Chapter 3: Am I Dead Yet?

It felt like I had been thrown into a frozen lake, watching as the darkness drags me down and the water freezes over, sealing me in. His warmth was slipping away, the touch fading into memory as I sank.

The serenity of the dark water comforted me, but it felt lonely here. Now that warmth was coming back, thawing my body and resurrecting my consciousness. I could feel it, every blood cell in my veins warming up, spreading through my body each second. I felt new, refreshed, almost like a completely different person altogether.

   Slowly and cautiously, I opened my eyes. 'Is it day, or night?' I thought, attempting to process what I was seeing around me.

I was laying in grass, surrounded by towering trees and mushrooms 50 times larger then what I was used to seeing. Everything was luminescent, emitting a soft blue glow from small spots on the surface of the plant. No sunlight reached the forest floor, the only light was the luminescence from the plant life.

"Is this... what heaven looks like?" I muttered, slowly sitting up and staring at this new world with wide eyes. I set my hand down in a patch of soft moss, noticing it illuminate at the contact. But something felt off...

'Why does my hand look so strange? Is that fur?' I thought, rubbing my eyes to make sure I was seeing things accurately.

Sure enough, there was a thin layer of sky blue fur coating my hand, arm, and everything else.

"GAH! WHAT THE HELL?!" I yelled, flailing my arm in a pitiful attempt to shake the fur off.

"Ngh, Aspen could you please quiet down? I feel like I just got hit by a truck." I heard someone say beside me. Immediately I remembered the previous events that took place.

"Matsuda?!" I called, looking around to see what happened to him. My gaze eventually landed on a moving patch of large ferns.

On shaky legs, I stumbled over to the patch of luminescent ferns, praying with everything I had that Matsuda was okay. I parted the ferns, but instead of finding the pale skinned male I found a dark blue furred cat-human with the same long black hair and features.

"Aspen- wait wHAT THE HELL?! WHO ARE YOU?!" He yelled, scrambling backwards into the ferns. It was Matsuda's voice, that THING had the same exact voice as my best friend.

"HOLY SHIT, MATSUDA?!" I exclaimed, shocked to hear Matsuda's voice come from the strange creature before me.

"ASPEN?! WHY ARE YOU COVERED IN FUR?! IS THAT A TAIL?!" Matsuda yelled, looking down at his furry body. "WHY AM I COVERED IN FUR?!"

"A... tail?" I asked, feeling something touch my leg. Cautiously, I looked over my shoulder.

"2 TAILS?! I HAVE 2 TAILS?!" I screeched, frantically spinning around like a moron. At the base of my spine, two thin, furry, lion looking tails stuck out and swayed back an forth behind me.

"Okay, okay, calm down! My headache is killing me, let's just think about this for a second." Matsuda said, crawling out of the ferns to sit in front of me.

"How'd this happen, Matsuda? Where are we and what happened to our bodies?" I asked, slumping down into the grass across from him.

"I don't know, Aspen. But wherever we are... it sure as hell isn't home." He replied, pressing a hand to his forehead.

Then a thought occurred to me, before we woke up here we were walking home and fell into the road. Then getting hit by a truck and waking up here.

"The dream! I had that dream of getting hit by the truck and it happened!" I gasped, letting the memories play back like a movie.

"Matsuda, we died back there didn't we?"

"I... don't know Aspen. I remember us falling into the road and helping you up, but everything else is blank." Matsuda said, pressing two fingers to his temple.

"Why did you shield me? We both would've died either way." I said, looking at the ground.

"I don't know." He replied, turning his head away from me.

"Baka" I said, turning my gaze up to look at him.

"I guess the least I could do was cushion the blow, I didn't want you to die more painfully than me." He said, turning his furry face up where I could see it.

'He cared about my comfort....' I thought, staring back into his icy blue eyes. I leaned forward, wiping the tears from the corners of his eyes, then pulled him into a hug.

"I couldn't have asked for a better friend." I said, feeling my face heat up under my fur.

We stayed like that for a long time, just holding each other. Until one of us broke the silence.

"You're really soft, did you know that?" Matsuda said, snickering as he ran a hand through the fur on my back.

"You're not so bad yourself." I replied, pulling out of the embrace. "We need to find shelter, we should get going."

"Right, which direction do we head in?" Matsuda asked, looking around at the ethereal forest scenery. "Whoa, I just realized how beautiful it is here."

"It took you this long to notice? This place is so strange, everything is luminescent and huge." I replied, looking around as well. "Let's head left, it looks flatter and more open so if anything jumps out we'll see it in time."

"Got it. Let's go." He said, standing up and lending me a hand.

"Thanks." I said, looking up. "Hey Matsuda, were you always this tall?"

"What do you mean?" Matsuda asked, cocking his head to the side.

"This is just an estimation, but you're about eight feet tall in height." I said, meeting his gaze. Matsuda looked down, then back up again.

"You're right." He said, his slit pupils narrowing in realization. "You're still short though."

"Damn, and here I thought I got away with it." I said, clenching my furry fist. "Ow."

"What? What's wrong?" Matsuda questioned.

"Would you look at that, I've got claws." I said, opening my first again to find large black talons protruding from my fingertips then observing them retract with the relaxation.

"Watching you sheathe and unsheathe those things is making me lightheaded. How are you so calm about this? We literally just woke up on some alien planet where everything glows and now we're furries." Matsuda said, twitching an ear.

'Oh, I didn't even notice how cool Matsuda's ears are. They're like furry elf ears, that's so cute. Wait, no. Not cute. No no no no no-' my thoughts were interrupted.

"Why are you staring at me like that and why are your cheeks glowing?" He said, twitching his ear again.

"Oh, ahhhhhhhahaha... your ears look cute. WaIt nO I mEaNt ThEy LoOk CoOl!" I said, getting flustered.

"Once again, your face is glowing." Matsuda replied, crossing his arms.

"I'm just a little hot under all this fur, y'know?" I replied, trying to swerve the conversation in another direction to cover up the fact that I was blushing. "Let's start walking already, I'm tired and I wanna sleep so the faster we find shelter the better."

We started traveling through the forest, past enormous trees that had to be over 10,000 feet tall and mushrooms that were larger than we were. Eventually, the sound of a steady stream came into earshot.

"Matsuda, do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I hear rushing water, there's gotta be a stream or something nearby. Maybe it'll make a good camp." I said, sprinting off in the direction of the sound.

I sprinted for about a minute straight until I finally found myself on the mossy bank of a luminescent creek. Matsuda emerged seconds later only to freeze at the sight of this area.

"This scenery is almost enchanting, but more importantly this is a great place to set up camp for tonight." He said, sitting down atop a large mossy boulder with illuminated cracks.

I walked over to the stream, scooping up a handful of water and drinking it.

"Matsuda, get over here! You have to taste the water!" I said, drinking more. "It tastes like fresh plum juice! It's soo good!"

Matsuda sat down beside me and did the same.

"You're right, this is really good." He said, drinking the last of what was in his hands before laying back in the moss. "You know, maybe having this body isn't so bad. If enduring the strangeness of this body is what it takes to live here, then I think it's worth it."

"I agree, this place is amazing." I replied, laying down next to him.

"Hey look, you can see the stars from down here." Matsuda commented, pointing to a gap between the leaves.

"Oh wow." I replied, staring at the stars for a few minutes, just listening to the sound of Matsuda's breathing. Curling into a ball, I drifted into a heavy slumber.

Sunlight filtered through the small gaps between the leaves, making its way down to the mossy forest floor. Something sharp was poking my neck, making me stir in annoyance.

I opened my eyes, taking a few moments to adjust to the sunlight, then something strange caught my attention.

Next to where I was laying, was another person pressing a blade to my throat.