Wolf in the Big City

Chapter 7 - Wolf

I woke up in an unfamiliar room, laying in an unfamiliar bed. My head was in agony, felt like a great pressure pushing my eyes against my skull. Everything I could see was blurry and my vision spun in circles. My entire body ached like I'd gone through the academy's basic physical training ten times in the span of a day.

I tried to sit up but I felt so weak I fell back onto the bed, still confused as fuck as to where I was. The sheets around me didn't feel like mine, didn't even smell like mine either. Weird. The room didn't smell like my apartment either, which was even weirder. What I could just barely make out didn't look like my room too.

Something was up. I tried searching my memory for what had happened between yesterday and today and came up with bits and pieces of a broken puzzle. I went to work, did a bunch of interviews...went for dinner with Dylan and then visited that laundromat.

The laundromat. That place, it was the last thing I remembered going to before I blacked out. I met that man. Hendrix, that was his name. Jonathan Hendrix. He'd known my dad. Known his friends too. People I now worked with. But...why had he shocked me and knocked me out? Had he tricked me into something? Was I a prisoner or something?

I struggled to get up but fell back down. I felt powerless, helpless. Where the fuck was I?!

Someone had heard me struggling, as I felt a pair of huge, warm hands settle on my chest not long after I'd woken up. My vision, still clearing, didn't recognise the face that loomed above me, but I did know the voice that spoke.

"Hey, Danny boy, you okay?"

Dylan?

I tried to focus on his face but it was still difficult for me to see anything and my mouth opened, but no sound beyond a groan came out. He shushed me and pushed me down onto the bed as I tried to get up one more time.

"Dan, it's okay, relax. You're fine. Just lay down, get some rest. Your body's still getting used to everything. Give it some time."

I tried to speak again but all I made were weird moaning noises so I stopped. My jaw felt weird, tingly and slightly numb. Well, everything about my body felt weird. I saw Dylan give me a weird look as he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked a lot bigger than I remembered, with my vision clearing. And a whole lot more buff than what I was used to seeing every day.

"Purple monkey dishwasher? What did you say? Anyway, um, there's no really good ways to phrase what I'm about to say to you, so uh, try not to panic. Alright?"

Panic? Why would I have any reason to panic? Unless...

"Daniel, I'm afraid I've been kinda sorta...hiding a lot of things from you."

No shit! I tried to respond but all that came out from my mouth were more garbled words. I felt Dylan give my chest a pat.

"Yeah, I know, but just try to relax, okay? Now, uh... How do I put this? Y'see, um, you've been living your entire life as a lie. And what you think of the world is very different from reality."

I watched him reach over my body to grab something on a nightstand that I couldn't see. As he came back around, I saw that it was a mirror. He didn't place it in front of me at first, I could see him weighing it in his hands like he was about to do something drastic. Then he placed it in front of my face, its back facing me.

"Now, I'm going to show you something. I know you can't really talk right now, so you'll just have to take it and, uh, try not to freak out too much. Okay?"

In stark contrast to what he was saying, I sure as hell wasn't ready for any sort of fuckery, especially not the kind that would leave me unconscious again. I tried to sit up again but fell back down as Dylan turned the mirror around. What I saw... Well, what I saw was some sheer fuckery alright. In place of my face, which I knew I'd recognise, instead laid a dog.