Marcus kept sleeping for what he felt was a long time.

His body felt immensely tired, and even when he tried to wake up the fatigue always dragged him back to unconsciousness.

In his brief moments of wake though he could perceive weird things from his surroundings. He heard a buzzing sound, like that of a huge bee, and he felt strong, hard claws carrying him as delicately as possible. A cold wind was blowing on his skin, and whenever he managed to open his eyes for a moment, he could see a huge forest moving beneath him, as if he was flying over it.

He was too tired to focus his thoughts on anything though, so after a few moments he always fell asleep again.

He dreamt of various things while sleeping. He dreamt of working at Ol' Heinz, when the fat bitch came in. Only this time, the bitch was a humongous reptilian-insectoid monster. She protested the fact that her bubble tea has too much tapioca balls and not enough tea, and demanded a refund. When Marcus refused to give one to her, she grabbed him with her scythe shaped appendages, raising him to her drooling, fanged mouth, and...

Marcus woke up, feeling cold shivers running on his spine.

Dammit, what a fucking nightmare he just had!

He had dreamt of being fired after discussing with a stupid fat woman, then shot by a mugger and threatened by a huge monster. And then a mix of all of the above.

"Goddammit, I need some damn coffee!" he murmured to himself.

He didn't even recognize his own voice, as it was unnaturally shrill. He hoped he hadn't caught anything: he couldn't afford to take a sick day at work.

He stretched his arms, clicking his tongue, and finally realized that there was something very wrong.

He wasn't in his bed. Heck, he wasn't even in his house.

He was in the middle of a forest.

"What the fuck!?!" he cried, and this time he realized that there was indeed something completely wrong with his voice. Not only it was very acute and feminine, like that of a child, but it also had a reverberating quality that made it sound kind of alien.

He grabbed his throat in surprise, feeling his hands weirdly hard and cold. He looked at them, and he almost cried out again in surprise.

His hands were covered in some dark purple chitin substance, that enveloped them like a pair of armoured gloves. That chitin also covered up most of his arms, stopping right before his bare shoulders, whose skin was gray.

"What the actual fuck!?!" Marcus cried again, and started inspecting himself more carefully.

He did have indeed grayish purple skin. The only parts that seemed to be covered by the armour were his arms and his legs, who were covered by that chitin substance from his toes to his thighs, but his torso was naked and clearly showed his skin.

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And the skin wasn't the only thing it was showing.

His chest was flat and smooth: he couldn't find any nipples on it. Weird, Marcus thought, but an even greater surprise was awaiting him when he finally looked between his legs.

"What the holy fucking flying shitbucket is this!?!" Marcus screamed.

There was nothing between his legs. Or rather, there was nothing of what was supposed to be there. Marcus' “little big fella” had disappeared, taking the family jewels with him. In his place, he had left something else... something that Marcus was used seeing on women, not on himself.

"Is that a motherfucking vagina!?! What the hell!?! Have I become a girl now!?! Am I still dreaming!?! Am I on drugs!?!"

Marcus was having a mental kerfuffle. For a while, all he could do was just sit there, immobile, while sometimes uttering a random profanity.

Then he slapped himself in the cheeks and got up on his feet.

"Ok, stop it! Keep your calm, Marcus!" he said to himself "Deep breaths! Deep breaths! Count to ten if you can. Concentrate on the ground under your feet if you will! But calm. Your. Inexistent. Tits. Down!"

He stood there for a minute, completely immobile, taking deep breaths. Then he opened his eyes and started doing a summary of the situation.

"Ok... I don't know where I am, I don't know why I have this body and most importantly I don't know what the fuck is going on! I think this sums it up pretty nicely, doesn't it?"

No one answered, but then again he was talking to himself anyway.

"So... if I got it right, I got fired by Heinz, shot by that thug and then I woke up in front of that monster. So what could have happened? Maybe this is a nightmare. Or maybe I am in a delusional coma after being shot. Or..." he paused, as he didn't want to consider the last possibility, "Or maybe all of this is real. In any case, sitting here on my ass wouldn't do me any good! First of all, let's find a clue about where I am exactly!"

He then started looking around. He was in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that looked like oaks. The clearing was full of rocks and small vegetation, and above it there was a blue, clear sky, where the sun was shining brightly. Judging by its position, Marcus estimated that it should be around noon.

Then he froze again, as he saw something else in the sky. A pale red planet, several times the size of the moon, was clearly visible on the horizon.

"The hell!?! If there is something like that, doesn't it mean I'm not on Earth anymore!?!"

He looked at the sky for another minute, but then he decided that it was a problem for later. Just like his current appearance, it wasn't something he could deal with right now. He had more important things to do, since he was stranded in the middle of an unknown forest, and survival would take precedence over anything else.

"Well... let's see, what to do now? I could try and look for some sign of civilization."

He looked around, sighting a big rock in the middle of the clearing that would give him some elevation. He got there and climbed over it, albeit with some difficulty as his arms and legs still felt really weak.

Luckily, at least, the chitin armor on his limbs was protecting him nicely, letting him walk and climb on the rocky ground without a problem.

Finally, after a minute or so, he managed to get on top on the rock and had a look around.

Apparently, he was on the top of a hill, but even from that elevated position all he could see were only more hills covered by trees. No sign of human presence anywhere. He sighed with disappointment.

"Well then. No sign of help from any direction. So what to do now, I wonder?"

He thought hard, trying to remember any piece of trivia that could help him now. When he was young, his father used to take him camping in the forest, and he had taught him a thing or two about survival.

"First thing: find a source of water!" Marcus recited. "Food and shelter can wait, but a human can't survive for long without water! Although... do I still count as human? Damn if I know, but finding some water surely won't hurt!"

He then scanned the surroundings again for signs of a stream or a lake. Luckily, he managed to see something: right at the base of the hill he was on there was a small gorge, and through the trees that were covering it he could see the faint sparkle of the sun reflected on the water.

"Ok! Mission one, start! Objective: secure some water! Let's go!"

And with an almost military rhythm, he marched towards the gorge.