changing as in change of clothes, undressing and dressing again. No, Changing with a capital C. As in, Changing into an animal. Nobody really knew what the heck it was, how it worked, where it came from, or why it changed people into animals, but it was there The Virus. Scientists said it was something with ancestral DNA virus thing, and that it messed up your DNA. So far, that’s the only thing they’d really found out. Couldn’t stop it, couldn’t fix it, couldn’t prevent it. And it was contagious.
The guy just doubled over and grunted. People moved away, you know, in case he started throwing up on their shoes or something. But then there was something wrong with him, and people started understanding it was gonna get much worse.
One of them screamed. “He’s Changing! Oh my God, get away!” Everybody panicked, and all Hell broke loose. I dunno if the driver panicked, or if someone pushed him, but whatever it was, the bus lurched. And a cement mixer came around the corner, coming towards us full blast.
It’s funny the details you remember. The guy changing was in the middle of the only open space in the bus. He was wearing a blue suit, and any other day you’d a thought he was just another Joe, but you knew just by looking something was wrong. He was Changing into something else. He had one arm pressed to his stomach, the other extended out to the door. His whole chest looked like it was being stretched up and out, and fur spread up his neck and out the cuffs of his jacket.
Everybody else was just a blur of fear and panic, moving away from the ‘Throp, some trying to open the doors or the emergency windows, even though the bus was still moving. The midday sun cast everything with an oddly calming golden light, and everything seemed peaceful, just for like half a second.
The cement mixer kept going. The driver was lucky. The bus turned just before the cement mixer crashed into it, sparing the front. Instead, I could see it coming, slowly, almost gracefully, straight towards me. It slowly blocked my view of everything else, advancing slowly, hiding the bright green spruce trees behind the ridge, hiding the sparkling waters of the river, hiding the mud brown of the Gorge itself, hiding the green and gold forest beyond the Gorge. Finally, my view was completely filled with the impossibly huge truck, until it crashed into the bus.
The metal screamed as it was torn to pieces, the windows exploded into hundreds of tiny crystals, flying through the air. Then the mixer smashed into something solid, and suddenly I flew, almost like I was floating through midair towards the cement mixer. Broken glass stung me everywhere, and suddenly I was out of the bus. I was outside the bus, still floating in midair. Heading directly towards the driver. Slowly, gently, floating towards the windshield. I could see the driver, I could tell he looked panicked, his mouth half-forming an “Oh, shit!”, but he could only stare as I came close enough to touch the windshield.
Then, time resumed its course. It had taken what felt like 30 minutes, an hour, between when the man started Changing, and when I was suspended in the air outside the bus, facing the driver through his windshield. I touched the windshield, And someone pressed fast forward on the great cosmic remote control. I was slapped against the windshield, pain flaring in my shoulder and hip, I flew so high, caught a glimpse of blue sky and clouds clouds then thudding hard on the ground and brown mud and rolling down and splashing and water and then black.
So. That was my Last Day. Wake up, eat breakfast, be late for school (as usual), go to school, then BAM. The cement mixer. Pretty boring, right? Hey, no, don’t go! It’s not the end! My Last Day as a human being was pretty boring, but my Last Night as a human being more than made up for that.

I don’t remember waking up slowly, like you know people do in movies, and things come into focus slowly and the injured guy sits up and asks ‘what happened’, you know? No, I know I did that, I just can’t remember a thing. I remember sitting up in a bed, hurting like hell in my shoulder and hip, and drinking something. I know I was awake before that but it’s like I wasn’t there. And I woke up, and I screamed.
It wasn’t a bed. It was just a pile of leaves and stuff with a cover on top. I wasn’t in a house, it looked more like a wooden hut. And it wasn’t people around me. It was a bunch of ‘Throps.
You grew up with them, in a way. You knew what a ‘Throp was before you even knew who Jesus. Jesus would be with you all your life, he’d always love you, and when you’d be dead, he would be there for you. The ‘Throps weren’t so nice. They ate babies, they maimed children. You saw one, you ran for your life, because Jesus wouldn’t be there to help you. You ran because your life depended on it. Everyone had an uncle who’d been attacked, a cousin who’d Changed and destroyed everything, a neighbor going wild and running through the streets, ripping the faces off everyone they met. They were wild rabid animals. They were dangerous. They were contagious. And they were all around me.
I screamed some more, because I thought that’s what people do when they’re surrounded by bloodthirsty beasts. I screamed and tried to run away, to go back. I managed to push myself off the ‘bed’ before I fell. It felt like my shoulder exploded, and everything went black again.

This time, I woke up slowly, adrenaline already racing in my veins. It was dark, nothing was moving. I knew I had to run away. It was a miracle I had woken up at all, and the savage things hadn’t eaten me, and I would make sure that never happened. I carefully got up, but no matter what, the leaf bed rustled and snapped and it sounded like a hurricane of noise in the dead of night. I stood silent for a moment, and thanked the heavens for the second miracle that day. No one came, maybe no one heard. I didn’t care. I cared to get the Hell out of there as fast as I could.
I got out and walked slowly away, looking around everywhere. There was another hut further in the forest, so I moved in the opposite direction. Pretty soon I was running, terrified at the idea that the ‘Throps would catch up to me and pounce me and rip me to shreds. Of course, now I know there would’ve been no way I could have gotten away if they hadn’t let me.
After a while, I just couldn’t breathe, I had to stop. Pain lanced up and down my right side, and it was only then that I noticed. Maybe I was over the adrenaline rush, maybe it was simply because I wasn’t scared out of my mind, for now. Whatever it was, it was like all the pain I hadn’t felt just crashed on my shoulders. I fell to my knees and stayed there, crying.
My right shoulder was definitely broken, there was no question about that. The moment I tensed my right arm, it felt like I was going to rip it out of its socket. I had to let it limp. My hips tortured me, but at least I could walk, which I took as a good sign. For some reason though, mismatched pieces of cloth were tied around my shoulder, holding it in place. I wondered why they’d bother trying to patch me up when I heard a noise behind me. A branch snapped.
I was up and running again before I knew what was going on. I ran and ran and ran and stumbled, thinking I kept hearing things behind me, not daring to turn around, I just kept going straight ahead.
Eventually, I came across a road. I might have never noticed it and ran straight across it if a car hadn’t passed. The lights promised me a return to civilization, to see doctors, a hospital, and to finally get away from the nightmarish ‘Throps. Soon, the lights faded to my right, so I headed down that way.
I don’t remember the trip to the city itself. It was dark, I stumbled a bit, I was exhausted. I don’t remember when I saw them, but after a while I realized I could see the city lights ahead! I was almost home! I was almost there!
The streets were empty. Nobody wanted to be out when the beasts roamed the streets. I didn’t care. I was just so happy to get home, finally, to be safe, it was almost like I could feel the pain going away, like I knew soon it would all be over.
I hobbled as fast as I could through the city. A police car went by, but didn’t stop. So long as you were human, they mostly didn’t bother you. I shivered when the lights swept over me tough. It must be cold outside.
I finally arrived to our apartment. I punched in the code for the door to unlock, and I went in. I was so relieved, I could just imagine the relieved face of my mom when she learned I wasn’t dead in the bus crash. I was almost numb with excitement, and probably from shock and fatigue too, I admitted to myself. That’s maybe why I didn’t feel the weird prickling under my bandaged arm. I was panting from the effort of climbing to the third floor, holding my stomach with my good hand as I felt cold sweat pour off me.
I didn’t care. I was home. My mom almost fainted when she saw me. She called everyone, they all looked so happy, my dad bearhugged me so hard I thought I would faint. Then they saw my bandages, and mom freaked out. I tried to calm them down, to say I bandaged myself. I didn’t want to tell them about the ‘throps. Nobody listened though, dad went running to get the phone, probably to call the ambulance. Mom was saying over and over again poor me, my arm was broken, but that I shouldn’t worry, that everything was fine. Little Danny didn’t seem too concerned, at least.
I guess maybe it’s because he saw I wasn’t in pain. Maybe it was because I was nodding at him. But for whatever reason, he came closer and started fiddling with my bandage, trying to clean it a bit from the mud and dirt. A wave of dizziness swept over me, and everything seemed far away. I was home, I was safe, I thought I was feeling the aftereffects of going into shock or something.
I could hear dad on the phone, but the sound came as though through a long tunnel. I could see my mom talking to me, trying to sound reassuring, but she was strangely blurring, bending, as though she was made of noodles. I could smell, almost taste, the stink of mud and water and dirt coming off me, along with the faint smell I remembered as ‘home’, smells of windex, clean rugs and traces of coffee in the air. I could feel what felt like every square inch of my skin, the sweat on my forehead and running down my back, the burning heat in my legs and arm, despite how deep down inside I though I was freezing. The only thing I couldn’t feel was my right arm.
Well, not feel isn’t really the good term. I couldn’t feel it very well. I could feel it throbbing. I could feel it was uncomfortable, with pins and needles going up and down my arm, but it was all very indistinct. Then, I felt my bandages give a little, just a lessening of the pressure on my arm. I sighed with relief, happy I wasn’t in pain and that my arm wasn’t squeezed so uncomfortably. Then I heard Danny gasp.
Now I knew my little brother. He was always saying he’d be better than me, how brave and unafraid he was. And he tried really hard. He wasn’t scared when the last hurricane came blowing in, he wasn’t scared when he went to haunted houses or when he watched horror movies. Or maybe he was scared, he just didn’t show it. But when he gasped, and I looked at him, I saw Danny’s eyes were wide, and all the blood had drained from his face. For the first time I saw Danny white as a sheet.
So I asked him, ‘Danny, what’s wrong? What’s wrong, Danny?’ He didn’t answer. He just kept staring. Somehow, he looked almost funny.
Then I heard mom gasp. I looked at her, and saw her stare at my arm just before she screamed. Immediately, Danny jumped back, fell to the floor and scrambled to her. Dad came running in, I think he was asking what was going on, but I couldn’t hear him. Blood was rushing in my ears, I could feel myself shaking, I could almost smell the fear and surprise in the air. But what freaked me out the most was that I could feel the pins and needles feeling, going up and down my shoulder, down to my elbow, where I could see the fur creeping up and down my arm under the bandages.
I jumped back, and I saw mom and Danny jump too out of the corner of my eyes, but I didn’t care. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t bitten. I had hardly seen them, it wasn’t enough time for them to infect me! I couldn’t be a ‘throp!
But there it was, brown-reddish and white fur, invading my body, slowly turning me into one of them, into an animal. Maybe they had done things to me while I was out. Maybe Iwas
Suddenly I heard shouting, and I snapped my head up. My dad shouted again, and I could see him waving something at me.
“Get out! Get out!” He shouted again, pointing to the door. He moved in front of mom and Danny, and it was only then I realized he’d taken our old gun. It was a souvenir from when my granddad went to war, an old gun, and we didn’t even know if it could still shoot. But it was a gun pointed at me. My dad was pointing a gun at me, trying to protect mom and Danny from me, because I was turning into a monster. I didn’t know what to do, I stepped towards them, I don’t even know why.
Then my father roared at me, almost stabbed me with the bayonet, screamed at me to get out. I looked him in the eye, I was panicking, and I could see he was scared shitless too. But I could also see he’d do anything to protect mom and Danny. He was sorry for me, I guess, but I was as good as dead, and we both knew it. We both knew he’d do what he’d have to do. That iron resolution, that inflexible will, scared me more than anything else. My father would kill me. I ran.
I ran, I ran, feeling the pricks and needles moving down my arm, I could feel something inside me, I could smell, I could hear, I could see, and I knew I was becoming one of them. I ran and I ran and I ran, not stopping until I reached the forest outside the town, not stopping until I couldn’t see the lights of the city behind me, not stopping until I fell, until I couldn’t run anymore. I panted, lying on the ground, as I felt the changes come over me.
Then I screamed. I screamed because I was Changing, I screamed because it was unfair. I screamed because I was scared I’d be gone, I screamed because I was scared I wouldn’t be, and I’d have to live through it all, seeing everything through the eyes of a beast as I did horrible things. I screamed because it was all I could do, I screamed because it was the last thing the real I would ever be able to do.

And then I woke up. I could hear them. I could hear breathing in front of me, I could hear that I was in a small room, I knew they were there, and I knew the knew I was here too. I was too tired, I was too scared, I just didn’t care anymore.
“Why,” I whispered.
“Because we’re not animals.”