Matt awoke to the sound of his alarm sounding beside him on the dresser. He tried to reach over and deactivate it, but he couldn't get his arm to work right.
'What's going on?' he thought with a groan.
It was extremely hot under Matt's bedsheets, so he tried to sit up and take them off. This was impeded by two obstacles. First, he was sleeping in a circle, so he had to uncurl himself to even get up. Second, his arms still didn't work right. They seemed to want to act more like legs, holding up his weight on all fours instead of letting him grab his blankets from a seated position. He eventually managed to plod his way out from under the sheets, walking on his puffy fingers and the balls of his feet. What he saw in the light of sunrise surprised him: looking down, he should have seen his hands and his pajama-covered arms, but instead he saw broad white paws and forelegs covered in fur.
"WHAT?!" he yelled, but he couldn't get his mouth to work right, either. A huge tongue that was much too flat simply flapped around in his mouth when he tried to speak, and his voice didn't sound at all like it usually did. He sounded more like a confused animal than a surprised boy.
'Mirror, mirror, I need a mirror,' he thought silently, not even bothering to try to speak again. He aimed himself at the floor and plopped down, landing on all four paws with the clicking noise of claws against hardwood. He looked straight at the mirror again and perked his ears at what he saw.
It was the same black and white dog he'd seen last night, and he still couldn't see his human reflection. But this time, there could be little doubt that the mirror was accurate. The paws in the mirror were the same ones he could see under him. The floppy ears explained why his ears felt so big, so bent, and so mobile. And the tail ...
Matt snapped his head around stared straight back at a large, fluffy appendage that was curled up over him in a large C shape. It had black and white fur, just like the one in the mirror. It started moving when he tried to see if he could make it do something. He stared at his tail for at least a minute before he snapped out of it. Then he saw and felt it tuck up tight beneath him--the first time he'd felt panic the way a dog does. He howled pitifully--the only way he had left to ask if anyone could help him.