The transition into the game was stupidly seamless. The white light that filled my vision slowly dimmed, resolving into a circle of surgical lights hanging over a stupidly uncomfortable hospital bed under my laid out body. It was especially rough against my tail-

I sat upright with a start, my eyes going wide. This, of course, was a mistake as when I sat up, the weight on my chest and movement of my new muscles caused waves of new sensations from my body to converge at the same time on my already overwhelmed mind.

“Ah!” I let out a surprised gasp, falling out the bed as my tail swished against the faux-leather of the bed, causing the feeling of touch on a new limb to shoot up my spine where it was attached.

Laying there on the floor of what appeared to be a private hospital room, I took a moment to close my eyes, focus on my breathing and calm my rapidly beating heart as I took stock of the new feelings all across my body. Everything felt sore - like I’d just had a full body workout. The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, not entirely at least, but did make the differences between this body and my real one very, very apparent. I could feel how my hips were wider now, the weight of my chest pressing against the light blue paper gown I’d been spawned in.

Despite the changes to my gender, the strangest feelings were the ones from my arms and legs. Now covered in a thick layer of white fur to my elbows and knees, they were a mix between that of a human’s and a wolf’s. Rough black pads that felt like low-grit sandpaper filled out the palm of my hand and the balls of my feet, feeling like thick calluses that protected the otherwise softer skin around them. Each finger and toe ended in a sharp claw, though not obtrusive. I could easily still manipulate everything normally with my fingers, though with a little bit more care to not get the claw caught on anything.

It was all incredibly overwhelming, and I could hear my heartbeat picking up with my new wolfish ears. Panic continued welling up inside me as the sensations continued to wash over me.

“H-holy shit…” I breathed out, and realized my voice had changed with my body. It was lighter, breathier now though still in a fairly low tone. It had a melodic quality to it that made it sound far more feminine than my real voice, but in a way it sounded much more… Right. That realization brought an underlying fear I’d had making this new body to the forefront of my mind. Sure I was playing a girl, but lots of guys did that, right? I wasn’t weird for liking it! I was just playing what I liked in a girl, that didn’t mean anything. Nope! Nothing weird at all.

Solidifying that grounding point gave me the foundations to bring myself back under control. This was just my game character. While I would treat this as a reality, this wasn’t real. Slowly, my heart rate began to slow and come back under control while the panic subsided. I could lock the rest of the emotions away in their own little compartment and forget about them for now. No harm could come of that, ever.

I used the medical bed I’d fallen from to slowly pull myself to my feet. My legs felt shaky, and standing on my new legs was weird. It was like I was standing on my tip-toes the entire time, though I found my balance much easier than I expected. As I took a few experimental steps, I realized that my tail was for more than just looks - it helped me balance as I walked, and brought my center of gravity backwards as I leaned a little bit forwards to stay on the pads of my feet.

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“Okay, Myl-” I stopped, realizing that I was about to call myself my real name. I wasn’t the most familiar with how the culture of VR games worked, but I knew enough to be aware that most people stuck with their usernames, or their character names in the virtual space. Sydney had let me know that his in-game name was Soren, and that I should try to stick with my own character’s name to make sure real life and game life stayed separate.

I tried again. “Okay, Kaela. Deep breaths, focus on one thing at a time. You are a girl now. You are a wolf girl now. You need to find some clothes, get out there, and find Soren. He’ll help you figure the rest out.”

And so, that’s what I did. I looked around the room I was in a bit closer, now that I wasn’t panicking. It seemed pretty plain as far as hospital rooms went. There was the hospital bed I spawned in, with a privacy curtain that was currently pulled back against the wall. A very thin-screened TV hung on the wall across from the bed, with a thin table underneath it against the wall. There were three doors - one on the narrow side of the room that I assumed would lead out to the hallway, another that currently was open into a small bathroom, and a final which was much narrower than the rest.

Taking careful steps over to it, I opened the narrow door to find a closet with a bunch of vacuum sealed packages inside. Each was helpfully labelled with ‘Starter Clothes’ followed by a stock image of a person wearing the outfit. They were divided into stacks by type and species, and I began to take a closer look through the ones for Luphar. There were several different styles to pick from, and I struggled to decide.

On one hand I was still very much thinking about my real body and how the outfits would look on that, leading me towards the more masculine clothing. However… Those felt awkward, given my current appearance. But I felt… Disingenuous looking at the more feminine clothing options. It felt like appropriating something that wasn’t mine, despite how I looked. I really wanted to try them, but the aversion and anxiety in the pit of my stomach turned me away. I ended up going extremely neutral - picking up a vacuum sealed light grey jumpsuit and closing the closet. I didn’t even want to look at the clothing anymore with how gross I felt about myself.

Putting the jumpsuit on was an experience on its own. While the paper gown didn’t cover much, taking it off only made my heart pound faster. I confirmed that I was definitely a girl through and through, and then quickly slipped on the clothes in the outfit bag. The jumpsuit came with a tight set of thermal underwear, which hugged against my body and protected my sensitive skin from the rougher jumpsuit over top. Figuring out where and how to fit my tail through the back of the clothes took more than a couple minutes, but thankfully whoever designed the clothes made it relatively intuitive to figure out.

Dressed, and able to put the discomfort of choosing clothing for my new body, I brought up my menu. It was pretty straightforward - Simply thinking of the menu was enough for the holographic screen to appear in my view. It worked like a touch screen beyond that, and I was pretty easily able to navigate over to the social tab. I typed Soren’s name into the search bar, and looked for the ID number that he’d given me.

Taking a slow breath, I sent him a message to let him know I’d spawned in and was ready to meet up. Then, I sat on the bed and waited for his reply as I settled my nerves.