1 Waking Up-1

"Have fun in your new life!" A voice, dulled and distorted, was what his mind first registered.

His eyes opened slowly, a strange lethargy pulling at his limbs as he rolled from his side to his hands and knees to get up.

After he was standing, he paused.

"Who... said that?"

He looked around, trying to find anyone around him, but all he saw was wooden walls and flooring, polished by time and many people, looking like some outdoor cabin maybe?

'Doesn't look modern that for su-'

He paused again, confusion practically written on his face.

'What... does modern look like?'

His mind felt blank, like a memory was just... gone.

A lot of memories.

He looked up again, finding a door on the opposite side from the makeshift futon he'd been sleeping on, a pile of woolen blankets with straw poking out from underneath.

"Who's there?!" He yelled at the door, not in any panic or anger, but simply to try and make his voice reach further.

He tried to focus on hearing anything beyond the door, if anyone was there.

And then he felt a strange twitching on his head.

He lifted a hand curiously, and stroked the strange shapes on top of his head...

Long, straight up... short hair, fur?

He flicked it and flinched as he heard the noise echo in his ears along with the twitching of muscles that felt alien.

'Wait, why would it be alien?'

The strange feeling of his train of thought shifting tracks happened again, just like when he said things he didn't actually remember.

'Of course it's there, those are my ears. I have four, the human ones and the animal ones, that's obvious.'

It's not like he'd never had these ears before today right? He should be used to it...

He shook his head, and felt another strangely alien series of muscles and tendons twitch and move, and a swishing from behind caught his attention.

He turned... and saw a tail of silky red-orange fur extending and curling behind him, with a tip of cream-white fur.

'Huh... looks like a fox's tail.'

His mind slowly caught up.

'I have a fox tail. And my ears... too tall to be a cat's or dog's, so they're fox ears.'

Why didn't he remember having these things at first? It took a second to feel like they belonged where they were.

His skin was the same sort of creamy white as his fur on the tip of his tail.

'Am I... Asian? Caucasian?'

Something was on the tip of his tongue... and then it was gone.

'Wait... what's an Asian? What's a Caucasian? Why the hell can I remember nothing?!'

Finally he realized.

It took awhile, he kept thinking about other things, but now his mind had turned fully to himself and his memory.

'I don't remember anything.'

What was he doing to get to this room? How old was he? What was his name?'

He began to breathe heavily, freaking out a little as he leaned against a wall.

'I don't even...'

"Oh... fuck... no no no no..." he began to mumble, trying to push all the panic back down and stay calm.

He blinked furiously to try and get rid of the tear welling up in one eye, and coughed before forcefully standing straight, shoving his panic down, yet his hands still shook a little.

'First, figure out where "here" is and if anyone is nearby. I need to make sure I have a source of water and food before I can begin contemplating who I am.' Setting some goals to "survive" was a good way to distract yourself, as survival is the most important thing to any living race.

He took one final shaky breath...

And when his slit-pupil eyes opened again, he was seemingly calm.

He walked to the door and pushed it open, seeing as it had no actual handle or lock, just a bar embedded in the door he pushed on to make the wooden rectangle swing on its hinges.

'Foxes are omnivores that generally eat and hunt during the twilight hours, so they have pupils more catlike than doglike, and have vision as good as a cats. They can see with little or lots of light, and they're hearing is as good as most canines. They can see color, but are likely red-green colorblind.' His mind considered what he was capable as a foxkin in comparison to himself as... something else?

How much of that was true?

'I'm pretty sure I'm not red-green colorblind at least, but it's not like I'm literally a fox. My hearing did seem more intense, as is my sight. I can see better now than i ever did with my glasses!'

Yet again he froze after a strange word or phrase escaped his thoughts.

'The hell are glasses?! Why do I feel like my senses are more intense, they were always this way, right? The hell is up with this bullshit?!'

He shook his head, stepping through the half-opened door to enter a hallway.

There were other doors, but none had any doorknobs, seemingly impossible to open from this side.

He tilted his head, feeling one of his ears twitch slightly in thought.

He pulled "his" door closer and turned his head to look on the other side.

It also had no way to open it from the outside.

So how did he get in? Was there a hidden mechanism? Did people have to stuff their fingers into the tiny cracks between the door and door frame to pull it? 'Maybe use a crowbar? Wait what is... no, not even going to ask myself.' At least since there was no lock, it could just be swung open once you had leverage.

He looked at the light sources, same as in his room, little lanterns similar in appearance to oil lamps hanging on the walls.

Except instead of a regular oil fire inside the glass, a white-yellow flame was coming from... nothing?

The flame just hung in the center of the glass lamp, not touching or being held up by any string or wick or anything.

Just floating.

A slight burning in his eyes cause him to squint and rub them, looking down.

He dimly registered that he was wearing loose pants and no shoes earlier, but now he saw something different.

White text on a black text box, with white lines decorating the edges of said textbox.

<Basic Pants: they're pants. What do you expect?>

His vision... it wasn't quite like it was doubled?

How to explain...

It was like he was seeing everything in two layers, one with the text, one without.

So he saw the text, yet saw what the text would be "covering" simultaneously.

'What the hell?'

He looked up... and saw the text over the lamps too, yet could still see the lamps.

<Maglamp: a source of light fueled by ambient mana, will never go out as long as it remains unbroken. Size of the flame is reliant on the amount of ambient mana.>

It was weird... he saw the text, yet somehow he would "read" it in an instant, when it should take a few seconds to read the text.

He just got it, like the text being visual was just a side effect of information being given directly to him.

His furred ears twitched as a noise was heard, and he turned to the other direction the hall ran to, seeing a set of stairs going down before it hit a landing, then continuing to the left, out of sight.

The man who didn't remember himself stood there, his fox ears twitching slightly, still exploring their own range of movement.

'Well... time to see who's down there. And maybe get some food.'