The First Shapeshift

At first I felt a strange sensation deep inside my chest that began boiled for a minute before it began to spread at a rapid rate. I could feel the structure of my organs and arteries changing in my chest. Next came the bones of my ribcage, sternum and spine changing size, shape, and structure. Up until this point it felt as though the existing cells of the structures of my body were dissolving while being instantaneously replaced with the cells of the structures from my new form. It wasn't painful however just...uncomfortable. That changed when it moved from my torso to my arms, legs and head however where it became painful, but bearable. My neck started elongating and thickening to take the same shape as a wolfs at the same time that the joints in my arms and legs were being flipped around and redesigned. A much more intensive reconstruction process than the torso where the majority of things were only being resized or repositioned. I knew the process was almost finished when my hands, feet, and head started to change. My hands and feet were re-purposed into wolf paws and my mouth and nose elongated into a snout and my teeth were changed to be that as a predator. Next my ears and eyes changed and there was a split second where I panicked as I was both blind and deaf. The pain ended there as the final steps completed. My skin changed to that of the thick hide of a wolf and I grew fur all over my body simultaneously, this part just itched a lot. While this process took a while to describe it all happened in roughly a minute.

What I wasn't prepared for however was the overload on my senses that I experienced as soon as the shapeshift ended. The cabin that was silent except for some occasional bird song that came through the windows was now full of sounds coming from every direction. I could hear birds singing like they were next to me, squirrels running through the trees, rabbits hopping, I could hear all the sounds of the forest in a relatively large radius around me considering I was still in the cabin. It was hard to gauge an exact distance with nothing to reference for distance however. As if that weren't enough there was the smells, my gods the smells. There were to many smells to even begin to describe and they all danced together. Each was unique and yet they all blended together also. After a minute or so I managed to get my bearing again though all of the sensory overload still threatened to overwhelm me.

'This is going to take some getting used to. It could be very useful if I learn how to properly use it but if it's always trying to overwhelm me it's just a liability. Looks like I'll have to use this form as much as I can to get used to it properly. With the shapeshift process taking about a minute as well it won't be good for quickly getting out of a bad situation and unless I'm in a secure place I'll need someone to watch my back during that process.'

I noticed a timer in the top right corner of my vision showing 18 minutes and 30 seconds left for this round. I decided to become more familiar with making the movements of a wolf before heading out into the world. I sat, laid down, stood back up, and paced back and forth across the cabin. Once I was confident I was steady on my feet I made my way to the front door and slipped through the door I had left slightly ajar and used my head to push the door back closed. Before heading off down the road I decided to trot a few laps clockwise around the cabin and then a few counterclockwise to get some experience at a pace faster than a walk. I was really glad that no one was there to watch do those laps as the first lap in each direction was incredibly awkward and I slipped more than once. On the very first lap I actually fell down and rolled once. Thankfully since no one was there I could just shake the dust off and pretend like it didn't happen. By the time I had completed the laps around the cabin I was down to 15 minutes on the timer. At this point I had a decision to make, do I leave now or wait until after the timer ran out and I shapeshift back into my human form? Even with the wolf form being able to travel faster than my human form I knew there was no way I would make it five miles in fifteen minutes.

'If it takes the same amount of time to shift back into my human form when the timer runs out then I'll be unable to defend myself and unprotected for about a minute. There's really not to much in between I'll either be fine or I'll end up getting attacked which will almost certainly end up with me dying. As a wolf I also wouldn't be able to climb a tree to be able to have at least some security. On the other hand I would make a lot more progress down the road and I figured I would be able to make it about 2 miles down the road if I pushed myself. I may be able to go further but I didn't want to push to hard incase I needed to run away or fight. In human form I would probably only be able to make it half the distance to keep myself in the same physical condition and still try to not draw attention to myself at the same time. As much as I want to check on my friends this is going to quickly turn into a dog eat dog world. I need to make sure that I can survive if want to ensure the people I care about do too.'

I spent the next 15 minutes familiarizing myself more with the movements and balance of my new form, everything from scratching and biting the air to sprinting and jumping. When the timer reached zero I went through the shapeshift process in reverse which was a weird sensation.

'Finally', I thought with a smile on my face, 'let's see what's waiting out in the big wide world.'