Sue wasn't sure for how long she sat in her spot before consciously snapping back into awareness, feeling as if she'd dozed off into a hell of a daydream and suddenly found herself somewhere else altogether. She couldn't say she was unfamiliar with this location though, particularly sorrowful dreams having brought her back here on several occasions in the past.
The campfire filled the small clearing with warm light, illuminating her alien form, though as opposed to the past occasions when she found herself recalling this place, she was seemingly alone now, the only occupant of a few scattered wooden benches surrounding the fire pit. Despite that though, air was filled with quiet twangs of a slightly out-of-tune guitar, not masterful in execution by any means, but competent enough to lift the mood of any listener as they played their simple melody.
Just like she used to play.
Recalling just what had happened prior to her ending up here proved to be tricky enough to where she silently gave up, sighing to herself before giving the recollection another look, the details falling into place one by one as they emerged from the recesses of her memory. It felt almost jarring, every prior time she dreamed of this place it ended up being merely a playback of what had happened that fateful evening, with all its tears and denial, but this time? This time it was merely a pleasant backdrop, utterly divorced from the trauma that had originally burned it into her psyche.
Sue was about ready to start humming along with the tune before a sound caught her attention- which on a second thought turned out to be a voice, feminine and... almost royal sounding, the contents of its words inscrutable, its origin uncertain. It almost sounded like it was coming from-
Above...
A glance skyward revealed the night sky to be filled with more stars than she'd ever seen in her life, the largest full moon she'd ever seen shining bright at what felt like right above her, almost hypnotic in its radiance. And with her head turned up like that, it now did very much feel like the voice was coming directly from the celestial body, or at least the dreamt-up version of it that wasn't hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth. With that in mind, the voice felt appropriate though, as awe inspiring as the light in the sky from which it seemed to be originating.
If only she could understand anything it was saying, Sue might have even been humbled by its words.
But alas, that was not the case, even if she could recognize a few individual sounds well enough, they always ended up combining together into words she had no understanding of, but which nonetheless sounded important, leaving Sue to just tilt her head in response as she continued to stare up at the celestial body, which seemed to make it pause.
Sorry Moon, no habla whatever you're speaking.
Just as she was about to shrug it off and maybe get up to stretch her spindly legs, another voice caught her attention, also appearing to be originating from the heavens, this one deep and masculine, cold in its inflections, sending a shiver down her spine- but unfortunately, no more comprehensible than the first one. With the moon already taken, Sue wondered what celestial body was speaking towards her this time, another glance skyward revealing something a fair bit more unnerving than Uranus joining the picture- the whole sky had darkened, many stars having dimmed out of visibility, and whenever that second voice spoke, the moon itself seemed to glow less.
It was creepy, no doubt, but on a second glance, it looked to be about all that other voice could do, the campfire near her unphased by it trying to be all spooky.
The voices appeared to converse afterwards, or at least both speak, the way in which they constantly cut each other off suggesting something more akin to an argument than a rational discussion. And while Sue might have had no idea what they were saying, she had an awareness, deep in her, that she was the subject of their spat.
Sue spaced out somewhat in response, imagination taking her for a ride as she tried to figure out just what all this was supposed to be, the range of possibilities almost endless, though something akin to God and Satan arguing to claim her eternal soul felt like the most plausible hypothesis, with the mental fog of it all being a dream making her perceive it all as funny more than anything.
Moon God and Sky Dimmer Satan, fighting in her head for who gets to take her spanking new martian body to its eternal resting place, hah.
Oddly enough, the two voices seemed to react somewhat to her thoughts, words feeling like they were addressing her directly and sounding more urgent, but again, no less incomprehensible, leaving her just to idly ponder more. Truly, it would be very nice if she could understand literally anything that has happened ever since she woke up in this body.
Her resigned realization appeared to cause the two voices to only go at each other even more fiercely, growing louder and more pointed, with even the contents of the words spoken feeling harsher and accusatory, though Sue lacked any way to know for certain. It was mildly amusing to observe the moon and sky as a whole repeatedly brightening and dimming in tune with the two voices speaking, then shouting their parts, though with the intensity and volume of the heavenly argument only building up, Sue was forced to cover her ear-spike-things, the gesture sadly appearing to have no effect on the voices' perceived loudness.
Thankfully, before her dream ears would get blown out by the two celestial beings having a shouting match right above her head, a third voice intervened with a loud groan, managing to catch the attention of the two for long enough to follow it up with some sort of a comment that shut them both up, at least for a moment. It was unlike either of them though, squeaky and rather androgynous, and the sky did not appear to react to it speaking up in any way she could see.
Weirdest of all though, she... recognized that third voice from somewhere, somewhere she couldn't place at all, the words tingling her memory in the most unnerving way, especially when combined with the sensation of everyone gathered staring right at her afterwards, divine eyes she couldn't see pressuring her no less than the usual kind, making her squirm in her seat as the whole scene started to shake, cold wind kicking up right afterwards. Campfire was soon blown out as her dream began to come undone, leaving Sue to grimace and try to brace herself for whatever was to come-
And then, she woke up.
The dream's contents quickly faded from her memory as Sue laid still on the edge of consciousness, celestial exchange as awe-inspiring as it was incoherent fading out of her recollection, leaving just an awareness of it all having taken place at the campfire from the day-
*SMASH!*
Her eyes shot open at the sudden shatter of glass in the distance, speeding up the usual five minutes it took for her to fully wake up to five seconds, leaving her startled and confused. She was somewhere else altogether, the wooden wall on the opposite side of the room she was in assuring her of that much at least, but the thing that caught her attention most of all was the bed she was laying on, even more comforting than usual because of the normalcy it represented, normalcy she had been denied of the previous day. It felt a decent bit different than the mattress she usually slept on, but considering her exhaustion, it was downright divine in comparison to whatever pile of dirt she would've ended up scrounging together on her own.
Previous day...
Recollection flooded her mind as she brought her hand over to take a closer look at, her body disappointingly enough having not reverted back to its former self, though the second realization that soon followed took up all her attention.
How did she survive that?
With a bit of an awkward sliding around she'd managed to sit up on the soft mattress, looking down at her blanket covered body, bracing herself for what she would see as she slowly tugged the soft cloth, uncovering her lower half-
A generous amount of bandages wrapped around her visibly swollen, very numb leg, with small cuts elsewhere all cleaned up nicely as well.
Someone had come in and helped her out, the realization of that almost unbelievable fact pouring a can of gasoline on the ember of hope inside her- someone had found her, there were people there, she was helped despite looking like a demon, she would be alright in the end!
The sheer joy that bloomed inside her in response was almost intense enough to make her overlook the inner tugging sensation as it informed her that someone was approaching right over here rather quickly, and as much as she wanted to hug her presumed savior, the grievous damage her chest spike would inflict, coupled with her not wanting to scare them any more than she no doubt already had, provided enough of argument for not doing that, Sue opting to pretend she was still asleep instead, quickly laying back down and pulling the covers over.
Just in time no less, her form flinching lightly at hearing a wooden door creak open, followed by a couple pairs of steps strutting their way in, accompanied by two voices, one boyish and somewhat upset sounding, and the other much older, slightly exasperated but oddly soft spoken. To Sue's chagrin though, she couldn't understand either of them, her heart sinking at yet more voices turning out incomprehensible. Could she just no longer understand English in this body? That would completely destroy any hopes of ever returning to normalcy unless she would relearn it from scratch, but it seemed so weird that she'd just forget the only language she knew- no less weird than anything else that had happened until then, true, but that in particular was rather hard to believe.
She shuddered a bit at hearing the older voice shush the younger one at some point after a slightly louder complaint, followed by a whispered apology. With it implying the two visitors still thinking she was asleep though, it lead her to try her luck in getting a glance at the pair, one eyelid slowly peering open as she braced herself for what she would see-
No wonder she couldn't understand them, they were no less irradiated than every other moving creature around here.
The smaller of the two reached maybe to her knee, but despite its diminutive size she wasn't sure wanted it anywhere near her. Most of the creature looked cute enough, true- mostly light brown body with darker arms, somewhat silly red nose sticking out, a few odd cuts around its arms and front suggesting the reason for why it was here, expression looking somewhat embarrassed- but the green... something covering its back and most of its head with many spikes sticking out of it made a solid argument for never coming close lest she'd get the full porcupine experience, which was pretty far down on the list of things she'd rather experience.
The couple hedgehog quills in her shin after finding a weird looking creature in the nearby park when she was little lead her to never try to interact with any critter like that ever again, and this one being mutated and somewhat unnaturally green only made it an even less enticing offer.
While normally it being in light pain would make Sue feel at least a bit of sadistic glee because of her grudge towards all animals spiky, she didn't have it in her right now, not in this form, the tugging sensation of embarrassment and aching emanating from them clear enough to make her only able to feel somewhat sorry for them, even if she was no less opposed to any sort of closer interaction.
Fortunately, the cuts were being tended to by the other creature around, the source of the older voice judging by their relative size. Describing it proved to be somewhat trickier than the smaller one, largely because of how not-animallike it looked like for the most part, even less so then already oddly bipedal not-hedgehog. It reached probably somewhere around the letter opener on her new chest, was also bipedal, and somewhat equally split between cream and... pink as far as coloration went, with the shape of the latter shade of its coat also making it look like it was wearing one.
At least she wasn't the only creature with a weirdly clothed-like appearance out there.
The bunny-like tiny tail and large, floppy ears were by far the most animalistic of its traits, but even the latter was negated somewhat by the weird curls that extended from the bottom of the ears, reminding Sue of earrings or some other weird ear decorations- at least until it just outright grabbed one of them, uncurling it and holding the wider tip to the smaller one's chest as if it was a stethoscope or something.
Her history with drugs might have started and ended at the couple cans of booze she managed to nab at some party while technically underage, but the sights her eyes were gracing her with felt like something right out of a druggie's trip.
Feeling like she was already pushing her luck, Sue closed her eye and reassumed her sleeping disguise, leaving her relying on her hearing and the weird, tugging sense to make out what was going on around her, though they seemed to be sufficient in this case. The smaller creature was happier after being tended to and soon ran out of the building, door creaking in its wake, with the bigger one muttering to itself before walking closer up to her, making her swallow nervously. Unnervingly enough, the larger creature seemed to react to that, speaking something towards her in a questioning tone of voice- which was immediately answered with quiet woofing coming from somewhere unexpectedly close enough.
Sure enough, a closer inspection of her sixth sense revealed another creature to be nearby, one that felt oddly familiar and very grateful towards her, seeming to have been resting right beside her bed all along, just out of view- much more noticeable now that it was also awake, and woofing something at the big not-animal.
Did it actually understand that woofing? Its own noises sounded more similar to soft mumbling than anything, about as distant from canine woofing as her own speech, and yet the two appeared to converse for a while, the topic apparently being her.
She had no idea how she even knew that, but was more certain of that than of most things in her present situation anymore.
While she steadfastly pretended to be asleep, worry began to creep into her mind- what would they do to her once they were to finally realize she was awake? Were they the ones that had actually helped her, or have they simply... drove out the humans that had actually rescued her and administered the medical help? Were they also mutated humans? Would that even matter when the push came to shove? So many questions, so few answers-
Sue froze solid as she felt a soft hand being placed on her shoulder, gently shaking her, together with the older voice muttering something out again, a worried question by the tone of it. Guess as well as she had tried to hide, it wasn't enough, leading her to brace herself for whatever was to come before slowly opening one eye once more, seeing the large creature looking back at her with its blue orbs, worried expression matching the emotion she felt emanate from it.
It spoke again afterwards, no less concerned, to which she just sighed, finding herself more than unsure what to do- it was expecting an answer of some sort, an answer she couldn't provide, leading her to just mutter out defeatedly-
"I-I chanht u-undershtahnd yhou, shorry."
She wasn't sure what to expect in response, but abject confusion definitely wasn't on the shortlist, the creature just tilting its head in return, muttering something back in afterwards. All the while though, she spotted a couple yellow paws reaching up onto the mattress, followed by the very ear-haired fox from yesterday peeking up at her, proving to be the mysterious woofer that had rested next to her bed all the while.
The two beings near her couldn't have been more different if they tried, but they seemed to be unified in their confusion, vocalizations both of them made sounding questioning and uncertain, Sue opting to just remain silent in response, hoping she could make it clear she didn't understand them one bit. And judging by the way they reacted to her words, they didn't understand her either.
Fantastic.
On the upside, they didn't seem interested in eating her, even if the fate of whoever originally built the wooden structure she was in remained uncertain. The bigger one seemed to think about something for a while before sighing to itself and walking over to the other end of the bed before pulling back the covers, revealing what Sue had already seen, her leg having been taken care of.
A bit more unnervingly, her attempts to move the injured limb were largely unsuccessful below the knee, her calf appearing to be paralyzed, though whether it was temporary she didn't know, and could only hope for a positive answer. The big one said something that was obviously meant to sound comforting before pulling the covers back on, its actions so far introducing another conundrum into Sue's already strained sanity.
So, whatever it was, it seemed to be rather obviously interested in helping her out- she'd just seen it patch up that not-hedgehog, and its emotions appeared to be entirely concern for her wellbeing. Her leg was messed up enough to the point of where she couldn't see much in a way of walking in her immediate future, so she was stuck here for the time being, wherever 'here' was. With these facts in mind, she could probably use some other way to internally refer to that creature that wasn't 'the big one', especially if it would come visit her again in the future, which it seemed very likely to do considering it appeared to be responsible for patching her up. Not that it would help her much as far as direct communication goes, but she would appreciate getting to soothe her rapidly tattering sanity though having an actual name, or at least a nickname to refer to someone else with.
And probably not think of it as an 'it' while at it, though determining the appropriate pronouns to use was rather tricky with how soft its voice and general mannerisms were, prompting her to go with 'they' for the time being. Guess she got something out of that LGBT+ club talk at her college in the end at least. The only question remaining then was what nickname to give them- the use of their ear-extension-thing made her think of a stethoscope, so maybe something that tied into that? Especially they just patched up that not-hedgehog, and very likely also her...
Doc? Fuck it, Doc it is, she sure didn't have enough spare brainpower in her to come up with anything more sophisticated than that, and considering their actions so far, it seemed to be more than appropriate, if painfully bland.
Doc was looking at her with a distraught expression, Sue seeming to have missed them asking a question in her zoned out pondering, though with her grasp on whatever language they were using being nonexistent, it wasn't like it made much of a difference. After a couple moments of waiting for a response, they just sighed in defeat, Sue feeling a bit worse afterwards before she saw and felt them perking up a bit, ears rising slightly as they excitedly muttered something out before making their way for the door, the brief sight of the grass on the other side revealing it to be the front door of whatever building this was.
The resulting silence was very much appreciated, letting her take a deep breath and collect her thoughts for once before squirming to sit up again, wanting to get a better look around the place. Before she could even do that though, the awareness that she was being watched made her try to pull up the covers to shield her chest, the action made simultaneously more difficult by the presence of the big red spike jutting right out of the area in question, and somewhat pointless with an absence of any secondary sexual characteristics to hide to begin with.
That didn't mean she didn't try, but after holding the blanket an inch or so away from the spike ending up just revealing everything there would've been to reveal had there been anything in there to hide to begin with, she sighed in defeat, letting the blanket fall back down to the audience of one small yellow fox that was still looking up at her from over the bed's edge.
The fox whose pursuer she had distracted yesterday would probably also need a name eventually, but Sue's immediate attention fell more so on the room she was in for the time being. In most circumstances, the small wooden hut she had found herself in would've been scarcely interesting, but considering the kinds of creatures that surrounded her, one question after another began to arise after she inspected the decorations and equipment around the room. The most immediately noticeable aspect to it all was just how small everything was, aside from the bed she was resting in. The drawers and shelves lining the walls seemed more appropriate for Doc's size, even the ceiling looked rather claustrophobic on a second look, likely no higher than around six feet off the floor, making her squirm some at the realization.
The former were lined up with vaguely medical looking tools and supplies- bandages and other wrappings, bowls and bottles of unknown substances, all made out of wood, some primitive tools, largely wooden as well, nothing looking like it was made with any industrial tooling- at least not within the last two hundred years or so. Aside from making Sue hope that she wouldn't ever get her into bad enough of a shape that any of these tools would have to be used on her ever again, the sight made her question her assumption that the structure was human built to begin with- the ceiling was much too low for that, the spacing of all the shelves and cupboards feeling like it was tailor-made for whatever Doc was, which only opened another boxful of mystery.
So, in the case this building isn't manmade, who built it? Unless her eyes were grievously deceiving her, Doc didn't look like someone with enough stamina to them to handle the whole logs that composed the walls of the building, maybe enough to put the furniture together, but that was about it. On a second thought, they sure didn't look strong enough to have carried her over here either, wherever 'here' may be, so they were likely not alone in this general area to begin with, and whoever helped carry her here helped them out with this hut?
Guess she could try to find that out on her own by focusing on whatever her sixth sense was, closing her eyes in focus and trying to concentrate on that feeling-
Only for the sensation of something soft and very warm brushing against her side to make her jump a bit instead, the yellow fox having capitalized on her having been distracted by her immediate surroundings to make its way over onto her bed, looking and feeling rather content to nuzzle her, woofing something out quietly all the while. The sheer amount of gratitude pouring out of the little fox felt like it warmed her body, making her wish she could understand what it was woofing about beyond a vague sense of thanking her for saving its life. On one hand, she wasn't entirely sure about ascribing that much humanity to this animal, but on the other it seemed to have communicated with Doc somehow, and was attempting to do so with her, likely thanking her for saving its life, so even if it didn't *actually* have human intelligence to it, it definitely came much closer to that than it did to any fox she'd ever seen.
Guess with that in mind, it would also need a name and a set of pronouns, 'they' seeming even more adequate here than in the case of Doc considering an absence of any obvious gender characteristics, and looking under their tail was the last thing Sue wanted to do in her current situation. Which left just the name, and as much as she wanted to make a joke on the expense of their more than generous ear hair, she didn't have anywhere near the necessary snark in her for that right now, thoughts veering towards something much more innocent instead. Well, they were mostly yellow all around, and rather ridiculously warm to the touch as evidenced by their continued nuzzling, so maybe something alluding to that... 'Flame'? 'Ember'?
On one hand, considering either of those made her feel like one of those jocks that name their dogs 'Destroyer' or 'Annihilator' or something akin to that, but on the other her ideas seemed to be at least much more appropriate here in comparison, not to say cuter.
Ember it was then.
With the little fox having been granted a temporary nickname, Sue could pay some closer attention to them instead of tripping up over how to internally address them, their warmth immediately catching her mind's eye, more consciously this time. While it was undeniably cute and appreciated to a decent extent to get warmed up by a yellow-red fluffball having laid down by her side, the fact that Ember felt as warm to the touch as a sweater straight out of the dryer was equal parts curious and worrying. In any other creature a temperature this high would've probably resulted in it having dropped dead from a heat stroke a long time ago, but Ember here showed no signs of discomfort whatsoever, not even panting as they apparently tried to doze off beside her once more.
Perhaps she shouldn't have been as surprised by that considering the existence of creatures as odd as a spider her size, a half-cactus with a face and whatever the hell Doc was, but this was the first time where the weirdness appeared to extend beyond just skin-deep- barring her own newlyfound sixth sense at least.
Still wonder how that ties into everything so far.
Even if she only had a fox-shaped hip warmer as opposed to any answers so far, they were definitely much better than nothing, or worse yet hostility at the hands of an assorted bunch of nature's rejects. Their concern was, well, concerning though, and Sue could only hope that it wasn't tied to her having been transformed into... this, and Doc having figured that out.
Speaking of nature's rejects, it was a good time to give trying to scan the area with her off brand Spidey-Sense another shot now that Ember had peaced out, Sue closing her eyes and subconsciously relaxing her body as she focused on the faint sensations pointing all around her- oh god there were so many. Middle of the forest from yesterday definitely had quite a few blips pop up on her radar, no doubt about that, but it was dozens as opposed to what felt like hundreds in here, and most of them closer than some glaring one legged birds she could barely make out in the distance. It was overwhelming enough to where focusing on any one creature in particular was near impossible, but the emotional landscape appeared to be mostly happy and content as a whole. She had to take a few deep breaths afterwards as her attention returned to the world immediately around her, the sheer overstimulation of these few moments giving her an intense, if thankfully brief headache.
So, there were quite a few creatures all around this building, most of them appearing to be feeling fine. That left a few possibilities, a farm being the most obvious of them, but also the one she rejected the fastest- all the creatures she sensed felt... different in ways she couldn't describe if she tried, different from one another enough to having a farm with all of them at once feel infeasible. Guess whatever her sixth sense was, it could also feel species apart, somehow?
Go go Spidey-Sense find me a human.
Other option would be something like a settlement, though the same species diversity made that also somewhat difficult to conceptualize- humans are already going at each other's throats enough with just one species, how could like a hundred ever hope to live in any semblance of peace together? Truth be told, she couldn't think of many other alternatives despite that, outside of this cabin she found herself in ending up as yet another mystery thrown onto the pile. Though as opposed to most of them, it was one she could actually solve herself.
The window was a good few steps away from the edge of the bed and her right leg did not look like it was capable of walking even one of those steps, but maybe with the support from good ol' inanimate objects in the form of a wall and a night stand next to her bed, she could just barely limp over there and solve something for once. Would be a welcome change of pace, that's for sure.
Sliding the blanket off of herself, Sue slowly turned over to sit over the edge of the bed, the movement stirring Ember up from their attempted nap before they woofed something in response, feeling surprised and again, concerned.
"D-dhonht whorry Embher, Ihll bhe arright-"
Right as she tried going for it though, putting on more and more weight on her numbed limb to see if it'd buckle underneath her, Sue found her hand being gently grabbed by something pointy, surprised glance to the side revealing Ember having outright grabbed her hand in their maw and trying to pull it back, and her with it.
"H-hey, sh-shtoph that!"
Attempts to yank the limb in question away from the little fox ended in failure, though whether it was because of Ember being much stronger than they looked or her body being even weaker than it had initially felt she couldn't tell. That didn't mean she didn't keep trying, the world's most bizarre tugging war continuing until her sixth sense alerted her of Doc making their way back, somehow managing to pick them out from the crowd outside.
And with them unlikely to approve her getting up for a short walk with a busted leg either, Sue was forced to give up for the time being, sitting back down and sliding her legs back underneath the blanket, grumbling to herself all the while. She turned to give Ember an unamused look, the fox pup having let go of her hand in the meantime and now having resumed their nuzzling against her side, pushing her a bit more forcefully away from the edge of the bed, ineffectual as the gesture might have been.
I get it, you don't want me walking because I've got a busted leg.
The expression on her face remained soured as the door creaked open, though the sight of what was brought in helped offset that significantly. Doc stepped in with a much more upbeat disposition, carrying a wooden tray full of various foodstuffs, a jug of water, and a few... scrolls off to the side, that last item definitely contrasting the yummy goodness taking up the rest of the surface, but she couldn't mull on it for too long when seeing what was on display. Sweetbuns, rolls, a fruit salad, some grilled veggies she couldn't make out immediately at a glance, the smells alone making her mouth water.
It was all captivating enough to make Sue almost overlook the incoherent discussion taking place in the room, Ember and Doc vocalizing at each other as the latter brought the tray in closer to her, the rich breakfast that's been delivered to her bed making her really wish she had some way to thank them at that moment-
Before the tray was set down on her calves, ever so slightly out of her arms reach, scrolls quickly whisked off afterwards as Sue stared dumbfoundedly at the bizarre yet seemingly intentional placement, turning her head to look at Doc with a raised eyebrow as they set down the extra items at the night stand, letting her spot someone else who'd made their way into the room in the meantime, the food that had been brought in taking up enough of her attention for the newcomer to evade her notice thus far- quite a feat with their appearance.
If Doc was somewhat mammalian bipedal creature, this one was a somewhat insectoid bipedal creature, green and yellow, appearing to either wear or be outright partially made out of honest to God leaves, with some of them looking like they've had chunks bitten out of them, seemingly without any discomfort for the creature as a whole. That or Doc brought them over to treat just that? Hopefully, that can't be healthy.
Though what even is healthy when it comes to a crossbreed of a mantis and a fucking bush.
Ember already spat in the face of Biology as a whole through being impossibly warm, but it was pickles in comparison to the newcomer whose very existence took that whole field of science and proceeded to choke slam it across the floor.
...and now everyone was looking at her because she was staring at them so hard.
Trying to feebly save face, she turned back towards the tray, thinking through how would she even pull it closer before just going for the obvious method, hoping her new arms were a bit longer than they felt as she stretched forwards in an attempt to reach. Her pointed fingertips just barely brushed against the smooth wood, motivating her to exhale as much as she could and double down, gritting her teeth through the impromptu exercise. Maybe that was the point of the placement, get her to exercise a bit like that? Bit of a rude way to do that if true, but on the other hand it wasn't like Doc could just list off a yoga routine for her, and they probably knew better what she needed right now.
If only she could just get that bloody tray- UGH!
With a bit of a lunge, the tips of her fingers just barely managed to grip the tray, back hurting a bit as she pulled the impromptu bounty over closer, chuckling to herself at how silly she must've looked- still, she did it, looking over at Doc with a smile, receiving a very uncertain expression and emotional disposition in return. Sue couldn't help but quietly gulp at that, this was what they were expecting her to do, right?
What else was she supposed to have done there!?
To her concern, Doc simply sighed in consternation before turning to that leaf-bug-whatever creature and beginning to chat with them instead, glancing towards her as they seemed to be discussing something related to her, at least as far as her intuition told her. Ember also occasionally chimed into the discussion, but it seemed that at this point everyone gathered knew that Sue could not understand a lick of what they were saying and so didn't even bother addressing her directly, which, while completely understandable, didn't help in watering the seeds of doubt and worry inside her.
Guess there wasn't too much she could do about that at the moment though, left to simply try to enjoy the breakfast in front of her as everyone gathered chatted about her.
The warmth and wonderful flavors of the baked goods on the tray in front of her helped in lifting her spirits up somewhat though, letting her get lost in the sweetness at least for a moment and pretend none of this was happening. That she was back on campus, enjoying a short break in between her classes with some treat from a local bakery, getting reenergised enough to stand two more hours of listening to a lecture about databases or distributed computing before heading for her evening shift.
That she wasn't god knows where, having mutated into a god knows what, and being at the mercy or other aberrations of nature that could've turned on her at any moment and likely not even left a scrap of meat on her bones by the time they were done with her, completely unable to understand any of them.
Sue's angsty daydreaming was interrupted with a firmer nudge to her side, glance to her side through her increasingly damp eyes revealing Ember to be more forcefully nuzzling against her, seeming to be trying to comfort her with some quiet woofs. She might not have been able to understand what they were squeaking and woofing, but it was hard to interpret their actions so far as anything but trying to help her, the thought helping her in not completely breaking down there and then. This might have been one capricious and unexplainable hell she had found herself in, but it seemed that the local demons had a soft spot for her. Suppose that's only appropriate with her being one of them now, hah.
Or... was she?
Her mind latched herself to that stray thought as she reached for the next berry roll, offhandedly acknowledging that it tasted like no actual fruit she'd ever tried before steering back towards that potentially worrying idea. While every moving creature in here seemed to be wildly unnatural, most of them at least seemed to be based on actual animal life to some extent- except for her. Could be that this white spindly thing was just what the humans got turned into, but she had an inkling that there was something deeper going on in here.
Nobody else seemed to be dealing with the discomfort and terror of having their body get recently changed like that- hell this entire house looked like it was built with Doc's current proportions in mind, quite an impossible feat if everything had simply been mutated all at once including her. But if that meant that.. all this freakshow of a forest had existed prior to all this, how come nobody had ever ran into it before? Especially with it being in knock-out range of a moderately popular tourist trail?
There were enough questions piling up in her brain for her to be able to build a little imaginary fort made entirely out of confusion and proceed to hide away from all this insanity in there.
Before she could attempt just that, Doc speaking up louder towards her, one of the pieces of paper in their hand caught her dozed off attention, making her realize she's been slowly nibbling through this particular roll for a good few minutes now, leading her to simply nod firmly in Doc's direction to signal they've caught her attention as she tried to quickly wolf down the rest of the treat.
After having managed that in record time, making Doc give her a confused eyebrow, the medic made their way over before sliding the try of food away once more and laying down the scroll on her lap in its place, unfurling it to reveal a rather detailed drawing she immediately tried to parse. Before she could get too much into it though, Doc drew her attention to one part of the image in particular, slightly charcoal-stained finger pointing at an outline of her current form in the bottom left corner, a rather competently drawn one, capturing a lot of the detail- but also with a somewhat confusing addition to the side, a small swirl that had been crossed out.
And then, pointing at her.
Sue nodded in response, getting the gist of it- that one was meant to represent her, simple enough unless she'd somehow managed to completely botch the meaning of a straightforward gesture. With that in mind, she could scan the rest of the scroll and try to get a grip on it all, starting from the top left, and... another outline of whatever creature she was. This one was slightly different in many places, but was still inarguably the same general kind of a creature- the stiff hairdo was differently shaped and longer, the side curls flowing down slightly past their shoulders, the weird skinny dress thing was shorter, around ankle length, that sounded much more convenient, and they had some extra lines drawn along their arms and face, much lighter than their main body outline, likely markings or something like that, and they were wearing something on their head- was that a crown?
Curiously, they also had a swirl next to them, but this one wasn't crossed out.
Whatever Sue was, she wasn't the only one of her kind, filling her with hope that she'd finally get to meet another once-human in here, and they'd be able to figure something out and get out of whatever this middle-of-the-woods wonderland was- hope that was soon dashed as she gave it all some more thought, especially with everything else in here not seeming to be particularly phased with their freaky bodies, suggesting they weren't somehow suddenly transformed. The other spindly thing seemed to fit that notion as well with the markings on their body and the crown thing, whatever she was likely wouldn't have been given any sort of royal status if it had awoken in here yesterday like she has.
So, they were a native creature of whatever bizarre species this was, while she was an impostor that had only awoken in its body less than a day ago, and considering her track record of taking care of herself through all this mess, they'd probably be able to tell, which sent a shock of cold dread through her. What would they do once they found out she was not an actual whatever-this-is? She had no way to know, but none of the ideas her brain kept feeding her sounded reassuring in the slightest, ranging from exile for being a fake creature, to... being disposed of right away.
Hope at meeting that another member of her weird kin had quickly completely evaporated, turning into a fear of that meeting, and an urgency in her mind to figure out how to get up going and away from here without running into them- if she still had the time for that and her fate wasn't already sealed that is.
Could that be what the swirl represented? Being an native creature- or in her case, not being?
What if that discrepancy simply meant that there have been multiple rounds of people and animals getting mutated into this freakshow, and everyone around her, including that other spindly creature was simply from an older batch- they'd probably still be speaking english or something, or at least been more understandable in general... yeah, fat chance.
If she ever ran into that other martian, she was fucked.
With her head having been filled with a sufficient amount of dread, Sue could slowly move to the rest of the image presented in front of her, starting from the figure right next to other-her. It was also bipedal, and also looked like it was wearing a dress of some sort, but that's where the similarities ended. There was a tail peeking out from behind it, it appeared to be covered in thick fur, the excess of it hanging from its arms in an odd way, and its head was quite like Ember's, general canine shape, massive ears, and what looked like more fur hanging out of them. They also had a swirl next to them.
The similarity in the shape of its head to Ember's perked Sue's attention, making her look back over at the mutant fox beside her, wondering if the similarity was just a coincidence or whether there was more to it all. It would be... unexpected for them to be related, considering the wild difference in body shape and likely size as well, considering that the bipedal hairy ears was drawn at the same size as her, but it's not like many creatures here cared about such trivialities as a coherent anatomy anyway.
The little fox seemed to have noticed her pondering and how she looked between her and the drawing of the maybe-bipedal-fox, woofing excitedly as they scooted closer, reaching in the direction of that particular sketch with their paw and patting it, punctuating the gesture with more vulpine sounds, commented on quietly by Doc. Guess there was something to that then, though her brain threatened to fry itself over attempting to think coherently about it all. Mammals didn't have that much of a difference in body shape between children and adults, this looked like a result of some metamorphosis or something, and she definitely did not want to live with the awareness that the little warm maybe-fox beside her was some sort of oddly-foxlike insect. What's next, laying eggs?
One more brick for the confusion fort in her mind.
Trying to purge the mental image of Ember being more insect-like than their appearance would've ever suggested, Sue's attention shifted further to the right of the scroll, finally running into something it could understand- an arrow. An arrow that was pointed towards some sort of a structure, though she couldn't decide whether it was a castle or a fort- something very fortified in either case. Suppose it only made sense with the whole crown on other-her, but the repeated suggestion that she would be eventually ratted out by royalty of all things did not calm her down any. There was another arrow coming from the castle, curling towards her outline and with some symbols along it. Circle, circle with a bit cut off of it, circle, circle with a bit more cut off of it than the previous one, circle.
The circles stumped her for a hot minute as she stared at them along the arrow pointed to her, the ones with something cut off from them particularly perplexing. She was about ready to throw her hands in defeat and just add this one to the fort-shaped pile of unknowns, before realizing that she recognized that shape from somewhere, flexing her remaining braincells to try to dig up that particular memory, the eventual realization making her open her eyes wider- not really at the somewhat obvious-in-hindsight discovery, but more so at her finally managing to crack at least one tiny part of the mystery this whole place was made out of.
It was the... whatever is the opposite of the crescent moon, when it's over halfway full. So if these two were moons, the full circles were likely suns, and that arrow ultimately had sun-moon-sun-moon-sun written alongside it-
Other-her and maybe-big-Ember had left for that castle and would be back in two days.
Not a whole lot of time to plan an escape out of here, but it was still infinitely more than she was afraid she had, breathing a sigh of nervous relief before finally looking up from the scroll and towards Doc, nodding deeply in return before carefully picking up the piece of paper to hand back. Guess she was now more aware of her situation than before, but it definitely wasn't a reassuring kind of knowledge, not by a long shot, sending a shiver down her spine when she tried putting it all into perspective. She had two days before other-her would be back and expose her as not a real whatever-this-is, with none of the potential outcomes sounding like something she'd wanna be around for.
Two days to hobble out of here with a busted leg and zero awareness of where she even was.
A gentle touch on her shoulder made her jump slightly, almost tripping a pitcher of water on the tray on her legs over, Doc seeming to be trying to reassure her about something, at least it seemed so judging by the tone of their voice. Guess all the anxiety that had began to build up in her wasn't something she could hide all that well, much as she tried to. Not particularly inconspicuous, but what else was she to do.
Glance around the rest of the room reminded her of the second roll of paper that Doc had brought, seeming to have been unused thus far, and with a writing implement laying next to it, though Sue couldn't say she ever tried to draw, or write, with a piece of charcoal. For a brief moment, she thought about trying to explain her circumstances, draw herself changing from a human to the spindly not-human and visualize the events of yesterday... but then, she would only be giving out her being an impostor right away, and likely wouldn't even have to wait for the king and queen of nuclear woods to come back for the judgement to be passed on her in one way or another.
And so, she just turned to look back onto the tray, visibly worried as she reached, much more feasibly this time, to pull it in closer, starting to nibble on the remainder of the contents of the tray as the rest of the room returned to chatting amongst themselves, vocalizations not sounding particularly upbeat either. Were they already suspecting her being a fake and that's why they crossed out her swirl, now just waiting for the royalty to declare actual judgement upon her? Was she actively giving herself away right now through her skittishness? Would she end up driven out of this one safe-ish spot in all this madness so far?
That last point sounded particularly likely so far.
The anxious bind that her mind ended up trapping itself in took up enough of her attention to where she wasn't able to pay the rest of the treats laid out in front of her too much attention, thoughts on how she'd even get away from here in just two days in her state arriving at nowhere despite taking up so much of her brainpower and largely going in a circle. With her stomach eventually letting her know that it was full for the time being, she left the rest of the tray as is, slightly shifting it away from herself to signal it being done as she stared forward at nothing in particular.
Soon enough, the discussion around her died out, and the bug creature took its leave, other two saying goodbyes towards it before also leaving, Ember running up behind Doc as they carried out the unfinished tray, leaving Sue wholly alone for the first time since waking up here. While an anxious part of her would have her get up and try to run now, run as far as she could, the very slightly less antsy rest of her knew that that wouldn't even accomplish the goal of getting out- she needed to have an idea where she was, where she'd even run off to, and how would she do it in the first place.
However, getting up to look out the window and get a feel of where she was would help with at least one of those conundrums.
With a surge of determination inside her, fear driven as it might have been, Sue turned herself over to the edge of the bed once more, this time without an Ember nearby to sabotage her efforts, before shuffling along its edge to get as close to the wall as she could for better support through this risky, but considering the situation, necessary effort.
Attempts to gently feel out how much weight she could put onto the injured leg ended up with a very unhelpful result of 'none', the limb seeming to buckle right away, at times with a slight aching to accommodate it, making her think through how she'd even approach this all to begin with. Guess try pushing herself onto the good leg, immediately lean against the wall and the bedside table, and work from there, as underspecified of a plan as that was. Underspecified, and likely to result in her splatting out on the floor in one way or another- and sadly, no less necessary.
Reaching her hands out to brace herself for the takeoff, Sue began rocking on top of the mattress, readying herself for takeoff before eventually going for it, immediately trying to grip onto everything in her reach as she arose from the bed, good leg wincing at having to carry all her weight before she could offload some of it onto the nearby wall by leaning on it.
Alright, she was up now, now just to make it these few feet forwards.
With a stable-ish position, she began to shift her injured leg underneath herself, keeping it as straight as she could as she pushed it against the wooden floor, hoping that would be sufficient as far as using the busted and aching limb for locomotion went. To her momentary joy, the tactic did work at least somewhat, pushing her off a couple inches to the side, though not without some stinging pain starting to make its way through the profound numbness on her leg. At first just stinging, but eventually growing in intensity as she kept using the ouchie to make progress along the wall, eventually wincing loudly with every hard earned step towards the window- she was too far in to turn back by now anyway, she'd bear through it all.
She had to.
What felt like much pain but was a little more than a couple minutes later, Sue managed to grab onto the window frame, dragging her body over towards it and mumbling at the realization that she'd have to bend over somewhat just to be able to see through it with how lowly set it was- whatever, she could manage, she had it, let's do it.
Sue wasn't sure what she exactly expected to see after looking out through the window like that, in one of the most awkward positions she ever had to contort herself into, be it in this or her actual body, but the reality in front of her eyes appeared to roughly fit her expectations, somewhat at least. There was a multitude of creatures walking around, some of them terrifying, some of them cute, some yet dopey- but none of them normal. Guess nothing could escape this mutagen that had claimed this place. Despite the diversity in sizes, colors and body types on display, they all seemed to simply coexist, interacting with each other just through talking, or at least moving their mouths, rather than a more usual food chain.
Among them, there was a multitude of buildings scattered around the area she could see, most of them looking like somewhat roughly made wooden huts, not unlike the one she was inside of right now, but there were also other kinds on display. Burrows reaching into hills or downwards into the ground directly, wooden structures built on or around trees, integrating them into their construction, a couple larger structures that gave the appearance of something more sterner than mere wood, like brick or maybe even stone, but they were far enough to where she couldn't place too many details.
The buildings stretched way off to her right and out of view, suggesting the place was quite a bit bigger than she could even see at the moment, though she could say a somewhat defined treeline just barely off to her left, possibly signaling the end of this settlement, as well as somewhere she could run off into.
A whole village full of mutated animals, almost every one different and weirder still, all of them just casually coexisting despite a good few of the assorted freaks looking like mythological beasts that could have most of the other ones for dinner.
Including her.
The sight was distracting enough in how fantastical it all was that she almost fell over after staring too hard at it all- not like she hadn't briefly considered the idea of a village earlier, but... there was no chance it'd be real. And yet, here it was, staring at her even as it kindly withdrew one of the bricks of unknown from her brain, only to replace it with a couple more and give her a figurative pat on the head for trying.
There's no way all that could've been just stuffed away deep in the woods with nobody finding out, not anymore with satellite imagery venturing further in than any human ever had, right? Has more time passed than she had thought between her woods trip and her waking up in this body- was this even Earth anymore to begin with!?
The loud creak coming from behind her cut off the possibility for more idle pondering though, with Doc's and Ember's alarmed squeaks following it soon after, together with their footsteps approaching her from behind.
Dammit.