Crucible of Ideas

"Come to think of it, what happened to minding the store...?"

That's right. I ought to have been minding the shop on the first floor.

It appeared that I had returned to my room at some point, but I had absolutely no memory of having done so.

Quite the opposite: I didn't even remember lying down in bed.

Judging by how dark the room was, the sun had already set, but everything since just past noon was a blur and I couldn't remember clearly what had happened.

Once I became aware of that, I couldn't help being bothered by it.

I wracked my brains and tried to remember.

I was sure that I'd been minding the shop, but somehow I couldn't convince myself of it.

Or maybe being in the shop had been a dream.

My mind was still muddled with waking and wasn't working properly.

"Maybe I was tired?"

Maybe I'd gone back to my room mostly unconscious, and ended up going to sleep in that state.

It wasn't impossible, but I didn't feel like I'd been that busy.

Now that I thought about it, I had a feeling I'd been having a strange dream.

I didn't remember it very well, but the weird feeling of it remained in my body, somehow both frightening and pleasurable.

I also had a feeling that the me in the dream hadn't been me at all.

That she had changed into a completely different person, body and soul.

And the dream me had thought that a wonderful thing.

The hazy revival of those fragmentary memories was enough to make my face grow hot.

It had been an odd dream, but a strangely happy one.

—No, that wasn't right. It hadn't been a dream at all. I mean, I was already—

Feeling as if I could hear a voice speaking to me, I raised my head with a start.

I was probably hearing things.

I must still be half asleep.

Reasoning thus, I shook my head and tried to force myself to forget.

Then I became aware of a queer feeling in my body.

My head seemed strangely heavy.

At first I'd put it down to having just woken up, but now that didn't seem to be the case.

Maybe I'd caught a cold.

But it didn't seem quite like feeling sluggish or dazed.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

For the time being, I decided to check my temperature and raised my arm to do so.

Then I caught sight of the hand moving to touch my forehead.

I froze for an instant, unable to make sense of what I was seeing.

"What... is this...?" The voice that eventually emerged from me dwindled as my confusion rose until it vanished entirely.

My upraised hand remained frozen at eye level. I slowly lowered it.

Still dazed, I stared down at my hands.

Their shape was grotesquely inhuman.

From the elbows down my arms were covered in fluffy fur and shaped almost like an animal's paws.

Sharp claws peeked out through the fur at my fingertips, and there were pads like a cat's or dog's on my palms.

They looked like a beast's forelimbs had been stuck onto a human body, or maybe like I was wearing something resembling soft and fluffy fur gloves.

But I didn't have any gloves like that.

Besides, the sensations transmitted through my skin were telling me clearly that these were no gloves, but living flesh and blood.

"What... does it mean?"

Still staring at my trembling hands, I timidly flexed my fingers.

The three thick digits were moving slowly, just as I meant them to.

I shook my hands, raised them, and lowered them again.

The soft, fluffy animal hands moved as I wished, without the least deviation.

I even felt a sense of rightness suffuse my body with every movement, in contrast to the unease I'd experienced when I first laid eyes on them.

It felt as if these hands had been mine from birth.

That sensation made me remember more of the dream.

As the memories floated through my mind, an unpleasant premonition was rapidly growing inside me.

"That's right. I'm sure... In my dream, I ended up like this, and..." The muttered words brought on a sudden flash of insight, and I leapt instinctively to my feet.

Forcing the fact that the feeling of my feet striking the floor was different from before from my mind, I peered into the bedside mirror.

Then, I froze.

The Lilia Flimlight in the mirror was not the one I was used to seeing.

Looking back at me now was a girl monster with big horns growing from her head and ears covered in soft fur.

The pigtails hairstyle, the large eyes, the slightly snub nose, the small mouth and the childish features were just as I remembered them.

It was my own familiar face.

Only, the eyes turned towards me were stained a deep violet, and little fangs peeked out from the corners of my mouth.

The mirror reflected my small, unripe body that didn't look more than ten with its flat chest.

I was clothed only in a lacy white chemise, so thin that my skin was visible through it.

My exposed skin was tinged with a faint blush, which contrasted with my lovely clothes and grotesque body to lend me a mysterious, bewitching elegance.

"N, no way... It wasn't a dream...?" was all I could manage to stammer out after staring slack-jawed at the mirror for a while.

It was the spitting image of my monster self as I'd seen it in the dream.

My field of vision swayed dizzily for an instant at the sight of the cruel reality.

I felt on the verge of collapse, but I persevered and somehow managed to keep on my feet.

I stood absolutely stock still.

Slowly, I raised a grotesque hand and touched my head with it.

When it came in contact with the hard horn, I felt the touch in both my hand and head.

I instinctively drew back my hand, but the sensation remaining in both it and my horn was unmistakably real.

The girl in the mirror opened her mouth, a frightened look on her face.

"Wh, what should I do? I've been turned into a monster..."

My words gave birth to terror and despair.

If anyone found out that I'd been turned into a monster, people would certainly come to suppress me at once.

Of course, I wouldn't be able to stay in this town anymore.

If that happened, I probably wouldn't be able to be with big brother anymore, either.