The rustling of branches woke me up. What was going on? I wasn’t in my bed. Instead, I was facing the top of a tree. Where was I? I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t feel my arms or legs. My body was refusing to cooperate with me and I was just left to look at the trees. I heard footsteps nearing closer and someone entered my field of vision.

She had straight, grey and white hair that hung down as she leaned over. Her eyes were yellow and seemed to scan me. Good lord she was tall! Or at least she seemed to be from where I was. Her clothes appeared to be a tank top, and tan khakis. The thing that really confused me were the ears on her head. They weren’t normal human ears, instead they seemed to be dog-like and rested on top of her head.

“What’s a slime doing out here?” The mysterious woman asked. Her voice was a little rough, but it sounded more along the adult side. She might've been around my age.

“Slime?”

I asked her what she meant. She seemed really startled when I spoke. My voice sounded weird. Almost like I was talking through water.

“You can talk?” she looked amazed.

“Why would that surprise you?”

“Because slimes don’t usually talk,”

“What do you mean? I’m not…”

I realized at that moment what had happened to me. Moving my head, I looked forward and saw… nothing. My body wasn’t there. I turned to the side and the same thing happened, but I realized my eyes were parallel to the ground. Meaning…

“Why the hell am I a slime?!” I screamed.

“Um… are you okay there Mr. slime?”

“No! I’m obviously not! I-I was just human last night! Why am I a slime?!”

“Human?” She was obviously confused.

‘This has got to be a dream,’

I thought that to myself over and over. But everything made this feel like it was real. How the hell had this happened? I remember falling asleep, and then I woke up here. There was nothing in between now and then. How do you even live as a slime?!

“Hey slime, what did you mean when you said you were human?” The woman asked.

“Exactly that! I was going to bed last night at my house all human, and now I just woke up here as a slime! Speaking of which, where am I?!”

“Okay… calm down… I have no idea what happened to you, but I can answer your last question. We’re in the woods just outside Penning,”

What the... I'd never heard of a place named Penning.

“Penning? Where is that? Is that near New York?” I asked.

“New York?”

“As in New York City,”

“I’m sorry I have no idea where that is. Is that in Freidia?”

“What the hell is Freidia? Are we even in America?”

“What is America? Is that a small country or something? I’m sorry, I don’t know all the countries in the world,”

The woman genuinely had no clue as to what America or New York City was. That could only mean one thing. I was in a different world. Which meant the ears on her head were real and she was probably a beast-woman of some kind. Was I reincarnated? This is like that anime, excluding the stabbing and death. Did this mean I died? I started explaining to the beast-woman what I thought was happening.

“I see… that makes sense. It would explain why 1) a slime is talking to me 2) you have never heard of the country you are in and 3) you keep naming places that don’t exist here,” she looked like she understood what I had told her.

“So, you believe me?”

“I kinda have to. Slimes don’t normally talk. There are only a handful of sapient slimes on this Earth that can talk like everyone else,”

“Oh, thank god… or whoever,”

Now that I thought about it, I had no idea what to do. How far had civilization advanced here? What were governments like? How were people treated? How the hell do I live as a slime?!

“Um… you seem to be pretty unsure of yourself right now… Do you want to come live with me? At least until you figure things out,” The woman's voice was a little softer now, and more concerned.

“I don’t really have many options, so I guess,”

“Alright then! Let’s go! By the way, my name is Heather. Heather Jackson,”

“Nice to meet you Heather… I’m Kyle… I mean Celeste. My name is Celeste Lowe,”

“Kyle?”

“It’s… my old name,”

“I think I get it. Why don’t you tell me about yourself when we get back to my place?”

We began walking through the woods. I say walking, but I was just sort of… sliding. It’s like I was rolling myself, but keeping my head in place. Really hard to describe this feeling since I’d never felt anything like it before. Along the way, I noticed Heather also had a tail. Seemed like this world followed anime standards. As we continued on, we came to… a parking lot. There were cars parked throughout. So… modern era… that’s nice to know.

AshleyTanuki

Updated: Thank you to everyone who gave me advice on my chapters! I'm going back and editing a bunch of these chapters now. That includes little errors and fixing the dialogue. Anyways, I hope you will all continue to read till the end of this story. Thanks you!