The darkness doesn’t go away, but I can suddenly feel my body properly for what feels like forever. And it feels good. No pain, just the clothes on my skin, and the grass below me as I seem to be lying on the ground. And the soft caress of a warm breeze. I take a deep breath and I smell… so many things, but it smells fresh and flowery. I just take in the sensation for a bit. The smells back on earth were rarely pleasant as pollution had ruined just about everything about being outdoors, but here the air was incredible. But there were more pressing matters. I could feel a brand-new sensation near my head; I couldn’t really feel much from my horns, but they were there. It was sort of like a pressure on my head where they connected. I open my eyes and immediately feel like my brain is going to explode. My sight is so much wider than it had ever been before. I can see in clear detail a much wider field of view. Like switching from a square monitor to an ultrawide, except for my vision. I close my eyes again, that’s going to take a bit to get used to.

Instead, I start exploring my new body with my hands. I reach up to my head and touch my horns, they are not the texture I expected. They’re smooth and almost velvety, yet hard and firmly attached to my skull. It’s quite a bizarre sensation to touch and feel the slight pressure of touch on a place I’ve never had sensations from before. I move my fingers down to my face and the first thing that strikes me is how smooth my skin is. It’s almost like fine velvet, untouched by razors or waxing, or even hair for that matter. I spend what feels like an eternity just enjoying the sensation, and the ability to feel sensations.

Still keeping my eyes closed, I move my hands down from my head. I feel my collarbones making their presence known before moving my way down onto my crop top. It feels like a fairly standard make, but if this is a fantasy universe I bet this high thread count is actually quite luxurious. It’s the same black basic crop top the character— that I was wearing during character creation. It’ll take a while to get used to this feeling. I move down once more and come upon firm yet soft breasts. I wasn’t flat in the real world, but this was certainly an improvement. They are perky. Almost like they were fake, except they were still soft.

An indeterminable time later I reluctantly kept moving down. My stomach is soft yet firm. I was always envious of all the gym rats spending more time in the gym than I had time to even be up and about in a day. Well, look at me now. I’m the one with the sexy six-pack now. I wonder how this game will turn out if everyone’s hotter than a supermodel. Will everyone just screw like rabbits or will people actually play the game? Though I also expect some people to just make their characters neon pink and as ugly as possible, as is a tradition in the gaming space. Or will that perhaps change now that they actually ARE their character? One thing is for certain, this is going to be very interesting.

I move further down, and with a bit of excitement, I move my fingers under my pants. It's been too long of a while since the last time, and just having this bombshell body was turning me on as well.

“Warning, you need to enable OPT-IN module ‘Sexual Content’ to proceed”

Shit, what am I doing? What if there are other players around? I mentally nudged the button for now and just listened for a bit. But the only sounds I heard were the slow rustle of the warm summer breeze. Still, I should get my bearings before doing something like that. Enough self-exploration, let's try moving around. I’ve been wanting to just run around and stuff ever since I heard full immersion was going to be a thing. I hadn’t done much of that in real life either since I didn't want to risk hurting myself.

I open my eyes slowly this time and slowly expand my vision. It still feels weird being able to see way more than I had ever been able to as a human. Damn, I’m actually a non-human. Even if it’s a game that’s such a surreal thing. I get why my brain is really struggling with new sensations. Slowly but surely I get used to it. There isn’t actually much to see as I'm facing the sky, but even looking straight up I can see the grass on both sides of my body at the same time, and everything is in focus. It’s quite trippy and awesome at the same time.

Eventually, it does not confuse my poor brain to have my eyes open anymore. And I raise up to stand. Except I'm falling and ouch! I just slammed right back into the ground. I look down at my feet, and well, I don’t have any. Right, I have these hooves-looking things. They have way less surface area than a foot, I hope I’m not doomed to crawl forever. I try flexing muscles in my lower legs, and it’s kind of like moving my entire foot on an entirely new joint. And god-damn are my legs looking good too.

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I face the ground and help me push myself up on my hooves with my arms. I slowly raised myself up this time. And voilà! I'm standing. Except I feel like I'm gonna fall over and like I’m wearing the highest heels of all time. I spend the next few minutes just standing there, getting used to my entirely new parts. Okay Aria, wait, no Arileth, you can do this. I take a step forward, and so far so good. I’m still standing. Suddenly a weird feeling of something grazing against the ground behind me startles me. I try to turn around, but instead lose my balance and fall right down on my butt. Ouch! I yelled out in pain as I landed on my what now? My tail! Fuck that hurts. Not the way I wanted to be introduced to a new limb. This is with the reduced pain too. Damn.

A few falls later and I was standing and balancing quite well. A lot faster than a toddler learns to walk. Not sure if I should be proud though. My tail and ego had taken quite the beating. Now that I am getting used to walking on hooves rather than feet I can say that it automatically gives you quite the feminine gait, similar to really tall heels. Another thing is that it felt like I was quite tall. There were no great references nearby, but my perspective felt like it was quite a bit further up than I was used to. I was about 160cm IRL, and this felt taller. The tail on the other hand was still living its own life. I could sort of move it at will, like a new limb, but as soon as I didn't give it hyper focus it got a life on its own. Swishing around and acting sort of like a counterbalance.

“Congratulations, you have re-learned how to walk. Do you want to attempt the training course now?”

A text box appeared in front of me. I feel like it's almost mocking me, but yes, I should probably familiarize myself even more, so I don't walk around like a clown when I actually encounter some other people.

The area I got spawned in seems to be just an infinite green field. At first, I thought I'd have to walk forever to get somewhere, but fairly quickly I realized that it was some sort of training or tutorial area. Makes sense since most if not everyone is going to be needing to get used to their new bodies. Though some more than others.

One later and I have a basic obstacle course in front of me. Some tilting boards, small planks to balance on, and other obstacles to test basic locomotion. Without much regard, I start out. Being able to move around for real in what feels like forever, and this time without pain has me rushing headfirst into the training course. With reduced pain from the game, and no longer a fragile body (unless I fall on my tail) I don't really mind falling.

Without further ado, I crack straight into it. I take a few daring steps onto the tilt board. At first, it doesn't move much, since I haven't passed the middle point. I cross the center and it slowly tilts over. Slowly but surely I make my way down. Alright, not so bad. I move over to the balance board. Halfway over my hoof slides off the side, not giving nearly as much grip as a squishy foot or a rubberized shoe. I catch myself and try to roll out of the fall. It doesn’t go super well, but it’s still so much fun being able to actually be physically active.

I start over again, half jogging up the tilting plank, and jumping down on the other side. I’m not just more durable, I’m strong. I land with surprising ease as I get used to not having feet. I laugh like a maniac and start running toward the balance plank. I take a few steps on it and then try to slide off the edge like a skater except I try to use my hard hooves instead. The friction is still too much, and I barrel forward head first, but I just stretch out my arms and catch myself, tumbling over like a heavily botched cartwheel and landing hard on my side. But it doesn’t even hurt much. I laugh as I get up and get right back at it.

Much later I’m all out of energy, I’ve cleared the obstacle course multiple times in multiple ways, getting used to, and getting use out of my new hooves. They’re not better than feet, but not worse either, they’re just different. I can run faster for sure, but they also have a worse grip on hard surfaces. I can slide to a stop much easier due to the aforementioned, but I also have less surface area to use for balance. Luckily my tail helps out in that regard. My tail has become the perfect companion for moving around as it moves and counterbalances my every move out of pure instinct. I wonder if I need or should get something like horseshoes. I laugh at the thought.

I love this body, and so far this game too. And with that, I press the button with my mind.

I am immediately gripped by the strangest feeling. It’s like I’ve been sleeping, and I just woke up. From standing up just moments ago, I find myself lying down in a large soft bed. I am in a small stone room. The walls seem carved out of rock rather than built. The bed is up against the back wall of the room, and the only way out is a large stone door on the opposite side of the room. There seems to be a dresser on the wall to the left and a chest at the end of the bed.