You yawn and stretch as you get out of bed. Your groggy eyes fail to adjust to the light as you haul yourself out of bed and lumber to the bathroom. When your eyes finally focus, you look in the mirror, about to psyche yourself up like you always do when you realize.

You have fur, paws, a snout, and a tail. And it’s not even a fursuit.

“Oh no,” you mutter over and over as you contemplate how this could have happened. The last thing you remember is going to sleep a human, but now you’re a furry.

Suddenly, you decide, “I can’t let anyone know about this.” So you dress in a long-sleeved hoodie (large hood for shadow) with pants and gloves, despite it being almost summer. Your mother is concerned, but she doesn’t say anything.

As you walk to school, you see a tabby cat. It looks at you curiously, as if it knows what happened. But, as it’s a cat, it doesn’t say anything and moves on with life.

The minute you get to school, you feel an itch on your left shoulder, one that you can’t scratch because of your hoodie. “Go away, go away,” you mutter in almost agony as the itch tries to move. But soon, it leaves as you take your mind off of it.

Homeroom. Nobody says anything to you (as usual). Nobody asks you about your clothes. The only mention of you made is from your teacher, telling you to take off your hoodie. You make up a quick lie about getting a bad haircut over the weekend. She, surprisingly, accepts it.

English. As you learn about the body paragraphs of an essay for the twentieth time since third grade, a kid sitting next to you leans over and asks, “What’s with the getup?” You have no choice but to answer the same lie as you told your homeroom teacher, but being smarter than her, this kid is unrelenting. “But why pants? And that hoodie in general looks super hot. You could get heat stroke.” You start to sweat, the sweat dampening the fur along your neck. “It’s nothing. I… uh, have a high tolerance of heat,” you say, following it up with “Genes. Haha.” You laugh awkwardly. The kid gives you a suspicious glance before paying attention again.

Math. Your first class with one of your friends, and they of course ask you why you have this crazy clothing on when it’s 80° Fahrenheit outside. “I’ll tell you at lunch,” you say, more comfortable telling the truth to your best friend instead of a random kid.

Spanish. Your fur is starting to get super damp under the heat of the extra layers, but you make no mention of it, keeping up appearances. No one bothers you; you don’t bother anyone else.

Finally, Lunch. You sit at your table, secluded from everywhere else as your friend sits beside you. It was a wonder how you held the pencil with your gloves on in previous classes; the metal fork constantly slips out of your gloved and furry hand, but you manage to get it under control. Your friend asks to see what’s wrong, and you tell them “at recess.”

Recess comes, and you’re more nervous than ever. Dragging your friend off to a deserted area behind the building, you ask them, “Are you sure you want to know?” They nod, and you timidly show your face from under the hood. “Wow” is all they can think to say for a bit, until they finally say, “So you’re a furry now? Is that it?”

“No, no, definitely not a furry. Just woke up like this for some reason. It’s not a fursuit, you can check.” Your friend tugs on your fur, causing a tingle to rush up your spine. “See?”

“But…” ‘How’ is the question you expect first, but instead, they ask, “Why?”

You gape at them. “You don’t think I want to be like this, do you?”

“No, it’s just… why not just show your pride?”

“First, I’m not a furry, alright? Second, do you realize how many furry haters there are here?” Your voice gets a more pleading tone. “Please. You can’t tell ANYONE.” Your friend agrees, you put on the hoodie, and you each walk back to recess, which was almost over.

History. This teacher is one of your least favorite, and she affirms it by immediately saying, “That’s inappropriate summerwear. If you don’t change back to regular clothes, I will call the principal in.” You plead for her not to, saying you have a skin condition. She’s skeptical, but doesn’t want to get into the skin condition thing.

And finally, final class of the day, Journalism, with the kid who confronted you in English. Five minutes into class, you feel like you’re about to die from the heat trapped inside your hoodie and your fur, and you don’t notice your hood slipping down ever-so-slightly. Little by little, your face is revealed, until you feel the hoodie hit the chair you’re sitting at. Faster than anyone can notice, you put the hoodie back on, concealing your face. But the English kid who confronted you was looking at you when it happened. “They’re a furry!” they tell for the whole class to hear, whipping all heads towards you. “Care to explain?” the teacher asks you. And it’s at that moment that you faint from the heat.

You wake up, but not in your own bed, in a hospital bed. The doctor checking on you says that when you fainted, your classmates pulled off your hoodie and gloves and saw all of the fur, and released the tail from under your pants. The secret was out. They moved you to the school nurse, but she declared the situation was too much to handle, and sent you to the local doctor. You had nearly died from heat stroke, your body reaching a temperature of 105° F when they brought you in. You seemed to be fine other than the fur, tail, snout, and paws, which was a phenomenon that nobody could quite explain. The doctor sent you home, and you walked back to your house, in despair.

Walking back, the same tabby cat from the morning was there, staring at you. “What? What do you want?” you snap, all sense of patience thrown out the window. It meows at you, incomprehensible to human ears. But you think you can just make out what it means somehow: “You’re fine.” Then it leaves.

You conk out on your bed immediately, mother worried but afraid to say anything. And it seems that was a good thing, for when you wake up the next morning, you’re back to normal. At least, as normal as you ever will be. You still have remnants from your time as a furry, like a spot of fur here or there. But the most striking thing that remained was your tail, which seems to keep growing as you get older. Forever.