Dog Boy

15

".... at this time, but to reiterate, here's what we know at this moment: An artificial virus, begun as a cancer treatment seventeen years ago, is now causing drastic changes in patients around the world. Experts say that the virus is not contagious through air, but is through bodily fluids. Many countries are enacting quarantine measures as the crisis unfolds. Earlier this morning, the president..."

I was awoken by the sound of a news report. In the haze of waking up, it took me a moment to realize what it was talking about, but then it became clear - the news had finally broken. The world knew what was happening.

At the same time I made this realization, another one hit me. The divider was opened, and I saw Jackie sitting on the front of her bed, the sound of the news coming from her tablet, sitting beside her. What was more surprising to me though, was that she was playing Stardew Valley. I watched, perplexed for a moment, when Jackie turned to me.

"Oh, you're awake. Look! I got a cute little duck! He even floats in the pond!"

I stared, dumbfounded for a moment. I looked down at myself as I realized more things had changed. More fur was growing on my body. I got off the bed, and discovered that the soles of my feet felt different. Lifting up a foot, I saw that they were also growing paw pads.

"Your mom got us some food," Jackie said, pointing to a bag next to my bed.

I went into the bathroom, and found an unpleasant sight in the mirror. My ears had flopped down completely. They'd grown larger, were covered in a light layer of fur, and had traveled further up my head. Most noticeable however, was the light golden fuzz all over my face. Fur was now growing all over me. There was not really much skin left on me that wasn't free of at least a few golden hairs.

I let out a long sigh. Being exposed to the strange sight for so long had worn off some of the horror I'd felt when I'd first watched it happen. Now it was just a silent, constant feeling of anxiety, watching as my body became less and less recognizable. Something that I hadn't expected when this started was just... how... unthreatening these changes looked. 

I had seen horror movies before, where someone had turned into a horrifying monster. Accidentally watching a few before I was old enough had likely been the reason why I couldn't stand horror movies today, even as a senior in high school. In all these stories it had been so clearly awful and repulsive. Even in tamer things, like the old Disney movie Princess and the Frog, it was shown to be undesirable - being a slimy frog didn't seem particularly enjoyable.

But this was not like that. For all of Jackie's cries to the contrary, it did not look monstrous. It looked very uncanny, and unfamiliar, but not repulsive exactly. My brain couldn't compute what it thought of my reflection. People of course, aren't programmed to feel threatened by seeing their own face. At the same time, most humans thought that dogs and other pets looked cute, or at least not a danger to them.

But these two things were now clashing in the mirror. My mind reeled, trying to make sense that my familiar face staring back at me, was also not my face at the same time - but also had the features one might see on a friendly dog.

I reached up, and timidly touched the bottom of one of my floppy ears. Like with my tail, I could feel through it. I tugged on it slightly. From where they were now sticking out of my hair higher up on my head, my ears sagged down all the way past eye level. I let go of the ear I was pulling on, and it bounced back up a bit. 

No, these changes didn't look scary or gross. If anything, the large floppy ears actually looked a bit goofy. I shook my head a bit, and they flung around. I found myself actually chuckling. It all just looked... silly. I stuck a finger under one of my ears, lifting it up. Thankfully, it seemed that now that they hung down, they slightly muffled my enhanced hearing. 

When I let the ear drop back down, a thought came to my mind. I concentrated on the new feeling of my transformed ears. And just like I had thought, I could move them somewhat.