Mark woke up with his head pounding, and found himself lying on a cold concrete floor. As he scrambled to get up, he could see by the harsh fluorescent light above him that something was stuck to his face, that something was covering his hands, his arms - no, his whole body. Something orange and black and white all over, something familiar but at the same time horrifically foreign. Mark didn't want to get it through his aching, and now differently-shaped, skull, but there was no way to deny it. He was, in every physical way, a perfect copy of none other than Vickie Vixen.
If his groggy memory of last night was anything to go by, it happened like this. October 31 wasn't much different from any other day at Freddieland, the favorite theme park of just about every child in the tri-state area. Sure, there were a lot more plastic pumpkins lying around, but that was about it. To avoid the obvious confusion that could result otherwise, everyone was strictly forbidden from wearing any Halloween costume more elaborate than a simple change of outfit - except for the employees in the mascot suits, of course. And they were there to entertain, not to scare - even if a lot of the children were scared of them anyway.
Mark remembered the first time he was assigned to take on the role of Vickie Vixen - constant companion and love interest of the park's main character, Freddie Fox. He was put off by the idea of playing a female character, but his boss had reminded him that no one would be able to tell the difference underneath all that synthetic fur. Besides, the job didn't require a lot of acting. "Just wave at the kids, and drink a lot of water so you don't get heatstroke in there," Mark's coworkers had told him when he started. "That's all there is to it."
And they were right. Mark didn't even know much about the character he was playing - he'd never watched those cartoons as a kid - and he didn't need to. Just wave at the kids. Pose for a photo if they want you to. Leave them alone if they seem frightened. And on a chilly fall evening like this, the sun already below the horizon, there was no fear of overheating, either. In a few hours from now, the park would close for the season, Mark could go back to focusing full-time on his college classes, and this job would be nothing more than a fond memory before he knew it.
Then, in an instant, everything changed. The happy screams of kids riding roller coasters were replaced with much closer shouts of confusion and terror. Mark could barely catch a glimpse of the chaos that was suddenly emerging all around him before he involuntarily doubled over in pain. He could feel that some trouble-making kid must have yanked on his tail again. But why could he feel it like the damn thing was attached to his spine?
Recovering from the momentary jolt of pain that had just run through his whole body, Mark watched as an army of security guards stepped out from seemingly nowhere, emerging from shadows and behind trees to herd a scared crowd of park guests calmly to the exits. A crowd whose worried looks included a lot of familiar faces - people who looked just like famous celebrities, superheroes, professional athletes. Mark knew that the park security was always ready at a moment's notice, but he'd never seen them in action like this before. My god, he thought, has there been some sort of terrorist attack? But he already suspected that something much stranger was happening.
Once the crowds were cleared away and the park was empty, Mark was left alone on a deserted walkway. He had to wonder if anyone was coming back for him. With no kids in sight, he started to take off his costume, only to find that he wasn't wearing one anymore. He ran a hand down his furry back, expecting to find the zipper with clumsy gloved fingers, but instead felt pointed claws running through his own body hair. But he wasn't supposed to have nearly this much body hair!
By the time security came and collected him, Mark understood that he, somehow, had become a living copy of the very character he'd been dressed as a few minutes ago. "Where are you taking me?", he demanded as they grabbed him by the arms, in a sweet, high-pitched, slightly Southern-drawling accent that sounded absolutely nothing like Mark's ordinary speaking voice. The only answer he got was when he was dragged into the tunnels under the park and brought to a spot he recognized immediately - the jail. A row of temporary holding cells for unruly, usually drunk adults and crying kids who'd been separated from their parents. The jail, as employees tended to casually refer to it, was not exactly meant for a long-term stay - there wasn't even a cot to lie on, just a hard concrete floor.
"How long are you going to keep me here?", pleaded a desperate voice that was clearly Vickie's and not Mark's. "Well, you can't exactly go home looking like that, can you?", came the flat response from a guard. "Don't worry, we'll figure out something to do with you. Just sit tight until then."
So Mark sat and waited, watching as other formerly-costumed employees were led into the neighboring cells. He struggled to remember all of tonight's assignments, who was performing as who, but their new outward appearances were easy to recognize. Even after the awkward transition from cartoon drawing to flesh-and-blood creature, any child could tell you all their names. Hugo Hedgehog. Randall Rabbit.
But there was only one anthropomorphic animal that made Vickie's - Mark's - heart skip a beat when the vixen caught sight of him - the one and only Freddie Fox. And there was only one of him - Freddieland's management had a strict policy that there could only be one Freddie roaming the park at any given time, to make sure that meeting him was always a unique experience. Mark couldn't believe how warm and fuzzy he felt inside when he was looking at Freddie Fox - he was already a lot warmer and fuzzier than he would have liked. He was attracted not just to another man, but to a male cartoon character covered in a pelt of orange fur??? But then again, he hesitated to admit, he was Vickie Vixen now, and the only reason that character even existed was to give fan-favorite Freddie a girlfriend...
And that was about as much as Mark remembered before he curled up on the cold, hard floor and drifted off to sleep. As it all came rushing back to him now, he realized that something was distinctly different as he woke up. Vickie's dainty polka-dotted dress was gone, leaving Mark to lie there naked. When did that happen? He was sure he'd never taken it off himself. Now he could see the whole of his altered body for the first time... and for the first time in his life, there was nothing exciting at all about seeing a pair of bare breasts up close. Then again, Vickie's breasts were not bare at all - they were covered in enough orange-and-white fur to disguise that there was anything sexual about them, as large and firm as they might be. Just as any self-respecting cartoon woman should have. Further below was something that still needed to be covered, though. With all the shocks he'd received last night, Mark hadn't quite had time to contemplate the fact that his new body had a vagina. He was tempted to examine it a little more closely, but he snapped out of it when a booming voice came out of one of the neighboring cells. "Hey! Where did all of our clothes go?!"
Perfectly on cue, a man in a very nice suit stepped into the hallway. "Ah," he said placidly, "you're awake. We took all your clothes to the laundry room during the night. You really shouldn't sleep in them, you know. It's not hygienic. We were hoping to return them to you before you all woke up, but I guess we were a little too late for that."
The loud, rumbling voice - which Mark guessed had to be Bernie Bear - spoke again. "But doesn't that make the changes perm-"
The man interrupted him. "Here they are now," he announced, as a laundry cart was wheeled out. He then went down the line handing out clothes to each one of them. When he got to Vickie's cell, Mark just stared at him, not taking the neatly folded dress. "What's going to happen to me - I mean, to all of us - now? You can't just keep us here forever!"
The man in the suit was clearly choosing his words carefully. "We've been trying to figure that out all night ourselves. We had to call an emergency conference session with our best lawyers - and those guys charge a thousand dollars an hour for overtime. But the long and short of it is, yes, we can keep you here as long as we need to. You already work for us, and since you're not likely to get any other sort of job as you are right now, we think you're all better off this way."
"But..." Mark stammered in Vickie's voice. "W-we're not your property!"
The man just smiled. "I'm afraid you are, Vickie. You are the intellectual property of Freddieland Enterprises, Inc., and we can do whatever we want with you. At least until you fall into the public domain, but we've already ensured that that won't happen for a very long time. If you don't like it, you'll have to stop playing the role of Vickie Vixen permanently, but..." He sucked air through his teeth. "I don't think that's an option for you anymore. Don't worry, though, we won't be making any unreasonable demands while you're here. We just want you to continue being Vickie, just as you've been doing for the past few months."
Mark didn't know where to start with that, but the idea that he had to really be Vickie scared him even more than the idea that he was trapped down here. "I'm not Vickie! I-I-I don't know the first thing about Vickie Vixen! All I know how to do is... just smile and wave!"
The man in the suit shook his head. "Oh, that's a problem we can solve, too. We're working on an all-new training program for all of our characters right now. Of course, we're going to need a lot more from you all now than just 'smile and wave', so it'll have to be completely immersive. I'm sure you're having a hard time adjusting right now, but that'll pass as soon as we get you into training. By the time we're done, Vickie, you won't even remember that you were ever anybody other than Vickie Vixen!" He chuckled as he started to make his way down to the next cell. "And come next spring, when we open for the season... Freddieland will be the most realistic theme park on earth!"
Mark shuddered. Vickie's tail was all fluffed out, the fur standing on its end from head to toe. This was even worse than he had thought. He had to do something to get out of here, and soon. Or else, he wasn't even going to be a "he" for very much longer...