Disclaimer: Any relations to real-world events/people (names, characters, etc.) are almost entirely coincidental. THIS IS CHAPTER 3. I ADVISE AGAINST READING IT BEFORE/WITHOUT PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapter 1: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/885353288/ Chapter 2: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/885702071/ Chapter 3-2: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/944716972/ Book is in notes and credits ////[[[[CRINGE WARNING]]]]\\\\ ONE CRINGEWORTHY MOMENT IS IN THIS CHAPTER. I DEEPLY APOLOGISE, BUT IT HAD TO HAPPEN IN ORDER FOR THE STORY TO PROGRESS. I'm sorry about how late this chapter came out, I've been busy helping with a shop opening and haven't really been on my laptop very much anyway. The next chapter should hopefully come out sooner. Thank you for your patience. Oh wow, so there IS a limit on notes length! I'll have to split this into two parts. Dang. #all #book #story
"I haven't seen myself after this, so maybe a mirror should suffice?" "Good thinking! I'll go get one, you stay right here!" said Dr Berhert, rushing out of the room. It probably wasn't the best idea for the doctor to leave me - his patient - like that, but he did it anyway and was back in about thirty seconds with a mirror nearly as tall as he was. "I've found one!" he said, leaning it against the wall and sitting on my hospital bed from exhaustion - it was probably a heavy mirror. It did leave me to wonder how and where he'd found it, but before I had a chance to ask, he said, "Well? Can you stand?" "I... don't know. I can try," I replied. I pushed the blanket off of me, which revealed that I had some sort of armour on - a kind of metal chestplate that jutted out of my new fluffy self, as if it was a part of me. "Well... That's certainly odd," I said. "Yes... Very odd, you're quite right," said Mum. Dr Berhert seemed as astonished as we were, but he was scribbling rather violently in a notebook. He looked back up, before saying, "Interesting. Can you move your legs?" "I think so," I said, wiggling them around a bit. In doing so, I saw that my legs were closer to an animal's than a human's. I turned to put these legs on the floor and sat up. It was cold, but not too cold - and I could feel that through a foot that felt awfully like a paw, instead of the way my feet normally were. It was an odd feeling, but I was fine with it. I pushed myself off of the bed, and tried to put all of my weight on my legs. I wasn't used to standing with paws, so I fell a bit, but managed to use the wall to keep my balance. I slowly moved over to the mirror. "Oh my-" I said, so surprised that I fell back onto the bed. The thought that this was what I had become had crossed my mind, but I never actually thought it would be it! No, this couldn't be! It just couldn't! For what I saw, staring at me from the mirror, was a protogen. It had a bright green glowing face on a jet-black visor that, if I didn't know better, I would have thought it was made of glass. The chestplate that I'd seen earlier was bright red, with a bit of grey on top, and it had a screen in the centre that read "SYSTEMS ONLINE :]". I had two very fluffy ears that stuck out quite far from my head behind my visor, and the rest of me was just dark-coloured fluff. "What? What is it? Are you OK?" Mum asked, clearly worried. "Erm... I... Think so?" I replied, rather croakily. "Just a bit surprised, I think," Dr. Berhert said. "Nothing to worry about." One long sit-down later, Dr. Berhert asked, "What did you see?" "Okay, to start things off..." I told them, "Erm... There's no way to put this lightly, is there? Well, I guess I could say it one way... I have the pathOwOgen." "You... Have the what?," Mum asked. "Is that some kind of play on words for a pathogen?" asked Dr. Berhert. "Well... Yes... Uhm... Do you know what... Gosh, this is awkward... Do you know what OwO means?" "I, for one, very much do not," Dr. Berhert remarked. "Isn't it some kind of Internet text emoticon?," Mum asked again, clearly confused. "Yes, it is. do you know what is is mostly used by?" "No, should I?" "Probably not... Okay... It's primarily used by furries," I explained. "I'm sorry - by whats?" Mum asked. "By furries," I repeated. "Okay... What's a furry?" "On one hand, thank goodness you haven't heard anything, but on the other hand, I'm going to have to explain it," I started. "A furry is somebody who likes - no, not LIKES likes - anthropomorphic animal characters, for example characters from Disney's Robin Hood or Zootopia. The word 'anthropomorphic' means to have human characteristics, like speech and being bipedal." "I'm going to pretend I know what on Earth you're talking about, so keep going," Mum told me, with the face of somebody who was confused, bewildered, concerned and trying to understand an alien language, all at the same time. "Well," I continued, "Sometimes, furries will come up with animal species. One of them is called a protogen, which is kind of a cross between a furry animal and a robot. That is what I have become." "So, are you saying that you just turned into some kind of talking animal robot thing?" asked Dr. Berhert, not seeming to believe a word I said. "Well, yes," I replied, "Kind of. The 'proto' in protogen is short for prototype, because they were the prototypes for the primagens - which are like what I am now, but more advanced and with a raptor-like stance. This visor is made of nanites - or nanomachines - which are, as the name suggests, tiny machines that are measured in nanometres. They can move by themselves using a technology that this Earth isn't capable of yet, and can also light up to show images." Mum looked at me with a somewhat pained expression. "I was wondering how that face moved... Can you move them yourself?" "I honestly have no clue. But apparently the visor can open in order to access my face - for eating and stuff like that."
