I was never much of a slipper type of person, but as soon as I saw them, I knew I had to get them.

I was in a clothing store selling all sorts of lounge apparel, from comfy shirts and wool socks to long night gowns and soft pajamas. There was nothing in particular I was looking for; I was just looking around for something to catch my eye. And catch my eye they did.

On the rack in front of me was a cute pair of black bear paw slippers. They were kind of cartoony looking, having only three white claws per foot and being quite poofy. There was no way I could resist, especially with the price. I didn't hesitate to grab the pair and head into the store's changing room.

Once inside, I took off my shoes and stuffed my feet into the soles and walked around for a bit in them. They fit perfectly, and despite my motion being impaired by the plastic linking them together, they seemed to be very comfortable. The insides hugged my feet warmly and securely, and the bottoms cushioned my every step on the floor. I took a look at myself in the tall mirror in the changing room and noticed just how goofy I looked. My tiny legs looked like they were being swallowed up by the massive paws! I couldn't help but smile. I replaced the slippers with my shoes and walked out, ready to check out.

Walking through the maze of colorful garments, I was aware of the hardness of the floor attacking my feet now that I didn't have the fluffy protection the slippers provided. I couldn't wait to get home so I could put them on again.

"Hello, and thanks for stopping in," greeted the cashier. I set the slippers on the counter and waited for them to be scanned. "That will be seventeen dollars and ninety-four cents." I pulled a twenty out of my wallet and stuffed my change in. "Would you like a bag for that?"

"Sure."

"Have a good afternoon!"

"You too," I replied, but the cashier was already busy with the next customer and couldn't hear.

Leaving the store, I checked out out a few more stores nearby for anything else that would interest me, but when I drove home later in the day, the slippers were my only purchase.

---

Getting home, I took my shoes off and filled a glass of water from the sink to drink. After hydrating myself, I pulled the slippers out of their bag and cut the plastic tie connecting them together. Then, I thoroughly examined the product to find any other little plastic pieces poking out, and found no less than six of the little things embedded in the fabric for no reason. Why do companies even put them in there anyway? At least they were easy to remove after finding them.

Finally, I slipped on the paws. They were as comfy as they were when I tried them on in the store and felt great to walk in now that I had the full range of movement available. Walking around in them was clumsy, but I got used to it after practicing for a few minutes. I just had to remember to keep myself farther back when going up stairs to make room for the fronts of my oversized feet.

I wore the slippers as often as I could whenever I was at home. Basically, if I wasn't sleeping or showering, I was wearing them. If I was sitting down, be it reading, playing video games, or otherwise relaxing, wiggling my toes in the warm soles or looking down would cheer me up. If I was walking around, the hugging embrace would lock in warmth. Now, if only they could keep the rest of my body warm; that would be great!

Sometimes, when I'm eating (wearing the paws of course), I think of the pop-up books I read and cartoons I watched as a child, where bears would be lazy and eat a bunch of food all day. Unfortunately, I didn't have any honey or berries to engorge myself on, and I hated the taste of fish. I've gotten the idea to sit back in my chair or couch after eating and pretend that I was getting ready to sleep after finishing a large meal, but I didn't want to accidentally fall asleep while wearing the slippers. Maybe I was just afraid of being too childish.

Actually, I think I was afraid of what would happen in my dreams if I did so. Yes, it was silly that I was afraid of doing something a child would while at the same time being worried of something that could not affect me, but I wasn't sure about that anymore. I've never been able to remember my dreams, save for the occasional one here and there, but ever since the day I bought the slippers, I've been able to clearly remember two or three each night. In all of them, the setting varied -- sometimes I was in my house, sometimes in a forest, and sometimes in the middle of the city -- but what was constant was that I was always a black bear. Your mind works strangely when you're asleep, of course; you don't question what you're experiencing and instead always take it as reality; but what scared me was that I couldn't even recognize myself mentally. For all I knew, I was a bear, and never human.

What made me even more afraid was that I wasn't one to believe in the supernatural -- I've tried to stop some of my friends from thinking ghosts existed with little success -- and here I am considering the possibility of my slippers messing with my mind. I should have taken them off and never worn them again, maybe hand them off to some unsuspecting stranger, but I was just being paranoid; even then, they were too comfortable to get rid of.

They were in fact so comfortable at that moment that when I walked to my room and tucked myself in bed, I didn't even have the thought to take them off, being too focused on what would happen if I didn't do so to be aware of doing exactly that.

When I next opened my eyes, I stood on my four legs in the middle of a crowded street. Humans flowed around me, going everywhere at once and yet still surrounding me. I began to panic. There was no way out. I wanted to shove my way through the crowd and flee away from these scary creatures, but what if they thought I was trying to harm them and then attack me?

My heart was racing so fast that I woke myself up from the stress alone. Surprisingly, the dark of night didn't fill my room, but the light of a sun that's been in the sky for hours. I reached over to my phone and checked the time, confirming that I've indeed slept in. Even though I had nowhere to go today, I hated waking up late in general. All it does is waste sunlight. To think that now I've done so was frustrating! Also, how much longer would I have slept if I didn't get ripped out of my dream just then? Was it even my dream, or that of another animal?

I kicked off my blankets, not caring about keeping my place clean like I usually do, and stared at two big black paws. Oh, that's right; I left on my slippers. Hopefully my feet didn't sweat through the night and get them all smelly. Cleaning them would probably be a pain in the behind.

Planting my feet on the pile of blankets, I reached down to take off the paws, but I stood back up at the last second, deciding I would take them off after getting something to eat, even though I would have been done with it in the amount of time it took me to even think of that.

While walking to my kitchen, a loud crack filled my ears, and I fell over onto the hard floor chin-first from the piercing pain in my feet. They didn't hurt so much as to make me want to scream, but the pain was enough to make me hiss through clenched teeth with each breath. The impact on my chin was nothing right now -- the only thing I cared about was my feet. I shifted my weight onto my knees and hands and slowly turned myself over, being careful not to hit my feet against anything in the hallway. Once I was on my back, I partially curled up into a ball and reached for my right foot to try to touch it and figure out why I was hurting. Only then did I realized I had my eyes shut tight since I fell down. How was I going to see what happened without, well, seeing?

Looking around, I didn't see anything I could have tripped on, if I even did trip on anything. Nothing fell on my floor, and no part of it jutted upward. My eyes then fell on my covered feet and locked on in shock. Instead of three poofy black digits, there were five, each tipped with a white claw. My hand, now on my foot, did not feel the familiar faux fur of the slippers but instead what felt like my hair but a bit thicker. Turning my foot over, I saw that cheap plastic bottom was replaced by the pattern of an actual bear paw print.

I didn't know what was happening, but I needed to get these slippers off right away.

I stuck my thumbs down my leg, like I normally do when taking off the slippers, but I couldn't find where my leg stopped and the slipper began. The space between them simply was not there. Maybe my mind was too clouded by the pain... that wasn't there anymore. What was going on? I grabbed the edges of the bottom of my paw, feeling the rough texture of the paw-pads on my fingertips, and pulled down, only to feel like I was about to dislocate my foot. Raising my arms in confusion left a white scratch where it brushed up against the claws, which were clearly not the soft material they should be.

If I had to guess, I was turning into a bear, but that wasn't possible. Maybe I misremembered how many toes were on each paw, and forgot how hard or soft the claws were, and never noticed the makeup of the bottoms, and felt the 'fur' a different way this time...

I stood up on my huge paws and walked into the kitchen toward my knife holder. I would slice off these slippers if I had to. They needed to come off now. The only issue was that when I brought the edge to the fur, I yipped in surprise from feeling the blade on my flesh. No, it wasn't my flesh. There is no way I could have felt anything through so much padding. The only explanation was that the slippers had somehow become my feet, but that was, again, impossible.

My mind must have been all over the place. I needed to calm down and to come back to my senses. Not wanting to lay back down and possibly fall back asleep, bringing on another ursine dream or three, I hopped in the shower to try to clear my mind. Feeling body wash run between my furred toes only reaffirmed how real the situation was.

The shower only made everything worse. When I got out and started drying myself, not only did my arms, legs, and torso seem much hairier, but the abrupt lines that separated thin leg from poofy paw had moved up from my ankles several inches. It felt like I had put on a pair of long wool socks. Getting pants on was a challenge since my huge feet couldn't fit in the leg holes; I ended up having to find a pair of too-pig sweatpants and tie the waistband tight. All the new hair made my upper body itch after putting on a shirt.

My stomach growled like a beast. I wasn't just a little hungry and looking for breakfast; I was starving, famished! Did growing that bit of fur and hair really take that much out of me? I went into the kitchen again to do what I was going to do not thirty minutes before. Maybe I was losing my mind. My stomach screamed for sustenance again. I opened the freezer door and took a look inside, the coldness attacking my bare face. Thankfully it was just a bare face right now and not a bear face.

Nothing attracted me or my belly's attention. Honestly, I could really go for some fish right now. Wait, what? I hate fish! Never would I eat fish! I slammed the door shut and ran down the stairs to my basement to take a look in the pantry. Hastily, I picked out the pancake batter and syrup before I forgot what food I liked to eat again. I was about to run back up the stairs but remembered my issues doing so with the slippers (while they were still slippers, at least), so I had to instead take my time.

Rooting around in the cupboards to find the cooking utensils you needed was always an exercise in frustration. It seemed like the pots or pans you needed had minds of their own and decided, 'Hey, we should all move to the bottom of the stack and hide as far back as possible!' Though, seeing how my slippers surely have sprouted a mind of their own, it probably wasn't that far from the truth.

When I grabbed the handle of what I was looking for, the sensation of touching the handle felt... muted. After setting the pan down on the stove top, I turned my hands over and took another look at my arms. In most places, they were obscured by the forest of black hair that was taking them over. My fingertips were much darker than before; so were my palms, making a triangular pattern on them. My paw-pads must be growing in.

Most days, I'd only make two pancakes, maybe three or four if I felt very hungry on that day. Today, though, I wanted to make as many as I could. Of course, there was only so much room on the pan, but I managed to fit five on -- one in each corner, and one in the middle. When they were ready, I didn't hesitate to start preparing more after stacking them on a plate.

I pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. Applying syrup was quite the endeavor -- actually doing so wasn't hard, but stopping was! I only managed to restrain myself after drowning the poor things. I wolfed down the drenched pancakes as quickly as possible with little room for breathing, enjoying the sweet, sticky syrup. It always tasted delicious, but right now, especially so. The urge came over me to just dig in to the stack with my claws and get the honey all over my paws and face. Except, I didn't have claws, this was not honey, and my hands were not paws. Yet. Also, since when have I ever thought of doing that?

I licked my lips clean, only to have my tongue brush up against what felt like facial hair. Not the stubble from not shaving for a few days, but the craziness from neglecting to shave for a few years. That must be the fur spreading to my face. At this point, the physical changes didn't surprise or even seem to affect me anymore, but the mental changes sure did. I didn't want to forget who I was. If my personality got replaced, would I have died in a way? The thought of dying made me want to run away, far, far away. Hold on, why would it? I'm not some animal; I'm a person; I should be able to think rationally!

Eating so much so quickly didn't make me feel bloated. Instead, I felt just as hungry as I did before. There was no hesitation as I got up to rush through making more hot pancakes, scoop them up, pour more batter on the pan, and set my plate back on the table. Before I sat back down, I realized just how uncomfortable and hot I was in my clothing, so I pulled everything off before sitting down, revealing my fully furred body. My shirt and pants didn't flutter down to my floor whole; their ribboned remains did instead. Huh, I must have claws on my hands now. A quick glance confirmed so, along with the fact that my hands weren't hands anymore, but paws. Apathetic toward the event, I reached out to pick up my fork and knife, only to drop them right away. I kept trying to grab them, but it was like I couldn't get a full grip on them. Just then, it dawned on me that it probably because I kind of didn't have, you know, thumbs anymore. Silly human mind; bears didn't have thumbs!

Finishing that stack quelled my hunger enough so that I could ignore it if I wished along with making my belly stick out slightly. After I finished preparing and collected the final stack, I turned off the stove since I probably wouldn't need to eat more after that. I didn't know I had eaten the previous pancakes with my... bare? bear? bare bear claws? until they clung to the knob when turning off the burner, leaving brown goo on the previously spotless dial.

All of this 'not realizing I've done something I wouldn't have done the day before until after I've done it' business was deeply concerning. Already, I was acting like I've done all of these things my entire ursine life -- human life --; would I soon be thinking I've always been a bear?

I sat down, ready to eat more, and leaped back up immediately. "Rrrougch!" I roared in pain. It wasn't a yell, or a scream, but a deep, bestial roar. Bringing a paw -- no, hand -- no, paw -- no, oh, forget it -- to my sore tailbone, I felt a spherical lump sticking out, covered in black fur like the rest of my body. How could I have sat on my tail? Silly me.

When I finished the rest of my meal, I felt full, but without the discomfort of being stuffed. I laid my sticky paws on my bulging belly and laid back in my chair, hearing it creak as it did its best to support me. My mind wandered there for some time. I wasn't sure how long; it could have been a minute; it could have been an hour. Sometime later, I was brought back to reality by a tingling all over my head, which quickly transitioned to pain.

My skull felt like it was going to explode. I brought my paws to my temples and snapped my jaws shut, trying not to roar. The whole front of my face felt like it was being tugged and trying to push itself outward at the same time. To try to further cope with the pain, I flared my nostrils, widened my ears, and closed my eyes, trying to distract myself, to focus on anything other than the mind-splitting pain.

It may have been perfect timing, or it may have triggered the next steps of my changes, but my ears felt like they wanted to keep moving upward on their own and my nostrils wanted to expand more and more. I unclenched my jaws and began to pant, my tongue and breath agitating my sore teeth and nose.

I'm sure it was only a few seconds, but after hours of having my head pressurized, the pain stopped suddenly, as well as all the tugging and pushing that was coming from everywhere. Not caring about the mess I needed to clean up in the kitchen, I got up to walk back in my bathroom and take a look at myself in the mirror. What stared back to me was a face I both did and did not recognize, the conflict between the bear and the human in my head giving me a dull headache. My hair and skin were gone, being replaced with black fur coating nearly every spot. My ears were now rounder and stuck out farther up on my head, and my nose and mouth now made an extended snout, covered in lighter, tan-ish fur. Part of me, the part of me that was still sane, couldn't believe it, but when I wiggled my ears and nose, the reflection in the mirror wiggled its ears and nose back. I opened my mouth and stared at its image while going over my teeth with my tongue. It was real. All of it was real!

The only thing that seemed to be missing was that I was walking on two feet instead of four. Preparing for the inevitable shift in my stature, I went into my living room and fell forward onto all-fours, feeling the carpet between all twenty of my new toes. Moving around like this felt natural, like I've always been used to doing so, save for my familiar surroundings appearing much larger now that my eyes were lower. I could feel the floor shift as I circled around. There was no doubt that I was no longer the skinny person from before, but I definitely wasn't fat either.

Whatever snap or tingling feeling I was expecting in my spine or lower back never came. I stood up like a human, confused that I could still walk on two feet just as well as I did on four. At least a part of my human self remained outside my mind, but it felt so foreign and distant.

These walls, these confinements, could no longer contain me. I needed to be free -- free from this cage, and free from the society that would now harm me. Without a care, I tore my house's door off its hinges, channeling the strength of my thicker, more muscular limbs, and darted outside. I remember there was a forested area close to my house I would always walk to in my previous life; there, I would always enjoy the lack of people, considering it a second home where I could relax when I needed to. Today, and for the rest of my life, it would truly be my home, where I could be free.