It was the most beautiful place in the natural world I had ever seen, comparable even to the Rocky Mountains despite the fact they were mere flat hills; knolls was a better word for it, and I was terrified of it. More than terrified; I thought the very ground beneath me was preparing to swallow me whole and make me suffocate till death. It certainly would fit with the complete lunacy of my predicament. Somehow, I had gone from a pitch black void in space talking to a mouse about the hellish landscape I was in, and the next I was in the very definition of natural beauty. It was terrifying, mind-numbing, and utterly confusing all at once. I scratched my furry behind.

Why on Earth was I so itchy? Only then did I notice that my behind had some sort of fuzz on it. That and I wasn't wearing my normal clothing, my muscles seemed to have expanded quite a bit, and scratching myself was now far more satisfying due to the fact that I now had claws on my paws. I would have tried saying that five times fast if I wasn't so petrified at the sudden change in my physical form.

I lifted my paw from my rump and stared at it in abject, wide-eyed horror. It was ashen black, but still had discernable fingers on the end of the "hand." The claws that sprouted from it created a vulgar feeling in my stomach for some reason, and an awful truth that I would not accept hit me in the face. I had turned into some sort of creature! Now this simply had to be a dream! I didn't care anymore what happened and whether or not it made any sense at all, or aligned with what I knew to be real. I truly did not. Nothing here made sense because I was asleep. I was. I had to believe that or I would surely go mad, if I hadn't already.

And yet, I could feel the wind on my face, running through the fur that apparently had gathered there. I ran my new appendage across the soft fuzz there, and I gasped in shock. What on Earth had happened? This was too strange even for a dream! I could feel my fingers running through the bristles! The warmth of the sun on my back! The smell of a flower in my nostrils! Was this some sort of childhood memory that had involved an animal of some kind?

Or, said something in the far, dark, most remote corners of my mind, is all of this actually happening?

I shook my head and got up off of my furry bottom and looked sharply down at my entire body. What I saw was wearing a tunic of some sort, with a worn, leather belt wrapped tightly around the waist. The whole body was covered in fine, stiff, crimson fur, the color of the apples my grandmother grew in her orchards. The cloth of the apparel was torn and tattered in many places. I looked at my footpaws, but didn't believe they were mine. I shook my leg, and the corresponding one below followed my movement. I wriggled my toes, and the toes of this monstrosity I was looking at followed suit.

I took a step backwards to try and remove myself of the beast's closeness. It stepped back with me, because it was me, and I was it. We were I being one of the same, unified creature. My train of thought ran along like this until it got going in such circles that it ran off the track and exploded into a gigantic fireball, with entrails and metal chunks flying. That did it. It was time to run again.

I dashed to the top of the nearest hill, breathing hard out of panic, trying not to think. I had to know where I was first. My mind wouldn't allow me to perceive of anything else. I scanned the horizon and saw what appeared to be a gigantic cluster of trees to the east. Nothing to the west and north, but on the south a huge, mountainous structure rose up from the ground. Another gust of wind blew to me a new discovery. Something large and fluffy and annoying slapped against my side, and I hit it as hard as I could without looking. Yelping with sudden pain, I looked at the offender, and my heart stopped again for a moment.

There. Was. A. Tail. In. My. Bottom.

I tugged at it furiously, tears running down in rivulets through the bright crimson fur with a new sort of desperation. It was finally beginning to sink in that this just might possibly, through some very slim chance of a weird natural phenomenon, be true. But I looked like an escaped lab experiment! No, worse! Whatever this thing was, it looked remarkably like a regular, woodland squirrel! And I was it! And it was me!

And it… And I… I had to get out. No matter what. I had to simply run until my lungs exploded and my heart gave out and I fell to the ground dead. I wanted the birds to pluck those enlarged eyes of mine right out of my face as I lay there dead. I didn't care. I didn't care! This was too real to be real, and I simply would not stand for it! I was going to get out of this place and away from whatever form I had taken if I had to find a cliff and jump off of it!

And then, a voice came to me. I flicked my pointed ear in its direction, and my heart skipped a beat as I discovered those ears. That whole bit with my heart stopping was beginning to get annoyingly painful. I ran my paws up and down those tufted ears again and again to make sure it was real. For some crazy reason the tail was twitching with my rising anxiety.

But the voices were regular ones. Human ones. I turned towards them and sobbed with my good fortune. Maybe they could help! Wait, I thought instantly. Help with what? This wasn't real, was it? Yes it was, that's why you're relieved, I said. But it isn't, said I in return. People don't turn into squirrels after nearly dying in big black nothings. I'm not here. I'm in Arizona. I'm human, do you hear? I snapped at myself. Human! Human human human!

Despite all this, I raised my paws and waved to a group of figures cresting the next hill.

"Hullo!" I shouted, and instantly quieted myself. Was that my voice? It sounded like it, but was deeper, more confident. The kind of voice a girl in my home town would find alluring. I waited instead to see what news these other people would bring me.

What I saw with my larger, enhanced eyes almost made me die of fright. They were not human.

They were rats! Humongous rats! With bows and a quiver of arrows! From the tips of their naked tails to the ends of their pointed, snarling snouts, I could tell instinctively (human, not squirrel instincts mind you), that they were most definitely not there to be my friend. They all were dressed in some sort of leather armor and chain mail, save the one in front who happened to be the largest. He was decked out in expensive looking scale armor. All of them also wore domed helmets with slips of cloth hanging down the backside to protect them from the sun, I reasoned.

Oh well, said my rational side. If you can't beat them, join them. Let's play along, shall we?

The rat at the head of the pack lifted the rim of his domed helmet and snarled maliciously at me.

"Yew idjit brushtail!" he said with a voice that sounded like a gurgling frog with stones in its throat, with me not answering or moving. It wasn't real after all. "Yew ain't gonna be runnin', eh? Too blind to see our banners, then? Oh well, ya lardbrain! Makes our job easier! Cut 'im up, boys!"

Cut him up? Is that what he said? I suddenly found myself beginning to shake with an odd feeling that I had to run before something awful happened to me. I still remained, silent and stoic as a statue. Let them kill me, I thought. If it will help me wake up from this nightmare, I'll welcome it.

They drew their bows and strung their arrows. They loosed the barbed shafts.

To this day I do not know how, and I do not know why, but in that one single instant I realized that I absolutely could not be hit by those arrows. I ducked, feeling one of the arrowheads graze the skin of my shoulder, the others whistling by harmlessly.

I looked over at the injury and saw blood. Terrible, red, human-like blood, beading to the surface and beginning to flow. My pupils dialated.

It was real, I realized. The pain was real. The arrows. The rats. All of it was horrifically, disgustingly real.

I turned and bolted. My mind had snapped when I said to myself that it was actually happening. I don't know how far or how long I ran, but it must not have been for very much, for only what must have been a few seconds after the start of my headlong dash for freedom, I felt something pierce my side, and I went down as a sudden bolt of agony lanced into my head, paralyzing me and forcing me to stumble. I fell for an eternity in that one second, having just enough time to notice a large rock rushing upwards out of the ground towards my face.

I struck it, and the lights went out.

But not forever. Something terrible awaited me when I woke up.