Chapter 4: Recovery and Discovery

 

In summary, I wasn’t very coherent and only vaguely recall what happened during my admission into the hospital.

After arriving, the treatment at the hospital was an even more odd experience than the ones I’d had out in front of the shrine.

To start: since I was not exactly considered of legal age to be self-insured, Dad had to be contacted. Now, because communication with my father wasn’t as easy as picking up the phone, what I got to see was a really funny show of accounting staff members coming back to ask me who else they could contact.

Nope. Nobody else… maybe my sister, but she’d have no authority over me. They would have to connect with Dad or else nothing would be done.

...Okay, that part wasn’t funny. I was bleeding to death. So I explained the situation.

Dad doesn’t normally stay at home. In fact, I didn’t think he would be currently in the country.

Sad to say, the doctors were disappointed to discover that bit of news.

Luckily, for me, that didn’t stop them from treating my wound. They were not so calloused as to throw me out onto the street if I couldn’t afford stitches.

That brings up the second odd experience. Being called “Miss.”

At first -- with the businessman -- I could tolerate the mistake. From a distance, I supposed I could be mistaken for a lean and mean chick. But come up close, and anyone with a pair of healthy peepers would be able to tell I was missing certain curvy assets that would be the tell-tale sign.

Plus, I didn’t exactly have long hair. I kept it short for that very reason. Already having a young face like this brought me enough trouble. It would be worse to appear effeminate.

Now comes the third and oddest experience of all. Being shown, as if to prove I was wrong about myself, to have all those ‘assets’ a lady should have and to be missing my manly bits.

Hold on, there’s more: here was the part that caused the doctors to really be interested in me. I was still reeling from being a girl here, which made this less than the oddest experience I’d had lately, but they were a step further than weirded out when they pointed out I had cat-like features.

Tail: Check.

It was a long and sleek white one that stretched out and away from the top of my pert ass to dangle wherever it pleased. And it liked to tap its end on anything.

Cat-ears: Check.

They were folded down the whole time. I guess they react depending on my mood? Well, I was feeling really confused and down right now. And a little twitchy.

Cat-eyes: Check.

Originally, I had a warm brown pair. Now they were a yellowish glow surrounding a vertical slit of black pupils. They shone nicely in the light, too, from what I was told. I wasn’t sure, but I wondered, and kinda hoped, that I spooked a few night owls that peeked in my room.

One more step into the Twilight Zone here, other than my shocking revelation that I’d become a catgirl, was that I didn’t have black hair anymore. Somehow, it had turned stark white on me. Maybe I was so shocked by the revelations that I’d done a Mary Antoinette?

Other than those things, I was pretty much the same. Much more girly than I was before, like one hundred percent, but good and healthy. There was still a stitched up stab in my side, but I’d live.

The whole time I was finding out about all of this, I was in shock. That caused me to be rather quiet, submissive, a yesma-- yesma’am, and… yeah, I didn’t want to clue them in on how I mewled almost every word when I spoke, too.

I’d be okay. I was overwhelmed, so things only needed to settle down for me to comprehend the real situation I was in. I just needed to sleep, and I prayed when I would wake up, I’d find out this was all a terribly funny nightmare.

Fat chance of that happening…

 

 

---

 

 

Next to my bed was a window.

From this window, a ray of sunshine warmly beamed down onto me and my bed. Thing was, it didn’t cover me entirely. That was the reason why I woke up curled up in a ball within the bathing warmth of the sun right in the middle of my bed.

Sniffling and snuffling, I rubbed my eyes with the back of my wrists before raising my head up.

I was alert. Something was moving around me.

Blinking and following after the movement, I attempted to catch sight of what it was. When I saw it again, I snatched at it, but missed…

Sitting up, I tried again and missed…

Once more, I nearly pounced. My whole body jumped up, then down onto it, and I somehow was completely off the mark!

Knitting my white brows together, and feeling my blood pressure rise, I stared hard in concentration at whatever it was that eluded me.

Again I slapped, jumped, flopped, and even tackled it until I felt the sharp stitch in my side telling me to give it up.

Sitting straight up in bed, I focused. In my renewed concentration, I got my head together for me to rationalize what it might be I was seeing. Then memories started to click back into place and my foggy thoughts once more gathered in this clouded noggin of mine.

Sunlight was reflecting off of a mirror -- and that mirror was on a door -- which was swinging back and forth to partially spotlight my bed.

For chasing the mere reflection of sunlight, I felt like such a dumbass.

Slipping off of the bed, and disconnecting some of the sticky-capped sensors off of my body from under the gown, I carefully stood up. Other than the wires I tore off myself, I was still being cautious so as to not accidentally rip out the IV in my arm.

After my precautionary stretch up and out of bed, I walked towards my private bathroom, wheeling the saline stand by my side. My intention wasn’t to go use the bathroom, but to shut that damn mirrored cabinet!

But then I had a look at myself in that mirror.

Other than the white hair, it was like I had a first glimpse at what my younger sister would look like. If I had a younger one. I do have an older sister, but she’s not as cute as this. Also, I had never seen my older sister in that way -- in fact, I kinda saw her as a nitpicking hag.

Maybe that was a bit much. She wasn’t ugly, but there was no way she’d come close to how I appeared now.

So there was no sister-complex for me before, and there’d be no way of that happening now.

Shutting my eyes, I wondered for a moment why it was that these memories felt like things I had just learned about rather than experiencing them. Like, these were not my memories, but they were in there. All muddled up in a mire that I had to sift through to figure out who and what was going on.

Why did I have to remember who I was? That didn’t make sense.

Roughly palming my face, I rubbed the side of my face until it pinkened. I was tempted to slap some of that missing sense into me.

Instead, there was a sink below the cabinet that gave me a better idea. I turned the faucet on cold, cupped the water, and tensed up when I gave myself a few splashes in the face. Bowing low in the basin of the sink, I leaned my face in toward the hand propelling the water directly at myself.

After a few more splashes, I gripped onto the edges of the sink and stared at nothing in particular. Just waking up… and fixating on the streaming water.

Tilting my head to the side, I lapped at the water and drank from it for a few minutes -- literally, minutes.

Backing a little bit away from the faucet’s stream -- panting quiet breaths -- I eventually began to wonder what the Hell I was doing.

Problem: I was thirsty.

Solution: This was water for me to drink.

Answer: I drank. Sounded simple, but I wasn’t simple-minded enough to do something like this. At least, I didn’t used to be.

Standing up straight, I stared at whoever was in the mirror and wondered if I really was Fuma Hitoshi…