Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 1: Forest of Dreams

Chapter One: Forest of Dreams

Everything faded into a horrible ringing noise.

Xaphile was completely deaf, and the only physical recognition he could place was the feeling of his body coughing violently and breathing deeply. For several seconds, his mind was completely disconnected from everything aside from that single sensation, but eventually a flash of confusion touched him, rousing his consciousness.

His eyes opened, but couldn't process anything they were seeing, so he blinked a few times and waited for his his ringing ears to adjust before he attempted to move. He struggled to raise his head, but his muscles jerked and acted funny since his body didn't seem to be familiar with the memories of movement. He couldn't even remember how to lift his hands or move his legs.

A warm breeze caressed his back and the sound of chirping birds finally began to take shape in his ears as he struggled to get up, and while nothing actually happened due to his limbs feeling completely dead, slowly but surely he started recognizing what was in front of him.

Grass.

There was grass beneath his nose, not slush and cold concrete, and for several seconds he could only blink stupidly at the earthy plants, wondering if he was hallucinating since it had been snowing mere seconds ago. He lay there limply until the feeling in his body came creeping back, his skin and muscles prickling and tingling as if ants were biting every part of his writhing flesh.

A pounding ache unexpectedly flashed into his head, making him wince, but that much was definitely expected considering he'd just shot himself in the head...

Wait... he thought, squeezing his eyes shut in confusion. Wait. Hold up. If I shot myself, how am I still... alive? Shouldn't I be bleeding, at the very least?

Baffled and a bit disturbed, he once again attempted to wriggle his hands to test his motor control, and to his relief his limbs finally responded weakly. Once he was able to, he twisted his limp and prickling body, using his arms to push himself upright and ignoring his popping joints.

Lifting his hand, he touched his throbbing temple, then pulled it away from his face. There was no blood on his fingers, thankfully, but after a few seconds that thought was no longer his immediate concern. He stared blankly at his fingernails, wondering if he was seeing things.

"Huh?" he croaked, flexing his palm with a confused blink. "Ew... what's wrong with my nails?"

'Ew' indeed.

For some reason they were jet black, abnormally long, and looked almost like... claws of some sort, but unless someone had given him a set of dangerous acrylic nails while he'd been unconscious, how or why they looked the way they did was beyond his level of comprehension.

Actually, everything was beyond his comprehension once he actually took the time to look around. From what he could see, he had been lying in the shade of a huge tree with sunlight playing across his pale skin in dapples made by leaves hanging overhead, and when a breeze touched his legs, he glanced down and realized with a jolt of alarm that he was totally naked.

Then he noticed something else... something that felt extremely wrong.

Awkwardly looking over his shoulder, he tried to spot the source of this weird feeling and froze like a statue when he did. His hair was just as long as it had ever been, but underneath it was a silky-looking hyena-like mane of fur that began at the nape of his neck and stretched all the way down to his rear, where a thick, black, lion-like tail was sticking out of his tailbone.

His horrified eyes followed the tail's length all the way to the tip, which was flicking back and forth nearly five feet away.

"What the fuck?" he whispered, clutching the freakish appendage and jumping when he realized he could actually feel his hand on it. "What the actual FUCK?!"