Viola was your average middle school kid. She had decent grades and didn't really get into too much trouble. She had long red hair that fell down to her shoulders, freckles, and green eyes. She loved animals with all of her heart and was always trying to adopt a stray dog or cat whenever she found one. In the end, she would take them to the shelter where they would be taken care of. But enough about our main character; let's get to her adventure.
Viola was up in her room, headset blaring with the sounds of war. She was playing some multiplayer shooting game and talking to her friends in voice chat. Despite the loud volume she had her headphones set on, she could hear a couple knocks at the door. She paused the game and told her friends she'd be right back, then went to go answer it.
Opening the door, Viola saw a delivery man. "Are you Viola?" He cocked his head, holding a box with a clipboard on top of it. "Yeah.." She was uneasy with his sudden arrival. Being only 13 and home alone, she didn't want to let him in. "Oh, ok. Uh, you've been selected as part of a beta test for a new product called the Chronivac 4.0. Just, uh, sign here, okay?" He handed her a pen, and she scribbled her name onto the clipboard. She slowly took the box, thanked him, and locked the door.
Viola ran upstairs and got back onto the video game, locking her bedroom door just in case the man was going to break in and the package was fake. She opened it, and it looked somewhat suspicious. She took her laptop off the desk, set it up with the instructions, and then continued to play her game for a while. After about another hour of gaming, she said goodbye to her friends and got onto Skype. She immediately started a call on her group chat. Tony was the first to answer, but Alicia was the first to inquire about the new setup.
Viola looked nervously at her friends on webcam, then explained the whole beta testing selection situation. Tony insisted that she start it up and see if it was a new game. If so, he wanted to come over. Viola hesitated, but turned it on, and after a few minutes of setting it up, she turned to her friends and said that it was some sort of avatar thing, because a full body 3D model of her was on the screen. Alicia suggested that she make her avatar a cat, and Viola immediately started. She clicked the "save changes" button, and waited. Another friend, Robert, connected, and started screaming before he could even finish his greeting; Viola was growing fur. Black fur.
Viola fell onto the floor, panicking. Her ears shifted into cat ears and moved to the top of her head. Her toes became paws, but her fingers just got covered in fur and grew claws and pads. She shrieked as her clothes momentarily disappeared, and she ran off camera until they reappeared. Her friends started yelling for her to stop whatever was going on, but she exclaimed that she couldn't. She tried to stand up, but as soon as she did, she fell into over, her rear waving in the air as a tail sprouted out. She opened her mouth and let out a yowl as fangs grew from canines.
Whiskers emerged from Viola's cheeks as the fur overtook her face. Her nose shifted into that of a cat's. Finally, her body adjusted, and her claws took themselves out of the carpet floor. Her red hair remained, but it turned black and became shorter, reaching only the end of her head. Her parents couldn't see her like this; they just couldn't. She tried to find an undo button, but there was none. No reset button either; this was just a beta and they had forgotten to include a reset feature. She buried her face into her pillow, crying in front of her friends. Suddenly, one by one, their doorbells all rang. They all returned with Chronivacs.
Viola begged her friends to not use them, but the changes took place one by one. She saw her friends transform into anthropomorphic animals right before her eyes. Viola sighed, wondering what she would do, when one of her friends suggested the reality change feature. She scrambled over to the computer. The scanner showed that her parents were pulling into the driveway. Without hesitation, she changed reality so that her parents were the same as she was, and everyone thought it was normal, but only she and her friends would know the truth. She felt an invisible wave cross the room, and everyone else did too. She unlocked the door and her parents stood before her; two different breeds of cat anthros.