It'd been a few weeks since I got back and one thing worried me. No matter how much I ate I'd be hungry again an hour or so later. This time Nik and Catty walked in on me eating in the mess hall, I essentially had an entire buffet sitting in front of me. It probably started just after I woke up from being knocked out at the Political Stadium, this insatiable appetite. Mom and the others hadn't come back yet and I didn't trust anyone else to know about this.
"I'm scared."
"Dude if you keep eating like this you're gonna turn into a balloon animal."
"I'm serious!" I snarled at them, the unprovoked anger caught them both of guard. "It feels a little bit like before we woke up. I... I feel compelled to find food."
I'd been wondering for a while if I'm reverting back to a feral state. A thought until now I decided to keep to myself.
"What... what if I'm turning into a feral. What if we all will?"
"I don't think that'll happen."
The voice had finally made herself known again. But just as quickly disappeared.
"What do you know?!"
"Wow Panzer take it easy, we're right here. You don't have to thought-yell."
"You're telling me you guys didn't hear her?"
"I don't know how this telepathic shit works man." Nik said hopping up to the table with his two front legs and nipped at some of the food.
I shook the confusion from my head.
"I don't... what if me hearing things is connected to this hunger? What if my mind is deteriorating? What if all our minds end up deteriorating and we actually become a Feral World?"
The possibilities were incapacitating. Nik stamped his foot on the ground as hard as he could, which wasn't very hard and started walking to the elevator.
"First things first. We hunt some shit. If we're worried about balloon animals then we might as well make you as tired as possible man."
I didn't move; still lost in my head thinking about how it was before I woke up. Catty walked over to some people by the ordering kiosk and pointed to the food I amassed. Among them were the chipmunk triplets, whom were the first three to attack the food on the table.
"Hey! I'm not done yet..."
Catty bumped into me and proceeded to push me out of the mess hall.
"C'mon Ambassador, we're gonna catch us some food."
She methodically pushes me toward the elevator as I keep trying to turn around.
"But... there's no need... Catty... wait I just... Let me have the burrito!"
*****
We'd ran a few miles and I was as hungry as ever. It was pretty much nothing but forest and wild-lands for a sizable radius around us. Even though his legs were short Nik had been mastering his new body during the time I was off-world, he was able to keep up with us. The only thing I could think of, the only thing I could concentrate on, was finding more food. I'd stop and rip plants out of the ground and essentially inhale them, then keep going. For the rest of the time we were out hunting - everything is a blur if I try to remember specifics.
That night we stayed out in the wilderness. Catty told me that she had to sleep away from me because I was breathing fast. She said it reminded her of the exorcist.
*****
I was hungry, impossibly so. I spent the next whole day hunting and eating. My body ached and Nik said he felt the heat coming off me just by standing near me. The three of us stayed active the whole day, hoping that I could work through what seemed like a fever. At one point we found a moose. Ten feet of fearless muscle. The fight took longer than I anticipated. I'd tanked most of the antler hits and hoof stomps. I elected not to use my tail, my feral side wanted to get out, so I didn't see any reason to get in its way. At the end of it Nik and Catty were still full but I ate every bit of meat I could rip from its bones.
"I still feel sick.."
"I didn't want to say anything before dude but... I could feel the heat comin off you earlier, still do. It's like you're radioactive or some shit."
"Shouldn't we call someone to come pick you up?"
"If we call Mei-lin everyone else will just get panicked..."
I unintentionally groaned out loud as I tried to take a few steps, it felt like I broke something by trying to move. There was concern painted across both Nik and Catty's faces; none of us knew what to do.
"Look for all we know it just might be growing pains. Maybe I'm entering my teenage years in my new... body."
I roared in pain this time, I tried to stifle it but I was sure someone had heard it. I forced myself to walk over to a large tree, each step screaming at me to stop moving. My senses, all of a sudden, were turned up to 11. I smelled something strange, it was a tree but a new breed. It had been altered like us, it was very wide but stood a little more than 25 feet tall. It's branches stood out to me the most, one of them looked like a balcony. I swallowed the pain and used it to propel myself up the tree.
"You seem like you're getting over..."
I collapsed at the spot that I felt compelled to move to and screamed again, this time unrestrained. It echoed through the trees and Catty raced up the tree to see what happened to me.
"Panzer I think we should..."
My voice was at normal volume but had I been able to speak with a normal voice-box, I would have been whispering.
"Just... leave me here. If I turn feral - kill me if I'm violent..."
"Yo chill the fuck out, you're just sick. I'm not g..."
I tried to speak again but my thoughts were a haze of nothing and everything.
"You're going to be fine Mannie, we're all we have left."
I was able to move my head just enough to see the tears running from Catty's eyes. Nik was freaking out more than Catty, not being able to climb a tree.
"What's happening, I can't hear you. What's wrong with you man?"
"I'm changing... I feel like... slipping away. Please... I... if I'm..."
After that all I can remember is blackness, a void of nothing that I was falling into... Then the pain flared up, like embers catching their breath and reigniting into a roaring inferno. The pain that hadn't left me for the entire week had become too intense. I couldn't do anything, not even think; everything I was that night was pain. My muscles were contemplating snapping my legs into pieces every second. Every joint in my body felt like they were liquefying, disconnecting from the bones. My paws felt like a truck parked on them. My eyes hurt when I tried to open them and they felt like they were bleeding when I closed them. Even my teeth felt like they were falling out. When I finally stopped writhing in pain it wasn't because I fell asleep, I passed out.
I woke up with the sun. The first two things I saw were the faces of Catty and Nik. I'd fallen out of the tree and they were looking at me, petrified by what they saw, jaws agape in disbelief. I was on my back and tried to look down at my body. I hoped I wasn't attacked during the night. As I looked down, expecting the act to be difficult given my anatomy, shock and confusion took up residence.
"Oh my god! What is this! What... What happened?!"
I clambered backwards and knocked my head into the tree behind me. Paws, I felt them ripping up the ground beneath them, tense, claws extended. My eyes were as wide as Catty's and Nik's were. I raised a paw to my face and felt it grab at my jaw. I looked at it in disbelief.
"No. This isn't real. I'm dreaming."
I felt the rest of my body and it seemed familar yet different. I climbed up the tree trying to run away from whatever it was that was attached to me. Just like when I woke up from the 3 year sleep I didn't want to believe what happened but I knew. Just like I knew then, I knew I had changed again - this time, for the last time.
"You have thumbs man!" Were the only words I heard from Nik. Catty was still as speechless as I was. On the branch I climbed to last night, I curled up as best I could and covered my face with my... hands. I wasn't sure what trying to hide was good for but it felt like a thing to do. I peeked out from in between my fingers and looked at Catty and Nik as they looked back at me from the ground. Nik walked over to where I woke up.
"What do I look like?"
"Like... a normal person." Nik sounded disgusted by something.
"If normal people had fur, claws and cat eyes." Catty said almost laughing.
"Oh that's disgusting... I'm gonna..."
Nik walked away quickly, just far enough to puke out of sight.
"What?! What is it? Do I have mushrooms growing out of my head? Am I moldy?"
"What? No fool, you left some slimy shit here on the ground. It's got lumps of fur in it too."
"Lumps of..."
I uncurled from my fetal position and crawled along the balcony-like branch. I angled my head, practically hanging off the tree limb trying to look to the other side. After craning around I still couldn't see what she was talking about. I grabbed the tree trunk with my hand, extending my claws as I did so, but my balance was horrible, my tail was flailing in vain to try and counter-balance. I slipped off the limb and desperately grabbed at the tree. My tail whipped around and anchored into the tree, then I felt claws extend from my toes and I dug my hands and feet into the tree too, gouging out trenches. Then I noticed I was covered in slime, like I had taken a bath in mucus. I mean, I still had fur but there was slime too. My tail released as I felt like throwing up and gagged, I lost my grip on the tree and fell the last 4 feet.
I tried standing up but felt unsteady being on two legs after all this time. I dropped to my hands and knees and decided I'd figure that out later. I "walked" to the other side of the tree as Nik came back from puking, just in time to hear my reaction.
"Oh, that is gross! It smells just as nasty too!" My face snarled in disgust.
"You wanna bury it?"
I looked at Nik like he was crazy. "Why would I do that?!"
"I don't know, damn! It was your old body and shit maybe you'd like to show some reverence or some shit... Man I don't know!"
"You seem to have calmed down pretty quick Catty."
"Listen; I'm a fucken Tiger who used to walk on two legs, aliens exist, and there's an inter-galactic war going on, and my best friend, who has amnesia, is Earth's Ambassador to the whole damn, fuckin - Inter-Galactic community. You could say I'm a little fuckin desensitized right about now."
"Well can we do somethin with your mucus sack? I'm gonna throw up again."
The three of us got to work on the hole. It wasn't a rectangle like in shows and movies but it was close enough. After helping Catty and Nik out, I climbed out myself and pushed the mucus sack into the hole, then we filled it back in.
"You know, that feels strangely satisfying."
"Aww fuck." Catty sounded displeased with a tinge of terror in her voice.
"What happened?"
Catty looked at me as if she were going to be sick. "That means we're gonna go through that eating binge too... and that pain."
"Ah... I guess so."
We stood there trying to figure out what to do next. Then, out of nowhere, Nik flicked a large rock at me with his tale. I blocked my face and felt the rock bounce off of my forearm with an audible *tink*.
"Dude! What the hell?!" They both ignored my reaction.
"You saw that Catty."
"Yup."
"Well, let's go. I guess we have to let everyone know about this a.s.a.p. Cuz I definitely don't know what the hell to do besides sit here and stare at him like an idiot."
The two of them started walking as I tried to understand the recent assault.
"I still have my armour!"
"Ding ding! You're a genius." Catty said flicking her tail in the air.
I stood up and after a few steps fell flat on my face.
"Yeah, I'll get used to that again - later."
I stumbled after them for the next 5 miles, trying to walk on two legs every few hundred feet or so. As we got closer to Section 6 my new form started scaring off a few people. I didn't blame them. I both did and didn't look like a feral, I was surprised we weren't attacked by a security team but that was probably because one of the heads of security was Catty so everyone figured if she wasn't panicking they shouldn't either.