I wasn’t always a rabbit. The last thing I remember as a human was tripping on a root in the aspen grove, and then falling. My eyes closed in anticipation for the hard impact, but I kept falling. It was dark around me to the point where I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or not. A light grew beneath me, a flash of brown, and then I hit the ground. I rolled onto my back, gasping for breath. 

“Um, hi. You ok?” a deep voice said. 

I looked up into the face of a gray bear. My back pressed against something cold and soft before I’d even realized I was scrambling away. The bear towered over me, looking down at me with confusion. 

“Where did you just come from, little buddy?” he asked.

“Please don’t eat me,” I squeaked.

“Eat you? You definitely aren’t from around here. Look, rabbit, no one eats other people anywhere anymore, not to my knowledge anyway.”

I got a better look at the bear as he stepped to the side, and the glow from a skylight shone on his front. He stood on his back paws and was dressed in basketball shorts and a band t-shirt. The room came to life suddenly. I noticed the TV playing a movie that looked vaguely familiar but the characters were all similarly animals on two legs in cowboy costumes. 

“Hello? I asked you where you came from?”

“Huh? Oh.” I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands to my head. Fluffy. I looked down at myself and only saw tan fur. Fur… “I’m naked!”

“Yeah, I noticed. I’m honestly more concerned why you fell from my ceiling.”

“I was…in the forest. I tripped, and now I’m…here? That doesn’t make any sense. I also wasn’t a, well whatever I am now.”

“You look like a totally normal rabbit to me, buddy.”

“I’m not a rabbit, I’m human. Or, I guess I was. I don’t remember much all of a sudden.”

“No idea what that is, but you’re a rabbit now.”

“It’s a…” How do you explain a human to a bipedal bear? “Like a gorilla? You know what a gorilla looks like?”

“Of course. Nosy old fellow at the end of the road, Abe, he’s a gorilla.”

“Imagine that but hairless. Thinner, but a bigger penis.” I immediately clapped a hand…paw…over my mouth. Why did I say that.

The bear blushed. “I have no idea or want to know what Abe’s penis looks like. Probably prunish, the guy’s like fifty.”

“Well, humans are bigger.”

“And hairless. Only hairless person I ever met was this sphinx cat in middle school. Shrewd little girl.”

I looked down at my now-fur-covered body again, tracing the lines of my figure. It felt completely normal, like I’d always been like this. I knew I’d been human, but there was only that memory of falling. 

“Do you have a mirror?” I asked. “So I can look at myself?”

The bear narrowed his eyes at me, and then closed them and shrugged. I followed him into a hallway and across to a bathroom. He flicked on the light and gestured to the mirror. Perfect, except the bear was easily twice my height and the mirror was positioned for him to see. 

“I…I can’t see. The mirror is too high up.”

“Ope, yep, sorry about that.”

The bear’s paws wrapped around my chest and lifted me up so I was in front of the mirror. Yep, a rabbit. Long ears that shifted as I turned my head, short wiggling snout, and twisting in the bear’s paws there was the small tuft of tail. 

“Why am I a rabbit?” I muttered. 

“Well, when a mommy and daddy rabbit love each other very much…”

“I wasn’t lying. I was a human before I fell from…well before I fell.”

“I believe you, I’m just messing with you. No reason to lie about something like that.”

I suddenly remembered I was naked again, like a punch to the gut. I scrambled out of the bear’s paws and dropped to the floor, covering my crotch. 

“No point now, fluffbutt. Not like I haven’t been seeing it this whole time.”

“Do you…have any clothes I could borrow? I know I’m a complete stranger, but I have no idea what’s going on and I don’t know where I am and—”

“Calm down, calm down. I’m not just going to throw a guy out on the street. We’ll figure this out, just stop panicking.”

“Wow, that’s…thank you.”

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He reached out a paw.

“I’m Gray, by the way.”

I took his paw and shook it.

“Is that because you’re a gray bear?”

He laughed. “Complete oversight. My parents named me Grayson.”

“Mm. I’m Des, short for Desmond. Not ironic to my current situation unfortunately.” Then it hit me. “But my last name is! Des Thumper. Hah, cause rabbits thump. That’s dumb.” I laughed. 

Gray laughed too. “Don’t worry, a lot of animals have ironic last names. Mine’s Growler. Gray Growler, my friends always said I sounded like a superhero.”

“Definitely. So, about the clothes…”

“Right, right. Sorry, you’re probably freezing to death.”

I was cold. Gray led the way up the stairs and into a dark bedroom, the windows barely visible through black-out curtains. A thick wardrobe stood in a corner which Gray began to dig through. Dig, in this case, meaning he threw this and that article of clothing onto the floor as he checked piles of clothes. 

“Where was…” He dug some more. “Aha! You’re in luck, I still have an outfit one of my friends left here and never took back.”

He handed me the clothes and ushered me into the connected bathroom. He shut the door, and I slumped onto the toilet seat. The weight of it all was beginning to set in. Even though I had no memory of being a human, it felt like there was a hole in the middle of me that a rope ran through. Like I was being pulled from all directions into the void. At an insistent knock on the door, I realized I’d been spacing out for a while. 

“You finished?” 

“Almost. Sorry.”

I flushed the toilet to make it seem like I’d just been going to the bathroom, and quickly put on the clothes. Short shorts, a t-shirt, and a hoodie that swallowed my hands and hung below the shorts. It…felt right somehow. There was the impression in my mind that this is how I had wanted to dress. Was this what I’d worn when I was human? I opened the door and looked up at Gray. 

“Do I look okay?”

The bear looked me up from paws to ears. I blushed and crossed my arms, his gaze feeling like an x-ray.

“You look…great.” He blushed too. “Not in a weird way! I mean…sorry, bad habit. You look fine. I’m totally not hitting on you.”

I smiled and leaned against the door frame. “But you want to?”

Gray grimaced and scratched his head. “Yes? I’m sorry. I promise, I don’t have ulterior motives for helping you. I’m just gay and lonely.”

I laughed. “Aren’t we all.” Another feeling passed through me. Like a piece sliding into place. This felt right too, in a way. “Just queer and lonely.”

“Wait, you’re attracted to other guys too?”

“Attracted to guys, yes. I’m not a…well, I have the parts of….but I’m not, you know. I’m more of a they than a he.”

“Oh, okay, sorry.”

“You apologize a lot.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop.”

“S—”

“Don’t say it.”

He clamped a paw over his mouth and nodded. We stood like that for a minute. 

“Hungry?” he finally said.

“A bit. I can cook, it’s the least I can do to make up for you helping me.”

The bear grinned. 

“You can cook? Oh, thank you, universe. You’ve sent me an angel.”

I laughed. “What?”

“I can’t cook for shit. I was gonna offer you, like, fruit or ramen or something.”

“Well, lead the way, and I shall prove my skills.”

We went back down to the kitchen, and I started pawing through the fridge and cabinets; an immediate and recurring problem emerged. Even the counters came up to my shoulders. Forget the cabinets, they might as well have been in the sky. The fridge had a long handle that reached down to the bottom, and it took all of my strength to pull it open. Nothing, really. Some half-filled condiments, a small plastic container of blueberries, a couple eggs, and beer. I did eventually find a step-stool that I had to have Gray pull over to the counter. The contents of the cabinets were no better. A box of minute-rice, a small collection of spices, a packet of soba noodles, and luckily a single packet of vegetable bouillon. Half-assed ramen it would be. Water, bouillon, noodles, and a splash of soy sauce. It was…well, it was edible. I carried two filled bowls carefully into the dining room. 

“Dude, you literally have nothing in your kitchen.”

Gray came over and sat down. 

“Tell me about it. I never know what I’m supposed to buy from the store. I can’t cook, so where do I even start, you know?”

“Well, I’m your rabbit in shimmering armor. I’ll point you in the right direction.”

Gray licked his spoon and rolled his eyes. “And you just assume I’m taking you to the store? I’m not rich, you know.”

“Oh, I mean, I wasn’t—”

“Messing with you again, fluffbutt.”

“Wow, I can’t believe I’ve only known you for an hour, and I already hate you.”

Gray winked. “There’s more to come.”

I blushed, no point in lying about it. That deep voice flowing through a self-satisfied smile tickled me. 

“Anyway,” he continued, “We can go tonight. I don’t like going while the sun’s still out. Too many people, you know?”

“Are they open that late?”

“Twenty-four hour convenience.”

“How hip and modern of them.” 

Gray nodded. When we’d finished eating, he rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. I took the time to look around. The only addition I found to the main level was a coat closet and a small laundry room. Upstairs, there were three other doors besides Gray’s room. Another closet with towels and medicine, a spare bedroom, and an office. I lingered in the office for a while. It was the only room so far that had the curtains drawn back. The wall behind the door was covered completely by bookshelves. Reading through the titles, I found that Gray had no particular taste. Books of every genre sat on the shelves, from romance to sci-fi to picture books.  I pulled this and that off to flip through until I struck the real jackpot. Shoved behind a long row of westerns was a thin erotica book. I flipped through for a while before there was hot breath in my ear.

“You’re really enraptured there, huh?”

I jumped and threw the book at the shelf. 

“What…no…I—”

“No shame. That would be my reaction if someone snuck up on me reading smut too. That’s why it was shoved behind other books.”

Gray bent down and returned the book to its spot behind the others. He jingled his keys at me and jerked his head back towards the door. I followed, my face hot.

“I was just flipping through. I wasn’t, you know, reading it.”

“Mmhm. I stood there for a while. You were practically drooling, bunny.”

He chuckled at my deepening blush.

“No shame of course. Like I said: gay and lonely.”

I followed him out the front door and down the driveway.  I expected a bear dressed like him to drive what was probably his mom’s old sedan. But we left the sidewalk, the sidelight clicked on, and I was floored.