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The Transformation into Belle
4. Picking up the pace.
Disoriented she woke again. This time clarity came earlier than the last. Once again she felt clean, all the grime and sweat washed away. She was also weaker than before going to sleep. She knew what it meant this time, they had done something to her once again. Afraid to look at herself she kept her eyes closed and tried to feel herself. There was something wrong with her fingers, they were moving awkwardly, also her knees felt funny, kind of bloated. Gathering her nerve she opened her eyes to take a look. What she saw shocked her speechless. Gone were her long beautiful fingers, only short stubs remained, and of her thumb there was no trace. Stunned she raised her hands to her face for a better view. It seemed as if her thumb bones were removed at the wrist, and her fingers at the first joint leaving her four short, barely movable stubs. The inside of her palm wasn’t spared attention too. She had now some kind of gel pads implanted under her skin, a big heart shaped one in the center of her palm, and four small ones on the stubs of her fingers. A kind of daze overcame her, and she spent a long time simply watching what was left of her hands.
In a weird bout of calmness she lowered her hands and looked at her knees. There were some weird bumps just below her knee joints. Feeling them up she discovered that her captors had implanted the same gel cushions as in her hands, but just under her kneecaps. Why? What was all this mutilation meant for? She had no idea, but was soon to find out. It was then that the food whistle sounded. Still deep in apathy about her latest changes she tried standing up just to find out she couldn’t. In panic now she tried again and again only to find out that she could move her legs just fine as long as she didn’t try to take up a standing position. She could crawl on all fours, heave up to a weird crouch, a kind of 45 degree angle, which was difficult to balance, but she couldn’t stand up.
Then it hit her, the steel bowls, the new posture, her mutilated hands, the sandbox, the strange food… They wanted to make a dog out of her! She flipped. She started twisting, making weird contortions, jumping up as far as her modified legs would allow. And she started to shout. And then she got one more shock. Her voice was gone. She couldn’t articulate any words, what came out was a weird combination of growls and yips. She started running up and down her cell which suddenly became a kennel in her mind. Evermore frantic she decided to end everything, she ran full tilt up to a wall in a vain attempt to crack her head. But her new limbs wouldn’t listen to her as she’d like them to. She stumbled again and again. Exhausted, defeated and hungry she lay in a heap next to the sandbox, near the wall. Her head hurt and she didn’t know if it was more due to shock or physical pain incurred in her attempts at self-harm.
After a short rest she realized the she wasn’t as down as after her first modifications. The restlessness was returning. They must have her on some kind of drugs. She rose up in resignation and crawled slowly towards her food bowl. From experience she knew that if she didn’t eat her food in a fixed period of time after the whistle, it would be denied her until the next day. It was there that she discovered the next degradation. She was no longer able to pick the food up with her hands. If she wanted to eat, she would have to lower her head and eat like an animal they wanted her to become. She paused for a moment but decided that she didn’t have enough strength to fight anymore at the time. She lowered her head into the recess in the wall, opened her mouth and started to eat. Suddenly ravenous she gulped her gruel that she now identified as a kind of dog food. When she was done she licked the bowl clean just as she did earlier but this time she used her tongue directly. Then she switched to the water bowl and drank her fill.
In the couple of next days she began to figure out how to move again. In the beginning quite awkward she was soon pacing up and down her kennel, this time on all fours. Now she understood the reason behind the gel pads, they were there to protect her hands and knees as she was moving around on all fours. Her good mood was puzzling in moments of clarity but she was powerless to fight against the drugs they had to have been giving her in her food. Either way that’s what she was telling herself, the possibility of acceptance was anathema to her. Now that she knew what they wanted to do with her she made a plan of action. She would become the best dog they wanted, in the end they would either sell her, or keep her for themselves. Either-way there was a chance that she would be amongst people again, and where there were people there was a chance of escape. So she trained herself, she practiced doglike behavior as she remembered it. Her pacing turned into a weird shuffle-like running, which she thought of as a success.
She practiced other things too. She tried to let her tongue hang out after a vigorous run. Her attempts at lapping up water were laughable at first with more water ending up around the bowl than in her mouth, but with time she got better. Her feeding got neater too. No longer was her face all dirty after eating, and the little bit around the lips was easy to lick off. Licking the bowl clean became second nature to her. The hardest thing to learn was a new way of using the sandbox. Although it was still possible to use it crouching, with her private region somewhat obscured, she decided to work out a doglike way of dealing with that unpleasant business. So she still crouched, but on all fours, with her legs spread to avoid splashing them. At first she tried to do it the male dog way with one of her legs raised, but in the end it proved too difficult to maintain balance that way.
There were some signs that her captors noticed her efforts and decided to “reward” her. On morning a dog bed appeared in the kennel next to the food niche. Later the food niche itself disappeared and her bowls were sliding out of the wall next to the bed always full each morning. If she drank all of her water during the day, the bowl slid back into a recess in the wall only to appear full again. No longer did she have to stick her head inside a hole in the wall to eat and drink.
And best of all there appeared a rope one day, one end of it vanished into a hole in the wall and the other one was laying on the floor. Curious she approached it and picked at it with her paw. It withdrew slightly into the wall, astonished she jumped back. This was the first bit of interactive action she experienced in her kennel since giving up her clothing. After a moment she approached it again, just to have it slide back a little once more. After a few tries she figured out the game. It was a dog’s tug of war, full of energy (as always lately) she grabbed the end of the rope with the metal stubs, she had for teeth, and started pulling for all she was worth. She was exhilarated, finally some interaction with her captors, a way to fight back, to win against them. To have FUN!!! To break the everyday monotony. In the end she lay exhausted, her energy drained for the first time in a long time.
Suddenly there was a weird sound GODDOOG and something fell down onto her bed. Curious she approached it just to find a bone shaped dog treat. She licked it and her senses exploded with taste. Feed all the time a rather salty and tasteless gruel, the richness of taste was phenomenal. She spend the rest of her day curled in her bed licking her treat to nothing.
And so her days flew by, and with each of them she became better in her movements and behavior. She discovered that if she put enough energy in her running, which due to the dimensions of her kennel was one endless circle, and then played with the rope with enough enthusiasm she would hear GODD OOG and get a new treat. Life was shaping up, maybe her training was nearing an end, maybe her chance would come soon. Her drug induced spirits were up. And then one morning she woke up with a familiar feeling…
Continued in part5.
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