A tremor ran through his body, squeezing him in half so rapidly he couldn’t keep down the contents of his stomach. He vomited over and over, until all he had in him was bile, and he rolled to the side, frantic as all those glistening eyes stared.
He could have prevented all of this but hadn’t even bothered to step foot in here once.
Pain squeezed around his head like an iron helmet, and his entire body was soon engulfed in the torturous sensation too. Time after time, invisible forces were kicking his ribs in, until he was so small his clothes felt like weighted blankets holding him down in the dirt.
He shivered and didn’t dare open his eyes, too overwhelmed by the never-ending avalanche of screams.
{Help!} {Food!} {Hate hate hate} {It hurts, it hurts!} {Help...} {I’m so afraid}
{He understands!} {Don’t approach!} {Help, please, help} {Who is that?} {Who is he?} {I know that smell} {Where did he go?} {I’m so scared}
Delirious, he heaved under the weight of fabric. Yev must have fed him something, given him drugs. Nothing else made sense.
The screams around him wouldn’t stop, and for a moment he was surrounded by darkness so thick he feared he might have gone blind. But no. He was under a heavy… comforter? Could this have been a nightmare? Impossible. The smell around him was still rot, fur, and death.
His limbs felt weirdly stiff when he pushed away the fabric, and finally looked out.
For half a second, dozens of shining fox eyes settled on him in silence. Then, the shed exploded with deafening noise. He couldn’t understand it anymore, but knew the mayhem was a cacophony of rage, fear, and pain.
Why couldn’t he get up? Why was he still on the floor? The pain was gone, at least, but the choking odor he’d smelled from the moment he’d stepped into the building had somehow gotten more intense, the voices more shrill. He swung around, and his body moved without restriction, as if the passage between the rows of cages wasn’t narrow at all.
And then he saw it—a red tail.
Choking up with panic, he moved again, only to once more see the plush fur.
No.
How.
What?
But when he focused on his body and felt, there was no denying the change, no matter how unbelievable it was. He wasn’t on hands and knees. All four of his feet were on the ground.
The tail was his. And he couldn’t stand any higher, because he was already on his toes.
This had to be a bad dream.
He looked around with a whimper.
{Help}, he tried to say, but there was no one there who could understand him… was there?
The black fox whimpered back at him, but the others raised their voices, rattling their cages as if they knew they could finally take revenge for all the suffering their kind endured here. They did understand him. Not to the extent of a human, but on a level different than speech. Some laughed at his fear, some urged him to run, others kept begging for help.
He glanced at the pile of clothes he’d left behind. Maybe if he went back to them…
The door swung open, revealing the imposing figure of Mr. Gawron. The cacophony of fox sounds died down, and they all cowered in the farthermost corners of their cages, but with no place to hide, they all froze as if fear had blown its cold breath straight inside.
Radek stilled too, his fur bristling even before the blinding beam of the flashlight shone straight into his eyes.
“You lil’ fucker! Get back in there!” Gawron roared and grabbed something from the wall, prompting a sense of cold dread that radiated off the other foxes and closed around Radek’s neck like a collar.
Radek tried to yell at Gawron, but only a screech came out of his muzzle. He had no idea what was going on or how, but he wasn’t about to wait around to find out. He dashed for the door, and despite being new to this four-legged body, he knew exactly how to move, as if the instinct was in his blood.
Something heavy landed on the ground after he passed between Gawron’s feet, but he didn’t turn around to see what could have broken his neck. He sped straight for the open gate, his small paws not nearly as prone to sinking into mud as his boots had been.
Gawron shouted something about a shotgun, but Radek was already beyond the fence, hopping through the thick snow so fast he was losing his breath. But all his senses screamed he was still in danger, so he ran forward, through naked bushes, between the trees, far, far away from humans and the foxes he couldn’t save.
He was so much smaller, the distances he saw in front of him seemed so vast, and yet, each of his strides pushed him forward at great speed. He was sure he could outrun not only an old man like Gawron, but any human for that matter. A strange sense of euphoria powered his legs, and despite the growing darkness, he saw the world around him clearly. He sensed every deer in the distance and heard every branch rustling above.