It’s been about five years since I was last reborn into this world. My new name here is Penumbra. Along with that, I now look very different. Just like I asked God, I fully understand the language that my family and friends are using. Not to mention, I am a female beast-man. I have black hair, and the ears and tail of a fox on my body, which are the same color as my mom- orange tail and black ears. My skin isn’t black, if you were wondering- it’s actually pretty pale. So, now, I’m a five year-old girl with fox ears and tail. The only problem I have right now is the magic part of this world. I haven’t seen anyone use magic around the village I am being raised in now. Everybody in this village has either bear, fox, wolf, or cat appendages. Each one also has different hair colors and stuff. The cats are a black color, while the bears are brown. Wolves are gray and foxes have orange and black. It’s pretty interesting to say the least. In my home, I have my new mother and father who are both fox beast-men with brown colored hair and respectively colored appendages. WIth that aside, let me just say something. I can’t wait until I can use magic…

Today, when I got out of the house for a while, I met up with a couple of friends in a part of a meadow in the village: a bear beast-man named Silas and a cat beast-man named Cadence (she’s pretty cool). Right now, they’re probably my best friends around since they’re also my only friends besides my parents. Silas is a little chubby, but he’s pretty athletic. Cadence, on the other hand, is very fast, but not too strong in other places. Finally, there’s me, who is more like a Jack-of-all-Trades. I also somehow got the nickname ‘Penny.’ Don’t know why since, at least as far as I know, we don’t use money in this village. Anyways, the reason why we met up today was because of a game that we wanted to play after I mentioned it in a conversation the other day.

“What did you call this game again?” Silas asked me.

“It’s called Tag. It’s simple, but fun!” I replied. See, there wasn’t really all that much to do in the village. We’re too young to work, and can only spend the day by being with family and friends. When I met these two, they weren’t having fun since there wasn’t anything to do here in this field. As such, I proposed a game from my world: Sticks. We started playing and had a lot of fun together, and became friends as quickly as the sun went down. Now, I’m introducing them to the good old game of Tag.

I calmly explained the simple rules of Tag to Silas and Cadence. I also showed a couple examples of some frequent scenarios such as when two people are in reach at the same time, or optional rules like ‘no tag-backs.’ Once that was out of the way, we went straight to playing. To give the two a good shot, I decided to start off as It and gave them a 5 second head-start. I was fast, after all.

Five seconds later, I made a mad dash towards the slower of the two: Silas. He was a little scared of me and started to try and speed up a bit. Of course, I was still faster, and, before he knew it, I tapped him on the back of his neck. “Tag! You’re it!” I shouted, and promptly started running towards Cadence. Silas was surprised by the contact and quickly started to chase after me while I slowed down a bit so he at least had a small chance to catch me. Once I was beside Cadence, she started running with me. Silas was having a hard time keeping up, and started slowing down a bit. Soon, he was panting, and on his knees. Cadence, thinking he was hurt, walked up to him. Before she could react, though, Silas quickly booped her on the nose while saying the same words I said when I tagged him.

“Tag! You’re it!” Silas said before quickly sprinting off. Cadence seemed a little flustered but quickly turned to a mix of feigned anger and happiness as she also started running. To put it in summary, I sometimes got tagged, Silas got tagged a lot, and Cadence rarely got tagged. Eventually though… a problem arose.

Silas became clearly upset because of his lack of stamina and speed. Cadence and I stopped going so fast for a hot minute near a bush. Silas thought we were just gonna speed off when he got close and called us out on it. Cadence and I weren’t even thinking of doing that- even though it would be funny. At this point, Silas was teary-eyed. He was on the verge of crying. I tried to console him and calm him down. However, when I got close, he pushed me into that aforementioned bush.

That bush was kinda covering the cliff behind it. And now, before I knew it, I started falling.

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It was all happening so fast. I was pushed by my bear-friend Silas into a bush that was acting as a ‘distraction’ to the cliff behind it that would easily make someone like me splatter. I had no chance to even react as my eyes went wide across the up and down of my face. I could only look up from my shocking scenario. I don’t know if it was dumb luck or some act of God… but a miracle was about to happen.

I landed somewhere on the cliff face rather than the bottom of the cliff’s foot. If it was the foot, I’d be dead again- just like how I was five years ago. When I landed, it was in front of a cave’s mouth. I was lying on my back with the inability to move. Although I didn’t quite know it, what happened was that most of my spine had shattered. Everything far was blurry as I could only make out from far above the silhouette of a humanoid or two running off. Something that was really setting me off was the pain. It hurts. This hurts very much. In my mind being blown to smithereens from this agony, I called out for help; I wanted it to stop make it stop make it stop makeitstop makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopMAKEITSTOP

“Hello.” I heard a voice. Well, not necessarily heard, but more like… messaged? Telepathy, I thought. It called out again. “Isn’t this interesting…? A child has fallen from the land above to see me… and in such a sorry state…” At this point, I could just barely narrow my eyes downward to see- to almost feel- a dark, violet glow emanating from the cave’s mouth. It continued speaking. “Because I’m feeling generous along with the fact that I want to get out of this damn hole, I will give you the opportunity to live. In approximately thirty seconds, you will die from your damage. Tell me my name… and this canine spirit will be free to assist you.”

Thirty seconds to ‘speak’ the name of a canine? I could only think quickly in this order: Wolves are canines. Foxes are also canines. I’m in a fantasy world. The name of a legendary spirit of wolves and or foxes? I might’ve gotten it.

“Fenrir?” I spoke from within my psyche. I felt like I heard a small gasp from beyond the veil. Then that veil was shredded from corner to corner, edge to edge, thread by thread and then quickly repaired as if it never happened in the first place. The next feeling that spread through my very soul was not able to be described very well. What I think I can say is: Imagine the pain you have if you undergo Chinese Water Torture (that’s being strapped to a table, unable to move, as an occasional drop of water lands on your forehead) for fourty-eight hours without any breaks while wearing those gloves with those angry giant bullet ants biting you everywhere I heard about on MePipe once. I would prefer that over the torturous sensations that passed through my body for a moment.

Then, everything went dark as I was thrusted into an infinitely reaching pool of nothingness darker than black. I couldn’t see anything apart from the ethereal violet glow sprouting from random areas fading in and out of my vision. Unconsciousness had claimed me as swiftly as that plunge into who-knows-what had happened.

When my eyes opened back up, I realized I was in bed. There wasn’t really any pain anymore. I looked right to see my dad sitting and sleeping in a chair. I look underneath my blanket to see a lot- I mean, a lot- of bandages around my chest, stomach, and waist. I also saw that, even in the darkness, my tail was no longer orange with a white tip. Those colors were replaced with purples; the orange is now dark purple and the tip is a little like magenta. What really caught my attention was the transparent purple wolf curling around me. Its tail is resting on my stomach while going up and around my head. It acted kinda like a pillow.

“Are you Fenrir?” I asked in my mind, half-expecting an answer. The canine opened its eyes and responded.

“That’s correct,” it said. “I am Fenrir. I was really surprised you got my name on the first try. Thanks to you, I now get to make a symbiotic relationship with you. You do things that I may want and, in return, you get a lot of my power.”

“O-okay. This is gonna take some getting used to,” I said to myself. “Uh, If you don’t mind me asking, what happened while I was out?”

Fenrir then told me that Silas, the silhouette I saw before I first conversed with her (her being Fenrir; she’s a girl), ran off with Cadence to inform everyone about what happened to me. My parents quickly came down with rope and rescued me. They brought me to our doctor, bandaged me up, and sent me here to recover. Though there was some confusion about my new looks, it ended up fine.

As I sat up, I looked towards my dad who had just woken up with teary eyes. Upon seeing me, he quickly put me into a big hug. I don’t think he can see Fenrir. It would be unbecoming of me to hug back.

So I hugged him back. I’m glad to be alive.