Dallin slowly blinked open his eyes. Something was different, he could tell even in his drowsy state. Why did his room look so weird?
He sat up, confused. Light filtered in through a cloth covered window, rays revealing...what was all this?
Confusion turned to panic. This was not his room at all!
Dallin rolled off the bed, onto a floor made of ice, scrambling to his feet. His suddenly very large, and furry feet! He stared down in dismay at himself. His entire body was covered in thick tan and brown fur, and his hands had darkened to a blue black.
What?
Dallin gasped for breath as he tried to make sense of this. It had to be a dream. But it felt terrifyingly real. How could he wake up?
He ran shaking hands through the fur on his arms as he looked around the room. It was like no room he'd ever seen. More like an icy cave, with rock decorations and….was that a snail glowing on the wall?
Dallin backed up, until he felt something solid block him.
Turning his head, he caught sight of what appeared to be some sort of mirror. He willed himself towards it, but closed his eyes, afraid to look. What had he turned into?
Breathe. He told himself. You can figure this out.
Taking a deep breath, he let himself look.
And froze.
He was a yeti. He had fur. He had horns, one of them crooked. He felt the sides of his head, and sure enough, he could feel them there.
This was not possible. But here he was. Wherever here was….
Where am I? Is it…. If he was a yeti, he had some idea of where he could be. No way...
Dallin peeked out of the room, into similar looking hallways leading to other rooms. Seeing no one, he sprinted through. There. That door led outside.
In a burst of surprising speed, Dallin burst outside, and slipped, landing on his behind. Looking up, he felt his heart drop to his oversized feet.
Of course. The yeti village. How had he gotten here?
It looked just like Percy Patterson had described, with tall rock and ice structures everywhere. From there, Dallin could see the huge sculpture of a yeti face, obviously the leader's palace.
Yetis were everywhere, running around, and talking. Children played. Some were building things, obviously inspired by their human friends. A few nearby were eating what appeared to be some kind of rock fruit.
But what shocked him even more was that they were speaking in words instead of growling.
"Yes, like this." He heard.
"Could you hand me one of the blue ones?"
"How did you do that?"
Dallin could only sit and stare as the new surroundings flooded his senses, making him feel closed in. Could dreams be this realistic?
"Fleem? What are you doing?" A new voice came from much closer.
Dallin spun to face it, pushing himself to his feet. This was one of the yetis who always hung around Percy Patterson's yeti. She wore a straight tall ponytail on top of her head. And now, she was walking towards him, thinking he was a yeti, and she didn't look happy.
Panic sized Dallin, and without another thought, he turned tail and ran.
"Fleem!" The yeti called after him. Other voices joined her, and Dallin didn't need to look back to know they were chasing him.
No! I'm not Fleem!
Other yetis turned in surprise as he shot past, heading for the big archway. That had to be the way out.
The group of yetis behind him continued yelling, calling him Fleem and telling him to wait.
"Leave me alone!" He cried with a voice that wasn't his as he ran through the arch, into the snowy wilderness outside the village.
The ground sloped downwards, and Dallin started slipping. Yelping, he fought to right himself, but it only made it worse. He lost his footing, and tumbled head over heels down the rocky and snowy curve. The voices began to catch up.
The moment Dallin felt the ground even out, he was back on his feet and running again, incredibly more resilient as a yeti. But he didn't have time to give it much thought. The yetis behind him were still catching up! After all, they were all far bigger and faster than him!
Suddenly the snow turned to ice under him, and Dallin fell and slid some more.
No no no!
"Fleem, stop!" The yeti called again.
Dallin pushed against the ice with his hands, trying to slow himself. He managed to somewhat get control of himself, even as he continued to slide forward.
"Whoa!" He yelped as his foot suddenly met empty air, revealing an ice cliff with the farthest drop he had ever seen. He scrabbled to get a grip on the rocks as his body slid over the side.
He should have been cleaning messes in the Yak Shack, not this! He was going to die, and no one would know what had happened!
Until a hand grabbed his wrist, stopping him right in the air, dangling over that long drop.
The yeti with the ponytail easily pulled him back up, and away from the cliff, keeping a tight grip.
"What happened?" She demanded, looking shocked. "Why are you running away?"
Dallin shook his head, still freaking out. He pulled at her hand, trying to get free. "Let go, please." He practically whimpered.
"Fleem, what's wrong with you today?" The yeti with the purple braid stepped closer. "It's us."
"I'm not Fleem!" Dallin tried again to free his wrist, grunting with effort. The ponytail yeti was strong. "I don't know what's happening! I'm not Fleem. I'm not even a yeti!"
He looked desperately up at her face. "So how am I a yeti?" He had to ask for his own sake.
All the yetis were staring at him as if he had grown a second head. Dallin's heart sank. They didn't believe him.
But in her surprise, the yeti with a ponytail loosened her grip. He finally ripped his wrist free and backed up.
"I'm telling the truth!" He glanced from one yeti to another.
The group was completely focused on him, making him feel exposed and small. They slowly moved towards him. Dallin backed up further. They followed. He moved further back, never taking his eyes off them, until he backed into a rock.
"Fleem, calm down." The ponytail yeti urged calmly. Dallin risked looking away for a second to duck behind the rock.
"We'll figure this out." soothed the curly purple yeti.
"Come out." said the yeti Dallin recognized as Percy Patterson's friend.
Dallin took deep shaky breaths, doing his best to calm down. Yetis were friends. He had talked to them, as a human. He had no reason to run from them. In fact, he suspected they were going to be his only hope of getting back to home. To his...body.
Yet he still found himself crouching behind the rock, hiding from them.
He turned around, putting his back to it, and took in the icy view of the top of the mountain while he tried to breathe. It all looked and felt too real to be a dream. But then, what explanation was there, for the fact that he was in a yeti's body? Where was his real body?
The ponytail yeti appeared around the side. "Fleem?"
Dallin forced himself to stay down, reminding himself that he had no reason to run from her. She crouched next to him, looking him in the eyes. Her expression was gentle. "Come with us to the headquarters, and we can talk this out. Okay?"
Dallin tried to relax his stiff muscles as the other yetis came behind her, still looking confused.
Hope flared in his chest. Maybe he could convince them of his predicament? Surely they would realize how different he was from the real Fleem.
He flinched as the ponytail yeti took his arm, gentler this time, and pulled him to his feet.
"C'mon." She gestured towards wherever these yetis planned to take him.
Dallin shakily nodded, and let her lead him away, hoping he wouldn't mess this up.
Fleem:
Fleem woke up with a start. Something had brushed against him. Odd. He was a light sleeper, but not this light…..
There was something on top of him! Heart jolting, he thrashed around where he laid, kicking it off. He sat frozen, staring over the edge of the bed at the colored clumps of fabric now on the floor.
Where had those come from?
Wait, there were more on him! He shook himself, but these ones weren't coming off! They were almost perfectly formed to his body, white on his torso and shoulders, and black on his lower body.
Fleem yelped and he fell over the side of the bed, onto the pile he'd kicked off.
Where was his fur?
He held out his bare arms in shock. Under the black fabric, his legs were bare too, as were his feet, which appeared to have shrunk.
Fleem stood, swaying and stumbling on the tiny things. Holding his arms to steady himself, he looked down at his body again.
It looked just like a smallfoot's body. The observation brought a gasp out of him. Was he going crazy?
"Kolka?" He called out, hoping for some confirmation that he was just seeing things. And feeling things. "Gwangi? Migo?"
He got no answer. No one else was there.
Where was 'there' anyway? It sure wasn't his village.
Fleem wobbled as he took a step back, then turned to look around the room he had woken up in. There was a big window, like in his bedroom. But the similarities ended there. Shelves and oddly colored furniture held a bunch of smallfoot things, only furthering his discomfort.
Surely I'm not….
Spotting another room, he stumbled towards it, moving a little too fast. He tripped over his own feet, but caught himself on a small counter.
A shiny silver mirror sat on the wall in front of him, confirming his fear.
Fleem had somehow become a smallfoot.
"WHAT!?" He shouted at his reflection, needing to express his utter disbelief.
He ran his hands through the dark brown hair on his head, the closest thing he had to fur.
This had to be a trick. He hadn't even been in the smallfoot village since last night. His yeti body couldn't fit through the doors of their buildings.
Besides, he knew everyone thought he was annoying. How many of them were all too willing to get him back?
"Okay, jokes over!" Fleem called out. "You can stop now!"
No one answered.
Frowning, he made his way around the edge of the tiny room he'd entered, leaning heavily on the counter and walls. There had to be a clue somewhere.
A curtain sat at the end. Fleem quickly pulled it aside, but no one was hiding there. It was just a tub.
Next to it was something he'd never seen. What hung next to it was familiar though. The S.E.S had formerly called it 'The Scroll of Invisible Wisdom' before they'd learned how wrong they were. Fleem didn't have to think too hard to guess what this new thing was for.
Moving on.
Nothing hinted at a trick in this room. What about the other one? A little nervous, he leaned back, taking his weight from the counter in front of the mirror, and shifting it from foot to foot.
Okay. He was sure he'd gotten the hang of balancing on his smallfoot feet.
Fleem walked back into the room he'd woken up in, presumably a bedroom, and searched that one too. But all he saw were smallfoot things. He looked at the bed. It wasn't a rock, like his bed in the yeti village.
Curious, he climbed onto it, and stood. It wasn't that solid. His feet sank into it. Fleem bounced a bit, perplexed.
Was this really what smallfeet slept on?
He smirked, and began jumping up and down, feeling the soft material dip beneath his weight each time he landed.
How could something that wasn't solid be comfortable? He had to admit though, it was fun to jump on.
He jumped higher, moving around the bed. He bounced the pillow off the edge, laughing. He jumped and landed on his back a few times.
After he'd had his fun, he took one last leap, straight up and off the bed, high above the floor. He landed as gracefully as his unaccustomed feet would allow, grinning wildly. Kolka would have rolled her eyes at his childishness. Did he care? No.
But in all seriousness, he had to keep looking around and find out what was going on.
Another smallfoot door indicated more to this house.
Fleem fiddled with the handle until he figured out how to open it, and peeked through. A hallway, much like the one in his own home. At the end, a set of stairs led down to another two rooms.
He walked down carefully, in case he wasn't quite done growing into his tiny feet.
More unfamiliar smallfoot things were scattered all over the place.
"Hello?" Fleem didn't expect an answer, and got none. But surely something would tell him how he ended up here?
He chose one of the rooms, running his hands over everything.
He twisted things. He pulled things. He pushed things. But he couldn't tell what anything was.
He caught sight of a peculiar blocky looking thing, with handles sticking out. Fleem grabbed one and pulled it out. It was a knife.
Yetis used knives for cooking. This was a cooking room then. No clues here. Sighing, he slid the knife back into it's slit and moved on to the other room.
But he wasn't any more successful there. Many times he got distracted by his own curiosity, and played with some of the smallfoot things he found. But nothing answered the question of how he was a smallfoot in a smallfoot house.
He was no longer convinced it was a trick. No yeti could set this up. But there had to be something!
Crossing the room, Fleem looked out the window at the smallfoot village outside. It looked the same as it always did, just bigger.
And there were other smallfeet out there. One of them had to know what had happened to him!
Fleem looked around and headed towards the only door he hadn't opened. It must have led outside.
He turned the handle and opened it, only to get hit by a blast of freezing cold air. Right. No fur.
He shivered as he stepped outside, closing the door behind him. He could never get used to living like this. The sooner he had his fur back, the better.
He shouted in pain at his first step onto the street. It was excruciatingly cold to his bare feet.
He had wondered before why smallfoot wore covers over their feet. Now he knew.
Shifting from one foot to the other, he didn't notice the smallfoot coming towards him until he bumped him with his shoulder.
"Watch out!" The smallfoot snapped, and kept going. No high pitched gibberish.
Fleem was too focused on his cold feet to react to him. He ran across the street, trying to keep from touching the ground as much as possible.
The biting wind only made things worse.
Fleem shivered as he ran, his whole body chilled to the bone. He had to hurry and find someone who could help him. And he knew who.
Migo's smallfoot. He had to be here somewhere.