Adoption Day

"OOF!"

I've never been a fan of suddenly being awakened on an early Saturday morning. Rating my least favorite ways to be woken up early on Saturday (Read: Before Noon) is not something I do commonly but I'd have to say suddenly having fifteen pounds flung directly onto my stomach was pretty high up on the list.

"Mrowl." The source of the impact was completely unapologetic. A ball of long fluffy black and white fur sat on my stomach, two bright yellow eyes staring straight into mine.

"Hello Ms. Fluffle Butt." I addressed my cat. Her name was actually Belle, I preferred Fluffle Butt when I was frustrated with her. In truth I had only had her for about a week. She was a stray I saw stranded outside in the rain. She was supposed to stay the night to get out of the rain. Somehow she wound up living with me. Just last night while she had been snoozing in my lap I told her it was time we make this adoption official. I was planning to register her and get all her tags taken care of today.

"Mrew." Belle responded still non-apologetic for the very rude sudden awakening. Instead the big cat stretched out and laid down stretching her paws out all the way to my chest and began to purr deeply.

"Now that's not fair." I whined. "I'm trying very hard to be cross with you and you're just making it absolutely impossible." Belle responded by purring even louder. "Awwww." I couldn't do it; I just couldn't stay angry at her. This is it; this is how cats take over the world. It's all because I simply melt the moment a cat starts acting happy to see me. "Are you happy that we legally become a family today?" I asked.

"Mew!" Belle meowed in affirmation almost as if she understood the question.

"You're a silly one." I managed to free one of my arms from the cocoon that was my bed's blankets and sheets and patted Belle on the head. "But Saturdays are for sleeping. You're a kitty, you should know all about that."

"Mroooooooooooow!" Belle protested.

"But sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep." I said.

"Mrooooooooooooooooooooow." Belle protested.

At this point I'm going to stop for just a moment. I'm sure there are plenty of people who talk to their pets, and maybe even some who have arguments with them when they're being playful or cute. I'm sure these are all in good fun and these pet owners find themselves very amused. However, these 'arguments' probably don't last for too long. I'm not admitting to having to interrupt this narrative to hide just how long this back and forth with Belle lasted, but I am saying it might have been long enough to warrant me not wanting to show it.

So instead let's just assume the next bit of our interaction took place a couple of seconds later and definitely not over an hour later.

"Well fine then what do think we should be doing?" I asked Belle.

"Meow!" Belle responded.

"Is that so Ms. Fluffle Butt?"

"Mew!" She kneaded her paws on my chest, and I found myself very thankful there were currently three layers of blankets between her claws and myself.

"Well fine then we'll do it." I said, and attempted to cross my arms, but I still only had one freed from beneath the blankets.

"Mrowl!" Belle bristled with excitement. She suddenly stretched her head forward and lightly bumped her nose into mine.

Boop!

"Gah!?" I felt a strange tingling as she did it. Not unlike a static shock. "Okay I was not expecting that." I reached up my free hand to rub my nose where she had booped it and found myself suddenly surprised as my hand brushed something else near my face. I felt around and found it, no they, appeared to be on my cheeks. Long thin strands of... hair? I blinked to refocus my eyes; they felt like Belle's whiskers. However she had backed away and was now sitting up on my stomach again.

This woke me up a bit more if only from confusion. I sat up in bed, forcing Belle down onto my legs. She shot me a quick glare at this but it didn't last. She felt... Strangely heavy. I mean I knew she was a big cat, but she felt heavier than normal if that made any sense. Belle started to purr, and it sounded louder than I had ever heard. She rubbed her head against my stomach, or at least the blankets over my stomach affectionately. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes I reached out a hand to rub her ears but stopped. My nails were darkly colored and sharp now. There was hair on the back of my hand. White hair! It was thick and smooth and covered the entire back of my hand. I turned my hand over to look at my palm and there was a thick pad covering it, and smaller pads on my finger tips that looked like little pink beans.

Okay. Clearly this was a dream. I slapped myself in the face to wake myself up and.

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!" I let out a shout of pain. It startled Belle who leapt into the air and landed to my side her fur up and bristled. It turns out that slapping yourself when you have claws is a really bad idea. I likely now had thin red lines running across my face. That really stung. And oh hey.

I HAVE CLAWS.

"WHAT!?" I said jerking my second hand out from under the covers so I could examine both of them. Belle acted indigent against me as she slowly started to groom her fur to stick it back down. Both of my hands were completely covered in white hair. No, it wasn't hair, it was fur. They were covered in thick white fur! And I had claws! Actual claws! That wasn't all though, the white fur was all the way down to my wrist. At that point right before my eyes black fur was growing in over my forearms and didn't appear to be stopping there.

"What's happening to me-OW!?" I asked. "Wait did I just meow?" I spoke out loud to myself. "Oh no I'm meowing cat puns!" Truly this was far more terrifying than whatever physical change I was going too. I shifted in my bed only to fall on my side. My legs and arms felt weird. I tried to sit up, but couldn't quite manage to do it for some reason. Instead I pushed myself onto my stomach. My arms were now completely fur covered and my hands didn't even look like proper hands anymore.

I tried to push myself up with my hands, or paws or whatever they were. As I did my legs slid out from underneath the blankets. This made two things immediately obvious. One was that the black fur was now covering my legs as well, except for my feet which had white fur. The other thing was I seemed to be... Smaller than I was supposed to be. Usually if I sat up in my bed my legs stretched at least two thirds of the way down to the edge of the bed. Now they didn't even make it halfway. I looked over at Belle who was now sitting up and watching me with keen interest. She was certainly bigger than normal! Almost half my size! And she seemed to be getting bigger!

For some reason as I tried to get up, I couldn't get off my hands and knees. Wait, no. I wasn't on my knees; I was now standing on the bed on all fours standing on the tips of my toes and my fingers... Except I think my fingers might also count as toes now. I tried to get a look at my body. This turned out to be surprisingly easy. My spine seemed to be unusually flexible allowing me to turn in a circle and get a good look at myself. My entire body was fur covered now. It was white on my hands and feet, I mean paws, but it was black almost everywhere else except for a big white patch on my chest.

"Mrowl?" I tried to say something, but no words came out. I felt my face push out slightly. By now I had a pretty good idea of what was going on and figured that meant I had a muzzle now. There was a slight twinge in my ears and suddenly I felt my hearing improve even more. I reached up a paw to scratch at my ears and confirmed my suspicions. They were on top of my head and triangular. "Mewwwww?" I turned to look questionably at Belle only to find she was now just as big as me. She responded by walking past me and rubbing against me, just as I felt my spine extend and a long thin tail grow from it. I looked behind myself to see that I had a sleek black tail with a white tip.

"Mrew." Belle came back around me and began to lick my head fur. She was... She was grooming me!

"Mrooooowl!" I protested and tried to pull away, but Belle was stronger than me now! And she was... wait bigger than me? We had been the same size a moment ago. Was I turning into a smaller breed of cat or something? Except she... Seemed to be getting way bigger than that.

Belle continued to groom me. Licking me all over making sure my new fur was devoid of dirt and debris. I squirmed as much as I could, but it was to no avail. She always kept at least one forepaw firmly on my back holding me in place. She continued to groom me and I continued to get smaller in comparison to her. I wasn't just getting smaller. There were other changes too! My tail seemed shorter, and my paws felt bigger and clumsier on my body. Eventually I ran out of energy to fight her and just went limp while Belle happily continued to groom my fur. Finally it stopped when she was content with my level of cleanliness and released me. I was only a third of her size now. I looked up at her questioningly and she responded my giving me an affectionate lick on the head.

"Mrew!" I protested like a little kid protesting when his mom hugged him in front of his friends. Wait...

Oh.

OH!

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

"Mrowl?" I looked up at Belle questioning. I hadn't just turned into a cat; I had been turned into a little kitten. Was... Was I Belle's kitten? Did she do this to me?

This was not what I had in mind when I mentioned adoption!

And wait... I was starting to think my cat wasn't a normal cat. I mean, she always did seem strangely intelligent as if she understood what I was saying. I thought back to our earlier conversation when I was still human, and wondered if maybe I had accidentally agreed to this. Still, what were we going to do now? I couldn't very well buy cat food for her if I was a little kitten now!

"Mrooooow!" I voiced my concerns to the best of my ability to mom. I mean, Belle.

"Mew!" Belle, I mean mom replied not seeming to concerned about it. She walked behind me, then suddenly I felt her teeth at the nape of my neck as she lifted me up into the air. I went completely limp as she carried me by my scruff and jumped down from the bed. She headed for the front door and leaped through the cat door with me still carried by the nape. I blinked at the morning light as we got outside. It was the first time my new kitten eyes were exposed to natural sunlight and it took me a moment to adjust. Everything seemed off! It wasn't just from my new perspective of being a tiny kitten. This wasn't my neighborhood. I looked around, there were wild plants I had never seen and all kinds of unfamiliar scents reached my nostrils.

"Mew?" I turned my head slightly to try and look back at mom questioningly. I could feel her start to purr as I addressed her. I couldn't quite understand her, but I had a feeling that wherever she was taking me it was some place that no human had ever been before.

Well. It'll be fine. Wherever we're going. Mom is there to keep me safe.