Change usually comes unexpected. Change usually comes fast. 

Some people say change is good, other people say change is the worst thing that could happen to them. 

For me, change opened my eyes to a reality I hadn't really known before. Before change, I would have never dreamed I was as unhappy as I was, that I didn’t know what happiness even felt like. 

I was normal (or at least that was what I told myself) and my friends tended to agree. Some days I was so normal, I became boring. In this crazy life, I was the pillar of reason and sound mind. 

"Relax, Josh! God, you're destroying all the fun. " Melody's arm landed on my back with a resounding clap. Despite her name, she was probably the most rebellious girl I knew. No, I had no idea why I was hanging out with her. Full on athletic, she probably could have lifted my sorry ass, if I wasn't as tall as I was.Though, to be fair, Melody wasn't exactly short either. On the contrary, at six feet she was pretty tall, but I was still a head and a half taller than her. 

But oh boy, she had strength. Being the leader of the university's archery club and participating in track and field events regularly, her clap on my back almost sent me to the ground. 

"Ow! Mel!" I rubbed my back. "I just want to prevent you from getting into trouble." 

She rolled her eyes. 

"You… you need to have more fun in life. I can't imagine being this boring is good for your own mental health."

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. What did I do to deserve a friend like her?

"We have study group tonight, remember?" I reminded her. 

"Vaguely..." She grinned, then she turned mockingly serious. "What do I do with the supplies I bought for the prank?"

"Fuck, Mel. You were really planning to go all in on this, weren't you?" She nodded with a wide smirking grin. 

I let out a long sigh. "Fine… You can leave the stuff at my place for now. I'll think of something to use them for. Now, let's move it. The host can't be late to an appointment at their own place." 

About fifteen minutes later, I arrived back home, with Melody in tow. Of course the others from the study group were already there waiting outside my door. A short, brown haired girl shook her head. "Very unbecoming of you to be late to your own home.", Natalie said disappointed. A strongly freckled redhead laughed. "It was Melody again, wasn't it?" 

"Shut up, Lina!”, the girl that had been mentioned snarled.

Lina smiled knowingly. She didn’t even have to look at me to find out the truth.

The last person of the group groaned. “Please... Can we finally start? I don’t want to spend more time than necessary on this.” Damian pressed himself through the door just as I unlocked it, entering my flat before I did.

He probably needed this study group the most, but I always had trouble trying to teach him anything. Only Natalie was partially successful with him.

“Dame… don’t raid Josh’s fridge! He does need to eat, too” Lina reminded the boy.

Sighing I let him be and steered directly into my living room, plopping down my bag in a corner and motioning Melody to dump her crap there too. I’d have to sort out what the hell she bought later. The others (except for Damian of course) who had already moved into my kitchen were gathering around the large table. I had set it up in such a way that we all could sit on the ground on really comfortable pillows. Natalie had found those pillows and I couldn’t thank her enough for that.

“Damian, if you managed to find enough snacks for yourself, can you actually come here? You were the impatient one, after all” I asked, certainly loud enough for Damian to hear me.

Sure enough, not even a minute later, he came to our table, a beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other.

“Now we can start.”

The exasperated sigh that came from Melody brought a snide smirk on his face. I kind of wanted to hit him for that, but, I just couldn’t be bothered enough.

Finally, we could start. Being in the first semester of our urban planning master, exams were coming up soon. We five were also doing an infrastructure survey project - we had quite a lot to do and to prepare for, since such a project was never an easy undertaking. It took a long time and required precise measurements and data.

“Nat, have you got your survey results for Quinpool Road?”

She nodded and pulled out a piece of printed paper. “I compiled it already for you” she noted.

“Ah, thank you…!”

I took the sheet of paper and scanned it quickly. It was a list of vehicle type and amount over a whole day, sorted by hour. As usual, Natalie did an amazing job going well above and beyond what was expected of her, even though, at 21, she was the youngest of us. Not that her age really mattered much in our group. Myself being 25, I wasn’t really that much older than her, with Damian, the oldest, at 27 years of age.

“Ah, Lina? How did the interview with the people from the public transit company go?” I asked.

“The interview? Went well. I got some nice info on what the city could do to improve public transit quality. You know, if we were journalists, I could make a really juicy story out of…”

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“No.” Melody interrupted the redhead reaching over to her. “Bad Lina! Bad!” She roughly ruffled the red tresses.

“Mel… stohop…”

Lina tried to push the big, athletic girl off of her, to no avail.

I could only watch as my carefully planned evening was threatening to unravel. “Girls, please. Melody, stop it. Lina, no. We are not publishing a juicy story on what the city is doing wrong. We are scientists, not writers for some gossip magazine. Now, let’s concentrate on the project. We have to combine the results of the survey with the interview to create a conclusion, okay? By the stars you people are hard to work with sometimes… Not you, Natalie.”

She gave me a weak, understanding smile, going back to staring disapprovingly at the two other girls and giving a side eye to Damian, who was happily munching on the chips he… acquired.

Somehow, it always went like this, every time we met. Damian would get some snacks to feast upon (a wonder he was still rather slim), Lina would say something counterproductive and Melody would jump all over her for that. Usually, if it didn’t calm down, Natalie would get out a pencil and a piece of paper and start sketching, often the antics Melody got up to.

It was as if we all were 15 or 16…

One last attempt…

“Guys… please can we…? Huh?”

A bright white light came through the window. Flashes of coloured light spread through the sky, creeping ever closer. “What kind of thunderstorm is that…?” Melody whispered under her breath. And then it was on top of us. Different colours clashing over and over again, like a kaleidoscope. The lights danced through the clouds and out of the clouds, striking ground. A glowing, white lightning bolt burst through the window, not even close to caring that it was in the way, just phasing through it and hitting me square in the chest and my world faded to white.

All I could see was blinding white. I could hear nothing at all. Flashes of heat appeared all over my body. And then the pain hit. Everything hurt, my entire being felt as if I was pressed into a tin can multiple times too small for me. I couldn’t bear it anymore, so my brain shut down and everything faded to black as I lost consciousness.

“Hey! Hey! Wake up! Please…!” Someone was shaking me. It felt weird… My eyes shot open and I stared Natalie in the face. She was looking at me really funny. Like, not in a “You did something amusing” way, but in a “Holy shit, is this happening” way.

“That is still you, Josh, right? Right?” She sounded desperate. The faces of my friends seemed to share in that as I looked around.

“Uh, yeah, who else…?” What the hell was up with my voice? It sounded… very different. Raspy, but distinctly female. And young. Way too young.

“Guys…? Guys…!?” I felt the panic start creeping up gripping tightly at my heart. 

Something on top of my head started to creep closer towards me. I reached up with a trembling hand and grabbed it… I felt my hand… on… what was it?

“What’s going on…?” I squeaked, my voice almost disappearing into the void. If I wasn’t so utterly mortified… and if it wasn’t, you know, me… I would have found, whatever escaped my throat then, really cute.

It took a little bit until I realized, the things I were touching, soft and fluffy; They were attached to me… I was hearing out of them! The long fluffy things were ears!

Finally letting go of them, my gaze wandered downwards and I saw… mostly my clothes. They seemed huge, or, well, my body was tiny.

“You’re a girl, Josh!”, a voice I recognized as Melody’s broke through my panic.

Wait what? “You look like you’re fourteen, too.”

Wait what, wait what?

I had to check… hoo boy! Or should I say hoo girl? Melody was spot on. My ears were long and fluffy and on top of my head and I was a girl. This could happen, right? My tail curled around my body and covered me in a snow white blanket. 

Wait what? My tail? I stared at it. It appeared to be quite long and extra fluffy as if it was taken straight from an arctic fox.

By that time, my brain had started to overload and I could only squeeze out an almost nonchalant  “Huh…?”

I did, however, pick up somebody inhaling sharply and exhaling in the most massive squee I had ever borne witness to.

“You’re so fucking adorable!” With that expression of pure bliss (and terror for me) Lina tackle-jumped my tiny body. 

“Buargh!” was the thing that escaped my mouth with the force of the impact of the now bigger girl.

“Lemme gooooo”, I squeaked. She adamantly refused. 

“No. You’re my little foxgirl now!” Now she was laughing, too. And not a comforting laugh at all, no, it seemed as if she really meant business Aka, she declared dibs on me.

“Let him… her… whatever... go, Lina.” Weird. I hadn’t heard Melody speak in such a serious tone in years. 

“Mel?” I twisted my body in such a way that I could actually see her face again. Her expression was pained, eyes squinted, mouth warped into a frown.

“I have a little sister, probably your size. I am going home. I will be back soon with some of her clothes.”

What happened with her? Melody being the voice of reason? Not even my own changed body worried me as much as this. The last time I had seen her like this was when her girlfriend had died.

“A...are you okay, Mel?” I asked, my raspy voice still super weird and unknown.

She had already gotten her bag and was on her way to the door. “Yea. I need some fresh air. See you soon… and be careful, promise me?” A very slight smile did manage to slip past her mostly frozen face. “I promise.” She nodded, satisfied, and left through the door.

Damian had been pretty quiet through all this so far, but now he piqued up. “You should look into the mirror”, he simply stated.

“I’ll carry her!”, Lina volunteered. 

“Wait, wait!” I tried to stop her, but, the redhead, as usual, didn’t listen to me, gathering my oversized clothes underneath me and lifting me up in the air.

“Hoo, you’re so light for your size!” she exclaimed happily, carefully carrying me to the bathroom.

She dropped me onto the ground and closed the door behind her, so that Damian couldn’t enter behind Natalie and herself. When I stood up, my clothes fell to the floor, but I could finally see myself in the full-body mirror.

“By all the gods…” I whispered. The teen girl staring back at me was certainly pretty, but what mostly came to mind when I saw her long, white furred fox ears, long white hair and the fluffy fox tail was…: She was adorable. Lithe, lean and soft, ready to pounce on her pray. Bright yellow, slitted eyes staring curiously at me. Wait… That is me! The little fox girl in the mirror was me!

I should have been terrified, mortified or anything like that, but on the contrary… I think I actually felt a bit happy. So much so that, when Lina said “You’re so cute, right?” I couldn’t help it but nod with a smile on my face.

“We don’t know how long this is going to last, but are you okay with us using female pronouns when addressing you?” Natalie asked.

I shook my head, still mesmerised by the reflection in the mirror. “That’s fine with me.”

Standing there like that, I noticed how short I was. I couldn’t be any taller than 4’9, almost half a foot shorter than Natalie, one and a half feet shorter than I used to be.

“I think you need a fitting name as well, don’t you? We can’t call you Josh like that, can we?”, the formerly shortest person of our group said.

“Skyla. Call me Skyla.”