Hmm, I slowly wake up and open my eyes. Honestly, I don't know how long I slept as there was no source of natural sunlight down here.

The reason I woke up was that I suddenly felt rather uncomfortable, did I by chance lift my Tails away? Still slightly Befuddled, I try to sit up, only to realize my own crisis.

“MY TAILS ARE GONE?” (Arin)

I exclaim in surprise. Honestly, I am not even sure if everything until now was a dream, but my tails are gone! As I stand up, I realize that my clothes are the same way as yesterday. Only, there was a conspicuous hole in the back of my pants. Was it really a dream?

Rattled awake by this event, I run towards the pond to check my appearance. As I reach there, I stare into the pond and what I see stunned me. In the calm water of the pond appears a boy with my features, but chestnut-colored hair and human ears, was I really dreaming? My sharpened senses were still there and even my eyes still had that shining emerald-green color to them. It doesn’t make sense, why are my fox-traits gone?

Thinking about it, I realize that there is new knowledge inside my head. I didn't even realize it was there as I became feverish the moment I realized my tails were missing. Looking through the new knowledge and memories I acquired, I started to understand my situation.

It goes something like this: Fox-Kin, especially Royal-Foxes only have 2 forms. First is their original form like the one Lumi appeared in first; a giant fox. With the second form being a human with fox-ears and tails, a humanoid appearance like I was before. Deducting my situation I think it works for me like this. Normal form, primary one now, being silver-haired human with fox-traits and my secondary (Human) form being literally me as a human. Thinking thus far, it makes sense that I’m back in my human form as I know it.

"But how do I change?" (Arin)

Silently muttering to myself, I concentrate on the memories that were left. There should be something about how I am able to change forms...

It didn't take me long to find what I was looking for, sadly it didn't go as well as I planned. It's mostly that I am more used to having my normal human body than the fox one, leaving me with having to experiment and figure out the way to change between the two.

It took me nearly 2 full hours to figure out how to change forms, or that’s at least what my internal clock tells me. Watching myself in the pond as I have my fox-ears and tails back, I start to think about how to leave here. But first, it's actually quite easy to maintain my main form (Fox-Form) once I am in it. It seems that my body was more used to sleep in a human way without tails and so the desire took over, turning me into my human form.

But that was only one of many things I newly learned. First I found out how to move my tails better, though it will still take time until I can move them individually, I should be able to run now while maintaining balance. Secondly, I have now an instinct; it seems that my brain wasn't adapted to the changes yet, so it did that while I slept. Using my Instinct is like combining all my senses into one, making it easier to distinguish what is happening around me and even realize what I couldn't realize before. Meaning, when something makes noise, I not only hear it, but I can "see" where it came from. It feels rather unusual, but I’m getting there.

Going over what I learned, I pick myself off the ground and start to walk in the direction opposite of the pond. As I am walking, I remain in my fox-form as to get more accustomed to it. I don't really want to wake up again like today.

In the meantime I am surveying my surroundings as I walk along a path which was easily 3 meters broad and 5 meters in height, it feels like a tunnel. Besides the darkness, from time to time there were luminescent flowers along the wall, granting a bit of Light. It was unnecessary with my night vision, yet as I have never seen such a flower on earth even when several of those already crossed my path I went over and plucked one. It kept glowing in my hands, so I carefully tried to form a chest pocket on my hoodie to put the flower into. But what occurred was outside my expectations. The flower was put into the pocket yet immediately fell through, landing on the floor. I am at first confused, looking if my Hoodies new chest pocket really is a pocket or just a hole. But after confirming that there is indeed a closed pocket, I pick up the flower again to put inside only to have it fall through again.

I didn't realize it at first, yet something is definitely wrong. I want to test my idea, so I pick up a stone next to my feet and throw it against the wall. The stone bounces off and flies in my direction. As it is about to hit my clothes, it just passes through and hits my body instead. As the throw wasn't strong and my body quite solid, it should have bounced off my clothes. Realizing this, it seems that my wardrobe literally is just for appearance. It seems that this liquid can't hold off physical objects, but can still resist wind and water. As it stands, this bubble-liquid may be something not meant for clothing, but as I have nothing else to cover myself with, I’ll stick with it for now.

As I am now my feet have a problem. Because of my new body and my inexperience in walking, I know it sounds weird, I haven't noticed earlier even with my feet being as good as bare with only this liquid. As physical objects aren’t blocked, I could as well leave the shoe part away. While removing the liquid clothing from my feet and inserting it into my pants, I continue my journey. I just have to be careful of spiky stones or small animals on the ground. Though I have yet to find any besides a few tiny and rather peculiar insects that seem to hide in the darkness.

I pick up the flower again, but this time I try to hold it with one of my tails. Touching a certain tail I get a feeling for which one I have to move and begin to hold the flower with it. At the moment all of my tails are only about 1 meter in length as I haven't found out how the lengthening and even hiding works. Because if Lumi's, memories aren't wrong, it should be possible to "remove" a certain amount of tails as long as at least one remains. The benefit or demerit of doing so, aside from the lesser amount of fluffiness, I can't understand.

Setting aside my thoughts, I continue walking along the path before me. At the moment I am focusing on balancing my body with the tails while trying to keep this one tail to hold onto the luminescent blue flower. Which is actually easier said than done.

Walking through the tunnel, I can see changes here and there, with the most obvious being the decrease in luminescent flowers. As I somehow feel neither hunger nor thirst, I had no problem walking for longer distances, but it is still boring. I wish I had something to play with while walking, who knew that walking could be so boring. Actually, couldn't I play with my tails...?

Walking for who knows how long, I find myself in front of two separate paths. One continuing in front, while the other goes to the right. As I am not used to cave-exploring, I don't know which is the right one, but following my instinct, it seems that the one to the right reeks of blood. I don't really know what occurred there, but as I am slightly scared of what might jump out from there, so I choose the path straight ahead. As I continue through the tunnels, I try to walk as silently as possible. Luckily, being barefoot and having a very light body helps in masking a lot of the noise while walking...

Still, when I ended up in a cavern with many of those lime like stones hanging from the ceiling, I start to have a very bad feeling. I suddenly feel cold, very cold. My body starts to sweat as my knees want to give in. In my surrounding there is nothing, but my instinct screams that I have to leave and hide immediately. Realizing that I am in a major predicament, I jump towards one of the bigger rocks and try to hide there, in the hope that the danger passes.

About 30 Seconds after I have taken a well-hidden position, a giant wolf-like being the size of a family car walks out of the tunnel I came from. It has fiery red fur with brown spots on its whole body, a head that's raised high, as though it is looking down on everyone else while emanating a savage aura.

I pull back my head, in the hope that he overlooks me, I even change into my human form as that he can’t see my tails or ears. Sadly it wasn’t enough and he starts growling in my direction. I hear a sound like burning fire, and in the next moment, the stone I was hiding behind blew away, throwing me into the next wall. Due to the impact, I have trouble keeping my eyes open. I’m sure that if I had been “normal” I’d be dead now. Looking in front, there stood the massive wolf, though smaller than Lumi in her fox-form, the savage glint in its eyes sends a cold shock through my body as its bloodlust rises. I know that this beast sees me as no more than food, a terrifying feeling. Something I never witnessed before. Is it that what Lumi talked about... about me having to get accustomed to this world's rules?!?

I’m honestly terrified, the wolf in front of me has flames dancing in his mouth as he stares at me, like a predator who found his prey. I am scared, I don’t want this. This isn’t what I wanted, I only wanted to meet my friends, maybe get a good life where I can use my crafts…

“I Don’t Want To Die!!!” (Arin)

I scream out from deep inside me, as though releasing what had been welling up until now. Tears started to gather in my eyes as I look at the wolf who is about to eat me.

As Despair hits me, I felt different... It wasn’t about dying or not, NO, I WANTED TO LIVE!!!

I might be granted power by Lumi, but even so, I have no Idea how to utilize it, and that part of her knowledge and memories is still a mess to me.

As I try to stand up, the wolf snickers, as though he is amused at his prey’s last struggle. My mind wasn't thinking straight, but I realized now, my Instinct is by far more than just a combination of senses. It is the ancient Instinct granted to every living being to survive.

(I REFUSE TO DIE HERE, I WILL LIVE!!!) (Arin)

I repeat that over and over as my body gets up. My form changes as well, from my Human form to the fox me. My ears perk up and my tails straiten out. The wolf looks at me in wonders, as his prey changes form all of a sudden. But as the Instinct is about to take over…

Time seems to slow down all of a sudden, as my brain starts to go into overdrive, asking questions of doubt. Am I now a Royal-Fox, a proud predator from ancient times, controlled by his instincts? Or am I a human, a weak being, but who will always struggle to keep going and stay alive, doing its best to adjust itself to any circumstance?

Something inside me refuses to let go of the weak me, of the me who always struggled. While on the other hand, I refuse to become a beast without control of myself. I want strength, but not at the cost of my remaining humanity. Not at the cost of what makes me, me.

As those questions swirl through my head as the opened maw of the fire-wolf inches closer. I understand, I always struggle, already at the orphanage with my circumstance, especially with my damaged legs. But I was given a new chance, I will always struggle, but I won’t let anything take control of me. Because I am a human, but I am also a Royal Fox. I am both, yet neither.

I AM ME!!!

As I sorted out my mind and came to a conclusion about myself, I felt a strange sense of warmth filling my body. Even my body seems to adapt to my choice. Struggling to survive, with the power in my hands.

As killing intent started to gather around me, the wolf became vary and jumped back in surprise. It wasn't dumb enough to not understand that this easy prey in front of it is going to struggle to its last breath.

But before it can react, I let my instinct run wild and my body starts to move on its own.

“I am a Human! I am a Royal Fox! I AM YOUR DOOM!!!” (Arin)

(Always wanted to say a line like that, cool.) (Arin)