Dogs and cats // prologue

Instructions

It all started when I was born. You may be wondering who I am, but that's not important. There was my mom, about to give birth. I have been told that, we were cats. We lived by the border, the barrier has been here since the dawn of time. The world was always split in two, but not like the earth was literally split in two, split in two by the barrier. When some cat crosses the barrier, they turn into a dog, and dogs turn into cats. Like I said, we lived close to the barrier. The nearest hospital was past the border. So, we had to cross it. This was unfortunate, as the law forbids children and sometimes teens to go through, and its physically impossible for any creature under the age of 5 to cross without dying. But why? Well, when a creature is born, it still isn't fully formed. Its version at the other side, at least. Until a dog or cat reaches 15, their version on the other side wont be fully formed. The younger you are, the more your form changes on the other side. When your five years or younger, the form changes so rapidly it will kill you. You'll change from light brown to dark brown fur in the matter of minutes. So can your eyes. Your face shape can change in about half a hour, and you can go from massive to tiny in only a few hours. This causes catastrophic changes to the skeleton, and your DNA structure, causing your organs to be able to fall out frequently, and parts of your body to stop existing altogether. Luckily, sense unborn babies are still attached to their mothers, they can change more stably, and live. At the ages of 6 to 10, there are less major changes, like size changing majorly, parts of your body disappearing out of existence, etc.. But there is still dangers, sure it makes the changes go slower as well, but there is still a big risk. At the ages of 11 to 14, changes dont happen very fast, it can take a week for your fur to go from brown to white, most of your body wont really change much. BUT, its common to have bad deformities, like no teeth. or you can have a stubby tail and patches of fur gone, which doesn't sound bad until you realize your tail helps you balance a lot, so you can trip and get bad injuries, and winters can get horrible. I'm saying 4 feet of snow in a week is COMMON. At ages 15-20, your form is done with changing and is fully formed, though it can happen at different times. you can be fully formed at twenty (Which is rare) or at 15 (The most common age) or anything in-between. And I said before, we had to go through the barrier before I was born, which means that I was stuck in a place where I didn't belong. In a place with a different currency, different weather. Many different things.