The cold didn't arrive all at once. It worked its way up from the ground, a slow, invasive chill that settled into my chest before I even managed to open my eyes. My first thought was that I'd left the window open. My second was that the bedding felt off, smelling like dirt?
I tried to push myself up, but my arms didn't work right. They felt short, locked in a position that forced my weight onto my palms without my fingers spread open to help balance me leaving me on all fours. When I finally forced my eyes open, the world was a smear of gray and dark green, positioned much closer to my face than it had any right to be.
I blinked, and the motion felt wrong. My eyelids were heavy, and there was a weight on the bridge of my nose that shouldn't have been there. I tried to reach up to rub my eyes, and that's when the first spike of real panic.
A furry, orange limb moved into my field of vision. It was thick, covered in coarse hair, ending in a white-furred bundle with dark, blunt claws.
I stared at it. I told my arm to move, and the paw moved. I flexed my fingers, and the claws dug into the damp earth.
"What?"
The word didn't come out. What came out was a high, choked yelp that vibrated through my chest and up into my skull. The sound was thin and sharp, sounding like a wounded animal. I clamped my mouth shut, but even that felt alien. My teeth were jagged, interlocking in a way that made my jaw feel crowded, and my tongue was too long, resting against a set of fangs that shouldn't have existed.
I scrambled backward, or tried to. My coordination was a disaster. I ended up tangling my own limbs, tripping over a back leg I hadn't realized was there, and rolling onto my side. As I tumbled, something heavy and fluffy slapped against my flank.
A tail.
I froze, lying in the dirt, my heart pounded against my chest rapidly. I could feel it, a whole new appendage attached to the base of my spine. I could feel the wind moving through the fur on it. I could even move it.
I didn't want to move it. I wanted to wake up.
I lay there, waiting for the dream to break, for the bedroom ceiling to appear. It didn't. Instead, the sensory input started to sharpen. It was a physical assault. I could smell the sap in the trees fifty yards away. I could hear the skittering of an insect under a rock ten feet to my left. I could feel everything beyond what I should.
It was too much.
A faint blue flicker appeared in the corner of my eye. I ignored it at first, thinking it was another trick played by my brain. But it stayed, hovering just out of focus.
[System Initialized]
[Species: Growlithe]
[Level: 1]
"Growlithe?"
The thought was a dull echo. I knew the name. It was a memory from a childhood of handheld games and Saturday morning cartoons. A fictional creature. I looked down at my chest of white fluffy fur, the orange and black stripes on my legs.
I wasn't just a dog. I was a Japanese cartoon character dropped into a cold, damp forest that felt far too real to be a game.
I forced myself to stand again. It took three tries to get all four legs to cooperate, to find the center of gravity that allowed me to stay upright without swaying. I felt small, the trees massive around me, their roots twisted limbs reaching out to trip me.
I started to walk step by step, watching my paws hit the ground. It was humiliating, the way my body knew how to move better than I did. There was an instinctual grace beneath my confusion, a biological imperative that kept my steps silent despite my inner turmoil.
…
I found a clearing an hour later. It was a campsite.
The smell of ash and dried blood drew me toward a pile of snow near a dead fire pit. I nudged a piece of metal with my nose, it felt strikingly cold to my heightened senses, it was a dagger.
I stared at the hilt. Made of bone, carved into the shape of a wolf's head with a heavy, snarling jaw.
Confusion started clouding my mind, way beyond it already did. Nothing makes sense, neither what I'm now nor the world around me.
The sun started to dip, and the temperature plummeted. The fur helped, but the cold began to bite at my white underbelly. So I found a hollow beneath a fallen cedar, gathered some soft foliage to use as bedding and crawled inside, still my breath coming in short, with visible puffs.
I needed heat.
Then I felt a spark in my chest, a literal physical heat sitting at the base of my throat. It felt like something that refused to go out. I focused on it, trying to push it upward, the same way I would force a cough.
I exhaled, and a small, orange burst of flame hit the foliage I'd gathered.
It wasn't a "move." It was a violent, internal combustion that left a scorched taste in my mouth and made my lungs burn. I watched the foliage catch, the small flame flickering in the dark of the hollow.
I curled around the fire, my tail tucked tight against my nose. I looked at the blue screen still hovering in the dark.
[Level: 1]
I wasn't a man anymore. I was a Level 1 pokemon in a World I'm not sure about. Which is nothing but a death sentence. I closed my eyes, the heat of the fire clashing with the cold in my marrow.
I didn't know how I got here. I didn't know how to get back. All I knew was that I had four legs, a throat full of fire, and a very long way to go before I was safe.