FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Glimpse of the Wild

by K9 Lupus

Despite advancement in technology, conquest over disease, and global expansion connecting people across the globe together, the world was now hopelessly caught in perhaps its strangest and most profound period of change. Women across the planet were finding themselves at the mercy of an unknown force transforming them into wild wolves. Experts discussed and debated possible causes for the event. None could come to agreement. The only certainty between them was that more and more women every day were forcefully leaving their humanity behind for an unknown future.

Cathy Swinhearth and Loveta Yolati had been friends since childhood in their hometown. Although over the years many had come into and left their lives, they had always been able to count on each other. So far they had managed to remain unaffected by the growing epidemic. Their evening online chats together had become a sanctum from the rest of the world crumbling around them.

********

MessageChat App Log Monday 7:34 PM

Loveta: Girl! Have you been following the craziness on the news? No one's got a handle on this Shifting nonsense. Women have always been getting the short end of the stick, but this is ridiculous.

Cathy: I stopped watching the news the other day. It's making me more paranoid than anything. I already get enough of it at work. People at the restaurant are panicking thinking they are going to be next. Had to send home another waitress yesterday because she had grown fangs. She kept mumbling under her breath to try and hide them, but when she yawned one of the customers had a complete meltdown and it was a huge mess.

Loveta: That's rough. At the hospital I don't even go into the staff room anymore for lunch. I stay at my desk and then head straight home. I'd honestly rather not go in, but they aren't offering paid leave.

Cathy: I wish I could offer leave for my workers, but I really can't afford to close down the restaurant right now. This whole thing needs to blow over soon.

Cathy: I've gotta go. Going to meet up with Jen real fast to go over our projections with the rise in Shifts cutting into our margins.

Cathy: You take care of yourself. Try not to worry too much about it ok? I'm sure something will get figured out soon. We must be doing something right to have not been affected.

Loveta: I'll try. You take care too Cat.

********

MessageChat App Log Wednesday 6:19 PM

Cathy: Hey, how's it going?

Loveta: Could be better.

Cathy:????

Loveta : Sister called to say that mom's come down with it too. She's still at the retirement house for now, but she's already pretty far gone. They're going to move her to the holding facility there tomorrow.

Loveta: I'd fly out there, but I don't know. I don't think it would matter much. The airports have been a mess after that one woman who was turning got through security and got found out mid-flight.

Cathy: I'm sorry to hear that. I hope she'll be ok. It's only been speeding up, and I think people are getting desperate. One of the cooks was talking about that woman on the plane today.

Loveta: It's whatever...

Loveta: Might as well be the new normal now.

Loveta: BRB. Going to grab some of that coconut oil mix I made up the other day. My legs have been itching like crazy all day.

Cathy: Are you sure that's not related to the change? Maybe you should get it checked out. Just to be safe.

Loveta: I'm fine Cat. Don't worry about it. That mix is magic.

Loveta: Alright, I'm back. That's helping...barely. I appreciate your concern, but I don't want to look it up and go down the WebMD rabbit hole though.

Cathy: You mean like last time? :p

Loveta: Oh shut up! I was being thorough. Probably just been the dry air from the filters being serviced at work today or something.

Cathy: Anything you say. ;)

********

MessageChat App Log Thursday 8:27 AM

Cathy: Why are you online so early? Doesn't your shift usually start at 9?

Loveta: I'm not going in today.

Cathy: Not feeling well? You've been stressing yourself out binging on all the Shifting news going around. That's what I think.

Loveta: No, you're not understanding. I'm not going in because...

Loveta: I've started changing too.

Cathy: Are you serious?

Loveta: Yes, I'm serious. I wouldn't lie to you about it.

Loveta: It started last night, but kept getting worse. My feet were feeling strange, like I had caught them in some kind of vice. I thought maybe they were simply sore from me trying on those new pumps today at work, but then when I got them off I saw that they weren't right. My toes were swollen and thick like I had finished running a marathon or something. My pedicure was ruined by my hardening nails that had grown out into the beginnings of claws. The bottoms of my toes and the pads of my feet had grown rough and calloused, darkened to a faint, ashen gray.

Loveta: And that itch in my legs was burning by the time I got to bed. I hopped in the shower thinking some cold water would cool me off, but when I got in there was reddish brown fur already starting to spread.

Loveta: When I woke up there was more fur running down my shoulders and wrapped around my hips, my ears are pointed now, and I have a tail hanging out the back of my chair right now too!

Loveta: A tail Cat! It's still growing, but I can move it some if I focus on it.

Loveta: I look like some Halloween costume, but I can't take it off. It's me now and it's way too real. See for yourself.

Loveta Uploaded MyNewTail.png

Loveta Uploaded FeetChanging.png

Loveta Uploaded NewEars.png

Cathy: Oh my god Loveta.

Loveta: That's reassuring...

Cathy: Sorry, what can I do to help?

Loveta: I don't know. I just need some time to think about all of this. Promise me you won't stay late today?

Cathy: I promise.

********

MessageChat App Log Thursday 5:07 PM

Cathy: Hey. I left as soon as I could. Glad you're still here. How are you?

Loveta: Goos as I can be I syppose.

Loveta: Sorry...little slow3r to type. These paws habe been making anything so hard.

Cathy: Are they changed all the way?

Loveta: Moswtly. Can still picj up stuff. Woo.

Cathy: Well, I have news for you. You're not alone. It's happening to me too. I haven't told anyone at work. There's been this tight pressure at my face like a bad sinus headache since lunch, and I have a coat of black fur on my back. It was burning for a while just like you said. On the drive home there's been this tiny, bony nub pressing out the end of my spine. My arches were cramping on the interstate, which now I can understand why there's been so many accidents lately. They're longer now, and it hurts to set my heels down on the ground. When I got home I saw little wisps of dark hair grown in over the tops of my feet too, and the skin's starting to getting leathery and brown underneath.

Cathy: Um, this may be TMI but there are these extra teats running down my chest and belly now too. I thought they were blackheads at first, but I was wrong.

Loveta: Not TMI. Me too.

Cathy: Guess we'll know what this craze is all about huh?

Loveta: Gyess so.

Cathy: How far along are you?

Loveta: Don't kbow exactly. Mote wolf thnan woman. I can snell things really well. Some things too well. Like the meighbor leaving those two heaping bags of trash outdide his door. I don't wahnt to go to Holding Cat. :(

Cathy: I know Loveta. We don't necessarily have to. The reports say that Shifters still keep a piece of themselves when they finish changing. In a crazy way that makes this kind of exciting you know? We're experiencing something no generation before us has. We'll still be us. Maybe this is all just some crazy lesson to love ourselves as something beyond being human women. I don't know. I'd rather think of it that way than being punished for something I don't understand.

Loveta: I want to belieeve you, but this isn't the me that I wannt to be. I waznted to go out with you Fridahy night to check out the guys at the bbar. Now if I want kids I have to think about if I'd end up having one, or six or eight of them all at once. This is too much change, too fast.

Cathy: If you want I can come over and keep you company while this finishes. You shouldn't have to go through it alone. Neither of us should. :)

Loveta: Are you sure? I don't want to hyurt you. There are theese thoughts like warm wind in my head making okther things hazy.

Cathy: You're not going to hurt me. We'll be alright. Just stay there ok? Leave the door unlocked for me.

Loveta: Cat?

Cathy: Yes?

Loveta: Thank you. :(

Loveta: Urrgh, *:)

Cathy: Haha, it's ok. I understood.

********

True to her word, Cathy drove over to keep her friend company as the last remnants of her former humanity disappeared beneath stretching bone and muscle with accompanying layers of warm reddish brown and white fur. Loveta looked uncomfortable in her clothes from her filling coat, itching and scratching at the edges of her sleeves and pants, but Cathy reassured her that their fur would service them well enough and that they shouldn't worry about such things with each other. Loveta sloughed off her clothes, standing bare on four changed legs ready to run through the forests.

Although Loveta stood indistinguishable from a wild wolf on the outside now, much of her was still the same. She was still her goofy, bubbly self Cathy had always known, just expressed a little differently. It reassured Cathy as her own transformation hastened through the night, her face and limbs distorting themselves into lupine proportions. By the end of Friday, instead of sizing up guys at the bar, they were content laid against each other's warmth in the apartment. Time grew hazy, former obligations insignificant, and life became a series of welcomed moment to moment existence.

As strangely as the women of the world had transformed into wolves, like many things in life it was fleeting. After several days, the changes began to slowly ease back until after a month, the growing epidemic had vanished without a trace. Some women still carried hints of the experience with them: a bare tail to be cloaked beneath their sweatpants at yoga, or a thickened patch of fur between their shoulders resulting in tossing that new low-hanging top straight into the garbage. Still others proudly displayed their alterations as a sign of triumph in much the same way a mother might rename her stretch marks as tiger stripes. They trudged through miles of trails on new, compact feet, or used their keen senses to help others in need.

No one still knows exactly why the Shifting Event happened, or why it had abruptly ended. But the women who had become wolves would always remember their first-hand experience at getting a new, temporary glimpse of the wild, natural forces that governed the world.