2 Why?!

I woke up to pain. Lots of pain, especially in my back. I must have passed out for a few seconds there, I thought. I could feel the heat surrounding me and I tried to move my body but the shelf had me pinned. Then I remembered. I had been above Jeffery shielding him and the others. Shit! I need to get up right now and help them! I tried to move again but it felt weird. Like I had no control over my limbs.

I screamed when the shelf shifted, but for some reason it came out as a yelp. I looked around to make sure everyone was ok when I froze. There were dogs and they were trying to lift the shelf. I looked around in a panic trying to find my cousins and, not seeing them, I look down to make sure Jeffery was ok. Instead of Jeffery, I'm met with a Doberman. What the hell?!?!!

A sudden, horrible revelation caused me to look at my hand. All I see is a paw. How are we DOGS!!!! I'm dead. That's all I can think of to explain this.

While I had been lost in my panicked thoughts the Lab and Husky that I assumed were Joshua and John lifted the shelf off Jeffery and I. Then all of a sudden a Golden Retriever puppy ran up to us. No way... it can't be.. "Jessica?" She nodded. Now that the shelf was off, I tried to get up off Jeffery, who seemed huge as a Doberman, but I yelped again when I tried to move my back leg. It must have been broken by the shelf when I couldn't hold it up anymore and passed out.

"My leg," I panted out. "It's broken," I whined when all of a sudden Jeffery got up. I had been on top of him so I slid to the floor next to Jessica. John is looking frantically at the fire all around and Joshua is trying to find a way out of the room while Jeffery takes stock of the situation. All of a sudden, he takes control. "Alright, Jessica, go help Joshua find a way out. Samantha this may hurt but I'm going to carry you in my mouth like dogs do to their puppies."

I whined when he picked me up and one of his canines went into a cut from the glass. He whined in his chest as an apology. It's weird how we're so dog-like already, I mused. He carefully picked his way over to John to avoid glass. "Over here! We have to go out the window," Joshua called from a broken window where the smoke was billowing out.

John hopped out first and took Jessica from Joshua. He led her away from the building as Joshua hopped out and took me from Jeffery so he could get out. All of us were breathing heavily from the smoke as we sat together and Joshua put me down carefully. Now that we were out of danger we started to relax, but Jeffery and Joshua started vibrating. I blinked and there they were, human again. But they looked different.

Jessica made a weird strangled sound. "You're older!" She was right, Jeffery looked to be 13 and Joshua 12. "Wait a minute," John said. "Jessica, try to relax and think of yourself as a human again. I will too. Samantha probably won't be able to do it though, if this does work, because of how much pain she's in." John took a few seconds but he was back to human. Although he looked the same as before. It was at least a minute of concentration before Jessica was human also. "You're younger! I was right. Based on Jeffery's age now and the fact that Samantha is a puppy, I'm thinking we switched ages. Jess, Josh you were next to each other when we were trying to hold the shelf up. I was alone on the other side... which means that whoever was next to each other switched ages," John said in slight horror and amazement.

We were all quite, trying to comprehend that we were dogs and we had switched ages when suddenly I could hear my mom screaming for me and my aunts for the others. The screams of other parents and the wailing of sirens hurt my now sensitive ears and I whined, causing the others to look at me. "It's too loud. I can hear the sirens and our parents are screaming for us." They listened and winced when the sounds reached their ears.

The boys got up quickly and dashed off to find our parents while Jessica picked me up carefully then jogged after them. Our parents were trying to run into the building but people were holding them back. Being slightly ahead, the boys got to them first and flung themselves onto their parents. But they were pushed off after a second by their outraged parents.

"What do you think you're doing?! Can't you stupid kids see we're worried about our children that are trapped in the building!" I couldn't believe my ears. I've never heard John and Jeffery's Mom speak like that! "But Aunti it's us! I'm Jessica! This is Samantha! Those are the boys! I don't know what happened but we're like this now." Jessica's Mom and my own looked at her and I in unamused expressions. My mom started to say, "That's the stupidest thing-" when suddenly John's Mom spotted him. "John! Oh my god are you all right?!"

He shook his head no. "Jessica was telling the truth, Mom. See the oldest there? That's Jeffery. Next to him is Joshua. And Samantha really is the puppy. She's hurt too! She tried to protect us, but the shelf was falling, and so was the glass and all the liquids, and the dog DNA, then the sprinklers went off and the fire started and-" My Mom silenced him with "Bullshit! That's not my daughter, that's just a German Shepherd puppy you found and wanted to keep! Take your friends and get somewhere safe, we're trying to find the others."

I was shocked she yelled at him like that. "Mom! Don't yell at John like that! He's telling you-"

"Shut that mutt up!" My Mom was red in the face mad now. I almost started crying. How can the others understand me in their human forms but my own Mom can't? I tried again, but in a different way. "Tell her my exact words. I'm only interested in science because Grandpa said something to me about Daddy's Multiple Sclerosis and I am going to find a cure for him." Joshua repeated my words and my Mom's face went slack. She stared at him then at me as tears started to slide down her face. "Samantha?" I nodded.

She was looking at me with something weird in her eyes but I couldn't tell what it was. Suddenly she turned her back to me and my heart broke. "Get that thing out of my sight; that's no daughter of mine," she said darkly then walked away. My aunts looked at us in disgust then followed after her.

I was sobbing and yelping at that point as my shaking disturbed by back and leg. Jessica was crying, Joshua was in shock, and John had tears running down his cheeks. Jeffery had a look of murderous outrage on his face. He calmed down and snapped Joshua out of his daze. "We have to go, it's obvious we aren't welcomed back home, not that we could get back on our own anyway. We're in a secluded camp in the middle of nowhere. Samantha is hurt and needs help. I say we take care of them from now on since we're the oldest now. I can even feel that my mind has shifted, can you? I feel more mature and animal-like."

Joshua nodded at his words, feeling the shift also. "We need to head to the closest city to get Samantha the right type of help. It should be somewhere west of here," Joshua offered. Then he froze and whipped around to look at Jessica. "Jess, you're vibrating. I think that means you're going to change so you need to give Samantha to me so that you don't hurt her... You know what? That's not a bad idea, to shift. It'll get us to the city faster to help Samantha. Set her carefully on the ground so that we can all shift."

She set me down and I was grateful she did because with my shaking and her vibrating, it did not feel good on my injuries. Within seconds they all had shifted into dogs again. Jessica was stumbling around though, lost in her incoherent grief. I'm sure if I could walk I would have been the same. Jeffery huffed and snagged Jessica before she could walk into a tree. He looked at John and made a motion to follow him, then set off with John hot on his tail. Joshua gently picked me up and followed after them into the trees.