The Diary of My Different Life
Co-written by:
Padded Quill and C.S. Fox
http://paddedquill.deviantart.com/
WARNING: Has fur in it 
CHAPTER 1
Lyra didn’t really give two shits about much of anything. She did all right in school, enough so that she wasn’t really bothered by her parents about her grades. She wasn’t ugly, although she wasn’t someone that you noticed first as you walked into a room. For all intents and purposes, she was just coasting through her teenage years, not really worried about getting attention or anything at all really.
She liked to draw, and she liked to write. She wasn’t completely friendless, but she also wasn’t the center of any social circles. She was simply someone who was there and didn’t really care that much if she was or was not. She was happy just being about as normal as she could possibly be, without being bothered or fussed over.
It was a school holiday, and like most 16-year-olds, she had intended to spend it doodling and surfing the web. Nothing to do, and all day to do it. She sat in her room, a pair of over-ear headphones on, a drawing tablet on her lap, in sweats and a hoodie. her hair went half way down her back, and like most things about her, she let it hang loose, not fussing with it.
Lyra was kind of drifting in and out of the here and now. She spent an hour drawing, not really sure what, she just put her pen to the tablet and after some shading, she had a building of some sort drawn. She wasn’t really an artist, yet.
By the time dinner rolled around, and after a quiet dinner with her mom and dad, she had managed to not really accomplish anything during the day, and she was fine with that. Life was easy, and she wasn’t about to complain.
Still in her sweats from earlier, she passed out about 11, she had school tomorrow, but meh, cool stuff happens at night, so she’d just be tired in the morning.
“Lyra!” was the voice of her mom that shattered her dreams and brought the girl crashing back into reality. Eyes still sealed shut by the stuff of dreams, the only thing she knew was confusion, noise, and the warmth of the light threatening to shoot it’s daggers through her eyelids into the back of her brain. “Lyra, get up and get clean or you’ll be late for school!” came the voice again, floating just at the edges of the awakening girl’s consciousness, “And for the love of god, take your trash out today? Your diapers are starting to smell all the way down the hall.”
Lyra groggily rolled out of bed, about as much grace as a crocodile rolling into a river… although her mother’s last comment rattled her head a bit. “Diapers?” she asked in a croaky sleep deprived voice. She stood up and untangled herself from her covers, heading an odd crinkle as she did, but ignoring it as she walked stiffly toward her door.
Oddly, there was a trash bin by her desk… she’d never had one there before, and this one was twice the size of the small one in the bathroom, with a pop-top lid. “Uh…?” She deviated from her door path and went to it.
Nervously, her tail twitched behind her as the lid popped open, and her whiskers wrinkled at the sudden smell of ammonia caused by stale urine. Reflexively, her ears flattened against the top of her head and she couldn’t at all suppress the little ‘chrrr’ of anxiety that roiled up out of the back of her throat. There was a little ‘popping’ sound as the claws of her toes dug into the carpet and then retracted, snagging on the little loops there. Sure enough, inside the pail was a small stack of pale green, plastic-looking rolled up balls of pee-soaked undergarments, much like the one she could see peeking out above the elastic of her sweatpants, some matted fur around the waist band where it’d pressed on her in her sleep.
Lyra quickly pushed the lid on the bin, hard. “What. The. Hell?” the hit to her nose was like a punch in the face. She’d never smelt anything so vividly in all her life. She could even smell some of the baking soda that had been put in that bin to try and cover up its foul perfume.
Lyra took a few slow steps back from the bin. One hand going to the diaper fringe that was peeking out of the tops of her sweats. She ran her paw along the top of it… and as her brain tried to reason why she was in a diaper, and why she had a bin full of used ones in her room… her mind stumbled upon something of far bigger concern.
She had paws. White paws. Why did she have paws? Wait, why did she have whiskers? A tail? She began patting and smacking herself in various places, taking in a detailed full body inventory in the span of 10 seconds, but everything… all the information her mind gathered was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. She was in her room, she was in her body, but her body was wrong.
Although Lyra had never been one for attention, or even anything dramatic, her body forced her to do it. She let out a shrill ‘yarl’ of surprise as her tail puffed and skittered down the hall to the bathroom, desperately needing to see a mirror.
“Woah there, Kitten!” Her father said, nearly knocked over the railing of the upstairs landing as Lyra ran past. The voice was familiar, but the wolfish face from which it emanated was totally foreign to her. “Is everything…” he was cut off by the door closing, “… alright.”
He finished, then sighed and turned, “Honey, I think something’s up with Lyra, could you check on her?” He called down the hall towards the bedroom, “It might be, uh, lady stuff. If you catch my drift.”
Lyra had her back pressed to the door inside the bathroom. That wolf had her dad’s voice. It knew her name. It was big like her dad, and white furred, but her dad wasn’t furred. Her dad was not a wolf. What was it doing in her house? She was doing her best to hold in her hysterics, a generally foreign problem for her.
It wasn’t till her heart stopped racing a moment that she even realized what she was looking at in the mirror. Usually when you see yourself, you recognize exactly what you are in an instant. It had been the hoodie and the sweats that Lyra was staring at, she knew them, they were hers… but… there was a white leopard of some sort wearing them. She was breathing hard, her back pressed to the door like she had Cerberus at bay behind it… and it wasn’t till she realized she was breathing every bit as hard as the cat in the mirror.
It was her. She was it.
She gulped and slowly brought a paw up to her face, watching the mirrored cat do the same. She had whiskers, and black spots with bits of gray at her neck and a bit on her back… a snow leopard? Was this a dream? She started to breathe hard again, she was hyperventilating, she’d never had trouble breathing before, she just… didn’t know what to do with what her sense were telling her. The best she could manage was to do something she hadn’t done since before her teenage years.
“…Moooommmm…” she mewled out, as she sank to her knees. Her mother was a calm ‘normal person’, she could count on her mom for problems like this.
A moment later there was a gentle, almost muffled knock at the door, as if the person doing the knocking were wearing gloves or the door was not entirely solid. The voice that followed was purring, a little bit more musical than normal, but Lyra instantly recognized it as her mother’s gently sing-song voice she used when she was trying to calm someone down.
“Lyra, honey? Is … everything alright? May I come in?” she asked through the door, her voice obviously low and calm, cajoling her daughter to also relax, “If something’s wrong, we can talk about it, alright? Your father will go downstairs and have his coffee, and we can sort it all out with just us girls.”
Lyra knew the voice, and she shuffled a bit on her knees, tears already lining the corners of her eyes as she reached up and opened the door, peering out. Standing outside the door, with a look of motherly concern, was a slightly taller, slightly older snow leopard. Lyra shrieked and quickly shut the door as quickly as she’d opened it.
“WHY ARE YOU A CAT? WHY AM I A CAT? WHY IS DAD A WOLF? WHY AM I WEARING A DIAPER?” she yelled out in one quick long burst. She would have also added 'why am I wearing a ‘wet’ diaper, but the other questions seemed more important at the moment.
There was a long silence, and the door knob turned, opening slowly as her mother poked her feline head in again. “Uh… Lyra? I…” she looked completely confused, but her motherly instinct kicked in, and she was soon inside the bathroom, arms wrapped around her kitten, tongue starting to lick roughly at her daughter’s cheek and forehead. Oddly, it was comforting, as Lyra’s body knew this was a good thing, but her mind was having a hard time coming to terms with, well, anything.
It was odd, but soon she was in the strange cat woman’s lap as she sat on the edge of the tub, as much as a teenager could be, and her mother was soothing the fur at the back of her neck.
“Calm down,” she was saying, gently, “Just relax, Lyra. There’s nothing to freak out about, just relax. Maybe you were having a bad dream, but you’re awake now….” It was obvious she had no idea what to really answer with but she was trying.
“You’re a cat because you got your genes from my side of the family, and your father got his from his father. I got mine from your grandmother, remember?” she was trying to explain this as if it were obvious, “And you池e… well, remember a couple of months ago you started having night time accidents? You asked for them after a few days when they wouldn’t stop, remember?”
There was a slightly distressed tone to her voice, and one paw felt for her daughter’s nose to feel for a fever, “Do you remember all of that, Lyra?”
Lyra sat in somewhat relative calm. For now. What her mother said somehow rang true to her. She couldn’t understand it, but somehow, she believed it.
As odd as all of this was, and as incomprehensible to her comfortable normality… what struck her as really out of place, was that she was in her mother’s arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sought her mother for comfort.
“I… guess I remember?” she said after a long pause. She put her head down, and her ears lowered with it almost sheepishly. She’d made a teenage career of avoiding drama and being as ‘normal’ as someone could be. “Sorry mom, I just… woke up weird…” she said shuffling a little in the heavy diaper. Maybe apart from being in her mom’s arms, the diaper was the weirdest thing. She’d NEVER had a problem wetting the bed. And she couldn’t imagine in any sane circumstances why she’d ask for diapers.
“It’s quite alright, honey, everyone has those days,” her mother responds, lovingly, again licking at her daughter’s face and ears, while one hand slipped down and pressed at the front of the sweatpants, “If you think you’re going to be okay, you should probably change this and get ready for school. You’re soaked, but at least not leaking.”
With one more hug, she slowly, almost as if reluctantly, let her daughter take to her own paws, “Clean up. I’m sure this is just a phase,” again a pat to her padded rear, “You’ll be fine again in no time.”
She stopped, her hands still on her daughter, as if waiting to be told everything was fine, a worried little smile on her feline lips, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Lyra looked down at herself. Could someone who was a feline today, when she wasn’t yesterday be ‘fine in no time’?
“I… think I’ll find out…” she said, somewhat pragmatically. She gave her mom a quick hug, not even sure why, before she started walking stiffly and a little bowlegged back to her room.
“Okay, you’re a snow leopard now…” she said to herself as she quietly shut her door. Her whiskers twitched again as she smelt the tang of her bin. “Annnnnd you wear diapers to bed with apparent good reason,” she added, holding the back of her paw to her nose.
She needed to put her universe in order. Normality was only comfortable if she understood it. She looked around her room, everything was familiar and where it should be… with the exception of the large bin by her desk and the package of ‘Molicares’ under her bed.
She stared by losing her sweats and the diaper. Wrapping a towel around herself, she went to shower, not sure exactly how she was supposed to deal with pee fur.
After a quick shower, and feeling slightly better, although still VERY confused about her body, which for the most part was the same, just… furry, swaddled herself in towels again and went back to her room.
She got dressed in blue jeans and one of her favorite t-shirts. She made a point to hold her breath as she got the bag out of the trash bin and tried to get it the hell out of her room and into the garbage can in the garage. She had to pass by the breakfast table, where again her eyes went a little wide at seeing her dad, sipping coffee, reading the newspaper, looking to the world like he’d settled down after having eaten Red Riding Hood.
Her mother was at the table too, and although she didn’t realize it, Lyra’s fur was fairly poofy from the shower, she didn’t even realize any care she’d have needed aside from toweling dry.
“Lyra!” came her father’s sharp bark just as she moved out of the door frame, “No kitten of mine is going out looking like that. I know you don’t particularly like school, but take a bit of pride in yourself, dear.” He was stern, yet loving, same as always, but with a bit more growl to his voice than, well, ever.
Her mother seemed to agree, though, “He’s right, sweetie. I know it’s been a weird morning, but you really should groom your fur a bit. You’re sticking out all over, like someone’s stepped on your tail.” She chuckles at the little joke, “Really, it doesn’t take but a minute and you’ll feel better after, you know that.”
Lyra hefted the bag into the garbage can and shut the lid. She went back into the kitchen a bit confused. In her head she was wondering ‘what’s wrong with my fur?’ but she didn’t say anything she just went up to her room, and looked around her desk, finding that she did in fact have quite a few more brushes then she remembered having.
She grabbed a brush and went to the bathroom, standing with the door open as she eyed her foreign body in the mirror. “Okay, so, my fur needs to be brushed…” she looked at the brush, and then at herself in the mirror. How did someone brush their face? Or their tummy? I mean, sure she had long hair normally, and she still did, but it’s one thing to brush out your hair for knots, it’s another to try and smooth the hair on her your cheek when you’re pretty sure you’ve never had hair there before.
Lyra’s dad had finished his coffee and looked over at the clock on the microwave. “Our daughter isn’t going to make the bus if she takes much longer,” he suggested to his wife.
The elder leopard waved that off, “She’s just a bit out of sorts today, nothing major, I think. Her nose was a bit warm and dry, but probably from her little panic attack. I’ll send an email to her teachers, and if she doesn’t get her fur right, well, there’s always the old fashioned way.” she sighs, shaking her head.
The wolf sipped his coffee again, “She’s not a kitten anymore, you know that.”
“I know, and I hope this bedwetting thing lets up soon. She’s seemed so out of sorts the last few months…”
Lyra came down the stairs to get breakfast, not really keen on time since to her, the rules didn’t really apply the same way here… if here was here, and she was wherever she was in reality, and not some dream or… was she even making sense in her own head anymore? She just needed food, maybe a little food would help.
Lyra walked into the kitchen, having brushed fervently, but not really achieved any significant results and went straight for cereal and milk. The clock on the microwave said 7:50. Her bus came at 7:55; but it was literally the furthest thing from her mind at that moment.
A raised hand from her father stopped her as he snapped his fingers, “You better be grabbing a pop-tart to go, Lyra.” he motioned at the clock on the wall. “Bus in five minutes, so you’ll have to eat on the run.”
He looked up from his paper with those nearly yellow wolf’s eyes, “Maybe a not so relaxing breakfast will motivate you to get out of bed earlier, hmm?”
Lyra looked at him and then the clock. “School? Bus? Me?” she asked pointing a paw at herself. She looked to her mom with the same bewilderment she’d had all morning. In some ways this waking dream was the exact same as her regular world… just… furry.
“Do I have to go?” she asked after a moments thought, hand still half-reached toward the cereal. She wasn’t sure how she did it, but her ears went down and she looked up with big eyes at her dad.
It didn’t work. Years of raising a cute kitten had hardened the old wolf to certain things, apparently, and begging to get out of going to school was right on that list.
“Yes.” He said, with a tone of finality, “Your grades aren’t super stellar, so I think not missing class is a very good idea.”
Lyra huffed and made a quick grab for a package of pop-tarts, unwrapping it on the move, not saying anything else as she stuffed it in her mouth and ran back toward her room for her bag. She had a pop-tart still in her mouth, not supported by her paws as she was running out the door; hair pulled back into a loose pony tail and looking quite a bit more ‘kitten’ the usual.
Running to the bus stop, Lyra made it just as the bus was pulling up. She was surprised to find that the bus stop regulars were all furs… but thinking on it, she shouldn’t have been. She didn’t even have time to say hi or talk to anyone as she tried to swallow half her pop-tart whole and get on the bus for school.
Riding the bus, for the first time all morning, was business as usual. She took a seat in the middle, which she had all to herself, and she was able to sit and fade a little to be alone with her thoughts while she rode the familiar journey.
Once the bus rumbled to a stop in front of the school, and Lyra got off, she heard another of those familiar voices that she knew when she turned around would not have a familiar face.
“Hey, Lyra!” came her friend Gypsum’s voice. There was a bit of a ‘yip’ to it, and with a slight wince and bristling of whiskers, Lyra looked. A collie was bounding up to her, well, as much a collie as she currently was a leopard, but one none the less, and somewhere in the back of her mind Lyra couldn’t help but think how fitting it was. Gypsum wasn’t a bad girl, just a little too naive and bouncy, much like the animal she seemed to be half turned into in this weird new world.
“Lyra!” She called again, tail wagging as she fell into step beside the displaced girl, then lowered her voice, “So, how’d it go last night? Still waking up like you wanted?” The question was a bit leading, as if the overactive pooch was waiting for a specific, hidden, somewhat taboo answer.
“Last night?” she asked, a little confused at first. Lyra was still trying to wrap her head around how different but yet exactly the same her friend Gypsum was. She wasn’t sure what she was talking about so she just went with what she did know. “I uh… woke up a bit on the wrong side of the bed. My whole day has been a bit… weird.”
The dog’s ears drooped and she closed what little gap was left between the two of them, her voice lowering even more, “Oh? So… you woke up dry? Well, crap, that’s a setback, huh?”
Then she shook her head a little bit and smiled, “It’s okay, I bet it just all takes time to get it going every night. I mean, four in a row was good, but it couldn’t last.”
Lyra’s ears shot up and her tail poofed a tiny bit. “I… …. you… you know about, that?” she tried to sort out if she would indeed tell her friend about this. “Wait, what do you mean four in a row is good?”
Now it was Gypsum’s turn to look confused, and though the features were alien, somehow Lyra was picking up on the body language easily enough.
“Well, yeah, I mean… that’s what you wanted, right?” she asked, confused and trying to figure this out. “I mean, you spent like, a lot of money on that stuff to help you start wetting yourself without waking up…”
Lyra’s ears lowered and she closed her mouth, blushing. That made zero sense. It made even less sense then this whole world. “I…” she looked at her friend and tried to think of something to say. She tried to sputter out an acknowledgement, to go with the flow of things as she’d tried to do all morning, but that was a bit much. The best she could come up with was, “Going to be late for class, gotta go!” she said breaking into a jog.
Her diary. As soon as school was over, she had to check her diary. If this was her, she sometimes kept a diary, only for important things, like how her drawing was coming, or complex thoughts she wanted to remember and revisit later. Apparently this world was ‘almost’ the same as her usual one, but there was apparently one BIG difference she needed to check on.
School was, as far as she could tell, normal business as usual… Except that everyone was, well, animals. Other than that, it was the same boring old subjects, even down to the social studies and world affairs classes. At lunch, she was approached by Gypsum again, though the collie was tentative and cautious.
“Hey, Lyra? Is everything okay? You seemed really weird this morning. I mean, are you … uh… did I ask the wrong question?” the girl seemed even more like a faithful puppy than ever, her ears lowered and approaching with her side towards Lyra in a show of appeasement or caution.
Lyra looked at her friend and although she wasn’t used to this world just yet, her body seemed to know just how to express visual emotions with her ears and tail; and it was apparent that she was nervous and a bit unsure.
“Have you ever… like… woken up and everything is different?” she asked her friend.
The collie tilted her head and rubbed her chin, “Well, when I turned sixteen it was kinda like that, but that’s mostly because when I woke up my aunt had posted ‘Sweet Sixteen’ decorations all over my room while I was asleep. Is that what you mean?”
Lyra sighed and shook her head. “I… just think I’m stressed maybe… I know we had yesterday off and everything, but I dunno, I slept really oddly, I mean, waking up was…” and she tried to figure out how to say it. “Weird.”
Her ears lowered and she sank down in her chair a little. “And I didn’t wake up dry,” she said quietly, having wondered most of the morning why that would be a good thing according to her friend, and why ‘she’ would have bought ‘something’ to aid in that.
Gypsum tilted her head to the other side, ears picking up some, “Oh, so you were wet. But weird…? OH!” She sat down next to her friend quickly, leaning forward and keeping her voice low. “Did you… uh… leak? Or something?” It was an honest question, and it seemed like the collie was more curious and clueless than anything.
“I mean, well, I really dunno much more than what you told me a month ago, so I dunno if that’d be bad or not. What was weird about it, though? I mean, the first few nights you said you just went right on the bed, so…?”
Lyra blushed hard and tried to suppress an immediate ‘eeewwww’. “I… don’t really want to talk about it at the moment,” she said after a moment’s pause. Whatever was happening, she didn’t know enough about it to talk with Gypsum right now. “It’s just been a weird day, I’ll be fine tomorrow,” she added, trying to allay the concerns of her friend. She was quick to change the subject after that, trying to highlight her drawing, and check to see if Gypsum was still into music the way she was supposed to be in Lyra’s memory.
As with just about everything else, and though she seemed a little confused, Gypsum was in all other ways the same old Gypsum, even down to the class schedule, which this year was unfortunately mutually exclusive with Lyra’s. After lunch, they parted ways with Gypsum offering a few reassuring words to her obviously addled friends, reminding Lyra about cheerleading practice after school.
“… so I won’t be on the bus. Is that okay?” It was about the umpteenth time she’d asked if something was okay, not sure how to deal with what was going on with her friend.
Lyra nodded and gave her friend a hug, moving to get on with the rest of her day. Although things were very similar to how her mind remembered them, she couldn’t get over how just slightly ‘wrong’ things were. Still, the furry her, like the human her, was good at fading into gray and being quiet and unnoticed in most of her classes. She managed not to seem too out of place for the rest of the day until she made it back on her bus headed home.
In her thoughts, all she kept thinking was about her diary. She had to get home and hope that this furry her kept a diary, and that maybe she could find some clue as to why she was purposefully trying to wet the bed.
Getting off at her bus stop, she ran into the house, sweeping past her Mom and barely saying hello before shutting her bedroom door and beginning a search for the diary she usually kept between the mattress and baseboard of her bed.
The Diary was right where it was supposed to be, though oddly it was sealed in a zip lock baggie, though considering the stains she noticed on her mattress as she was searching, was probably a good idea. Of all the things that were different, the diary was the most off. While a lot of the early entries were familiar, if tainted by talking about odd anatomy but otherwise the same, until the entries from around where Lyra had starting writing about boys.
Things there got a little odd, as instead of focusing on dating or going out, the diary diverged. There were entries talking about going to the mall and looking around the Cubs’R’Us store, some odd mentions of feelings of not being fully grown and wanting to go back to the start, and most disturbingly, the last few entries, detailing thoughts on making pointed moves in that direction.
Lyra read the diary, almost not believing the disturbingly familiar handwriting. She sank to her knees, leaning her back up against her bed and pouring over her own writing with fervor. Lyra tried to find the root of it, specifically what Gypsum had said about purchases. What had she purchased and what was she trying to accomplish? She found it, dated about a month and a half earlier.
"Dear Diary,
Today, I’ve decided that I can’t go on anymore. I’m tired of growing up, and after a lot of reading, searching, and deep consideration, I’ve decided to try and go through with a plan that will bring things to where I want to be. Today I ordered some custom hypnosis files off this site on the internet. They promise that they’ll help me start wetting the bed without waking up, so I’ll just have to see if that’s the case. Even if they don’t, I’m definitely going to start tonight with it. I’ve got my cell phone alarm set to vibrate at 4am, to give me plenty of time before my parents get up to ‘go’. It’s gonna be weird. I don’t remember ever having peed anywhere except the toilet, not even by accident, so claws crossed on being able to get over that and, if all goes well, I will PEE IN MY BED!
Then it’s all about the waterworks to convince my parents it was a real accident. Good night, Diary."
Lyra’s mouth dropped. She had to re-read the page twice. She was pissing herself… on purpose. Why would she just decide to do that? It felt like someone just deciding they there going to wear their clothes inside out from then on. She couldn’t figure it out, she re-read some of the earlier entries, trying to figure out the talk about maturity and not wanting to grow up, but it just… didn’t seem like her.
Sure, growing up and maturing wasn’t the highest of her priorities. She had an easy life and was plenty happy with that. She liked not being fussed over or bothered that much. This… …. this plan seemed to be heading in exactly the wrong direction. She read forward a bit, checking to see the progress so far of this furry Lyra’s plan, how far had she already slid?
The next few entries were a couple of short blurbs, mostly about the feeling of ‘letting go’ in her bed, how she couldn’t get back to sleep, and the like. Three days later there was a ‘successful’ entry of managing to wake up, pee, and then fall back asleep for a while so that her mother ‘found’ her in the wet bed. Then, this:
"Dear Diary…
The hypnosis files are working, I think. Today was the first time I woke up after having already started wetting the bed, which was surprising enough I nearly fell out of bed! (Note to self, maybe falling out of bed eventually? <3) I’m… actually a little worried, diary. What if I’m going too far? What if I can’t stop wetting the bed if this keeps up? Having second thoughts. On the plus side, I’m going to have a sit down talk with mom tonight and see if she’ll buy me “protection” for the mattress. Hoping for diapers, might get a sheet, but going to tear it up a little and go for diapers. They won’t be the cute babyish ones they sell online, but it’s a start.
Well, going to bed now. Will see if I sleep through peeing again. Goodnight, Diary."
The next entry was a couple of days later, and written in a somewhat quick style, squiggly and rushed.
"Dear Diary,
DIAPERS! Well, the crappy kind, and they’re not really all as comfortable as I wanted, but diapers! Mom finally broke down and brought some home, saying I needed to be responsible and wear them, even if they’re embarrassing. Hah! Anyway, I haven’t peed completely in my sleep again, though I did wake up mid-way again last night. Listening to the hypnosis thing again to see if more listens helps more. Also loaded it on my phone, been listening on the bus. Got to go now, its bed time, and I have a diaper to put on! EEE! <3!"
Lyra let out a long slow breath. “Woooah boy… this is…” she wasn’t sure what to do with the information. It was like the blueprint for a train derailing and apparently she’d been the conductor.
Putting the diary down a moment she went to her closet, looking at the package of diapers. She’d emptied the bin earlier, there’d been at least a dozen diapers in there, so, she’d been in diapers for maybe 2 weeks now at night, and from the looks of things, successfully using them. She went to sit by her diary and check the last entries she’d made just to confirm whether or not it was an actual problem for her now.
The last entry in the diary was dated the day before last, and was… ominous, at best.
"Dear Diary.
Things are going, well, okay I guess. I’ve had a few false starts, some waking up, but the last four or five nights in a row I’ve woken up completely soaked without waking up while going. Kinda weird, that, and a little scary, but exciting at the same time. It feels like a little step in the way I want to go, not knowing whether I’ll be dry or not when my alarm goes off. It’s … fun. But worrying. I’m nervous, but, well, disappointed. I’ll explain.
I was sort of hoping I’d be able to talk my mom into ‘helping’ me get ready for bed, or in the mornings. I mean, little kids don’t put their own bed wetter diapers on, so why should I? This is frustrating, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to get any further with this if mom or dad aren’t at all willing to do anything. Plus, even if I try to back out now, I’m scared that I won’t be able to stop. I want to push forward, but there’s got to be a way to get them involved and think that they NEED to be involved. I can’t let them know I -want- to be a kitten again.
Ugh! Diary, this is so FRUSTRATING! I just want to go to sleep, dream it all away, figure it out, let someone else do it or something. If I could just find a way to not have to worry about getting my parents involved, to sleep until, I dunno, someone intervened. That’d be great. I can’t stand this anymore! I want to just not have to worry about it anymore.
Anyway, it’s late, and I’m already ‘ready’, on my own, of course, and going to bed. By the time I wake up, I’ll really need something to have happened."
Lyra’s eyes went wide and the pit of her stomach dropped as she finished reading. “Until someone intervened,” she read softly to herself. Part of her knew that her usual course of action for anything frustrating was to let other people handle it, so it was a very ‘her’ type answer. At the same time… she had a sneaking suspicion that she was the answer to her own diary’s pleading.
The entry in her diary was the only thing that seemed to remotely ‘click’ as to why she was here in this world. Slowly, and with a slight uncertainty, she went to her desk and took the diary with her. She set it down and got out a pen.
“Dear Diary…” she wrote… and then stopped, scratching out the diary part and writing ‘Dear Me…’ she paused a moment before continuing, “I do not understand. Fur, bedwetting, diapers?” she tapped her pen on the paper a bit. “Will you even remember writing this?” she added. “Will I?”
She looked at the page once more and frowned, it looked like she was mad, or high, and scribbling rambles. She decided to take a different approach, scratching out what she had just written.
“This morning I woke up wet and very confused. I had a bit of a freak out in the bathroom and mom had to come get me. She hugged me and … uh, licked my head… and… it actually felt kind of nice. I don’t know why, or what was happening, but, it was the first time I’ve had a moment with mom like that since I don’t know when.”
She left it at that. Not really sure what she was writing, but on top of the oddness of the day, the moment with her mother this morning had struck her as odd. She closed the diary and stuck it back in the plastic baggie. She stuffed it under the bed and looked around for her cell phone. Hopefully Gypsum was done with practice by now. She needed to ask a few quick question as to just what she had shared with her best friend.
“Hello?” was the perky voice of Gypsum, with that bit of collie bark in it, “What’s up? Just got done with practice, so sorry if I’m a little out of breath,” And she was, actually, panting. Like a dog.
“Hey Gypsum, do you have a moment to talk? Like, somewhere that no one else is going to hear you? It’s about my uh, thing… the uh, night thing.”
There was a long pause, more panting, and then a little yip. “Sure! Let me get cleaned up and changed, then we can meet out back of the slides at the park, y’know, near those little trees that we used to go to as kids?”
Lyra knew them well, as she’d used them for privacy many times in the past. It was private, and knowing that even with all this crazy going on, being able to go to that place with her friend to talk was comforting. A little island of the familiar in a sea of what was becoming nothing but crazy.
Twenty minutes later she was out and sitting with her back against the tree. She had another hoodie on, surprised to find that the hood had slits in the top for her ears to poke through. She didn’t give much of a wave to her friend as she came to meet her, instead shyly getting up and with tail tucked between her legs, she got right to it.
“Sooo I called you out here because, well, about that thing… you don’t find it weird? I mean, it’s been a bit of a blur to me. Would you mind uh, refreshing my memory on what we’ve talked about with it? I mean, I haven’t asked you to uhm…” and she let the question hang there because she wasn’t at all sure just what this other her would ask.
The collie again cocked her head to one side, her fur still a little damp from having come right after her cleaning up, which to Lyra was odd, considering how her first thought was… tongues.
“Huh? You mean …OH!” she seemed to get it, “I thought it was weird when you first brought it up! I mean, how many people our age want to go back to being a little kid? And really, hypnosis? I thought that stuff was weird, or for creepy guys with bushy eyebrows.” The collie waggled her own. “Lyra, really, what’s going on? You’ve not been yourself at all today. Are yah having second thoughts? Can you… not stop wetting yourself?” she asked, and immediately her eyes went to the leopard’s crotch. “Did you, uh… are you…?”
Lyra quickly crossed her legs and put her paws to her crotch. “No, I didn’t and no I’m not. Not during the day,” she said, feeling a bit ashamed that it would even come to that. She glared at her friend a moment, but then seeing the dumb innocence, her glare softened her and ears went down again. She had to admit, if Gypsum was willing to stick by her, even if she’d told her something as crazy as what was in the diary… it said a lot of her friend. “I mean… I don’t know… I’m so confused right now Gypsum.” She let out a long sigh. “This may sound strange, but uh… have you ever stumbled upon someone else’s secret?”
Gypsum rolled her eyes, and shook her head, “How do you think we got to this point? You and your ‘art’ these days. Remember? You sent me the wrong link to that picture of the girl wearing a diaper?”
Blushing, Lyra let out a surprised ‘oh’. She made a mental note to check whatever the equivalent of deviant art here was to see just what she’d been drawing.
“Well I mean… have you ever seen someone’s secret wish, and like… you could make it come true? Like say if you found the blue prints to build something and you think you could, but it’d be a really, really, REALLY embarrassing thing to do…” and she fell short of breath there. Was she actually considering what was in that diary? Shouldn’t she be separating herself from this? Her face went through about four emotions at once.
“Uh……” Gypsum seemed at a loss for words, something unusual for the hyper collie, in this universe or the other. “I… don’t follow.”
Carefully, she put an arm around her friend’s shoulders and tried to ease her back down into the grass. “Why don’t you slow down, back up, and make some sense, okay? I’m worried about you, Lyra. I mean, I’ve been worried ever since you told me about your whole ‘baby’ thing, but I support you. But now you’re just acting weird.”
Lyra nodded. “I know, and I feel weird. I think I just need to sleep it off,” she said with another sigh. “Thanks for meeting me out here,” she said, not sure what else to talk about.
Gypsum looked confused still. “C’mon, Lyra. We’ve been friends since we were… okay, that’s a bad way to put it right now. Look, we’re friends. If something’s bothering you, seriously, you can tell me about it.”
“I know I called you out here, but I … well,” Lyra looked to Gypsum, like, really looked at her. “Okay… … I woke up this morning wearing a diaper and I don’t remember ever wanting too and I also don’t remember ever having fur or my dad being a wolf or this entire world just being weird and wrong and your still you, but you’re a dog, and I’m a snow leopard and nothing makes sense and I have my diary filled with stuff about how I’m TRYING to end up in diapers and I… I…” Lyra broke down crying.
For a long moment, the collie sat staring at her friend, not at all sure what to say or do about this. “Uh… There… there?” she said, putting an arm around the leopard’s shoulders, trying to be comforting. “What do you mean you don’t remember any of it? Like, amnesia? Do you remember who you are? You are Lyra. Do you remember that?” she tried, totally not at all getting what the hell was up here. “Okay, forget that. Tell me what you DO remember. I don’t get it, so tell me so I can help!”
Lyra tried pushing the tears back into her eyes with her paws. She wasn’t one for crying, or really any drama.
“I know I’m Lyra, and I know you’re Gypsum,” she sobbed. “And I remember everything about like our slumber parties and that time at band camp and stuff, and I know who my mom and dad are, and everything’s normal… but not. Like, do you uh… know what a human is?”
Gypsum nodded quickly. “Of course! Everyone does! I was hoping to get one for my last birthday, but mom and dad say it’s a big responsibility…” she said, a little dejected. She fished out her phone and started fiddling with it, eventually bringing up a picture of an asian woman, naked, curled up in a little pet bed by a fire, smiling at the camera. Other than being tiny, it was a person. “This kind. I just LOVE their eyes, and they’re a little smaller than the pale white kinds.”
Lyra’s mouth hung open. “Okay… I was… not expecting that,” she said looking at the photo, then seeing Gypsum’s face, “I mean, that you’d want uh, that breed.” She shook her head. “Well, I guess… uh… this whole weirdness is just that I had a dream that I was a human… like a LONG dream,” she said, although in her mind she knew it wasn’t a dream.
Lyra managed to stop all the tears and threw her arms around Gypsum. “I’m sorry if I worried you… I’ve just been… off…”
The phone slipped from the collie’s hand into the grass, and she quickly put her arms around her friend, hugging tightly, “No no, it’s okay! I have dreams like that too…. Well, okay, never that I was a HUMAN, but more like, just the long ones that seem really weird, y’know?” With a chuckle, she gently nuzzled her friends’ neck, flicking a tongue out to lick at her fur to try and smooth it down. “LIke, the other day in class I daydreamed this entire thing about flying in a hot air balloon, and it seemed like HOURS, but was only a minute or two.”
The conversation kind of switched from there, two girls just chatting a bit and Lyra trying to just slide back into her comfortable normality once more. She could talk to Gypsum, and it seemed, no matter her form, Gypsum understand, and that at least, was very comforting.
They chatted for another 30 minutes or so before Lyra went back home since it was getting close to dinner.
She wasn’t in much of a talking mood by then, and the sight of the big wolf being her ‘father’ was still a bit hard to stomach. She hung in her room until her mom called up for dinner.
“Sorry about this morning…” Lyra said when she’d finally sat down to her parents.
Her mother was the first to respond, giving her father a little ‘I have this’ look, “It’s alright, dear, really. Sometimes things just… don’t seem right, especially after a bad dream. Next time, feel free to talk about it, since sometimes that makes it all seem a little less crazy, you know?”
A moment later, her father 'Wuff’ed gently, “And try not to push your old man down the stairs again. I’m not as spry as I used to be, y’know.” He joked.
Some part of Lyra expected the meal to be cat food. Or raw meat. Maybe even a cute little lamb that she’d have to rip apart with her claws before she could chow down, but it was… normal food. Well, seemingly normal, anyway. She had no idea where the meat came from, but it tasted like chicken and wasn’t hard to eat, though the idea that it might have, in this world, been a once thinking ‘person’, or some dumb ‘human’ variant did churn her stomach a little. So, she stuck to her veggies.
After dinner, Lyra retreated to her room. She had one last mystery to check on before passing out. It was only 730, but she was already really tired. It was literally the most unsettling day of her life.
Opening her laptop, she checked her browser history and loaded up deviant art, which was surprisingly the same in this world… but with a very different subject matter. Her login and password were the same… but her joined groups and followers were VERY different.
Picture after picture of teenagers in various juvenile situations, being diapered, using diapers, in cribs or high chairs, and, well, all sorts of weirdness like that. Worst of all, it was unmistakably her own art, her style. Apparently her fantasies.
But at the same time, not hers at all, even though somehow she could feel that she was the one who drew them. She could almost remember the motions her hands went through to create these, the feeling of familiarity hard-wired into her body and mind. She looked between the art, the place where her diary was hidden, and then to the closet where ‘her’ diapers sat.
Lyra sighed. She actually wasn’t as surprised at this art as she thought she’d be. She was a little curious as to why her art had so many more favorites then it usually did with this subject matter, but she shook her head and shut the laptop off.
Even though it was barely 8pm, she crashed on her bed and didn’t even bother to change out of her hoodie, or to put on a diaper. This wasn’t her world after all, and diapers were not something she was ready to accept like some pill she had to swallow.
About an hour later, her mother poked her head in the door, “Lyra, I’m going shopping tomorrow, do you need any more di—” but cut herself off, surprised to see her daughter already asleep. With a little smile and a roll of her eyes, she shut off the light and left her alone. She’d apparently had a stressful day.
In her dreams, Lyra was floating on a wide ocean of fur. There wasn’t an end in sight, and buildings kept drifting by, familiar ones, though she couldn’t at all put her finger on what made them so. Just a strange dream. There was a constant droning in her mind, some formless speech making no sense, but it was relaxing, and it was speaking to her comfortingly. The droning voice reassured her that everything was fine, and it felt good, and that just letting herself go was completely natural, because if that wasn’t the case, why would cubs be born doing it and had to be ‘trained’ to stop?
In the dark, in her bed that wasn’t her bed, Lyra’s body rolled over from her side to her stomach. Slowly, she shifted her legs a little, spreading them. One hand unconsciously gripped her pillow, the claws puncturing the pillow case, and with a contented, sleeping sigh, Lyra wet the bed.
;D
:-* 8) ;D