Reincarnated as a FOX!?

Chapter 5

I woke up feeling a cold yet warm breeze, it was nice, I was enjoying it, but that didn't last long...

'This breeze, it's so nice- wait, why can't I move? I can't open my eyes either, I can't hear anything, what about smell? Huh? I can't smell either... wh-whats going on? Why can't I do anything? Why am I panicking? Stop panicking and just think! I didn't panic this hard when I saw the eagle thing, so why in the void am I panicking over THIS.TRIVIAL.THING? GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT ME!'

Suddenly there was a deep reverberating splash sound nearby, causing me to instinctively jolt up

'What was that!? Huh!? I can move again! And all my senses are back! Wait, why am I in a volcanic zone? The ground's covered in black stuff, it doesn't feel like ash, it feels like.... Sand? But it isn't sand either... but if it's not sand nor ash then, what is it? Wow, forget the black stuff, there's so many lava rivers here! This place looks... nice. I kind of like it hehe. What? Why did I think that? Hm? There's lava, lots of it, everywhere... so why is there no heat? I feel warm but, I shouldn't be, I should be overheating right now! No, I should be so hot that I'm on fire! Even more so with all this fur! And it's so calm, so quiet, except for the sound of flowing lava and this deep rumbling vibration in the ground. Whoa, the sky is covered with black... smoke? I don't know what it is, I can't really tell. It looks like smoke, very thick smoke but if it's smoke, it means there's a fire. Yet there's no fire, and even if there was a fire how could it cover the entire sky with smoke? The "smoke" is also not moving, it just seems to be static. Hmm, maybe it's clouds? Black clouds? No that's just weird, then again, me suddenly being here is weird'

While taking in my surroundings, I noticed a castle off in the distance, a giant pitch black castle. It looked old, ancient even. Looking around some more I found a path and decided to follow it. At times parts of the path went through lava, so I either had to jump over it, or hop across the platform, which was kinda scary, just kinda, or I just had to find another way across. Sometimes the path ahead vanished completely, but I kept going. Somehow I simply knew where the path would reappear again

The path seemed to be leading to the castle and as I was nearing it, something caught my eye. There was a giant flaming rock falling from the sky, I stopped to watch it fall into a lava river nearby. After it sunk beneath the surface, I continued walking towards the castle, while slowly drifting off into thought

'Why... why am I so unfazed by all of this? The lava, the castle, that falling rock, the risky jumps across flowing scorching hot lava... none of it scares me, none of it affects me at all. The only thing that scared me was that paralysis when I woke up... not even nearly falling into the lava scared me... I'm usually wary of even the slightest danger but now... now nothing scares me at all. Why?'

'Why am I even going to this castle? How did I know exactly where to go to find the next part of the path without thinking? Why am I not in the least concerned about catching on fire? I got so close to the lava without a care, WHY DID I GET SO CLOSE!? Why can't I just stop myself? With all this fur on my body... just one spark, ONE touch of an ember, and I would have been lit on fire, looking like a lit christmas tree! And yet... it's like I don't care, like I'm used to this...like I'm fearless, like I've been here before, as if I've done this a thousand times over... why?''

Snapping back to reality I noticed I stopped moving at some point, and was now sitting down

'Huh? I'm sitting in front of the castle? Wait, what!? When did I reach the castle? And WHY am I sitting down!? How long has it been? When I trailed off into my thoughts, the castle was still so far away! Speaking of which, THIS CASTLE IS HUGE!! Even if it's just perspective, since I'm not only a fox but I'm also a juvenile at that. I think. I know how big a castle is but this, this is a giant multi mansion castle! And this castle makes that giant eagle thing look SMALL, wait, but that makes it bigger than an actual castle, is it even a castle at that point? Hm? How did I not notice this before? There's dragon like sculptures in front of the door on each side'