Chapter 1 - Getting my paws under me

[Transfer complete, syncing…]

I woke up with a start, and promptly fell. As vertigo overtook me I quickly corkscrewed my body around and landed on something wooden.

‘What the hell?’ 

I quickly scanned my surroundings, and frowned, this… didn’t feel right. Everything was blurry and grey, and my head didn’t feel like it connected to the rest of my body correctly. After the fall I was crouched on what I assumed was a wooden floor, and as I stood up…

“mreeoow shhooo!” I yelped as my body failed to translate the commands I were giving it, and I fell into a heap on the floor.

‘Ok, what!?’

Suddenly the feeling of wrongness that had been slowly building in the back of my mind came crashing down and I felt my breathing and heartbeat increase, panic overwhelming everything else. I laid there for what must have been several minutes just trying to calm down.

“hheeo?” I tried hesitantly, and immediately had to fight the panic back down again.

‘Ok… Can’t talk properly, can’t move properly, vision is bad, probably a stroke then.’ I thought, somewhat surprised that I was not panicking even more at the thought. Ah, right, shock. Knowing I should be doing something, but not being able to gather up enough energy I felt my mind fading.

‘At least I’ll die peacefully... kind of...’ I thought, as my mind faded away completely.

Feeling the rays of the sun hit my eyes, I slowly stood up and stretched languidly, trying to blink the blurriness out of my eyes I froze. This is not my room, where am I? Trying to find my bearings I tried to look around and froze again as I felt my neck move oddly, memories flooding back from before.

‘Oh shit, I died!’ My eyes widened at the realization, panic threatening to rise once again. ‘Ok, wait, where am I then? Is this heaven?’, Ignoring the weird feeling in my neck I go back to scanning the room.

‘Why is everything blurry? Actually, never mind that, why is everything huge?’

I was in a square room, shelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling, stacked with ceramic jars and rough sacks. Barrels and crates filled the middle of the room in three short rows. The light that woke me up was flowing in from a small window set in a break between the shelves opposite me. Small dust particles were highlighted in the beam of light, floating slowly around the quiet room. The smell of dust and earth was strong, but with a sharp undertone of herbs and other more distinct smells. This was definitely some sort of store room. That was, of course, if that store room was a store room for giants. My eye level was just barely over the first shelf, and the door set into the wall to my right was easily as tall as five of me stacked on top of each other.

I closed my eyes as a now familiar feeling came over me, ‘Ok, time for panic again...’ I managed to collapse my still non-cooperative body somewhat gracefully, and focused on controlling my breathing. ‘Slow and even, slow and even’.

I managed to calm down much faster this time, determination taking over. ‘No time for that, I need to figure out what is going on, and that won’t happen while wallowing around on the ground’

‘First, what the hell is up with my body?’

As I awkwardly tried to angle my head down to look at myself, I almost lost it again when a giant paw swung into my field of vision. Until I realized that it was my paw, and I lost it for real.

I quickly closed my eyes again and regulated my breathing, ‘Ok.. ok. slow and even… I have a paw, no big deal, explains why my body feels so weird, I'm a cat or something.’

Slowly looking down again, I confirmed that yes, I was indeed a cat. My fur was short, with my underside being white and the rest black. ‘Alright, progress! This explains a lot, the room is not huge, I’m small. And my vision is different because I have cat eyes!’ Feeling invigorated by this I refocused my thoughts, ‘So, how did I get here? And why am I a cat? I seem to recall being human… Reincarnation? Maybe I’m in one of those reincarnation stories, and that’s why I can’t remember anything personal about my previous life: the author was lazy and didn’t want to write a backstory.’ Groaning internally at my “joke” I couldn’t help but feel a bit better, if I was (trying) to be funny, it meant I wasn’t panicking.

‘Well, lying here philosophizing about stuff won’t help my situation, let’s see what this body can do,’ I decided. ‘First, moving about.’

Standing up was a lot easier than I thought it would be, given my earlier awkwardness. It probably helped a lot that I now knew the correct shape of my body. Once up, I tentatively tried walking a few steps, and almost ended up in a heap as my legs tangled themselves. ‘Well, I guess knowing the shape of your body is somewhat different from knowing how to use it,’ I concluded. Trying more carefully, I managed to move from the spot were I’d landed before to the wall across, then continuing around the room.

As I was passing a bag, I pressed the side of my face against it and almost fell over as I did.  I had not meant to do that, my body just moved on it’s own, like scratching an itch. It felt similarly to how someone would unconsciously move hair out of their eyes. ‘Right, instincts. I’m marking my territory. That reminds me, I have a nose as well, might as well get used to that too.’

I kept moving around, marking and sniffing things as I went. I tried to figure out the contents of the bags littering the floor, and I found I could easily tell different contents apart by smell. I had no idea what the contents were, as I had no reference point to compare to, but from the earthy smell I was guessing roots of some sort.

After moving about a bit I tried moving a bit faster, and though the storeroom was cramped I felt that moving my legs without tangling them as before was much easier, even at a faster clip. It felt a bit like learning how to ride a bike, once you got it down, you had it.

‘Right, next up…’

I stopped myself in front of a barrel and looked up, setting my weight down on my back legs. After a short moment of preparation, I tensed my back legs and jumped up on the barrel. Many bristled hairs and claw marks later, I was on top of it.

‘Note to self, jumping does not equal walking. Good news is, I now know how my claws work,’ I thought as I licked my paws. I froze once again, but realized that my body was working off of instincts again. ‘That’s going to take a while to get used to, isn't it?’

I slowly relaxed my self-control, and resumed grooming myself. It felt oddly familiar, like it was something I had always known. I could easily change what I was doing, like switching from grooming my left leg to my right, or just stopping like I did before. I could just as easily relax and let my body do its thing without much conscious effort. ‘Well, at least it feels good, kind of like a combination massage and shower, or something.’

Having calmed down from my barrel peeling adventure, I aimed myself at an empty spot above me in one of the shelves. If this followed a similar pattern to the walking, it shouldn’t take too long to get to grips with this jumping thing. Taking a bit more care this time, I once again pushed myself off with my back legs, and this time managed a much more graceful landing, though not entirely without incident. ‘That shelf needed trimming anyway, and seeds go on the ground right? At least it was just a bag, and not a jar..’.

[Syncing complete, initializing interface…]

I was abruptly interrupted in my musings as a small box appeared in front of me, obscuring my vision slightly.

‘What the f…’

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