In the days that had passed since he tried venturing outside, reality came crashing back in - the reality Tim was inevitably getting used to. It started when Callie came home from work and found him, pressed against the building's front door, unable to pull it open again by himself. And it settled all over him as he went right back to his monotonous, shut-in lifestyle, as if nothing had changed. And he told himself, nothing had changed. The only thing he had learned from that experience was to get somebody's assistance if he was going out for fresh air again. So why did he feel so... different?
And why couldn't he even explain to himself what the difference was? He kept searching for the right words. It definitely wasn't just the energizing boost of the fresh air that he was feeling, it was something in his very mentality that had changed. And it came right along with the brief conversation with that woman and her son - which turned out, despite his expectations, to be the best interaction he'd had with anyone since he was transformed. Well, okay, it was the only interaction he'd had with anyone other than his two changed neighbors, and those conversations were usually brought down by the gravity of their shared situation. But still, he couldn't stop himself from replaying that moment over and over in his mind - it was about the least bad thing he had to fixate on. And the more he thought about it, the more it gave him... He still didn't know what to call it. The closest thing he could land on was... "hope"?
For the first time this whole month, Tim was actually looking forward to Tuesday afternoon and the weekly support group meeting that came with it. He didn't expect that they would have any satisfying answers for him - they never seemed to have those for anyone. But it was a place to share your thoughts, to commiserate, and most importantly to remember that you were not alone in whatever it was you were feeling. So if... maybe... hypothetically... Tim was feeling that being stuck as a semi-inanimate object for months of his life was not as bad as he previously thought... was he alone in that?
He was determined to find out. Last week's meeting had been canceled due to "technical problems", whatever that meant, so the people who logged on today were surely going to have a lot to say about how they were doing. And Tim was eager just to listen in. He strongly suspected that he was not the only one starting to think that these changes weren't all bad. And if the advice of Dr. Teddy Bear (Tim couldn't recall his name) was worth much of anything, as vague as it was... Then surely it was going to help at least some of these people start to get more comfortable in their own skin. Or whatever they had now in place of skin.
Not long after he logged in, he started to get private messages from Penny again, but he hardly paid them any mind. This time, the focus of his attention had been flipped, and instead of tuning out the people who spoke as they each said their piece, he really wanted to know what they would have to say. So he turned his eyes away from the corner of the screen where a pinging red dot told him new messages were coming in, and watched the diverse collection of faces (some of them barely being faces at all) that covered the rest of the monitor.
Tim easily remembered the rabbit-woman who volunteered to speak first. "I know a lot of you can't relate to this," she said timidly, "but it's getting rough out there. I mean, I could handle all the jokes about carrots, and lucky feet, and all that stuff. But the things people will say about you, even when they know you're listening, just get so insane. Like, what am I supposed to say when somebody goes, hey, if you're not human, does that mean you don't have human rights anymore? I've had that conversation multiple times this week, and I do not want to think about what'll happen if that kind of idea catches on..."
"Oh, yeah, and the other thing," she continued. "My brother finally got restored the other day, and I thought, hey, at least we have this experience in common and everything. But when they brought him back, he couldn't remember a thing from the whole time that he was changed. And when he saw me, and he learned about everything that happened while he was out, he totally freaked. He hasn't spoken to me since..." She looked down at her lap, her long ears drooping behind her long brown hair. "It's like he's still gone. But now it hurts even worse..."
A fully transformed snake, resting on top of its spiraling coils, used the tip of its long tail to press the "Raise Hand" button and become the next one to speak. Tim glanced back at the square with the rabbit woman, who had a wide-eyed look of fear for just a moment before she suddenly turned her camera off. "I jus-s-s-st want to add to that," said the snake, which would have been indistinguishable from an ordinary animal if it wasn't wearing an ill-fitting pair of headphones, its forked tongue flicking at the attached microphone.
"I've been lucky - or unlucky - enough to keep my job, working remotely for a call s-s-s-center. And the things-s people will s-s-say when they don't know you've been changed - I gues-s-s-s they think I have a s-s-speech impediment - are even wors-s-se. Things-s-s like, thos-s-se people have got the mark of the beas-s-st on them now. It s-s-serves-s them right for partying on the devil's-s-s holiday. Now if we could jus-s-st get rid of them, s-s-s-society would finally be on the right path." Despite all this, the snake broke into a predatory smile. "I wonder what they would s-s-say if they knew they were talking with the very s-s-s-symbol of the devil..."
Next was an ordinary-looking smartphone, which spoke in the bland, emotionless voice of the phone's digital assistant. "I know what you mean. My brain is hooked up directly to the internet now, which is terrifying. But the only way I can turn it off is to put myself in airplane mode, which feels like being in solitary confinement. So I'm always getting this stuff beamed straight into my head: Watch As I DESTROY Witches With Facts And Logic! 12 Things The Media Elites DON'T Want You To Know About The Halloween Conspiracy! One Weird Trick To Protect Yourself From Dark Magic Transformations - Buy Our Supplements Now!" The way the voice quickly rattled off those titles seemed almost involuntary. "According to my analysis, which I can't stop automatically calculating in my mind, social media sentiments have become 60 percent more negative than they were on October 30th."
And it went on and on like this. Tim watched in silent disbelief - from the way these people were talking, there seemed to be no rays of hope, and the world just kept getting bleaker. A week ago, he would have felt exactly the same way. But his own firsthand experience leaving the safety of his apartment had been the opposite of what everyone had warned him. Despite how afraid he had been beforehand, how anxious he was in the moment, and how confused he'd felt ever since, that one little interaction was by far the brightest spot in his entire month. He wanted - needed - more of that in his life. And he only became more convinced of that as these other people spoke. Sure, he thought to himself, it was easy to be so afraid of the world when all you knew about it was other people's horror stories. But if you actually went out there yourself, surely you'd see that it wasn't so bad, right?
"I actually have a little bit different of a story to tell," Tim said when it eventually came to his turn to speak. "I went outside for the first time since Halloween, and I was really nervous about it, because of everything that I heard. But then I ran into this family, and they turned out to be..." He wondered if he was about to embellish the story, but he was telling it exactly the way that it stuck in his memory. "Just the nicest people! It went great! And now that I'm thinking about it..." He felt almost giddy now that he was thinking about it. "I don't know if I even need this group anymore! Like, I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing right now. This must all be happening to me for a reason! I've just got to go out there and spread all the positivity the world needs right now... kindness, and love..." He still could hardly believe what he was about to say. "And... and... and Christmas cheer!"
Tim didn't spend much time studying the blank looks in all the little squares that covered his screen. Before anybody could try to respond to what he had just said, he hit the little red button that said "Exit Call", and they all disappeared.