Sue wasn't sure for how long she'd been sitting in her spot for before she consciously snapped 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 multiple occasions in the past.

The campfire filled the small clearing with warm light, illuminating her alien form. 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, 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, making her glance around in confusion. A few moments of focus revealed it to be a voice, feminine and 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 remembered seeing in her life. In the middle, right above her, the crown jevel of a full Moon- massive, bright, almost hypnotic in its radiance. With her head turned up like that, it very much felt 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.

And 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. It left Sue to just tilt her head in response as she continued to stare up at the celestial body, her confusion making it pause.

Sorry Moon, no hablo 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. It also appeared to be originating from the heavens, deep and masculine, cold in its inflections, its appearance 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 upward revealing something a fair bit more unnerving than Uranus joining the picture. Each time the second voice spoke, the whole sky darkened, many stars dimming out of visibility and the moon itself glowing less.

It was creepy, no doubt, but on a second glance it looked to be just about all that other voice could do, the campfire near her remaining 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 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. 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 appeared to react to her thoughts, both trying to address her more urgently, but no less incomprehensibly, 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. They grew louder and their words harsher, pointed at each other in an increasingly accusatory way, 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, at least at first. As the intensity and volume of the heavenly argument kept 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 dreamt up ears would get blown out by the two celestial beings having a shouting match right above her head, a third voice unlike either of the first two intervened with a loud groan. It was squeaky and androgynous, and the sky did not appear to react to it speaking up in any way she could see, remaining still with the exception of a singular falling star streaking across. The third voice's intrusion managed to catch the attention of the first two for long enough for it to follow up with a comment that momentarily shut them both up, redirecting their attention back to her.

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. The sensation of everyone gathered staring right at her afterwards didn't help either, divine eyes she couldn't see pressuring her no less than the usual kind. As the anxiety continued to creep into her thought process, a cold wind began to kick up around the scene, rapidly growing in intensity, becoming powerful enough to blow the campfire out and start undoing her dream as a whole. Sue glanced upwards at the last moment, the sight of a Moon torn in half between a full and a new one with a falling star circling around it gracing her eyes for just an instant before it too disappeared-

And then, she woke up.


The dream's contents quickly faded from her mind as Sue laid still on the edge of consciousness, the celestial exchange she'd been a witness to as awe-inspiring as it was incoherent. The precise words might have been an enigma, but their setting wasn't, thoughts starting to coalesce on the idea of it all having taken place at the campfire from the day-

*SMASH!*

Her eyes shot open at the sudden shatter of ceramic 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. As her eyes kept darting around, 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. Her mind didn't have the time to linger on the unpleasant fact, the realization that soon followed taking 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. She braced herself for the gruesome sight she would likely see with a couple deep breaths before she slowly tugged on 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, and rather quickly at that. 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 an argument for not doing that. Instead, Sue opted to pretend she was still asleep instead, quickly laying back down and pulling the covers over.

Just in time no less, her body flinching lightly at hearing a wooden door creak open, followed by a couple pairs of steps strutting their way in. They were 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 comprehend 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 in here until now on the face of it, true, but that possibility 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. The green, woody... something covering its back and most of its head with many, many spikes sticking out of it made a solid argument for never coming close lest she'd get the full porcupine experience though, 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 led 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 body. The tugging sensation let her feel the embarrassment and and light aching emanating from the spiky one clear enough to make her only able to feel sorry for it, even if it made her no less opposed to any sort of closer interaction.

Fortunately, their 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 for the most part, even less so than the already oddly bipedal not-hedgehog. It reached probably somewhere around the letter opener on her new chest, was also bipedal, and roughly 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 somewhat offset by the weird curls that extended from the bottom of its ears. It reminded Sue of earrings or some more unusual ear decorations- at least until the larger creature just grabbed one of them, uncurling it and holding the wider tip to the smaller one's chest as if it was a stethoscope.

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 eyes and resumed her sleeping disguise. It left 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, the door creaking in its wake. The bigger one briefly muttered to itself before walking closer up to her, its approach making her swallow nervously. Unnervingly enough, the larger creature seemed to react to even that barely audible sound, speaking up towards her in a questioning tone of voice- which was immediately answered by quiet barking coming from somewhere unexpectedly close enough.

Sure enough, a closer inspection of her sixth sense revealed another creature to be nearby, unnoticed until now. It felt oddly familiar and... very grateful towards her, appearing to have been resting right beside her bed all along, just out of view. It was much more perceptible to her extrasensory perception now that it was awake, clueing her in towards that particular facet of how this body functioned.

Did the big one actually understand that barking? Its own noises sounded more similar to soft mumbling than anything, about as distant from canine woofs as her own speech, and yet the two appeared to converse for a while afterwards, 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, accompanied by the bigger one's 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, body tensing up. The big one was looking down at her, blue eyes softening as its expression grew increasingly worried, matching the emotions she felt emanate from it.

It spoke again afterwards, no less concerned, to which she just sighed, finding herself unsure what to do. It was expecting an answer of some sort, an answer she couldn't provide, leading her to just mutter out in defeat-

"I-I chanht 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 response. All the while, she watched a couple yellow paws reach up onto the mattress in the corner of her vision, followed by the very ear-haired fox from yesterday peeking up at her from over the bed's edge, revealing the identity of the mysterious woofer from earlier.

The two beings near her couldn't have been more different if they tried, but they seemed to be unified in their confusion. They kept trying to speak afterwards for a while, both sounding questioning and uncertain. Sue opted 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.

Unnervingly, her attempts to move the injured limb were largely unsuccessful below the knee, her calf appearing to be paralyzed. 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 worries about her and concern for her wellbeing. Her leg was messed up enough to the point where she couldn't see much in the 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 something- no, someone else in here with.

And probably not think of it as an 'it' while at it, though determining the appropriate pronouns to use was rather tricky. Even beyond not being human, its voice and general mannerisms were very soft, 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 since 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. With her grasp on whatever language they were using being nonexistent though, it wasn't like that made much of a difference. After a couple moments of waiting for a response, they just sighed in defeat, Sue feeling bad for them afterwards before she saw and felt them perking up a bit, ears rising slightly as they excitedly muttered something out. Whatever their idea was, it led them out of this room, the brief sight of the grass on the door's other side revealing it to be the front entrance 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, a glance to her side reminded her that she wasn't alone in here, making her modesty kick in. An attempt to shield her chest by pulling up the covers was 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.

Despite that, Sue had to eventually admit defeat after her attempt to hold the blanket an inch or so away from the spike ended up revealing everything there would've been to reveal, had there been anything in there to hide to begin with. With a sigh, she let the blanket fall back down to the audience of one small yellow fox, the critter still looking up at her from over the bed's edge.

The fox whose pursuer she had distracted yesterday would 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. Considering the kinds of creatures that surrounded her though, 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, and even the ceiling looked claustrophobic on a second look, likely no higher than around six feet off the floor, her body squirming at the realization.

Almost all surfaces she could see were lined up with vaguely medical looking supplies and tools. Gourds and wooden bottles of unknown substances, a handful of primitive tools including pincers, hooks and at least one saw, only the latter having any metal in it that she could make up. Nothing in here looked 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 felt like it was tailor-made for whatever Doc was, everything looked artisanal- all of which pointed her towards another boxful of mystery.

So, in the case this building isn't man made, 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 that 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?

That was at least something she could try to find out on her own. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and tried focusing on her sixth sense, on the tuggings- only for the sensation of something soft and very warm brushing against her side to make her jump a bit instead.

The yellow fox had capitalized on her being distracted by her immediate surroundings and rambling thoughts, using the window of opportunity to make its way over onto her bed. It felt very content to nuzzle into her, the quiet woofs that left its mouth drawing Sue's attention further to the sheer amount of gratitude pouring out of it, warming her at least as much as its body heat. It made sense it'd be thanking her for saving its life, but that only made her feel more conflicted. On one hand, she wasn't all that sure about ascribing that much humanity to this mutated animal… but on the other it had clearly communicated with Doc earlier, somehow, and was clearly attempting to do so with her. Even if it didn't actually have human intelligence to it, it definitely came much closer to that than it did to acting like any other fox she'd ever seen.

Guess with that in mind, it would also need a nickname and a set of pronouns. 'They' seemed 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, rather ridiculously warm to the touch as evidenced by their continued nuzzling, so maybe something alluding to that... 'Flame'? 'Ember'?

Considering either of those made her feel like one of those jocks that named their dogs 'Destroyer' or 'Annihilator' or something akin to that. It was hard to deny that her current ideas seemed to be at least much more appropriate here in comparison though- not to mention incomparably 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 get warmed up by a yellow-red fluffball laying by her side and eagerly nuzzling into her, 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 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- baring her own newly found sixth sense at least.

Still wonder how that tied 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, and Sue could only hope that it wasn't tied to Doc having figured out that she'd been transformed into whatever this creature was.

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 closed her eyes and subconsciously relaxed her body, exhaling as she focused on the faint sensations pointing all around her-

Oh god there were so many.

Middle of the woods 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 that's without even mentioning most of the tuggings here being much, much 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. Sue had to take a few deep breaths following her brief glimpse beyond, her attention returning to the world immediately around her to the tune of an intense, if thankfully very brief headache.

So, there were quite a few creatures all around this building, most of them 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 even if she'd tried, different from one another enough to make the mental image of 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.

Another option would be something like a settlement, though the same species diversity made that similarly difficult to conceptualize. Humans were already going at each other's throats enough with just one species, how could what felt like a hundred different ones all at once ever hope to live in any semblance of peace together? Truth be told, she couldn't think of many other alternatives despite that, the surroundings of the cabin she'd found herself in ending up as yet another mystery thrown onto the pile.

Though as opposed to the rest 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 frankly her right leg did not look like it was capable of walking even one of those steps. 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 probably just barely limp over there, letting her 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, preparing for the journey of a lifetime. The movement stirred Ember up from their attempted nap, the fox feeling surprised and again, concerned, woofing something at her in response.

"D-dhonht whorry Embher, I'll 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 felt her hand being gently grabbed by something pointy, making her jump. A surprised glance to the side revealed Ember having taken the matters into their own maw, holding her oversized hand in their teeth and gently 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 of 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. She grumbled quietly, glancing over to give Ember an unamused look, the sight she saw melting through some of her grumpiness. The pup had let go of her hand, and resumed nuzzling into her side while trying to push her 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 a bit 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, packed full of various foodstuffs, a jug of water smack dab in the center, and… a few scrolls off to the side. That last item broke her focus in particular, contrasting the yummy goodness taking up the rest of the tray, but she couldn't mull on it for too long after taking a closer look at 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 that Doc's return had resumed inside the cabin, they and Ember chit chatting while the medic brought the tray closer to her. The lavish, gourmet breakfast delivered right to her bed made her really wish she had some way of thanking them in the moment, even if limited-

The tray being set down on her calves took her out of that train of thought, the seemingly intentional placement leaving it just barely out of her arms' reach. A couple dumbfounded blinks later, Sue turned to look at Doc, the humanoid having whisked away the scrolls in the meantime, carrying them further into the hut as they exchanged animal noises with-

Oh.

Her hunger-fueled hyperfocus had led her to overlook the other being that had accompanied Doc in their return to the hut up until now- quite an incredible feat with their appearance. If Doc was a vaguely mammalian bipedal creature, this one was a vaguely insectoid bipedal creature, their coloration split between green and yellow. They also appeared to either be wearing or be outright partially made out of honest to God leaves, some of them having had visible chunks bitten out of them. The damage to their leaves didn't seem to be causing them any visible discomfort, but why would've Doc brought them in here if not because of it? No way that could 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 the mantis so hard.

Trying to feebly save face, she redirected her focus back towards the tray, thinking through how she would even go about pulling it closer- before just going for the obvious method. Here's to hoping her arms were a bit longer than they felt like. Her first attempt of stretching forward had her pointed fingertips just barely brushing against the smooth wood, leading 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, to get her to exercise a bit? 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 one last lunge, the tips of her fingers just barely managed to grip the tray, back sending immediate complaints while she pulled the impromptu bounty over closer, chuckling to herself at how silly she must've looked. Still, she did it, she completed the exercise, looking over at Doc with a relieved smile- only to see a very uncertain expression and sense an equally worried 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, Ember occasionally chiming in as well. It seemed that they were discussing something related to her, but by now everyone gathered knew that Sue could not understand a lick of what they were saying and so didn't even bother addressing her directly. Completely understandable on a rational level, but it sure didn't help with all the doubt and worry that had already been germinating 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 assorted baked goods helped in lifting her spirits up somewhat, 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 treats from the local bakery, re-energizing herself for two more hours of lectures about databases or distributed computing or whatever before 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, a quick glance through her increasingly damp eyes revealing Ember having once more taken the lead on nuzzling into her, woofing softly all the while. She might not have been able to understand the exact contents of their vocalizations, but it was hard to interpret their actions so far as anything but trying to comfort 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 was wildly unnatural in one way or another, 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 the previous day. But if that was the case and this freakshow of a forest had existed prior to her ending up in here, 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 caught her attention by speaking up more loudly towards her, having just finished drawing something on one of the scrolls. The jolt to her system made her realize she'd been slowly nibbling through this particular piece of pastry for a good few minutes now, a frantic nod in the medic's direction acknowledging their callout while she tried to wolf the rest of the treat down.

After having managed that in record time, the medic made their way back while giving her a confused eyebrow for that particular performance. Once there, they slid the tray of food off to the side and replaced it with one of the scrolls, unfurling it to reveal a rather detailed drawing she then immediately tried to parse. Before she could get too deep into it though, Doc drew her attention to the bottom left corner of the image, a slightly charcoal-stained finger patting the sketch a couple times for emphasis. They were pointing at an outline of her current form, drawn competently enough to capture a lot of the detail- but also with a rather confusing addition in the form of a small, crossed out swirl next to it.

And then, they pointed 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 creature. The stiff hairdo was slightly longer, the side curls flowing down slightly past their shoulders, the weird skinny dress thing was shorter, at a much more convenient ankle length. There were 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 that they'd be able to figure something out and get out of whatever this middle-of-the-woods wonderland was. That hope didn't last for long once she gave it some more thought, not with everything else in here unphased by their freaky bodies, making the possibility of a sudden transformation much less likely. The other spindly thing to fit that notion as well, the markings on their body and the crown giving it an almost royal appearance, the observation incompatible with the idea of them having suddenly appeared 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 this body less than a day ago. Considering her track record of taking care of herself through all this mess, they'd definitely be able to tell, a shock of cold dread going through her at the thought.

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? Though if that was the case, they'd probably still be using English or something, or would at least be able to understand her speaking it… yeah, fat chance.

What would that other-her 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. Excitement at the idea of meeting another member of her weird kin completely evaporated within moments, a cold, mortal fear of that meeting creeping in to replace it. And with it, urgency towards figuring out how to get away from here without running into them- if she still had the time for that and her fate wasn't already sealed, that is.

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 finally shift her attention to the rest of the image presented in front of her, starting from the figure right next to other-her. They were also bipedal, and also looked like they were wearing a dress of some sort, but that's where the similarities ended. There was a tail peeking out from behind them, their body was covered in thick fur, the excess of it hanging from their arms in an odd way, and their head was quite like Ember's- general canine shape, massive ears, and what looked like even more fur hanging out of them.

They also had a swirl next to them.

The similarity between the shape of their head and Ember's perked Sue's attention, making her look back over at the mutant fox beside her to confirm her hunch as she wondered if the similarity was just a coincidence or whether there was more to it all. It would be very unexpected for them to be related with the sheer difference in body shape and size, the bipedal hairy ears having been drawn at roughly the same size as her.

It wasn't like many creatures here cared about such trivialities as a coherent anatomy anyway.

The little fox eventually noticed her back and forth glances between themselves and the drawing of the maybe-bipedal-fox, reacting to them with excited woofs and a closer scoot, scrambling onto her lap. They reached in the direction of that particular sketched and patted it a few times, punctuating the gesture with more vulpine sounds, commented on quietly by Doc. Guess there was something to that then after all, though her brain threatened to fry itself over attempting to think coherently about any of it. 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 led from the creatures that weren't her, and towards a fortified structure of some kind, though she couldn't decide whether it was a castle or 'merely' a fort. 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 back towards her outline, a series of symbols drawn along its length. Circle, small slice of a circle, circle, even smaller slice of a circle, circle.

The circles and slices along the arrow pointing back to her stumped her for a hot minute, their weird sequencing 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 sliced shape from somewhere, flexing her remaining braincells to try to dig up that particular memory, the eventual realization making her open her eyes wide. Not really at the rather 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 just the crescent moon, so slim it looked like it had only a couple days left until disappearing completely. 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. A sigh of nervous relief left her before she finally looked up from the scroll and towards Doc, nodding deeply in acknowledgement of their message and carefully handing it back. She was glad to be more aware of her situation than before, but it definitely wasn't the reassuring kind of knowledge, not by a long shot, a cold shiver running down her spine and spike when she tried putting it all into perspective. In two days the 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 startled her enough to make her jump slightly, the motion almost toppling the tray still on her legs. If their emotional disposition and tone were anything to go by, Doc was trying to reassure her about something, the effectiveness of the gesture very limited. As much as she tried to, all the anxiety that had begun to build up in her wasn't something she could hide all that well.

Not particularly inconspicuous, but what else was she to do.

A glance around the rest of the room reminded her of the second scroll of paper that Doc had brought with themselves, having gone unused thus far. There was even 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… All that would accomplish would be giving out her being an impostor right away, and in that case she likely wouldn't have even had 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 back towards the tray, visibly tense and worried as she reached to pull it in closer, much more feasibly this time, before starting to nibble on the remainder of its contents. The rest of the room soon returned to chatting amongst themselves, similarly far from upbeat either. Were they already suspecting her being a fake and that's why they crossed out her swirl, and were now only waiting for the royalty to return before passing actual judgement upon her? Was she actively giving herself away right now through her skittishness? Would she end up driven out of the only safe spot she'd found so far in all this madness?

That last possibility sounded particularly likely.

The anxious bind that her mind ended up trapping itself in took up enough of her focus to where she wasn't able to pay the rest of the treats laid out in front of her too much attention anymore. Thoughts about how she'd even get away from here in just two days in her current state took up almost all of her brainpower, only to end up 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 finished, a thousand yard stare straight ahead drilling into the door of the clinic.

Soon enough, the discussion around her had died out, the bug creature taking their leave first. The other two sent them off with a couple warm goodbyes before getting into gear themselves, Ember trailing Doc as the latter carried out the unfinished tray, leaving Sue wholly alone for the first time since waking up here.

As much as the anxious, cornered part of her psyche wanted to get up and run away now, fun as fast as she could, run as far away as she could, the very slightly less anxious rest of her knew that she would likely not even reach the front door in her current state. She needed an idea of where she was, where she would even run off towards, and most crucially, how she'd accomplish any of it with her leg in its present, sorry state.

Getting up to look out the window would help with at least one of those conundrums.

Fear driven as it was, the surge of determination that thought elicited within her was appreciated all the same, the shaky martian sliding over to take a seat on the edge of the bed once more. Busted leg, a night stand and a wall to lean on beside her, enough adrenaline in her system to bring someone back from the dead- let's do this.

Attempts to feel out how much weight she could put onto the injured leg ended up with a very unhelpful result of 'none', the limb buckling right away each and every time. Initially it didn't hurt at all, but after a few attempts each buckle began to get accompanied by a slight, persistent aching, not making any of this any easier while she racked her brain for how she'd even accomplish any of this. Guess she could try pushing herself onto the good leg, immediately lean against the wall and the night stand, 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- but sadly no less necessary.

Reaching her hands out to brace herself for takeoff, Sue began rocking back and forth on top of the mattress, counting to three before eventually going for it and standing up on one leg. Her hands immediately tried to hold onto everything in her reach, the good leg aching at having to carry her entire weight before she'd successfully offloaded it onto the inanimate objects beside her through the process of leaning on them very hard.

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 it would be sufficient to at least get her inching forwards. To her momentary joy, the tactic did appear to work at the start, each push moving her a few inches, though not without some stinging pain starting to make its way through the profound numbness on her leg. Just stinging at first, but quickly growing in intensity as she kept using the ouchie to make progress along the wall, the pain intensifying until every hard earned step towards the window had her wince loudly or outright gasp.

She was too far in to turn by now to turn back, she'd bear through it all.

She had to.

A ton of pain and a couple minutes later, Sue had finally managed to grab onto the window frame, dragging her body over towards it in triumph, panting loudly by then. She'd have to bend over to be able to actually look out of it with how low it was set, the realization getting an angry grunt out of her before she went for it- whatever, she could manage, she had it, let's do it, let's see what this hell she'd found herself in even was.

Sue wasn't sure what she exactly expected to see after looking out through the window like this, in one of the most awkward positions she ever had to contort herself into, but the reality in front of her eyes appeared to roughly fit one of her hypotheses. There were a multitude of creatures walking around, some of them terrifying, some of them cute, some yet dopey- but none of them normal, none of them like anything she'd ever seen before. Despite the diversity in sizes, colors and body types on display, they all simply coexisted, interacting with each other through talking, or at least moving their mouths, rather than a more conventional food chain.

Among them, there were a bunch of buildings scattered around the visible area, most of them similar to the wooden hut she was peeping out from inside of. Most but not all, and the other kinds of structures on display caught her attention even more. Burrows reaching into hills or downwards into the ground, overgrown treehouses, a couple larger stone or brick buildings, all mixed together without any immediately discernible rhyme or reason.

They all stretched way off to her right, far out of view, suggesting that what she could see of the place was only a small slice of the settlement's full size. She could make out a somewhat well defined treeline off in the distance to the left, likely signalling the border of this place- and making for an obvious direction for her to run off towards once the time came.

A whole village full of mutated animals, 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, enough so that she almost fell over after staring a bit too hard at it. It's 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 her right in the eyes, kindly withdrawing one of the bricks of confusion from her brain only to replace it with a couple more and give her a figurative pat on the head for trying.

There was no way all that could've been just stuffed away deep in the woods with nobody finding out, right? Especially not anymore with satellite imagery venturing further inland than any human ever had. 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 her idle pondering, soon followed by Doc's and Ember's alarmed squeaks, their quickly approaching footsteps making her wince and brace herself for what was to come.

Dammit.