Changes

by Adam Woods

Chris Kibet quietly shut the door to his room behind him and tossed his backpack onto his bed. He slumped down, uniform and neck fur abrasively grazing the wood of the door. Pain radiated through his paw pads and beneath his claws. Ain't this just shit timing. He sighed, scanning his brown and black spotted coat for any other changes. Nothing yet, I might make it through dinner. Chris considered how long this nightmare took last time, then stood up and pulled off his uniform coat, his tail falling between his uniform pants. The coat flopped down beside his backpack, both embroidered with the school's circular insignia: the silhouette of a wolf paw, the large capital letters 'L.A.C.' and the school name 'Lobon's Academy for Canines'. 

Chris reached into his left pocket to grab his phone, hoping for a new notification. He opened his messages and saw her name near the top. Lucie Sommers. He saved all of their messages, even when things got hard, she was his first serious girlfriend after all. Yep, the dreamy leader of the Academy's literature club was in a relationship with the only hyena at the school. How did that even happen? He asked himself that question often, as did everyone else at school. Lucie sat next to him in English class last year, and it didn't take long for their friendship to blossom. Chris was getting behind in English and Lucie's math scores were suffering, so their friendly study sessions quickly grew to dinner on Friday nights and coffee on Sunday mornings. There was not a day at school where they weren't seen holding paws and brushing tails while walking around campus. It was a blissful four months.

Lucie left him for the baseball team captain, a golden retriever named Chad Granger. Chris thought things were okay between him and Lucie, but she had been eyeing Chad for longer than he thought. “You're a great guy Chris, but you're a bit too shy. I'm sorry." Her words still linger in the air. They were done, and it happened just a few weeks before summer. He didn't blame her. He was admittedly a bit shy, but he was definitely no team captain. 

He scrolled past her name and found Kip's. No new messages. Chris's own text bubble hung at the bottom of the screen.

“Hey… it's happening again, some advice would be great." 

Left on read for almost an hour now. 

Kip was a dangerously charming red fox with a white-tipped tail, a new classmate and a fling from the end of junior year. The fox was a new student at the academy after moving to Pebblebrook, and they met in P.E. class. He was a few inches shorter than Chris, but they ran at the same pace as they got their laps in on the dirt track. It started when Kip playfully swatted Chris's tail on their first run together, and he just introduced himself, no talk of anything hyena-related. Kip always talked about 'real' things, which was a hard contrast from the usual “You're not from around here are you?" from most of Chris's peers. One thing led to another, and suddenly they were brushing muzzles and playing tailsie behind the bleachers. Chris was always open to the idea of being in a relationship with another guy, but he never gave it any real thought until he met Kip. Things escalated when they spent a night together, but he stopped responding after that.

Chris reached into the top section of his dresser and pulled out a pair of gym shorts and a tank top. He finished taking off his school uniform and paused briefly to look at himself in the mirror. The black tip of his tail hung below his waist, the color standing out from the spotted pattern of his brown and black coat. He winced, the pain crawling further up his arms now, a reminder that he wouldn't be looking at his well-kept fur in the near future. 

“Chris! Dinner!" His dad barked. 

“Shit!" He yelped, entirely lost in the pain surging through all four paws this time, and the change was only beginning. It felt like his claws were nails being pulled out by a hammer, another set of larger claws coming in behind them. He clenched his paws and quickly opened the door to head toward the dining room. Setting the family's table, Dad glanced over toward Chris.

“You alright kiddo?" Dad smiled. “You look, uh, a bit razzled." He finished placing the last fork.

“Yeah, uhm, just distracted, thinking about Lucie." Chris shifted nervously in his seat.

 “Breakups are never easy." He placed a paw on Chris's shoulder. “Just give it some time, bud, you'll be with another girl before you know it." Chris's tail wagged weakly. 

“I'm alright dad, thanks." Dad moved to the kitchen to start serving dinner, setting down four large plates filled with roasted yams, okra, and salmon. He put his paw on Chris's back.

“Chris, could you grab your sister for dinner? She's still in her room." 

“Yeah, no problem." He stood back up. The pain pulsed into the center of his body. It crawled through his legs and arms now. It was coming. Chris walked back down the hallway toward his room and turned just before it. One knock, nothing. Two knocks, nothing. He rolled his eyes and twisted the door knob, throwing the door open. She was sitting at her desk, tail swaying through the gap in the back of her chair. Papers were strewn across the floor beside her, a mix of homework and pencil sketches. 

“Kamau, dinner!" Chris set his paw down on her shoulder. Kamau jolted upward, startled, smacking Chris's muzzle as her earbud fell out.

 “Fuck, Chris!" She yelled, turning around, untangling the cable from her sweater. “Sorry, I didn't realize what time it was." He paused to take a peek at her drawing. It was a beautiful doe, complete with a perfectly shaded body. 

“What are you drawing?" Chris pointed at the doe's figure. Kamau gasped, frantically covering the drawing with a piece of math homework.

“Nothing!" She stood up and nudged Chris out of her room. “What's for dinner anyway?" 

His mom came through the front door as they sat down at the dinner table. Dad trotted over to her, touched his nose to her cheek and gave her some fresh clothes to change into.

“Hi honey," she sighed as she took the clothes from him. “Hi kids." she barked excitedly. “Be right back, kids, don't start on those yams without me!" She called excitedly as she walked down the hallway. Dad laughed and walked toward the table, setting his paw on Kamau's head as she sat down.

“I hope you were ears deep in algebra, Kamau," he playfully rubbed the fur on her head into an unkempt mess between her ears.

“Dad!" She huffed and licked the back of her paw to groom her fur back into place. “I was working on something for art class," she said with an annoyed growl.

Mom joined them at the table and pawed at Dad, smiling and showing her fangs. “Don't pick on her, Peter, you do the same shit." She said with a laugh. He looked at her with his jaw wide open, the corners of his lips trying not to crack a smile, and Kamau started to giggle. 

“So," Mom said as she took a bite of fish, “How were your classes today?" Chris locked eyes with Kamau, waiting to see who would talk first. He pushed some yams around his plate, but he didn't want the awkward silence to last any longer. “I had some easy tests, I guess, and we're writing poems in English now. We read some old Shakespaw sonnets."

“Are you writing about Lucie?" Kamau took a bite of okra and snickered. Chris bared his teeth at her and curled his lips into a snarl.

“Sweetie," Mom intervened, “don't let that girl get under your fur. There'll be another cute canine in your life before you know it." 

“That's what Dad said," Chris sighed, defeated. His tail went limp behind his chair, and he pushed some fish onto his fork.

“How 'bout you, Kamau?" Mom said, continuing to fill her fork with food. 

“We're doing figure drawing now. So I'm, um, practicing with different species for the rest of the week." Kamau mashed a piece of okra as she replied. 

“That's really cool! I mean we all know the world isn't as simple as just us canines." Mom barked happily.

Chris's tail wagged, and he noticed Kamau let out a subtle sigh of relief. Home was a comfortable space for them, but school had become quite the opposite for Chris. The solace of home did nothing to disperse the current physical pain, though. Eating became more difficult with every bite, sharp pains reeled through his jaw bone and his muzzle.

“Chris, are you alright? You normally don't eat so slow." Mom said, leaning back in her chair. 

“Yeah, just ya know, the whole Lucie thing. My stomach is a little upset still." He replied weakly.

“Awh, sweetie lemme get you something!" She said, quickly heading into the kitchen. 

“For real, I'm okay mom." 

“Son," Dad leaned in, putting his paw on Chris's head. “Let her help ya." He smiled. Chris's ears perked up a little, and he nodded. Every bite lost its taste, the textures changed to coarse stone, and he battled with his trembling paws. 

Mom trotted back to the table, leaving some tea beside his now empty plate. “Take this back to your room and get some rest okay? I'll check on ya in a bit." Chris's eyes widened.

“No need to check on me, I'm gonna get to bed early I think." His eyes lingered on his mother's, waiting impatiently for her to respond. She bent over slightly, smiled and nuzzled between his ears.

“I just wanna make sure my little boy is alright." 

Nothing was alright.

Chris returned to his room after helping Kamau clean the kitchen, rushing through the dishes. He said “good night" to everyone, hoping they wouldn't check on him. Sitting at the edge of his bed the pain was tearing through every inch of his body. He needed to get outside soon. The window and screen in his room were open, ready for his escape. He looked at himself in the mirror again. There was a comfort in his fur, his pattern, his tail and his ears. But, recently everything felt so complicated. A relationship with a fox, and a boy fox, too. He furrowed his brow. I shouldn't worry about that kinda crap. Chris sighed, taking another look at his naked body, waiting for it to change. 

The smell of the outside world shifted. The sweet and floral scents of the neighbor's garden faded, and Chris was overwhelmed by the smells of blazing combustion engines. Pain rushed from the back of his skull toward his muzzle, the small muscles keeping his head attached to his spine in a tug of war. I need to get out now, I'll deal with any punishment tomorrow. Chris threw his phone into his backpack and ran to the window, leaping through the frame and landing painfully on all four paws. With a hushed yip and a wince, he stood up and headed down the street toward Pebblebrook Golf Course. No one should be there at this time of night. Every step was a hammer, a paw pressed against a thousand nails and the snap of a dozen muscle fibers. He quickly passed under street lights along the sidewalk, smothered his own yelps, and approached one of the fences lining the dark golf course. Chris glanced around and leapt to grab the top of the fence. Pulling himself up was agonizing, his joints popped and his muscles burned. Letting out a grunt of simultaneous relief and discomfort, he lifted his legs over the railing of the fence and fell downward.

Chris yelped as the wind was forcefully removed from his lungs. “Dammit" he said out of breath, pulling air back in. He tried to sit up and instead felt another pop, crack and pull. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I'm still in the light! Rolling over, he dug his claws into the grassy soil of the golf course and began to pull. He released his first paw from the dirt after propelling himself forward. His claws stayed in the soil, the hard keratin snapping out of his flesh. Howling in pain, Chris beat his paw against the ground, another snap and obsidian talons began to slowly extend from beneath his claws. Not here! Not now! His brows furrowed in anger, and he began to cry. These new talons easily pushed into the soil, and his head flew upward toward the moon. Battling the roar rising in his throat, he pushed into the earth and uncontrollably bared his fangs. His lips crawled all the way up, and his protruding canine teeth began to descend further, curving slightly toward himself. The joints within his arms adjusted under his skin, and he watched his coat move up and down. He wanted to howl in pain, but no sound escaped his lungs. The roots of his fur were on fire, he rubbed his arms against the dirt and his spotted coat split. Fur and flesh scraped away from his body like butter dripping from a hot knife.

He lurched forward, his body arched toward the night sky. The flesh on his back undulated up and down, and a small talon bore through the skin on his upper back. Chris howled, his canine call becoming more serpentine. The small tears along his spine revealed bulbous scaled masses eager for freedom from flesh, and the rest of his spotted fur shed, replaced by leathery, blood soaked gray wings. The remaining skin slid down his back as he stood in a new body of verdant green scales. He raked his claws over his face, exposing a fiery orange set of eyes with vertical black pupils. He slammed his legs into the ground, shaking away the remaining loose flesh. Short ivory horns protruded from the back of his angular head, and with his jaw extended beyond its limits, he roared from a new place deep in his chest. Flesh and fur no longer, a beast of forest green scales and leather wings flexed his muscles, crouched over his former skin, and summoned a great gust of wind as he propelled himself into the sky. 

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