Vernic

"Nyah! See you guys later!" Vernic meowed goodbye to his teammates. Track practice was over. He was not particularly fast, but being on the team waived his physical education period, and he had a few fellow middling runners on the team.

He pulled out his phone and checked his notifications. Oh, there's a new issue of Solarcell. And, he needed a new eraser. It was a cool autumn day, gray and cloudy in parts but occasional sun to keep him warm. He'd stop by the stationer instead of taking the shorter route home. He got on his bike.

Vernic idly repped flashcards on his phone as he steered into the bridge over the creek, when a rock suddenly clipped his front wheel, tipping his bike forward and launching him through the air, phone slipping out of his fingers, his reflection screaming in the water swiftly flowing underneath. The next moment he was in the water, freezing cold and struggling to stay afloat.

"Help!" he yelled. The current swept him far away from the bridge. Exhaustion took over.

===

A warm light peeped through his eyelids. A musty smell, wood and ink and old paper, a pen scratching away. The cat, his eyes still closed, stirred, only to find his legs and arms restrained to four bedposts, cold leather against his wrists and ankles and another strap over his waist.

The pen scratch stopped with a clack of the pen onto the table, followed by mouse's quiet squeak and clawed footsteps against hardwood. Vernic twitched at a breath on his whisker and opened his eyes to see an old rat's bespectacled face, that pointy snout almost smelling him as his eyes darted wildly over Vernic. Vernic screamed and as he did so, the pitch shrank and became more hiss-like, and he felt his hard palate narrow and stretch forward, his snout entering his peripheral vision, and his eye sockets abducted, bringing the whole room into view.

Books, bookcases lined the walls, filled with thick tomes, Index of Altaic Correspondences, History of Ancient Japanese, Psycholinguistics. One wall was a traditional japanese paper door, the rest of the room decorated with antiques, an ukiyo-e scene, a folding fan with an indecipherable sutra, a wooden Buddha, and a large wooden Baroque desk against the wall behind the rat, the surface piled high with thick books, journals with pages that didn't fit, and in the center an open notebook with a fountain pen set atop it.

The rat jumped back and darted back to his desk. He picked up his pen and frantically jotted away in his notebook, chittering quietly to himself as he did so.

Vernic stopped screaming and just as quickly, his snout retreated back into his face and his vision came back to normal, leaving a soreness across his entire face. "What's going on!? Where am I!?" he tried to ask the rat, but the vermin only heard Vernic let out a ghoulish moan, dipping in tone. Vernic scrunched his brows, but they seemed to continue drifting inwards into his face, dipping into the bridge of his nose and pulling his skin with it. He felt the top of his eyeballs being squeezed, which in turn shrank away from that impressing bone like pressed gnocchi, the lights of the room blearing until his eyelids shut and all he could see was the dark red inside of his eyesockets.

The rat had paused his note-taking to watch the scene. "Marvelous!" he squeaked. Vernic's whole face was twisted like a cinammon roll, his whisker's still peeking out of the folds, which soon also retreated away. The rat's paw was possessed, furiously scribbling notes while its owner's gaze was captured by Vernic's twisting visage. Then Vernic's face unfurled, his snout untwisting like a handkerchief being pulled at its corners, the creases gradually flattening themselves out, and the hard ridge of his brow snaking out like a stick floating down a rainy stream and making purchase through a sewer grate. Point-like eyes came out of the folds and dilated as his eyeballs pushed through. A creaking sound signaled the completion of the untransformation, and Vernic's body tensed up as his eyes stared blankly ahead at the ceiling with his jaw slightly agape. He held this tense expression for a second before falling back to the bed, and he closed his eyelids and relaxed his mouth.

The old rat's gaze lingered, monitoring the body's slow breathing. A wooden clock ticked on the wall. Then he picked up the pen and returned to writing in his notes.

===

Hey, Vernic!

Vernic was starting to fish out his lunch from his backpack, but turned around to see two cats shouting at him and waving their arms. Both their faces looked like Vernic's face. Then their faces readjusted. It was Tanaka and Pyanno. Tanaka was the chubby one. Pyanno was medium set.

Tanaka pretended to paddle with his hands, and his face turned into a horse's. Then his face reverted, and he pointed at the floor. Over here!

Vernic pulled up a chair to sit with his buddies.

I didn't see you guys earlier this morning.

Yeah, that's cause I missed the bus. But then Tanaka's mom saw us while she was driving to work. Pyanno's face transformed into his mom's, his cheeks and lips slightly plumper. She was scowling slightly. Tanaka, if you got up a little bit earlier then you might have made it, she said, but fine I'll give you two a ride.

Meanwhile, Tanaka was getting something from his bag. He produced an eraser.

Look, we can play eraser soccer. Hey Pyanno, put your hands like this.

He made an L with both of his hands and then pointed them into the desk. Then his hand morphed into a soccer goal net.

Pyanno copied him.

Tanaka set his eraser a few inches from the goal. Then he made a V with his hands, which turned into a mini version of Tanaka made of peach-colored clay. He took aim and kicked the eraser from standing position. He scored.

Oh I see! Hey Vernic, did you want to try?

Sure.

Vernic put his eraser on the desk, turned his hand into a person, and grabbed his left foot with his thumb hand. Then he released his foot and kicked the eraser.

It went over the goal and out the slightly open window.