Tia stared at her laptop screen, watching a data flashed across it as the search programme she and a friend had designed continued to work. Whilst her friend had used the software for some rather questionable searches, Tia had meant it to locate one thing. Shifting in the desk chair, watching as the programme ran, she considered how it seemed more imperative she find what it was she'd spent almost six years searching for. Yet, even as she thought this, she realised, if she looked at it from a certain perspective, it seemed to be closer to ten years she'd been looking.
Around her eleventh or twelfth year, about the time she started to transition from a girl to a woman, her body had started to do something which seemed impossible. As she developed breasts, had her first period, she also began to look less and less human, until, about the time she was sixteen or seventeen, she had ceased to have any human appearance, and looked like a anthropomorphic beagle. To further complicate things, and frighten her, nobody else could see her as she truly was. When she looked down at herself, peered into a mirror, what she saw was a dog, whilst when other looked at her, it was clear they saw her as a human. This, she figured, was had prompted her to at first start to search for a way to undo what was happening to her, to design the software now running on her laptop, as well as what led her to her major in college - genetics.
Of course, Tia figured she could deal with going through life being the only one who could see herself the way she was. But the thing was, something shifted around her eighteenth year. Believing whatever had caused her to take on how she currently looked was done, she was upset to learn how mistaken she was as she began to experience joint pain, which she eventually the only relief was to drop to all fours and go about so. And to further complicate things, one time she'd been discovered down on all fours, and instead of asking her why she acting the way she was, the person had treated her as if she was what appeared to be, with everything shifting the instant she stood up on two legs, the person getting a befuddled look on their face, then walking away as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
With a sigh, Tia shifted again. Her body cramping, hating what she was about to do, she placed her hands flat against the seat and adjusted herself until she looked like a dog sitting on a chair. Displeased with how she appeared, she focused on the computer and hoped it'd locate the Chronivac
---
With a final heave, Diana threw herself against the bars of the cage, and watched as the section she'd been working at for some time popped out far enough for her to squeeze through. Unsure when the humans would be back, she cast a hurried glance about the lab she'd been confined to for some time, and not hearing anything to indicate they were returning, she proceeded to wriggle her way out. Having no idea how long she'd been confined, experimented on, she didn't really care in the long run.
Rather, what she was more interested in was finding the Chronivac, learning what had gone wrong, and undoing her situation. For the past five years, she'd been stuck in the form of a bat. She hadn't wanted to get trapped as such, and had only transformed herself into one in order to go talk to Jennifer. But then, on the way back to Lucy's place to change back, something had happened and she'd been thrown not into the past, but also a different part of the world. Having no idea what had happened, she'd blacked out, and awoken to discover she was amongst other Golden-Crowned Flying Foxes. Feeling conflicted, as a part of her wanted to accept where she was, the new reality she'd been thrust into, she fought against it as she told herself, "You are Diana. You are not a megabat."
This had taken her some time, much in the same way it'd taken her a bit to work out where she was, the Philippines. Confronted by these new obstacles, she tried her best to overcome them, only to find the biggest hurdle was discovering she'd somehow been thrown into the past. Disliking all of what she was learning, she was at first frustrated, then felt like giving up. Forcing herself instead to focus on the goal of getting back home and to the Chronivac, even though she knew she'd probably have to wait, Diana tried to make the best of her new situation.
It hadn't been easy, as the bats she now roosted with were nothing more than animals, no help, and acted as if she was one of them, including trying to mate with her on several occasions. But she persevered and when she believed she was ready to start the trip home, with the only minor inconvenience was she had no idea how much time had passed, she set out.
And was almost immediately captured by a group of humans.
What their original intent for her was, she never learned. For upon capture, she completely forgot her situation, what she'd become, and tried to speak with them. This excited them, as they'd never thought to capture a megabat who was able to communicate, much less in English, and Diana was tranqed, shipped to a lab state side, and spent the next handful of years poked, prodded, tested, and exposed to any number of things she considered humiliating. Discovering the flaw in her cage had been an accident, much in the same way it had been when she saw the calendar. Working out how long she had, whenever she could see what the day and year was, she set to work freeing herself as slow and steady as she could, always fearful the humans would learn what she was doing and put her in a different cage, one she couldn't get free from.
Yet, now she was free. Edging away from the confinement, she peered about the room, and spotting her way out of it, she took a short flight up and to a window. The thing not open all the way, she still managed to wriggle through it, slowed only by the screen on the other side. But using her size to her advantage, Diana forced her way through, and at last free, she took to the air long enough to find herself a secluded spot until it was twilight. Then, as she curled up, she saw her next step as figuring out where she was, then getting back to Lucy's place and using the Chronivac.
"If, in this new reality, she actually has it," she prayed as she closed her eyes and drifted off into an undisturbed sleep.
---
He really wasn't Alan, yet, at the same time, he was. Cobbled together from fragmented bits floating about its software, the Chronivac had unintentionally recreated a past which should have ceased to exist, yet, once again, did. Alan, unaware of any of this, collected a few things and headed for his friend's house. Passing a group of children, he accidentally heard some of what they were talking about it. Starting to brood on it, he let his mind drift back five, six years when he'd been the same age as the kids taking about a sleep over. Wondering why he'd never had done anything like that, he considered maybe it was because he and Jeff had never wanted to do anything like it.
"Or, if we did, neither of us saw it as a sleep over," he mused as he thought of the times Jeff had come over and spent the night, and vice versa.
Unwilling to consider any of these sleep overs, Alan's mind continued to wander. Wondering what consisted of a sleep over, he thought back to what he'd overheard, and what the kids had been discussing on doing, before revising his original statement as he decided he and Jeff had had sleep overs, just not like what he'd heard. Longing to experience such a thing, yet knowing it wasn't likely to ever happen, he hurried the rest of the way to his best mate's place, still oblivious to how reality had been rewritten, he and Jeff ought not to exist, and how things were going to take a further sideways twist in about a half hour or so.