{"sf1_id":637346,"sf2_id":null,"title":"The Second Day of Tepmas: What We Leave Behind","author":"Kotep","words":1077,"posted_at":"2013-12-24T19:40:00.000Z","tags":["Human","Male","Solo","Transformation","Wolf"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/637346-the-second-day-of-tepmas-what-we-leave-behind","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/view/637346","image_url":"https://www.sofurryfiles.com/std/thumb?page=637346\u0026ext=.jpg","description":"Warning: Bummer\nMany look for a way to escape. We slip into worlds we make, limited by only our imagination, and our singular nature. The greatest, simplest thing is someone we care for. But to care requires us to leave the worlds we make.\nRemember what we leave when we make our dreams.\n---\nTransformation is a fetish of escapism at its core, but as much as escapism can lift someone's spirits, escapism can easily foster apathy toward reality.","content":"He steps into a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way\nbefore. There are twenty-three trees he can see from where he\nstands. Everything else sinks into the rising ground, the thick\nwhiteness that stretches from his feet to the sky above him. Only the\ntrees stand out, volcanic against the soft haze.\nThe snow drapes in front of him, trailing through the air with each\nstep. There is no end to the clouds above, and they will keep\nsnowing. The ground is smoothed by snow and features are dimmed by the\ncold. Direction vanishes without the sky, and time fades to the subtle\nchanges of light. It is a homeless world, without comfort, without the\nfaces of the ones he loves.\nCapped by snow, sliding into the white field that stretches out,\nmushrooms grow from the base of one of the twenty-three trees. He waits\neach moment inside his stomach. He cannot eat the unknown fruit of an\nunknown tree yet. He is not hungry enough.\nThe first aid kit is impossible. It has no reason to be here, in the\nwoods, uncovered by snow. He drops to his knees and his skin aches, but\nhe does not listen. With numb fingers, he pushes open the aluminum\nlid.\n \nThere is nothing inside.\nA flare of snow trails off the tip of his foot. The box lands, sitting\nin the snow just as he left it. While he breathes his heat into the\nair, he draws a line between the two points he can now see. The clouds\nof his mind break for a moment. A map begins with a single line.\nHe follows the trail of his feet back. They are dusted with snow, but\nthey are the freshest of all the footsteps that run though here. Ahead,\nhis feet stop and pace around a focal point. The mushrooms are there.\n...The mushrooms were there. He knew they were there. It's the right\ntree. It's the right place. He digs his hands into the snow. The melt\non his fingers burns his bones but he digs down to dirt. There are no\nmushrooms.\nThere is no kit.\nThere are twenty-three trees he can see from where he stands. He steps\ninto a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way before.\nEach minute stretches with the effort of driving his feet through the\nsnow. Each step becomes a minute. The first aid kit sits just as he\nleft it, three feet to the right of where he walks. He passes it\ntwice. The third time, he picks it up. The heat of insanity presses\nagainst the cold seeping in against his dry skin. He must be walking in\ncircles.\n \nThe first aid kit sits just as he left it, three feet to the right of\nwhere he stands. The first aid kit sits also in his hands. The two of\nthem occupy his vision together, and the world does not come crashing\ndown.\nOne kit collides with another. They are both real. He lifts his eyes\nand squints. Out of the haze, he can make out the red on white crosses\nlike a field in front of him. He screams into the falling snow and it\nices the breath from his lips. Frustration strains against his skin and\nhe starts to run.\nHe steps into a sea of footprints, each his own. He has been this way\nbefore. But they will no longer be his. He is clever now. He tugs at\nstrings. His boots fall to the ground. His coat warms a tree\nbranch. He wades through a forest of snow and sleeping trees and\naluminum boxes offering him hollow help.\nHe wants to stroke a shoulder, to lean his head against a pillow that\nknows his shape, to walk through halls whose distance he knows by\npace. In his mind, he holds the faces whose definition escape his\nwords. They are abstract; love and concern, anxious and impatient. He\ncannot see them now, and he may never see them again.\n \nHis discarded clothes join the taunt. A tree wears his coat\nlow-slung. His boots sit by his footprints, invitingly open. Again and\nagain, they demand he fight.\nThe mushrooms come again. He knows their shape more clearly than\nanything now. In bare toes, damp and pink and numb to the heels but\nburning on the inside, he crouches.\nThe unknown fruit of an unknown tree is soft. Ice crystals inside it\ncrunch under his teeth. It is an oaky paste when he swallows it. Then\ncomes pain. A beast roars against his gut. The snow sears along his\nside, but his legs cannot hold him up. Seaweed trees ripple in the\nwaves that wash through the air.\nHis fingers curl, not chilled but tense. He claws at the snow, too numb\nto move his fingers. The joints puff, the flesh swells and aches and\npulls in against itself. He digs a naked paw into the snow.\nThe sky is radiant and the snow electric. His paws rake his chest but\nthe pain is no more than a prick and now he is free from his shirt. His\nlungs tighten and the air shrivels inside them, but then he breathes\ndeep through a thick, rounded chest.\n \nHis tongue darts over his lips as an iron tinge meets his taste. Each\nlap chills his tongue, spreading ice atop the searing furnace of his\nbody. Longer and flatter it hangs, dangling from his lips, letting each\nhot breath spill into the cold world.\nHis spine twists as he moves to stand. His front legs will not leave\nthe snow. His hands no longer burn; they are paws, and the snow is\ntheir home. Behind him tendons gather to welcome a new tail.\nThe heat turns his mind opaque. He wants to relieve the burning.\nHe steps into a sea of footprints, each another's, the wanderings of the\none who had come here before him. He lifts his chin to the sky and\nthrows aside all thought. Instinct comes without thought or\nconscience. A great relief falls on him.\nThe concepts he once knew, the ideas of love and concern and Wife and Child, are gone. He does not know they are gone.\nBut they know that he will never come back. Buried, cold and white\nbeneath the snow, he howls his pleasure in a dead dream. "}