Because it was a hot summer day and the house was air conditioned, Ben's parents had
thoughtfully left both the porch door open and the house door open in order to better
ventilate the small cottage. On this day however, this also made the entrance into Ben's
house all the easier. Ben, alone in the house, had the TV volume on high and never heard
the soft clicking of the three otters' toe claws on the white tile of the kitchen floor.
Although they had never encountered a human before, the delicate noses of the males
could tell that the inhabitants of this dam were no beavers and they whispered to their
female companion to stay put in the kitchen as they padded toward the den where Ben
was watching television. As they approached the den, their curious nature almost led
them to become distracted by the pictures on the wall they took for strange leaves from
some unknown but beautiful tree. However, they were now picking up the scent of a
fellow otter from the den and they continued down the dimly lit hall. Suddenly, the
wagging tail of one of the males hit a lamp, sending it crashing down to the floor. Ben,
startled, looked up to see the silhouettes of two large men in the doorway and began to
weakly get up to defend himself, believing that his house was being robbed. But as the
two otter males stepped into the room, Ben (who had seen the otters years ago on a hike
to Otter Town) realized what they were and began to laugh. "Of course, I must be
dreaming some crazy dream brought on by the fever," he thought to himself, looking at
the 6 ft. tall otter men. Ben finally managed to stop laughing and realized that he no
longer had a sore throat, never suspecting that the virus working to change him was also
making him immune to human diseases. The otter men had never seen an animal like
Ben, yet he smelled to them like a young otter. Confused, the older alpha male of the two
leaned down and placed a webbed paw on Ben's shoulder. "What type of otter are you,
strange young one?" he asked. "I'm not an otter silly, I'm a person," replied Ben, grinning a
silly grin and still believing this to be the weirdest dream of his life. "Hmmm. A person-
otter, how odd," replied the other male with the light tan fur coat, his gaze sweeping
around the room. All of a sudden, the older male...