Zak had been out in the wild for nearly a month. In that time he'd refined his hunting skills enough to take on a deer, learned that porcupines really do taste like chicken, and remembered the last of his past. He remembered that he had once been a child named Luke who had lived in an average home in an average neighborhood with a loving father, who just happened to be a part of the FoH, looking after him. But Luke was a part of him that was dead now. There was no going back, only forward.

In all the time he'd spent free he'd spent time honing his skills, learning to walk upright again, though he was surprised that walking on his toes alone was more comfortable most of the time. When he was carrying anything heavy, though, putting the whole of his feet on the ground gave him more support. He'd learned to speak and found that most of his problems came from not using his voice for so long, not because his mutation had changed his voice.

He'd used a stick to scratch words in the mud by the riverbank, little by little remembering more and more of what he had known. He remembered that he'd once been a straight-A student, and been called a protege by many of his teachers. The problem was, the more he remembered, the more he wanted to rejoin the human race. Finally, he decided that he would try to start working on a plan to rejoin humanity, that he would find a way.

Little by little, the plan had come to him. When he had been Luke, the family next door had been home to a Goth boy. Perhaps he couldn't look exactly normal, but his fur was fine enough to be matted down and made unnoticeable by a thick layer of make-up. Before Mommy had died, she'd had tons of hair products that changed her look every day. Surely he could find something to make his hair settle down from the extremely fine, soft, felinish aura it had insisted on turning itself into. Gloves to cover his claws. Long sleeves. He'd experimented with his tail and found it flexible to coil about his waist, to be hidden by pants. Boots to cover his oddly- shaped feet. He could do this.

Now, he was ready to move out. He'd spent nearly a week watching the houses out in the woods far enough for him to sneak in and out unnoticed. His only way to get what he needed was to steal it, but he didn't want the thefts to be noticed, so he was careful. In one house, a teenage boy would find two pairs of pants, and old blanket, and three t-shirts missing, if he ever cleaned out the bottom of his closet, where Zak had found the clothing. In the next house over, a Goth girl's mother had been threatening to throw out her daughter's make-up several times when Zak had been listening; tomorrow, the girl would think her mother had made good on the threat. The next house lost a ratty jacket and worn pair of boots hidden away in the attic. The next one lost a few bottles of hair supplies and a hand-held mirror, so Zak could see what he was doing with the make-up. The final house lost a pair of garden gloves, carelessly thrown into a corner and forgotten.

Zak bundled everything up and headed back to his home base, a cave he'd dug out in a valley near the river. The entrance was well hidden behind a bush and within the crotch of an oak's giant roots. Now he just had to wait for daylight so he could see what he was doing properly.

The next morning, Zak wanted to get started on his work first thing, but his stomach and bladder were making other demands known. After taking care of other concerns ( the rabbit population was in rapid decline), Zak went back to look through his haul. The first thing Zak did was haul out the mirror, to see just what he'd have to cover up. The moment the mirror was up, it nearly dropped from slack fingers. He had cat eyes, with the slitted pupil. He didn't have anything to cover that, and with all his other peculiarities and the current mutant craze, sunglasses wouldn't let him pass.

Zak settled down to think for a long time, finally deciding to root through the rest of his haul. If he got sunglasses he would be able to pass on exceptionally bright days and have the chance to walk down the street, if nothing else. He started rooting through the make-up, and was astounded with what he found. A contact case and the lens cleaner. Father had needed them to be able to see. He'd have to find a way to return them. He didn't know why, but Zak decided to open the case, to take a look at the contacts, though he knew that would tell him nothing. Once he did, Zak was astounded. These weren't vision-correcting contacts. These were color-changing contacts, that newer kind that was designed to change dark eyes to lighter colors. Mom had used them before. If they had covered Mom's nearly-black irises, they should cover Zak's cat-eyes.

After half an hour of trying to get the contacts in (and noticing for the first time just how badly fur-covered hands clashed with getting contacts in) Zak realized that he needed more practice. And a pair of rubber gloves. One of the garden sheds in the surrounding area was sure to have a few pairs. For now, Zak contented himself with trying everything else. The hair gels tended to make his hair look somewhat greasy, but they did make his hair look like something that belonged to a normal human.

Experiments with the Goth girls make-up taught him three things: the make- up trick would work, it was possible to rein in the gag reflex the make- up's smell gave him, and he would need more foundation, soon. It was amazing how much it took to smooth his fur down.

Once he was done with his face and neck, he realized that he should have put on a T-shirt first. No matter. He could put on the jacket for now, and zip it up all the way. Next came the pants and the boots. He could pass. Zak took one last glance in the mirror and noticed his pointed ears sticking out from under his hair. He remembered how they had coiled down when he was underwater, and concentrated on making them do that again. It took a moment for him to get it right, and they still looked a little odd, but he could pass.

Zak smiled broadly into the mirror, then grimaced. Well, Father had always said that Goths tended to be depressed, and Zak would just have to play off that image. The first time anyone got a good look at his teeth, his cover would be shot. Now all he'd have to do was learn to get the contacts in and learn to talk without raising his lips far enough for anyone to get a good look at his teeth. He could practice out here. He could learn how to walk in the boots, how to move with the stiffness of an ordinary human, how to talk without showing his teeth, and above all, to never, ever smile while in the costume.

But that was something for another day. For now, Zak shed his clothes, stuffed everything back in his den, and leaped out into the river, both to go fishing and to wash off the make-up.

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