"Ugh! Get off me, twerps! I can walk on my own without both of you holding my arms like an old man," I said to the teen guards who were practically dragging me up the forest trail. "Where am I supposed to run off to with my hands tied around my back, anyway? I'm totally at your mercy, and the Crony-backer's."
The Elders had given these two goodie-two-shoes teenagers a day off from patrolling the town borders just so they could walk me up to the path to where they would leave me as a sacrifice for the Crony-backer. Apparently I wasn't fit to be part of the community anymore, so they were going to let it mark my soul and take me away with it. They had to stay on the trail the Elders told them about, walk with me until they saw a hut, and then leave me alone and run straight back to the village. They were carrying torches, even though it was broad daylight, because they were told that fire would protect them. I thought it was a bunch of hooey, myself.
At last, right near the top of the mountain, just as the hut was in sight a few more yards up the trail, the guards froze. It was supposedly haunted, and no one was supposed to stay in sight of it for too long. They looked at each other and shoved me forward. Then they kicked my shins so I would fall over and not get up too quickly. Then I heard them scurrying back down the mountain like the cowards they were.
"Ow, shit, that fuckin HURTS!" I yelled, rolling over and groaning on the ground. I almost didn't notice a man in a while robe coming out of the hut. He walked toward me and grabbed onto my ropes to help me up.
"Heh, so are you the Crony-backer? Or are you the ghost of the hut?" I asked sarcastically as he started leading up toward the place.
"For you, I guess I'm both," he said with a sly voice.
"Hmph, I always knew the elders were faking it," I said, pouting and stepping into the strange little building.
"Speaking of the Elders," he said, taking a seat in a rickety old rocking chair by a table, "they tell me you've been a bit of a problem for them. Shirking farm duty, staying back from hunting trips, pulling pranks on schoolkids, sleeping in the old tunnels, ripping people's robes on purpose, making up nasty limericks about Old Lady Hess, and scaring the town guards by sneaking into the woods to make noises."
"Hahaha, what can I say? I'm a bit of a free spirit, right? Just proves the Crony-backer ain't got me yet, don't it?" (Heh, like that silly Crony-backer ain't a pile shit if I ever heard one.)
"Well, anyway," he said, untying my hands without commenting on the fact that I'd been brought here naked, "no one wants to put up with your antics any longer. They've asked me to give you a new job with a fresh start. You're going to stay at the kennels and help out with the hunting trips from now on. And this time, you aren't going to have much of a choice in the matter."
"Yeah, right, like what are they gonna do to me if I don't? Lock me in one of their meditation shacks again so I can think about what I've done? Hey, wait a minute. What's that thing? Why is it glowing?"
My white-robed host had picked up something that look like a strange sort of smooth slab that had lights and colors coming up from it. I'd never seen anything like it.
"Oh, this?" he said with a confident grin on his face. "This is my tablet. Not like a writing table, though. It's what the outsiders call a computer. It's got the Chronivac app on it. It's what I'm gonna use to get you ready for your new job."
"Chronivac app. What the frick is that?"
"It's what the townspeople are calling the Crony-backer. It's a weird little device. Scans your soul and then lets me do whatever I want with your body."
"Pfft. You're lying! It's another trick. Ah! What's that noise?"
The tablet made a loud dinging sound, and then a muffled, not-quite-human voice came out of it: "New soul account created: Taylor, age 22, offspring of Juniper and Hezekiah, from Ennovy village." Hearing my name and everything about myself, my blood ran cold.
"Well, now, it's time to get you ready to go back to the village. There's a tunnel from here to the meetinghouse that will be used for your entrance to the Gratitude Ceremony tonight. You'll be welcomed there as a gift from Old Lady Hess. The hunters will be especially happy to see you. Needless to say, you won't be quite the same when you get there."
He tapped on the tablet a few times, and then a tingling feeling started up in my body. Was this what it felt like for the Crony-backer to put its cold, dark markings on your soul? I gasped and whined and felt my backbone stretching toward my behind. I wondered if I was about to get taller, but then I felt a swelling just above my bare butt. I clamped my hands back there to try to hold my backbone in, but it was no use. A skin covered mound was pushing against my hand, and growing longer, until I had to take my hands off of it because it just felt too scary and weird. Even then, I could feel it stretching out into a long, thin shape behind me. The fact that it didn't hurt somehow made it even worse: I was being mangled, so shouldn't it be unbearable?
When the swelling stopped, I looked behind me, and saw my backbone stretched out far behind me, covered in my normal flesh like any other limb. I quickly grabbed it and tried forcing this new length of it back into my torso, and then I tried yanking it off. Both times, it actually did cause me a lot of pain, so I stopped and even eventually just let go of it. That's when I discovered the strangest thing: I could make it move without touching it. I could see and feel it flexing around in different directions back there where it stuck out from behind me. That's when I realized it was a tail, and that's when my new tail ducked between my legs all by itself!
"Wh-what am I s-supposed to do with a t-t-tail?" I stuttered to the white-robed man. "W-won't I look weird b-back at the village?"
"No, it'll look normal on you by the time that we're done. How about we give you some new ears to match?"
My ears felt weird next. I could feel them swelling. I didn't touch them this time, afraid of whatever might be happening to them. But I flinched in shock when I felt my earlobes touch my shoulders! They felt so long and wide, and the were still getting longer! Unable to resist my curiosity any longer, I reached up to grasp them. I grabbed them where they hung down and traced them back up to my skull. I felt them perk up like the ears of a surprised animal, but they were still hanging so low that I'm not sure anyone else would have noticed. I realized they were big enough that I might be able to get a decent look at them, so I quickly snatched them up and easily managed to hold them in front of my face. The big rounded shapes were unmistakable: the Chronivac had given me a massive pair of hound ears! At last, I knew how they would keep me in the kennels and force me to help on hunting trips. They were turning me into their newest hunting dog!