>>58078249
>Under the fin..
>Along the head…
>Follow the ribs, and…
>Well, it looked like an animal ravaged it.
>But that was edible.
>Slicing the scales away was oddly satisfying and thankfully easy.
>You slid the fish fillet off the knife.
>It splashed into a bowl of salt water.
>Using knives was challenging.
>The duller knife didn’t help.
>But your new fingers weren’t as dexterous.
>Flipping the fish over, you restarted the process.
>The intrusive thoughts came again.
>Just eat it.
>Bite its head off.
>Suckle the flesh from the bone.
>Save yourself the time and trouble.
>Another two fillets slid into the salt bath.
>Poison was nothing. Your body was hyper-immune.
>That wasn’t bothering you.
>What bothered you was that you remembered doing it.
>You hadn’t.
>Obviously you hadn’t.
>No where, when, or why.
>You weren’t some crazed, rugged survivalist.
>Or some hapless mook who did it for clicks.
>But you felt it.
>The scales on your tongue.
>Sinking your teeth in, biting hard, crunching bone, twisting, jerking, and yanking…
>You’d call it déjà vu were it not a daily occurrence.
>Once, maybe twice a day since the change.
>Salt and pepper would be fine.
>The long day, and the long bath, worked up your appetite.
>With extreme caution, you slide the tray of fish into your oven.
>It was far too hard to use oven mitts with your paws.
>Darn things wouldn’t slide past your wrist-spikes.
>It wasn’t vivid, but the feeling came again.
>You remembered them being shorter once.
>Nubs.
>The rational brain knew you didn’t.
>Kind of.
>As a boy, you hadn’t had them. No human did.
>Of course you remembered them bare.
>But as a riolu…
>Had you been one, that is.
>It felt like you had.