A strange New Land (Redwall)

Chapter 3: A New World

I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths. Breath, just breath. No don't just stand here and fucking breath you blubbering idiot. DO SOMETHING! I raked the back of my head in frustration and fear, the claws from my paws digging in far more than I was used to. This scared me, I mean really scared me. More than death, more than torture. I'm not human anymore. I'm an animal. No! No you are Human! You are not a damn animal.

I began pacing back and forth on the beach, watching as my foot paws sunk into the sand and hating every moment of it. What was I even supposed to do now? I don't know how to be an animal? I don't know how to survive, not to mention live. Living was more than just surviving and I had no idea if I could even survive. Someone in the after life fucked up big time and I was paying the consequence. Also if I'm an animal now, Why was I wearing clothes.

It suddenly struck me. The mouse. The mouse was wearing clothes. Oh my god. What does that even mean though?

I sat back down and buried my face in my new paws. That's when I felt the shape of my face. I had a snout like a muzzle. It wasn't long enough for me to see it unless I tried, but it was there. The fur on my paws, foot paws, hind legs, and back was a brownishcolor, while my belly had white fur. I couldn't see my face and snout, but I assumed it was a similar color or some sort of combination of the two.

For the first time since waking up, I took a second to look around me and take in my surroundings. I was on a sandy beach with rocky shallows and as the shore reached further inland, rocks and jagged formations appeared more frequent. There were some small mountains in the not so far off distance, but they looked more like large rock formations than mountains. I also took notice of what appeared to be driftwood on the beach right where I had woken up.

Taking stock of what I had on me, I found that I had a tattered grey tunic and a dull green coat over top of it. I had a belt strapped around my waist which had a saber attached to it. Hung across my chest was a satchel where I found some hard tack wrapped in a wet cloth and a flask of what smelled like some sort of alcohol, Whiskey perhaps. There was a small dagger and an assortment of tools, hammers, a carving knife, and an ice pick. Oh that's interesting. A book. I fished it out of the satchel and looked over the leather bound cover. It didn't have a title or anything. I gingerly undid the bounding straps and opened it up. Inside was the most heinous looking handwriting I had ever seen. It was hardly legible. It appeared to be some kind of journal. I could make out scribbled in dates, that made no sense. There were what appeared to be names, "General Fangburn" and one he mentioned a lot "Toothsbane." I skimmed through the pages until I reached what appeared to be the most recent entry.

"Almost a season at sea and nay land in sight. Bad storm right now. Real bad storm. Fangburns, ordered the crew to tie up the sails and wait below deck which means it's bad. He'd nay give up progress otherwise. I hope I don't die, but If I do, I love you mum. I love ye with all my 'eart and I'm sorry." I whispered the entry to myself in disbelief. Was this... me? Was some animal in my body right at this very moment as I am in his? Just as I was pondering my plight, I heard... footsteps? They were faint but unmistakably footsteps and there was also chatter. It sounded like english. That couldn't be right though, everywhere around me for as far as I could see was barren. The voices were getting louder, Closer. Why was I scared? It's just voices. If it's humans they may try to hunt me. I should hide. Getting up I made my way over to a well sized formation of rocks which were further up the shore and hid behind it, watching towards the direction which I perceived the noise was coming from. Why can I hear so far? Well of course I can, I'm an animal. Animals can hear further I guess. Wait a second... What animal am I anyway? Does it even matter? So long as I can survive, the type of animal I am is relatively unimportant, right?