Something was crawling on my face! I jolted awake, stifling an embarrassing squeal, before I skewered the nine inch centipede with my claws. I had only meant to brush it off! Now the insect was wriggling wildly on my claw, like some sort of hellish kebab.

  I hate bugs and I’m not ashamed to admit it! Even after I was raised as a “man”, bugs never failed to make me squirm, especially the demons known as centipedes. So why was I staring at it? And why did the slimy, juicy, crunchy thing look delicious?

  I quickly banished that alarming thought and delicately scraped it off my claw. I wasn’t that desperate yet. Nope nope nope. For now, it was time to take inventory.

  I was uninjured, excluding a few scrapes. A good start. Of course, I was very very hungry. But, the most concerning thing was my mental state. My memories felt fuzzy. Like a dream. Not the running and screaming from the stick monster, but everything before I woke up in this strange forest.

  Back to my physical condition. First, I have scales now. Tightly packed violet scales. They’re tough, but not rock solid. Moving down to my hands and feet, or my lack of traditional hands or feet.

  Now I have three large claws coming from my palms, and three black talons instead of toes. I also have 2 curved horns coming from my forehead. My hair is long, black, and surprisingly silky. Oh, and I have a long scaly tail which sort of does its own thing. Honestly, I don't have a lot of control over it.

  Depending on how demented your tastes are –I was never one to judge– I might be beautiful? Hard to tell without a mirror. Either way I’m not bothered. I think I’m happy about it. I'm a monster, sure. But I’m a monster girl. Or woman. I couldn’t suppress a smile with my wickedly sharp teeth. This was my dream, my oldest, biggest, most impossible dream! That probably explains my next concern.

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  I should be way more worried! Being chased by that stick thing was scary as hell, but besides that, I feel okay. The only thing that worries me right now is potentially being killed in this world, before getting to enjoy this body!

  To avoid that, I’ll focus on my first goal: Food! I’m starving, so starving that I considered eating a centipede. That’s an issue. There was fake fruit in the forest. There has to be real fruit too.

  I silently crawled out of the cave. It was night outside, but I could still see everything. I have darkvision. Nice. The forest was alive with the chirping of a thousand different insects, with the sound of the wind through the trees, and the smell of damp mud. A stream! I climbed to my feet and crept towards the scent.

  I arrived at a small brook, a couple feet across and nestled between two trees. I tried to cup some water in my hands. It trickled out from between my claws.

  I sighed and bent down to drink directly from the steam. Doing this with my old body would be an awful idea.

  As I was drinking I saw the moons above me, peaking through the canopy. Both of them. A red one with a pale white ring. The other was a smaller dull blue sphere. Together they created an odd ghosting effect, like old school 3d glasses.

  At that moment there was a shimmer in the stream. Silver scales. By instinct I swiped my claws into the stream and cut the shimmering fish in two. Before the pieces could float downstream, I grasped them and laid them on the grass by the stream.

  The fish was bloody and looked up at me with one dead eye. This was gourmet sushi! Fresher than a Michelin star restaurant.

  I impaled the pieces with my claws and tore into the fish. I didn’t know how to make a fire so cooking wasn’t an option. It’s not like this is how I wanted to eat. Really.

  If anyone was watching me they’d see a naked monster girl chomping down on a just-caught fish. Scales and blood streaking down from her razor sharp fangs. Her long hair caked with mud, and her tail whipping around happily.

  As I finished off my meal, I heard a twig break. The underbrush on the other side of the stream rustled. A large boar emerged, its horns crackled with streaks of untamed electrical energy. Its bright yellow eyes stared down at me. I wasn’t the only starving one.