The Animal Inside

Chapter Eighteen: Transformation Issues

A woke up to the sound of an alarm. However, it wasn’t my alarm.

“Kefira? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at training?” Gaia said.

I looked up at her groggily. I was exhausted. I was three days into my new training schedule, and it was torture.

“Get up!” Gaia said, and started hitting me with her pillow.

“Ow. Ok, ok, I’m getting up,” I moaned. Gaia had strange ways of waking me up. Hitting me was one of her favourites. Gaia got dressed while I text Diego, apologising for missing training. He replied saying it was ok, and that he knew I was working hard and was probably tired. I got up and had a shower.

When I got out of the shower, I noticed something odd. There was this strange sensation in my lower back, near the bottom of my spine. I reached around, trying to figure out what was causing the strange feeling. My fingers ran over bare skin, then hit something soft, and...furry.

I turned around, trying to see what it could be. I started to get dizzy and stopped. I felt like a dog chasing it tail. Tail?!

I looked at myself in the full length mirror. The lower half of the mirror was clear of condensation, so I could see myself from my shoulders down. I stood side on.

The tail was long and thin. It was about a metre long, and covered in spots like you would find on a leopard. The spots continued up onto my back around the base of the tail. It swished from side to side.

“GAIA!” I screamed. I grabbed a towel, wrapping it around myself. Gaia barged into the bathroom. She stared at me.

“You...you...” she stuttered.

“Look!” I turned around showing Gaia the tail that protruded from underneath my towel.

Gaia just looked at me, gobsmacked.

“Um, Kefira?” Gaia sounded worried.

“Yeah?”

“Have you seen your face?”

I turned to face the mirror, wiping some condensation from the mirror in order to see my face. My face had changed. I had whiskers coming from my cheeks, and rounded, spotted ears peaking through my blonde, damp hair. My eyes were a brilliant green; they seemed to be brighter than normal.

“Holy shit!” I gasped

“What do we do?” Gaia asked.

“Call Diego. He’ll know what to do.”

Gaia walked out of the bathroom. I could hear her on the phone to Diego. Her voice shook like crazy, which wasn’t surprising.

“Diego’s on his way,” Gaia said. I nodded, walking back into the room and sitting down on my bed, carefully making sure I wasn’t sitting on my tail.

“Just one question,” Gaia said.

“What?”

“Should you be wearing something that isn’t a towel when he gets here?”

“Probably. What could I wear though? I can’t wear pants or anything because it would crush my tail. Wow; that was weird to say.”

“Here,” Gaia said as she flung something at me. I caught it easily. It was a dressing gown.

“It’s old and I barely use it. We could cut a hole to put your, um, tail through,” Gaia explained. I put on the dressing gown. It was a faded pink, and super fluffy. Gaia carefully cut a hole, and I threaded my tail through it.