She sat on the grass, idly picking at the brown, bone dry blades. It was her second day as an Animal, and there hadnt been much change in her routine. Her father had come home late, a case of beer in hand and crashed out on the ratty old couch in the living room. She had tiptoed past him, his bulk shifting as he muttered in half conscious rebuke as the TV played. His hand brushed across her bare ass.

The thought of letting that old bastard use her again made Emilie want to puke. It was that nauseating thought that had finally forced her outside, out of that opressive little shoebox apartment. Mid-summer, the sun high up and beaming. A few whisps of cloud marring the otherwise pure blue sky.

She played back her life up to this point. It had been quite pointless. She remembered the shouting and screaming arguments between her late mother and the old pig. The quiet resentment. The way the old man had smirked when mom had come home nude, wet and shivering, wearing nothing but that blinking red smartwatch. Bad luck to have gotten converted in the midst of a wet October. The way her mother had bit her lip and held her breath as the old man fucked her in the kitchen, Emilie a few feet away sitting at the table shoveling cereal into her mouth in the morning, milk dripping onto the tartan skirt of her school uniform.

Emilie had compartmentalized everything. She shifted to her memories of school. Tamara, her best friend in elementary school. Pale ginger girl, rosy cheeks spotted with freckles, crooked smile that flashed as sun caught her braces. The year before 7th grade, she had moved. They had promised to keep in touch through email and social media, and had made good on that promise.
Tamara had been the first person to know that Emilie had been converted. There had been a tearful voicecall as Tamara consoled her, although Emilie knew it was more Tamara that needed consoling. Emilies BFF had grown up from that slightly chubby redhead into a curvy, busty policewoman. The Irish-American cop family effect, Tamara said, smiling through tears.

Her thoughts turned to her clumsy efforts at romance. Micah, in 8th grade. Gangly, tall, skinny, bespectacled, half-asian. A genderbent version of herself. They had bonded over anime, mostly pre-War stuff that had managed to avoid the government censors. One day, after school, he had invited her over to his house. His parents were out at some meeting, wouldnt be back until midnight. Her cheeks flushed. They were sitting side by side on his bed, watching some cheap romcom from the 2010s. She leaned on his shoulder. The heroine on screen blushed and kissed a boy, she felt Micah's hand tug on the strap of her camisole, his heated breath against her neck. A soft hand grasped at her exposed chest, another reaching down in between her legs. They kissed, the tinny sound of the poppy anime ending playing through the cheap laptop speaker. His clammy hand slipped under the rubber band of her panties, finger pressing against her slit. Time blended the events of that night together. Emilie on her knees, pulling down Micah's briefs. His little pecker at full mast, her little fingers pulling his foreskin back. The scent of his sex, the taste of his penis on her tongue. She had pursed her lips, sucking and licking for what had felt like minutes but was surely just seconds before he came inside her mouth.