Chris sat back on the couch, his mind racing as he considered what could possibly explain his predicament.
The facts: He’d driven his car into the snow and woken up surrounded by all sorts of animal people, without a human being in sight, besides himself. His family and Mason were acting like nothing was different at all, and besides the addition of some fur and the occasional antler or two, they were just as they’d always been. Dad was quiet and sipping his coffee while some cheap made-for-TV Christmas movie was playing on TV, Mom was fussing about every little thing and running up and down the halls ‘getting everything ready’, and Jake was lazing in the corner with his snout glued to his phone.
So, what’s the explanation?
Was he in a coma in the hospital after crashing his car, dreaming about some storybook Christmas with magical animal people? Probably not, since his side was still aching painfully, and the ‘magic’ level was still rather mundane.
An elaborate prank, being filmed for some YouTube channel? Possibly, but he didn’t quite see the payoff being worth the expense of dressing up an entire town in elaborate animal costumes.
A ‘Christmas Carol’ with a twist? Was he being visited by the Ghost of Christmas Where Your Dad’s A Reindeer? Christ discarded that one out of hand.
...Another dimension? Where everything’s the same, except humans are nowhere to be seen, and animal-like folk take their place?
“Put that one on the backburner,” Chris thought to himself, certain that there was another likely answer that he couldn’t put his finger on. But, he figured that no matter what explanation he could come up with, what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Tell his parents and his brother that he was going to get the hell out of there ‘cause they’d suddenly transformed into animals? They’d just think he was crazy.
...Shit, that was it, wasn’t it? The possibility he couldn’t think of a moment earlier.
Chris shook his head gently to chase off that sort of thinking, earning a bemused look from his father and a worried twitch of the whiskers from his mother.
“Uh… I just need to check on something real quick,” Chris said with a forced smile, rising up from the couch and moving toward the stairs. “Can you get a couple sticks of butter out of the fridge and let ‘em warm up a bit? If Mason’s eating over, I want a pie or two on the table.”
His mother looked like she was about to argue, but Chris’s father just chuckled quietly and said, “I keep telling you, he’s just fine. Besides, I’ve been wanting one of that boy’s pies for four years.”
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Chris threw his bag down on his old bed, the same old way-too-small twin that he’s slept in through high school and during vacations home during college. The room hadn’t changed much since he’d moved out just before graduating, just much cleaner and with a few less bits of old memorabilia. He idly ran his finger over the spines of a few old books on a shelf, spotting a few cookbooks he’d remembered reading fanatically when he was younger, as well as a sheaf of cooking magazines that were practically falling apart, dog-eared and bookmarked to a nearly impractical degree.
As he glanced at them, however, he noted the one of the first thing that seemed different compared to what he remembered. Well, the first thing that wasn’t a humanoid animal. The row of books was carefully organized into two piles; in one pile were books and magazines with titles like Herbivore Gourmet and Grass, Berry, and Herb, while the other had books like Con Carne and The Satisfied Carnivore.
“...Makes sense, I suppose,” Chris murmured quietly to himself as he took that in. “A fox for a mom and brother and a deer for a dad… Gotta make sure there’s a little something for everyone…”
So, not everything was the same as he remembered, Chris was beginning to realize. After all, how could it be the same? The question of what people lived in this… world? Dimension? Fantasy? Whatever it was, the simple matter of what people lived there was sure to have an effect on what things were like.
And yet, Chris himself was the same as he’d always been. Or, so he had been assuming, up until now.
His eyes went once more to the row of books on the shelf, moving past the cookbooks and magazines and landing squarely on a book on the end. His senior yearbook from high school. He’d never been the kind of guy that would re-read that sort of thing. High school was… not bad, but certainly dull. Not the sort of thing he had any reason to revisit. But now, there was reason. If he opened that book and found his own picture… what would he see?
Chris shakily reached out and pulled the yearbook off the shelf and opened it to the front page, seeing the inside cover signed by a few dozen names and a handful of well-wishes. Not that many, of course, since Chris had always kept a small social circle.
He sat down on his old bed and flipped a few pages ahead, his eyes going as he was overwhelmed by the smiling faces of page after page of different teenage animal people. The underclassmen were at the front of the book, and without thinking too much he tried to find his younger brother Jake (who was a freshman during Chris’s senior year). Turning to the ‘W’ section, he traced his finger down and easily found Jake White nestled between a sporty-looking raccoon boy and a smiling squirrel girl. Chris nearly burst out laughing at how his brother had looked. Whether he was a human or a fox, Jake had gone through the same goth phase at that age, but mascara and cheap hair dye had a far different look on a red-furred fox compared to a human. Pair that with some shiny braces on the teenage fox’s sharp teeth, and it was practically a case study in adolescent awkwardness.
Deciding to give his younger brother's dignity a break, Chris flipped ahead a bit, spotting pictures of school sports games, dominated by tall and muscular young men and women of all sorts of different species of animals. Of course, one picture stuck out more than any other; a lean and tall husky with his fur clipped short, caught in the act of a game-winning slam dunk during the regional basketball finals. The cool blue eyes and cheerful smile were the same old Mason, even eight years ago.
Chris knew he had to stay focused, so he got the the end of the yearbook, where the senior portraits were. He turned the pages slowly, trying in vain to recognize any of his old friends and acquaintances, but it was no use. Sure, their names were there, but how was he supposed to know at a glance that that white-furred rabbit was his best friend since childhood, or that skunk with the glasses was the guy he’d had his first kiss with?
Chris nervously reached up to the brush his hair out of his face, his fingers brushing past an odd, solid-feeling bump along the side of his head, underneath his thick hair. However, he just wrote it off as a result of his earlier car crash, a bruise or bit of swelling that was nothing to worry about. And so, he returned his attention to the yearbook pictures, not noticing at all an identical lump on the other side of his head...
He knew he was just putting off looking for his own senior picture, and when he got to end of the ‘V’ names he paused. ‘What does it matter, anyway?’, he thought nervously. ‘I’m not like the rest of them, no matter what picture is there. I’m human, obviously. I’m just stressing myself out worrying about… about…'
Chris began to turn the page, only for a knock at his door to snap him out of his thoughts. “Chris? I got everything ready down in the kitchen, honey!” his mother’s voice came muffled through the door. “If you want to have everything done for dinnertime, you might want to get started!”
Chris glanced at the clock and nearly leapt out of bed as he realized just how long he’d been up here. “Right, got it, mom…” he replied, quickly putting his yearbook back on the shelf and opening the door to head back downstairs to the rest of his newly furry family...