All original contents are copyright ©2000 Arthur Albert Payne

Prologue: The time has come to document the most important event in the history of the world, the event known as the change. This is the historical retelling of my first real adventure, when a dream and a nightmare came true on the same day.

Chapter One, The Change

The night it happened was like any other night. I was sitting at my computer listening to music and wandering the internet. Tonight was special only due to the supernova burning bright in the night sky. I couldn't see it though, because of the large clouds of steam that come from the chemical plants south of my home town. My name was Arthur Albert Payne, but now I go by my spirit name, Relee.

This night was peaceful, not a creature was stirring outside, and there were many wonderful things to talk about on the internet. I found I was getting tired rather quickly that night, and it was strange as I'm normally an insomniac. Somthing is wrong with my Biological clock and I live on a twenty six hour day. For the first time in a month I went to bed during the night. It was the last night I spent in that dream world.

I woke up the next day and somthing felt different. I was very warm under my blanket and my skin felt prickly. I could feel somthing behind me moving around. I jumped out of bed when I thought it was a squirrel who had snuck into my bed. As I jumped I saw my body in the light of the sun coming in through the window.

I was covered in orange fur, and my hands and feet looked more like paws. They were covered in black fur. I had a tail coming from behind me, two feet long with a black tip. I ran to the washroom and almost tripped when I turned a corner, I was moving faster than I ever had before. I stumbled into the washroom across the hall from my bedroom and looked in the mirror. My head was that of a fox, with a white muzzle and a black spot on either side. Two large fox ears were attached to my head.

I sat down on the toilet for a moment of consideration, then quickly got up and dried off my tail. "This is not a normal happening." I said to myself, aloud, as if to tell everything I was actually surprised. It was noon, so no-one was home. I went downstairs to consider the ramafications of this change, and noticed all the lights were off. I checked the door and the latch was on, and both the car and van were parked in the driveway. I went back upstairs to see if they had changed as well, and not woke up yet. I didn't find anyone in thier beds.

"What happened?" I said it aloud, I was hoping to get a response from whatever did this. I was certain though, that my family had disapeared during the night. I decided to go out, to see what happened to everyone else in town.

I went into the basement to get dressed and found that I could see everything in the dark. It was all in shades of blue though, so I turned the lights on to find my clothes. I put on the only pair of pants I own and a grey T-shirt. I unlocked the door and went outside. With my new ears I could hear everything, and what scared me the most was that I heard nothing. No cars, no trains, no children's lauging voices carried on the wind to my doorstep.

I decided to head to the police station, even if nobody was there it would be the best place to head during a crisis. I looked around as I walked, no-one was anywhere, occasionally there would be a car in the road or off to the side, people were plucked out of thier cars. After awhile I was sure no-one else was still here, and began to run, faster and faster, until I was running faster than I ever had before. I was running as fast as a car, straight down Christina street. It was liberating. I was at the police station in just a few minutes, and I started to look around. No-one there either.

I didn't know what had happened, but everyone else was gone. I started to wonder what would become of me. I could survive without modern society, but what was to become of the world, and who else had changed like this? I knew I wasn't the only one, I could still feel people in the world, but there were so few now.

I decided I had to find the others, whoever was still in and around Sarnia. To do that I needed a vantage point. I ran back up Christina street to one of the largest buildings in town and took the stairs up to the top. I decided not to take the elevator, as I wasn't sure how machines would last now. I got to the top, and I was feeling great. I delivered newspapers in this building, if I had walked up those stairs on any other day I wouldn't be able to feel my legs anymore or wish I couldn't. It was no different than the run to the police station, my new body was full of endurance and strength. I took a look around the city, looking for any sign of sentient life.

I looked towards the chemical plants. "Ah! The plants!" I said to myself. Some of the gasoline drums had already blown up and black smoke was pouring out. I looked as closely as my new eyes would allow, to look for the blue smoke that would form the death cloud effect. None. Someone or somthing was making sure the chemical burn didn't cause the death cloud to come out.

I rushed back down the stairs to look around the area, to find if anyone else who had changed like this was in the area. I ran around the outskirts of the small Bayside mall untill I found one of the doors broken down, the glass was shattered through both sets of doors, but there was no blood. Whoever was in there was very strong, but after this change, so was I. I went in and quickly searched the mall. I could smell him, musky, from down the hall. I followed the scent, and I found a large bear in a clothing store trying on a large t-shirt.

"Hello?" I asked, in a soft voice. I was still rather shocked by all this.

"Aha! Annother brother of the fur has come!" He had a low voice. He had turned into a grizzly bear, covered on long shaggy brown and golden fur. I would confuse him with an ordinary grizzly if he wasn't walking on his hind legs and his forepaws weren't so much like hands. He was wearing a large pair of pants and was holding a large T-shirt he had gotten from the store.

"Brother of the fur? You're a furry! So am I! That's what's happened, do you know?!"

"I know only that I went to sleep in a dull boring world and woke up from it like a bad dream as I had always wanted to be, and here I am!"

"But everyone is gone! My family... Did your family change?"

"I have no family, but I'm sad to hear about yours. Oh but I've been rude, my name is Granaldo, good sir fox, and what would your name be?"

"Well, Arthur Payne."

"Is that the name you were given in the other world, or the name you chose in this one?"

"It's the name my parents gave me."

"Is it what you call yourself?"

"I don't usually call myself anything."

"Well would you like me to call you Arthur?"

"Call me crazy and give me a pinch, would you? I'm still not sure this isn't just a dream."

"If it is a dream I don't want to wake up, but I understand you miss your family. I'll call you Arthur untill you want me to call you somthing else."

"If you like, you can call my by my spirit name, Relee."

"Alright, that's more like it. Welcome, Relee, to the new world!"

"There are others, down at the plants. I'm sure of it, and I was going there next. We should set up a camp or somthing untill we're all sorted out."

"A wise course of action. I'm going to finish 'shopping' then set up a tent in Canatara park, I'll set up a tent for you as well, and you can gather these others at the plants."

"Alright, I'll see you there Granaldo." He smiled when I called him that, I knew it wasn't his given name.

I took some snacks for my breakfast and decided to find a vehicle. I went to check the cars in the street and found a nice truck that came to a gentle stop. I'd never driven a car before, but it wasn't very hard. I checked to make sure there was lots of gas then headed down the street. The street behind the mall leads straight to the plants and I wanted to check them myself, incase I was wrong about others there.

It only took a few minutes to get to the Bayer plant, and I went in to check it out. The air stank as much as always, so I couldn't find anyone by scent. I tried driving about honking the horn, but no-one came out. I got back into the truck and headed down the road looking for signs of people. The flaming fuel tanks were between me and the other plants, but when I got there I saw that someone had filled the moats. The fires weren't going anywhere, but the smoke was terrible.

The next plant was the Shell plant, the only one I've ever seen the interior of. My father used to work at this plant, a long time ago in a different world. Now though I had to find others. I could feel a presence, and I knew someone else was at this plant. This one wasn't on fire, thankfully. I took a look in the truck, honking the horn again. I knew it would make enough noise that whoever was there would hear it and come out.

My plan worked, two furries came out, a grey coyote and a raccoon. They were both wearing work clothes with sacks over thier tails, obviously they worked at the plants and were shutting them down so that they wouldn't leak a death cloud. I got out of the truck and greeted them. The raccoon stood about five foot three, and the coyote about five seven.

"Hello!" I shouted, I wasn't sure what else to say.

"Hey! A fox!" the coyote said, and they ran over to me. "Did you used to work here? We're shutting everything down and could use a hand."

"No, I came to find out who else changed last night, and when I saw some of the plants were disabled I knew someone was out here. Almost everyone disapeared. A bear named Granaldo and I are setting up a camp in Canatara park untill we get everything figured out. I don't think I can help you guys here, I don't know how any of these things work, but if you want to join me and Granaldo I can set up tents for the two of you."

"Alright, neither of us can bare to go back home after this. The power's going to go out in a few days, did you guys have a plan for food?" The raccoon was talking now.

"Not yet, but I'll pick up some stuff on the way to the camp. Did you see anyone else around?"

"Just us fixing the plants, you should probably get started gathering food and supplies, when the power plant runs out of fuel we'll have no electricity. We can get genorators though."

"Alright, I'll head back to Sarnia, and set up two tents for you guys. I'll head to the Lambton mall and get all the stuff we need."

"Oh, what's your name fox?" the raccoon spoke up again.

"It's Relee!" I shouted as I climbed into the truck and headed back for town.

Chapter Two, Searching for others I headed straight for the Lambton mall, they'd have everything I need there. A while before the owners spent millions of dollars to build the biggest hardware store in Canada, and I was really glad they did.

I found everything I could possibly need, want, or desire in that store. I got half a dozen tents, since I knew there were others left to find, and some gas kitchenware. Gas fridges and stoves, which I knew we could use, and some gas electric genorators. There was lots of gas that hadn't been burnt up still in the plants, so we wouldn't have to cook on wood for a long time. I got some bows too, incase some psycho was changed like we were.

I packed the gear in the back of the truck and headed to Canatara park. It wasn't hard to find Granaldo's camp, and we set up the other two tents. He had already set one up for me and himself. I stowed the others in the park washroom untill we found more furries. We were starting to call ourselves that now, although I'd never heard of Granaldo on any of the furry things I'd visited. It wasn't untill late that night when the raccoon and the coyote drove up in annother truck, a yellow one. They had spent most of the day saving us all from the inevitable death cloud.

The coyote was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and the raccoon had on blue shorts and a t-shirt. "Welcome to the camp you two!" I shouted. I don't know why but I was starting to feel a whole lot better, even though I missed my family.

"We've shut down all the plants, so we don't have to worry about toxic emmisions." the Coyote told me.

"Good, those two tents are yours, pick the one you like the most, and come sit by the fire. It's time we all introduced eachother." I said. They talked a little and each picked a tent, put some things they had brought with them inside, then took a seat by the fire. "Well, I've introduced myself to you guys, but you didn't give me your names."

"I'm Stuart and this is Chek." said the coyote, who was pointing at the raccoon.

"So are you guys furries too?" I thought it best to ask, so we could try to figure out what happened.

"Is that a scientific term? I guess we do have fur now, but I don't understand your meaning." Chek was talking now

"Well, furries are people who identify with animals, or anthropomorphic animals, like us."

"I guess we are furries then, we both changed into animals we identify with on a spiritual basis." now Stuart was talking. They both seemed rather scientific at times, and now they sounded almost spiritual.

"There are a few others around the area, besides us. I saw them from the top of the building when I saw you guys at the plants. There's one furry in Port Huron, and I saw one in Point Edward, and one in east Sarnia. I didn't see the one in the east though, when I got this stuff. I was planning on looking for them tomorow, will you help?" I was asking them.

"Sure we will, nothing else to do anymore but find what's left of the old world." at this point Granaldo came back, he was taking a walk, and he noticed Stuart and Chek.

"More brothers of the Fur!" he shouted, this was becoming a trend. He came over and sat by the campfire. He shook paws with the two of them, then introduced himself. "It's good to meet you both, I'm Granaldo."

"I'm Stuart and he's Chek, we've been talking with your companion." Strange the way he called me that. We sat around the campfire for awhile, not once mentioning our old lives. Granaldo went to bed after awhile, and after three hours Chek, and Stuart, and I realized we had each turned into a nocturnal animal.

We weren't sure what to do right away, but I was used to not sleeping. We were thinking about people's pets. They'd all starve if they were cooped up in a house, but if we let them out it would only add to the wild dog population, and they'd certainly starve whether we let them out or not, so we decided to let them stay where they were.

Since we were all awake I asked them if they'd mind me going to look for the other people right then. They told me they'd take a look around too, and we could meet back at camp at dawn. I took the northwest side of town and the village of Point Edward, and they took the northeast, near the Lambton mall and several other shopping centers. We figured most people would camp near shopping centers because of the food, and so they could loot what they wanted easily.

I drove off in my truck to search Point Edward, a small town just a little distance from the police station, it's completely surrounded by sarnia, but it would never join with it into one city.

I drove around checking each house, sniffing to see if anyone was there, and finnaly found a house with a fresh smell. I suspected someone was still living in thier own home, or perhaps couldn't get out. In either event I went in, the door was unlocked, and I found the room where someone was sleeping.

I opened the door and looked in, there was a young cat girl sleeping, curled up in a ball in the corner, with brown fur and white stripes. Otherwise she was completely naked. I didn't want to startle her, but I was pretty sure finding a giant fox in your bedroom would scare anyone. I closed the door and blocked it so that if she ran I could stop her untill she calmed down, and decided to sit on her bed and turn on her alarm clock, hoping it would wake her calmly.

I pushed the alarm button and it started beeping, and she woke up. She climbed up to her feet, she was standing about five feet tall, and she looked at me. "Hello." I said. She screamed and fell to her knees.

"Y-y-you... You're a.. a fox? You're not here to hurt me?"

"No, I won't hurt you. I came to see who else changed last night." She jumped at me and gave me a big hug, then sat beside me on the bed. "How long have you been in here?"

"All yesterday, I woke up and my parents were gone, and I was like this. I always wanted to be a cat, but my family is no fair trade."

"Me and the other survivors are gathering at Canatara park, do you want to join us?"

"O.K. I need someplace better to stay. How many people survived?"

"You, me, and three others at the camp already I'm still looking for others. I'm going to Port Huron search the shopping centers next, would you mind going the distance?"

"I don't mind. I guess I should put some clothes on though. Oh and my name is Kat, what's yours?"

"I'm Relee. I'll go out into the hall while you get dressed."

"Thanks Relee, I don't know what I'd do if I was the last person alive." I went out to the hall and waited a few minutes before she came out in a cute frilly pink dress. It was strange, most girls in Sarnia wore skimpy clothes, but I guess us furries were all outside the norm anyway.

We got into the truck and headed for the bridge, which lands in Point Edward. While we were riding Kat was fussing with her tail. It was alot longer than mine, so she kept squishing it and hurting herself. We started talking after she settled down.

"Relee, what're the others like? The others who changed."

"Well, there's Granaldo, he's a grizzly bear. He really seems to love the new world. There's also Stuart, he's a coyote, and Chek, a raccoon. They both worked at the plants."

We didn't talk much the rest of the way. I started by driving by all the malls and apartment buildings. I also wanted to get somthing from a store in the largest mall. I hadn't been to Port Huron in years, but the last time I visited, there was a knife store that also sold swords. I'd always wanted my own sword, not just as a weapon, but it was a comfortable arm extention. I've had lots of toy swords when I was young, and me and my friends were always playing with wooden swords, shields, spears, and bows we would make.

I found the store, and took a good longsword and scabbard from the display. I tested it to see if it was real, not just a display. I cut apart a pilliar with it, and it didn't break. I latched the scabbard to my belt and sheathed the blade, and clipped the hold on it. "You look very dashing, Mr. Relee" Kat told me. We looked like a knight and a princess standing in the moonlight. We both fell silent, when our ears picked a sound out of the air. It sounded like a television.

In one of the department stores we found who was watching a T.V. It was a badger, about four foot nine, camping in the furniture department. He was watching a movie and noticed us come in.

"There are other people left? Where did you come from?" He asked. He was wearing pyjamas, and sitting on a big pillow.

"We're from Sarnia. I'm gathering up the survivors of last night. I'm Relee and this is Kat." I felt it best to get introductions out of the way, and I knew this was an American Badger, so I was a little extra careful.

"Did many people change? I didn't see anyone before you."

"Us two, three others back at our camp and I'm looking for others still."

"So you've set up a camp? Well I guess I should go with you. Better to stick together in times of crisis. Let me get dressed, and pack up some things, then I'll join you. You did bring a ride, right?"

"Yeah, I've got a truck. But don't bring any breakables, I'm a terrible driver."

"Oh, I'll drive then, if you don't know how. Oh and my name is Anth... Nah call me Funk."

"Alright then. We'll go wait outside." Me and Kat went to the truck, and waited for Funk to come out. He showed up with a tv, some movie tapes, some snack food, and a rifle soon afterwards. I expected him to have a gun, I'm glad he didn't turn it on us. We packed his things and headed back to the bridge.

I left Kat and Funk at the camp and went to find Stuart and Chek. I expected someone would be in the far east of town, so I went to start checking apartment buildings that hadn't been opened by the other two yet. I didn't see anyone in any of the large cluster near the shopping district, so I went up to the top of the tower to look from a good vantage point for anyone still around.

I saw a bright orange tent in the field not far from where I was, by the river, and decided that must be a new tent. No-one camped out there before the change. I went back down to the ground floor and ran over to the tent. It was closed, and whoever was inside was asleep. I unzipped the tent and took a look inside, there was a skunk in there. "Hello! Wake up, skunk!" I shouted, and made sure I could get out of the way if the skunk sprayed.

"Hunh? Wha? Who're you?" this skunk wasn't startled in the least by the fox looking in his tent. "Is this another dream?"

"Nope, this is real. Now come on out of that little tent so we can talk." Normally I'm not so forceful, but for some reason I felt I should take charge at the moment. Maybe it was all that running.

"Alright already." he said and got out of the tent. It was almost dawn. The skunk stood about six feet tall, and had a large bushy tail. He was wearing a dark blue t-shirt and white shorts.

"I'm gathering the survivors of the change together, my name's Relee."

"I'm Gadwin, hey, could you pinch me? I want to make sure this isn't a dream."

"No problem Gadwin." I said and I pinched his nose.

"OW! Hey, this isn't a dream! I'm really Gadwin, aren't I? Wait, then what happened?"

"I'm not sure, but almost everyone disapeared, and I've been gathering the survivors together in a camp in Canatara park. Care to join us?"

"O.K... Hey, does this mean my parents are really gone? For good?"

"It seems so." I sniffled a little "Mine are gone too."

"Awright! Oh, hey sorry man. You must have had better parents then I did."

"It's ok, I'll get over it eventually. Come on, I have a truck over there. We can pack up your tent or you can use one of our extras, they're alot bigger." I ran over to the truck and drove back to the camp, where Gadwin had already put his things together and dismantled his tent. We loaded up the truck and headed to Canatara park.

Chapter Three, The Pinery We got back to the camp and I was getting really tired. The sun had just come up so I figured it was about five or six. I helped Gadwin set up a tent before I went to mine to sleep. I had to chase a squirrel out who raided my snacks, then closed the tent flap and went to sleep. It would be the first time I'd slept in this new body, it was comfortable. I didn't even need a blanket, I just curled on a mattress.

I slept for awhile, and it was getting dark when I got up again. I went outside to see how everyone was and found them all sitting and talking. Kat saw me and called me to join them, so I sat down and took a bowl of stew the Granaldo made for dinner. The stew was good, it was a mix of the canned stews I had gathered and some fresh meat and potatos. They told me they had searched the rest of the town while I was sleeping. I started to talk, it was time to think of the future.

"Anyway we should decide what to do now that we've gotten everyone together. Our food supply will only last about a month, then we'll have to start either hunting or farming."

"Does anyone know how to tend cows and pigs here?" Stuart was looking around as he said that. No-one answered. "Well then I think we should free the farm animals and let them tend to themselves. We can hunt them and the deer around here after we run out of food. The crops should tend themselves too, so we'll be set for life."

"Well I hope we don't have to spend our lives just here" I was a little worried that it would just be us seven for the rest of our lives "There had to be other people who changed in other towns. We already know that this is a global thing though, someone would have come by now to search the cities if there was still a civilization left."

"Relee's right, but I think we should re-settle the land first." Granaldo was talking now "I say we should move to the Pinery, we can hunt from there, we can find fresh water and lots of fish, and we won't have to deal with the derilict city."

"Sounds good to me, I've always wanted to camp there. We can build houses after awhile." I said.

"Do we all agree?" Granaldo asked, and everyone said yes. We decided to move to the Pinery provincial park, and make trips to town to get things to use. The next morning we packed up our things and decided we should each do some final "Shopping" before we left town.

Stuart, Chek, Gadwin and I went to the Lambton Mall, Granaldo said he was going to wander downtown Sarnia for awhile, Funk said he was going to check the pawn shop, and Kat went to the Bayside Mall. Stuart drove us down to the Lambton mall where we used the entrance I made in the hardware store to get in.

I knew where I was going first. After all the running I did I found that I got alot of bugs in my eyes, so I found a stylish pair of goggles that I could wear over my eyes. After that I found a generator and some music playing devices before I went into the rest of the Mall. It was dark but I had no trouble finding my way around using my night vision. I stopped at a special store that sells lots of trinkets and relaxing tapes, and picked up a few cds. I also stopped by the record store to get a few more cds of other types.

I saw Stuart getting some specialty foods down the hall, and Chek was in the bookstore. I saw Gadwin was headed to the beer store in the parking lot. I headed to the big anchor store on the other side of the mall, to find some clothes. I knew these wouldn't be enough and I didn't want especially to run around in my fur all the time, even on hot days. I got some fancy pairs of jeans, sweat pants, t-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts, my favorite. I figured that I wouldn't need a winter jacket because of my fur and passed them over.

There was a fast food restaraunt inside of that store, and thier freezer wasn't working. I could smell it everywhere in the store, so I dared not get too close. When I finished in there the others were going into the big store to find some clothes for themselves. I found some suit cases to store my new stuff in until we build some more permanant homes. I warned them about the smell, and told them I was going to run over to the theater to make sure it wouldn't burn down. I wanted to be able to come back to town some day and watch movies.

I headed over to the theater after loading my luggage into the truck. I remembered to wear my goggles and they worked great. Although I did have to wipe a few bugs off them. I got inside the projectionist's closet and found everything was in order. I made sure all the chemicals were capped and nothing was burning, then took a look around the theaterhouse. It smelled really strange with my new nose. I could tell all the different snack smells apart, and there were traces of perfume in the air outside a romance movie.

I went back to check on the others when I was sure the theater was safe, and found them packing some things onto the truck. We almost left when I realized none of us had brought sewing supplies. I told them to wait a few minutes while I got the last things we'd need. I ran into the mall, grabbed some sewing equipment, some cloth, and a few swiss army knives on my way out. I got back to the truck and we went back to the camp to see the others.