In the surreal void, my disoriented cry echoes, "Where am I, what's going on?" My voice, now high-pitched and reminiscent of a little girls, fills the surrounding silence. I notice a change, a regression in age, accompanied by a jarring shift in my physical stature.

"Please believe me, Hina, this is for your protection. When the time comes, more will be explained." The figure before me is a beautiful woman adorned with vibrant, long red hair, fox ears perched upon her head, and nine flowing tails swaying gracefully behind her. Despite her enchanting appearance, my mind draws a blank, unable to recall any memories of her. "Who is she, and is she a fox spirit?" I wonder, lost in the depths of my own confusion.

She gazed upon me with a motherly affection, her eyes brimming with tears that threatened to spill at any moment. "Proceed with the sealing. The family ready to care for her is waiting."

A sense of dread engulfed me as I tried to protest, "What's going on here? I am a guy!" but my voice betrayed me, leaving my objections unvoiced.

Suddenly, the surreal dreamscape shattered, jolting me awake to the harsh ringing of my alarm. As I sat up, I couldn't shake the feeling that the dream held a deeper significance, a truth veiled in mystery. A quick glance around my cramped studio apartment magnified the piercing rays of the morning sun filtering through the grimy windows, highlighting the solitude that marked my existence.

A sarcastic laugh escaped my lips, "Ha, a family that took care of me, as if." Abandoned at the young age of twelve, the only grace extended by my family was the financial support for this dismal apartment.

A sigh left me as I slumped back onto my futon, the weight of my lonely existence pressing down heavily on my shoulders. "I just wish I could escape this monotonous life, to find a sliver of joy or meaning in this dreary world." The lament hung in the air, a testament to my deep-seated yearning for a change, something, or someone to infuse my life with a sparkle of happiness and purpose.

As I succumbed to my melancholy of emotions, I looked over at the calendar hanging on the wall beside my futon, and the date read March 28th. “So that time of year has come by again, how old does that make me now? That's right, I am 16 today, eh, it’s just another day, no point in celebrating when there is no one who wants to celebrate with you.” I mumbled to myself, trying to suppress the pulling of my heart.

“Guess I will just go back to sleep; I won’t be able to sleep as much with my first year of high school coming soon.” After I finished giving myself an excuse to sleep, my consciousness soon faded away.

“Heavy…” I mumbled in my daze while still half asleep. “Has my blanket always been this heavy?” I thought to myself. The evening sun’s light coming through the window blinds, when my brain finally registered the voice that spoke didn’t sound like my voice, but it was indeed me who spoke those words.

I jumped out of the futon, in shock, when I saw long white hair flow down my back and shoulders. I grabbed my hair, gently putting some of the strands between my fingers. “Shouldn’t my hair be short and black?” I asked myself in denial, trying not to look in the cracked mirror hanging in front of me, and ignoring the swaying “thing” connected to my back that seems to follow my emotions and the twitching sensations on top of my head.

After a few minutes of indecision, I finally faced the mirror, and what I saw before me was a beautiful girl, wearing a baggy t-shirt that reached down to her thighs which were big but not fatty. She had porcelain white skin, silver grey eyes, long white hair cascading down her back, plump and full lips that looked soft to the touch, long eyelashes, two things are on her chest that were moderate in size. Lastly, she stood shorter than my original height, and she had dark grey fox ears on top of her head, and a medium-length fox tail swaying back and forth behind her.

“Did I really become a Fox Girl in the Real World!?” I yelled out, my voice sounding as if I was singing without a melody.