WHAP.

Something struck her back. A cold, heavy, something. It lay like a blanket across her shoulders.

She was incredibly stiff. She felt like she'd fallen asleep on the hard floor: all her body was buzzing with that crazy pins-and-needles feeling. The ground felt like concrete.

Well, no, not exactly like that. More like… ice. Callie opened her eyes a crack and found that it wasn't exactly like that either. She gave a squawk of alarm.

It was snow. The waking world was white with it. And she was laying in it, facedown.

Surprise gave way to panic, and panic gave her strength to move. With a muffled grunt, Callie shook herself up. Or tried to. Her legs moved in a way she wasn't used to. The world tilted slowly like the view from a sinking ship—and she fell over.

Callie lay on her side, blinking. Her legs had gone rubbery. What was happening to her?

The world (from where she could see) was bright and astonishingly cold. A few hard-edged flakes of snow fell hissing by. No other sound troubled the absolute, muffled quiet.

It was gorgeous, crisp and clear. In a movie, it would have been a glorious winter morning. But this was different.

Callie had zero idea where she was at all. Nothing to go on except a crazy dream where she'd been a girl named Callie Prang. Beyond that? Zero.

It was an instantly unpleasant realization. For a long while, she just lay there, collecting her thoughts. Her head hurt.

She was lying at the bottom of a little wooded copse, a shallow circular depression almost like a bowl. She was set against the only tree in it, a wizened old thing that seemed likely to fall to pieces with the next snow.

Her head was set against the trunk. There was something a little sad and a little gloomy about the place, even though the sun was bright. It reminded her of a cemetery, with undisturbed snow lawns. And she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd somehow been placed here, her back against the tallest headstone. Was this supposed to be a grave for her?

Then she saw them. Her breath caught.

Giants. There were more than a dozen of them; huge, hooded, white figures. They crowded the rim of the bowl, peering down at her. She hadn't noticed them before; they were the same color as the snow. But now there was no mistaking it—Callie was trapped.

She froze. Something tiny and tremulous inside of her woke up. It wanted to lie flat in the snow. Some brand new instinct that she'd never felt before said: I am prey! It was the worst terror she'd ever felt. It was the fear of being eaten.

Callie grappled with herself. She could run, she could hide, or try to fight. But her muscles were clenched with fear. They defied her efforts to move them. She was as good as caught. So why were they all just standing there, staring? What were they waiting for?

It took a powerful effort to raise her eyes, but in the end, she managed it. There was something odd about these giants… They had huge, mossy toes, three of them. And they hadn't moved an inch since Callie had taken notice. Why?

Then a songbird sang in a thicket nearby, the first uplifting sound Callie had heard since arriving here. The sun came out from behind a cloud and the horror melted. The truth was less frightening. Callie actually laughed. So! These were her giants!

All around the bowl's lip, someone had arranged standing stones, but these were so snow-caked on top that they'd grown hooded peaks. They looked like stumpy little men huddled in a circle, gazing inward. Indeed, that's what she'd taken them for. She laughed again, feeling thoroughly silly. Most likely, this was a daydream, sure to clear up as quickly and as easily as those giants had before the sunbeam.

But her second laugh had strange consequences. It seemed to pick up a mimic somewhere in the silent woods. An unpleasantly distorted sound came cackling and cawing back to her. It did not sound like an echo.

Callie shivered. The stones made her think of rituals and old ruins. And the laughing echoes in the woods—they had seemed to carry on in their own cracking voices, more than cold stones could account for.

Yes, now that she thought about it, this whole place seemed uncanny. The sun was too bright. The sky was too blue. Yet everything else seemed washed out and colorless. The tree, the only living thing in sight, looked unhealthy.

The tree. There was something ominous about the old tree. She eyed it distrustfully. It was the one who had dumped its load of snow on her back, after all. It was a shabby, wizened old thing, gray and bent under the weight of its winter load, like an old warlock. She hated the look of it.

Never, not in a million years, she thought, would I lie down here. Not without a good reason. But her memory stayed frustratingly blank on the matter. And still, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

"Hello?" she asked aloud, as much to try her voice as to break up the stillness. The words fell dead in the snow. Her voice sounded small and childlike.

She bit her lower lip. It was her habit when she was pensive. But this time, her eyes widened in sudden pain. Two tiny dots of blood stained the snow. She'd bitten into it.

"Ouch!"

Slowly, Callie looked down. Then she gasped. She was hallucinating. She must be. Because there was no way this was happening.

Her whole body was different. Where there had been folds of human fat and muscle before, she had a ruff of fur and a flat slope that extended all the way down to her bellybutton, covered in a nape of yellow hair. It was like a thick, cream-colored parka. It didn't come off when she tugged at it—and that was how she discovered that her hands had become paws too.

It hit her all at once.

"I'm… I'm a pokémon."

Awestruck, Callie rolled onto her back and started checking things out. It seemed impossible, yet... she wiggled her fingers and two yellow paws waggled back. She did scissor kicks and her hind legs fluttered in response. New muscles responded to her thoughts. Her tail swished restlessly.

Her head swam dizzyingly. Despite the danger, despite the standing stones and the tree, she felt like she had to scream.

"Help! Help! Help, help-"

WHAP.

Another wallop of snow nearly buried her again. The sleepy hoothoot in the branches above her had been startled awake.

"My word, girl!" he said sharply. He swooped in a circle and alit on a lower branch, a few feet out of Callie's reach. The tawny creature canted its head and clicked its beak, plainly annoyed. "Whatever is the matter with you?"

Spitting and coughing up snow, Callie fell over in a heap. Her four uncoordinated legs wouldn't work together to stand.

"I'm sorry, sir!" she said quickly. To her dazed eyes (she'd already decided she had a concussion), the little man sitting on the branch looked a little like a hoothoot. "I think I need help, I think I hit my head. I can't remember where I am."

The hoothoot-man tutted. His large orange eyes bored into her. Callie had the unpleasant impression that she was being studied under a microscope. The tawny patches around his eyes made him look like he was wearing spectacles.

"You seem perfectly fine to me, young lady. A little runty, I'll allow…"

"What? Hey!"

"And you are much too hairy!" He squinted disapprovingly down at her. "Ugh! If you were any smaller, though, I'd consider eating you."

Callie felt an unfamiliar sensation in the back of her neck as the hairs there bristled. A cold horror flooded her stomach. If she had really become a pokémon, if this weren't just a dream—she'd forgotten that in the wild, pokémon sometimes ate each other.

"Okay, just try it!" she snarled, trying to look fierce. It didn't really work: she couldn't stand.

"Oh I would, my dear," Hoothoot grumbled, looking at her like an hors d'oeuvre, "You certainly look weak and sick enough to try. But I can't take the chance that you might be faking it. You might eat me. Goodbye, little fennekin." With that, he ruffled up his feathers and made as if to leave.

Callie saw her chance slipping away.

"Wait!" she screamed. "At least tell me where I am!" To her surprise, a tiny gout of flame came out.

The owl-like pokémon paused at the end of his branch. He turned his head all the way around (which was quite alarming) and let out a sharp little laugh like a cough. "Tuh. Do you... threaten me?" He drew himself up to his full stature, which was actually very impressive. Callie saw that his talons were out.

She was cowed.

"I—I didn't mean to."

Hoothoot looked ruffled.

"My dear, people don't come here by accident. And they do not leave. So you are either one of Them, begging your pardon (if you are), or you are their sacrifice. No, this is not a very nice place at all…"

"But where can I go?" Callie was beginning to feel desperate. The way the hoothoot was talking made it sound like there was something really, really bad about this place.

"Go? Where to? Every direction is the same from here. I suppose you could pick one and start walking, if you wanted to."

"Aren't there any cities? Or any… human people?" She suddenly realized she was talking with a pokémon as naturally as with another person.

He cocked his head. "Human People? Humans are a myth. There is a town, though… that way… but you won't reach it before the sun sets, and it gets very cold in the mountains, oh yes. Of course, by nightfall the Sisters will be after you, tuh-tu."

"A town? Can you show me?" She didn't like the thought of 'sisters', whoever they were. She didn't want to meet them.

"Show you? Some of the way, I suppose…" He looked at her thoughtfully. "Yes, I could take you, tuh-tu—but!" he said, and here he looked at her with a very keen glance, "But I would like a reward."

"What kind?" Callie's heart fell. She didn't have anything worth trading. She doubted she had pockets.

The hoothoot looked at her with a queer glint in his eye.

"A small thing, a mere trinket—a task, perhaps? Nothing that you can't afford—I assure you. Even in your… present condition."

"So if I agree to do something for you, you'll you take me to where other peop—pokémon are?" She was frightened. Callie would have promised her tail if she thought it would have done any good.

"Of course, little fennekin. Say, if you freeze on the way, would you mind dying where there are no trees to hide you from above? I'd very much like to eat your corpse."

"I'll do my best," Callie muttered. Her legs were strengthening. She could fight.

"Very well. I will go and have a look around. Be ready!"

With a powerful leap, the hoothoot vanished, leaving only a swaying branch behind. That put an end to her plans for the time being.

At first, she waited, tense and chafing for her guide to come back. She thought he'd meant to take a quick swoop around and come dashing back. The winter sun was already sinking rather low on the horizon.

Soon it became apparent that he did not mean that. Callie thought she could hear the beating of wings now and again - her new dish-like ears proved very sensitive - but if they were the hoothoot's or someone else's, she didn't know. She wondered if the 'Sisters' might be around and shivered. She cowered at the bottom of the dell.

But supposing Hoothoot never came back? Or came back too late? She decided to practice walking in her new form, under the cover of the tree.

It wasn't easy.

On the second step, her four legs gave out like spaghetti noodles, each in its own direction. Down she went, flat on her face. Sparks shot from her ears as she picked herself up. She hoped nobody else had been around to see that. The hoothoot might just come back around to try to finish her off…

Embarrassed, she tried again.

"Okay, easy does it…" She focused on moving her feet one at a time.

This way, she managed a kind of un-sexy shuffle. Drag, drag, push, went her feet. She was churning up snow in front of her like the world's stupidest snowplow.

"Great."

She thought of fennekins she'd seen in the wild (though she couldn't say where), and pictured their short, bunny-hopping gait. It looked easy for them.

Maybe she was over-thinking things. Whatever had turned her into a pokémon couldn't have intended for her to spend her time squirming around like a caterpie. Right?

Struck by a sudden burst of inspiration, Callie shut her eyes. Her balance swayed crazily but she forced herself to take a step. Then another and another, all without opening her eyes. It worked: her body found its own rhythm. She could walk (maybe even run!)—as long as she wasn't thinking about it. It made sense. She had a fennekin's body, why not a fennekin's instinct?

She was just figuring out how to figure her tail into the mix when the hoothoot returned. What he'd gone to spy out, or what he'd found, he refused to say.

"Hello, nibble."

"Hello." Callie didn't really feel like bandying words with the pokémon who'd promised to eat her if she fell behind.

"Follow me close and stay in my shadow. If you do not run afoul of the houndour packs or fall into a hidden crevasse, perhaps we may make it to Jollet Pass tonight. There's an inn there that will keep you out of the cold. Jollet Town is too far."

An inn sounded promising. The rest, not so much.

"And what if we don't? Before nightfall, I mean?"

Hoothoot spun his head around and fixed her with a disinterested stare.

"Then you had better find a crevasse and throw yourself in. That would be better for you."

He beat his wings, hooting, "Run, little fennekin! Fifteen miles to Jollet Pass as the hoothoot flies! And an hour until nightfall! So run! Run while you can! Tu-whut! Tu-ha!" With another giant leap, he took off swooping over the bowl's lip, past the standing stones.

Callie was obliged to follow him or be left behind. She ran. But as she scrambled over the lip of the bowl, she thought she heard a dull bell tolling.