I am Rat

Story by Isengrim on SoFurry

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I wanted to write a transformation story from first-person-perspective where the lead character has a limited vocabulary. I hope that the overall story makes sense.


I Am Rat

I am Rat. I know this word is me because the men say it. Words are things men can see and also say, I can say them but I do not know how to see...think them. I am in a place...thing that surrounds me so that the men can see the words I want to know to say.

DNA is another word I know, but I do not know what it is. Is it a danger-animal? I hear it around me many times, since the time I was small. I remember it most when they picked me up and touched me with a pain... thing. Is this a DNA?

Dizzy, sick, I curl up in my bedding. I do not want to die. I crawl to my food pellets, eat, very hungry. I eat food pellets more than I can remember. Maybe I want to hibernate? Sleep, dizzy, sick, shivers, many dreams, I do not remember how long this lasts... food is smaller, cage is different. My ears twitch, I am very confused why men make smaller food, but eat it much because it keeps me from death. Claws seem strange... bent to me as I eat, but I am too sick to care.

I awake in another cage, my body feels strange... big, have I grown more? I thought I was an adult already because there were the times when I needed a male but there was not one in my cage. I am not sick.

I look up to see the cage is very tall, there is much room for me to perch, but not any places that I could climb. I look around and see this cage has a rat-in-the-other-place-that-is-me. I had a few cages before with this, I know the rat there is me because it does the same movements as I do. I try to scamper to it, rear claws not quite scampering right... too big? My body is strange and new, I need to see it.

I look at the rat-in-the-other-place-that-is-me, and am shocked, surprised. I would squeak but I am mute-scared. My shape is different. My body is new. My thoughts are many but confused, I scamper stumble to curl up to sleep because I think maybe I am still sick and in a dream place. I lay there for a long time, trying to be still, but cannot bring myself to sleep.

After a long time of not-sleep, I open my eyes. The light is gone, the sound of men is no more around me. I bring my strange bent claws to my face to look at them, the clawtips are the same as when I was small but the shape of my claws I realize is like that of men. I feel along my face and find my whiskers are still there, thank goodness, what if I had a need to burrow? I start to preen myself behind the ear with my claw, then stop myself. My new body is too big, preening would take too long...

I pull myself up using the cage bars to lay upright on my new rear, which seems well made for this, careful not to lay on top of my tail. I look down at my form, and see my own white fur covering two rounded breasts, the exposed tips of which seem swollen like tiny fruit. I cup one with a claw to try and understand why these would make sense. How would I be able to feed babies with only two breasts, when my own litter was six? I circle a clawtip over the pink skin curiously, it tickles like brushing my whiskers. Different feelings. I look down at my sex, this too seems to have changed, it seems to be a fold, I move down to touch it with a front claw. I move my claw along the fold, feeling the exposed skin. I feel a small nub and a passage, I touch curiously along this smooth opening of my new self.

I need a male. I exhale a bit, and touch my lip with my teeth lightly. I have thoughts about the male rats I had seen when I was small, but then I think how they would be too small to help me mate now, to fill this heat I feel building from my sex. I then dream about them in the new shape I am in, the sleek muscle of their long body, the length of their male sex, and I am excited and dizzy. I am wet with need. I think now about one of the men whose markings I find attractive... This is new. I think about his shape as it would be without the bedding men cover themselves in, and I find myself wanting to breed with him, to go crazy with the feeling of his want for me. My claws find their way further into the passage of my sex, and I close my eyes and trill softly as desire floods over me. I move my clawtips gently, thinking of them inside me as I would a male. My body tenses with heat and pleasure, and I squeak happily, then for a moment I am frightened because squeaking could tell danger-animals where I am, but then I realize that I am now bigger than danger-animals and I am happy once more.

My new claws are my friends.

Light in cage, a new day. One of the men, a female, approaches me from the other side of cage, and slips two things in through a hole. The first one is familiar to me, it is a fruit I remember from when I was small from its smells. I have never seen it whole. I squeak happily, scamper to it not quite right, and use my new front claws to hold it to eat.

Before I know it, she has also given me a second thing, it is not food. It is the bedding men cover themselves in. I think they wear it because they are cold. I look at the bedding strange, I know they want me to have this. I am warm already, I do not need bedding to cover me, so I tear the bedding to smaller pieces to add to my nest to sleep on. She is gone. I watch as she leaves, moving on her rear claws in a way I not used to. I understand why my cage is so tall, the men made it so I can perch and not scamper not quite right. I balance slowly to perch, and find it is easier than when I was small. I move my rear claw hesitantly, then the other, and find it is not hard to move as men do. I am happy.

There is a curious place in my new cage with smooth stones where there is warm rain that appears that I enter it. I find this by accident, and shriek startled as I used to not like getting wet when I was small, until I understand it will not drown me. I perch there for a time in wonder, letting the warm rain fall over me, my front paws coaxing it over my shape with fascination. After a while, I move out of the rain and there is a rustling breeze around me that is dry, so I let it pull the water from my white fur. I am excited, this has solved for my problem of not being able to preen!

Days pass. One day I awake in a maze, I am a little confused, because I cannot remember going to sleep after I ate but I am not frightened. Mazes are fun places that sometimes end in food, I used to be very good at mazes when I was small. I look up to see I can move like men in this maze, this is good because I can no longer scamper as I did when I was small. I move through this maze, side to side, quickly, thinking and moving on a course to find the end. I reach the end place and stop, frozen, but not in fear. In front of me is a rat, it is small, but one I remember from another cage when I was small. I move towards her slow, and drop on my rear haunches to show I am not a danger-animal who will eat her. I try to pick her up and preen her behind the ear, but she nips at me and runs off. She and I are different, I know now she is not the same as the rat-in-the-other-place-who-is-me. Smoke but no fire, strange smell around me, I am dizzy, and then awake in my cage again.

I am going to try something new. After the light is gone, I practice making sounds the men say. I want to show them I can be... understand their words as they do. I watch them the same as I watch the-rat-in-the-other-place-who-is-me, to learn to not sound small, like the other rats. I want to go into the mazes the men go to when they leave this place. I smell different smells on them when they return, happy smells.

I say the word they had said to me, I say "Rat." They are much confused, some of them I can see are frightened. They put me into a cage where I cannot hear, but can see them. I can see that the men are fierce at each other, I cannot tell if it is about me. I am frightened, I do not know what I have done wrong. I have never seen men angry with each other. I do not want to die.

I am Rat.