Morning light falls upon the forest, the canopy of trees filtering the sunshine from above, morning dew and humidity from last night’s rainstorm decorating the plants and the moss. A mosquito lands on a sleeping beauty.

*ribbit…* *Shlap!* “Ngh! “What the– AAAAH!”

I’m awoken via frog tongue on my face.

I look at him.

It looks at me.

I look at him–

*guooo**ribbit…* unfazed. The frog isn’t even startled by my scream as it munches on a large mosquito. I watch it as it leaps away.

I drop my head back into where it was resting. “Uughh… hello world.” I say, blinking away the water in my eyes…

Still too lazy to completely wake up, I think back on what happened yesterday for a while, a maelstrom of emotion and aimless thoughts enveloping my mind… I think of the possible implications, of the advice that my female friends I never talked to could give, of… mom– I stop this train of thoughts.

“Haah… shidded tits and merde cheeks, guess I am what I am now, a little girl… crap don’t they have periods and stuff? How does that work for me now?”.

In the end, there’s nothing I can do about it. Begrudgingly, I try to accept the new reality.

I try to place my hand over my face to squeeze some frustration out– but it gets caught in something. “Huh?”.

I look down to see that overnight I got buried in mud that slightly hardened after drying over the morning, creating a sort of dirt-blanket over me. “Must’ve been because of the rain…” I murmur.

I try to dislodge my arm. “HGGGGNNN!” *plop* one down three to go… “HGN!” *plop* Now that I can sit down, the legs. I use my hands to dig around a bit and pull them out of the mud. *shlorp* *shplat* freedom at last.

I inspect myself.

Uugh… I hate this, not a single spot isn’t sticky with dirt and it got in some very uncomfortable areas. I can’t see properly because of the second skin of earth I have, but it feels like the wound I had healed overnight, no pain, no internal discomfort. *sigh…* Good. More questions about what sort of creature I became for later.

I proceed to stand up– “whoa!” I feel a tug on my posterior and fall down again. Making more splish splat noises.

“What is it now?” I look behind me and there’s a large, thick appendage stuck in the ground that is latched to my butt, at first I get scared, not knowing what it is, but quickly I notice a strange sense of familiarity and that when I tried to grab it to pull It out It had a sense of touch and pain– “AArnhggk!”– no, that’s wrong, it’s my sense of touch and pain! Is this… a tail? What? Since when– God, I have a tail too now!?

I recall my memories and notice that it has always been there… It all just felt so natural that I didn't acknowledge its existence.

Carefully excavating it out of the ground with the ungentle touch of a dyslexic archeologist. “Pfft–” I chuckle a little at my own joke.

I try not to do any brisk movements with it… The new alien sensations coming to me naturally with a strange familiarity. There aren't many details I can make out because of the crust of dirt it’s embedded on, I can see some dark, glistening reflections under it… scales?

I… I–I honestly don’t know what to do with this information.

– I can make it jiggle a little hehe. –

I’m surprised I only noticed it now, how did it not tangle on anything? I should at least have felt it dragging on the ground.

I let go of it and notice that it can easily support its weight and swish around despite its size.

It feels like a third arm, not like I’ve ever had a third arm before, but it’s surprisingly dexterous.

Absent-mindedly, I try to pick a nearby rock with it, surprising myself, I lift it with ease. Normally I would need my two arms and some back muscles to lift something that size…

“Hmm…”

As a small test I try to hit that frog with it. “Sorry, frog.” Doing a half-spin, I build momentum and release my grip on it.

*KTHUNK*

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I miss… This time, the frog gets startled and leaps away into the vegetation. I managed to throw it pretty far and overshoot my target.

Hmm… Despite its appearance, this tail is strong. Maybe I can even lift my own body weight with it.

For the next couple of minutes, I familiarize myself with the existence of the tail, trying out all ranges of movement, throwing stuff, grabbing stuff, poking myself with it, poking other things with it, unfortunately I didn’t have anything to grab onto to try lifting myself up, and tail-push ups don’t work with the different center of gravity.

While I was attempting to insert my tail in places I shouldn't be. I notice that I'm hungry again, and that I wasted a significant amount of time fooling around– Science isn’t a waste of time!– Anyways, I commence the march in search of food.

——— —– –– -- - -

“…Frogs are edible, aren’t they? “

I idly think as I swing around a particularly sturdy branch I found on the way.

I recall seeing somewhere that they ate their legs, was it the French?... Or was it the Asians?... Either way both had some weird culinary skills that I wish I had learned now. *sigh* I’m more likely to end up needing to learn how to dismantle and cook a monster wolf or some lizard than finding a cow in this forest.

Another thing I discovered in my uneventful walk is that not only my stamina and the unusual strength for my size, but my eyesight and hearing are also… enhanced. I can accurately track a small fly 10 meters away and faintly hear the heartbeat of the large frog I am stalking from 5 meters away.

It’s a novel experience, I’m constantly perceiving all of this information, and I can focus on something to perceive more details. And at the same time tune out the rest. Old me would have a headache by now.

I zone in my prey, lay down my trusty stick and pick a nearby decently sized stone… I pick up 2 more just in case.

I threw the first stone… I miss completely and almost hit my feet. Shit, I can move my body just fine but the different arm length is ruining my aim.

The green thing isn’t all that startled, it looks over my way.

I adjust my angle and quickly throw the second rock in my left hand before it changes its mind, I manage to graze it.

*Gweee!*

It’s running away!

I do an attempt to launch the last rock with my tail, one full rotation and snapping it like a whip–

I miss, again.

But the sheer force of the throw managed to create a small crater on the ground and made the stone skip once, the shrapnel briefly stuns the frog!–

I quickly chase after it, grabbing the stick on the way with my tail and exchanging it to my hands– *THWHACK* *THUNK* *WHAM*...

I hold a moment, stick raised in the air. “...It’s probably dead now?”...

I crouch down. Poke, poke… if the blood coming out its mouth is any indication It probably is.

“Haaah… alright now what? I didn’t really think this through…”. I don’t have many ideas on how to make a fire, and even if I tried, with how wet everything is I doubt it would work…

I take a long look at the frog… raw? *lick*–

I feel stinging numbness spread through my mouth– “mmfaaghha! ash baihshonos!”.

I toss away the carcass in annoyance, all this time chasing this stupid, idiot, green pancake for nothing. *splash*

…splash?

I look to the side to find out there’s a pond some distance from here, I hadn’t noticed it from all the bushes in the way. Probably home to the frog that is floating dead in the water…

I walk over it, smushing some of the bushes away. I crouch over the reflective water to inspect it, mostly clear, pristine water, it’s probably safer to drink than the puddles of mud— *SHPLASH* “Hii!” I jump away from the water.

A enormous fish does a summersault over the water– *PSHLASH* and dives right back in… “ahhaha… looks like the ‘pond’ is much, much deeper than I had thought.” I slowly step away from the water lest something bigger decides I look like a snack.

I look over the surface of the pond, the waters are still agitated from the previous encounter, and the frog I just threw in is… gone? Did it eat it? Do the things here have resistance to it or something?–

I witness the fish that just scared me slowly emerge from the water… upside down? “What.” I look closer and see the frog’s legs sticking out its mouth.

...I’m utterly dumbfounded.

“...huh, lucky!” I go over to grab my accidental prize but stop before I can continue– I search around for some vines instead, tie them to my trusty death stick and throw it over the fish to slowly drag it closer to shore.

I don’t know what lurks in that water and I’m not eager to find out. No sir.

Having it in a safe place and secured, I carefully think about what I'm going to do with it. instead of straight up eating it like an animal like last time. “So… fish are safer to eat raw when fresh, probably, without fire I can’t cook it anyway… Alright, first take the head out. Don’t know what to do with that, maybe I can try to make something out of its bones…” I don’t have a knife either… and the sharpest thing I have are my nails… So be it, then.

Painstakingly slowly, I pick out and rip most of its scales and skin out of where I plan to make an incision to begin dismantling it. I rip open a crooked, uneven line and try my best to remove only the organs and probably inedible parts. I make do with a shoddy job at opening its rib/spine cage and taking out meat-spine skewers.

When I recall that I maybe should have drained its blood first; I already have the scene of a massacre in front of me, blood everywhere, an open carcass with bones sticking out and gore, guts and tendons surrounding me. I try to suppress the queasy feeling I get from looking at my mess and focus on only the sustenance before me. *gulp*... “bottoms up, then.”

It tastes like… Blood. it tastes like bad fish covered in blood, *sigh* not really unexpected; Better than trying out potentially poisonous things at least…

Pause. I focus on the word poisonous.

“Hmm…” I look back to the deceptively large pond. “Hmmmmm…” I look at the Insult of dismantling that I created. “HMMM…” I take note of the small hint of the stupid green frog sticking out of the fish’s mouth.

“...I’ve got an idea.”