I suppose my reaction was actually different from most peoples'. When I woke up to the screams coming from my mother's and sister's bathroom, I was nervous. In fact, I was downright scared. But when I saw the cause, well. . .I suppose upon looking back that it wasn't the nicest thing I could do, but my first word that fateful day was, "cool!"
My sister had a muzzle, and had lost all her glorious curly hair, and my mother, well, she had a, um beak thing. In fact, her head was covered with black scales, as were her hands, which had also sprouted webs and talons. My sister, on the other hand (paw?), had bright red fur sprouting in patches all over her face, a bulge forming under her nightshirt, which I assumed must be a tail, and sharply pointed ears in addition to the elongated snout. But all her beautiful hair was gone. This prompted me to make my second stupid, thoughtless statement that day. "Katy," I gasped, "what happened to your hair?" Then, as suddenly as it has started, the change stopped.
This was when I noticed my own relatively minor change. Whereas my sister's and mother's transformation had started on my their heads, mine seemed to have started at the opposite end of my body. I was walking digitrade, and the space between my toes and ankles, and I'm not kidding, was at least twice what it had been! In addition to this shocking metamorphosis, I noticed a fine, thin coat of black fur going halfway up my legs, and talon/claws on each of my four(!) toes. Their seemed to be a thick pad of some sort underneath my feet, where they touched the ground.
While I was making these observations, Katy burst into tears, and flung herself at me. "This is all your fault," she screamed. "Yesterday, you were asking us all those questions...about turning into animals...and now it's happened, and all my hair is gone!" This ended on an alarmingly high note, which rapidly degraded into a screech of anger. Then, suddenly and without warning, she shot out her hand, and I'm not kidding, a fireball actually flew out of fingers and launched itself at me. I saw this all as if in slow motion, I tried to duck, but my body was frozen in place, and it was to slow to respond. The fireball hit me--or the air just in front of me, and I saw a slight shimmer of something where there was nothing, and the fireball dissipated, flattening and following the ripple of something. It was as if it had hit an invisible wall.
I was stunned. the whole thing had taken maybe ten seconds. And I had some sort of shield, and my sister...well, I always knew she had a fiery temper, but this was excessive. It was a lot of information to take in in so little time.
Katy appeared to be as stunned as I was. In fact, as always, it was my mother who recovered from the shock first.
"Don't be ridiculous, Katy, " Mom said, "How could he have done this? And it's not so bad. At least we aren't all animal, we're only part animal. What was it you call it Matt? Part animal and part human?"
"Anthropomorphs," I said, "Furries. Anthropomorphic animals. You look like a reptile of some sort. With that beak, I'd guess a turtle. And Katy is definitely a Fox." Mom was so cool, as if nothing had happened. And when I'd asked her before what she thought would happen if she turned in to an animal, or even just an anthropomorphic animal, she'd said she would freak out, and probably go insane. Yeah, right.
"Thank you," Mom continued, "And in addition to the transformation, you both seemed have gained some...interesting talents. However, I don't want either of you doing that in the house. You're liable to damage something. Now, I'm going to go call the neighbors. I have a feeling this isn't just happening to us."
Just then, it started again. I felt my skeletal structure alter, and my musculature to accommodate it. Extremely uncomfortable. The fur spread up my legs and became thicker. It stopped at my waist, and then I felt a very unpleasant sensation. My coccyx elongated, gaining several new bones, and kept on getting longer,. Unfortunately, my sleep shorts restricted this growth, or tried to, which hurt a lot. Hastily, I wiggled out of my shorts...only to remember my sister and mother were standing in front of me. Embarrassed, I crouched, hiding my, um, you know, only to realize there was nothing there. Or if there was, I didn't see it. So I straightened up. Mom and Katy, luckily for my ego, were to concerned with what was going on with themselves to worry about me, and if they saw what I just did, they didn't care.
Katy's tail had grown, protruding from under her nightshirt now. It was big, red, puffy and plush, and exquisitely beautiful. I was pretty sure that now, with her hair gone, the tail would become the new focus of her vanity. She was completely covered with thick red fur, and in fact, looked almost exactly like Maid Marian in the Disney Robin Hood movie with all the anthropomorphic animals. She appeared to have finished her transformation.
My mother, though, was still changing. While I was watching, something happened I will never forget. She screamed, and clutched her back, which she had always had trouble with, and there was a ripping noise. Her gown grew and ripped as her backbone flattened out and enlarged, becoming a shell. The scales grew thicker and more numerous, and her hair fell out. The slight webbing between her fingers grew to almost the tips of her fingers. There was no doubt what she was turning into now. My guess had been right. She was a turtle. She lost her breasts altogether, but her chest was still skin. Or almost. It wasn't scales, but rather, a hard, slick-looking, grayish skin. Her legs, though, remained relatively unchanged (I wonder how she managed to stay balanced), and the scales only went halfway up her arms. All in all, she looked really comical.
Recovering quickly, she looked at me rather strangely and sighed. "I was going to tell you to put your shorts back on," she said, " but I suppose it's not really necessary now, and with all that fur its bound to be hot anyway."
Suddenly, Katy was doubled over laughing. Several times she tried to say something, but was interrupted by another laughing fit before she had really begun.
"Calm down, giggle box," I said, in my most patronizing tone, "If you keep it up, you'll die of exhaustion and never get to tell us whatever rude comment it is you have bottled up inside."
The effect was instantaneous. She began laughing all the harder, bringing tears to her eyes.
"Matt, you are not helping. Let her stop and tell us whatever it is she wants to tell us," Mom lectured.
I sighed, and said, "Well, at least we know she hasn't been affected in any adverse way by the change. She's as giggly as always."
This set her off again, just when Mom had been managing to calm her down. Mom just glared at me. I decided it was time to go back into my room. I was on my way out the door when I had a brilliant idea. I turned back around and made my way back to the to the radio through the stuff on Katy's floor. Upon reaching it, I tried to figure out which of the multitude of unlabeled buttons, knobs, switches, and dials was the one to turn it on. I hit the right one and, "...pears to be affecting everyone over or beginning puberty," the announcer was saying, "but young children and also those as yet not born, seem to be unaffected, so the human race may not be doomed after all. The widespread panic is what is actually causing the damage, except for a few cases where the change is all the way into animal. Such cases are extremely few in number, however, and if you aren't all animal already, you have nothing to worry about." The radio announcer continued talking, but I stopped listening to him, choosing instead to listen to my mother, who had begun talking.
"Good idea, Matt," she sai, "Somehow I thought this wasn't just happening to us. Now, I'm going to try the phone again; hopefully there will be no disruptions this time." She walked out the door, though she didn't have far to go; the phone was right outside Katy's bedroom door. Katy had finally stopped giggling. I'm not sure when. But it was quiet again. For now.
I decided I would go check out what was happening on the Net when Mom walked in the door, looking distressed.
"I can't do anything with the phone!" she complained.
"Actually, I'm not surprised. It's probably an overload. Everybody is trying to everybody else right now, or at least, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case," I replied.
She started to say something, but I was already out the door. The computer was downstairs, in the music room, and I had to walk by the front door to get to it. In fact, looking straight down the stairs and right a bit, I would have a great view of the street before I even went downstairs, And what I saw was amazing.
For the only time I can remember since we moved here, the street was empty. There were no cars, no people. Nothing. It was as if we were in a ghost town.
