A middle-aged man was walking down the street. He was not often one to take walks - his work tended to keep him rather exhausted and he had nowhere near the energy to spare that he used to - but today, he simply had to get away from it all for a bit. Even when he wasn’t at work, it seemed he was always busy. Not with family, for he lived alone, but it always seemed that something was coming up, some sort of responsibility that needed tending, some unexpected complication... and even when he did have free time, he just never seemed to be able to relax. He had hoped that going on a walk may help ease his mind for a bit, but he was too busy pondering his various troubles to relax at all.

However, something did briefly distract him, at the very least: the old decrepit house in the neighborhood and its oddly-vibrant garden. For as long as he remembered, the house had been there, the house had been abandoned, and the garden was alive and well despite there never being any sign of anyone tending it. But this time, it was different. The garden was filled with more flora than ever before, overgrown with life to the point of absurdity. It was like a jungle of flowers and vines, some of them far larger than he even thought possible. Back when he was younger, he might have taken this as proof of the existence of magic, but now he was far too cynical to even consider that. But nonetheless, he simply had to try to figure out what was going on, and so he approached the garden.

He carefully climbed over the fence, stepping through the garden carefully, doing his best to avoid trampling any of the vast flora around him. It seemed that, upon closer inspection, it was all real, no fake plants in sight. Though... with how overgrown things were here, he couldn’t even see the way out at this point, not that the garden was so vast that he had to worry about being unable to find his way out. Still, it did feel a bit confusing, though not as much as when he caught sight of a strange pale yellow furry beast with a leaf for a tail and other leaves growing from its body, which was gazing up at him with its big, cute brown eyes.

He wasn’t sure how to respond. Such a thing couldn’t exist in reality, it had to be a hallucination caused by the plants here. As such, he turned around and began to leave, figuring it would be best to get out before whatever hallucinogen these plants were producing caused him to either pass out or completely lose track of reality, but before he could take more than a single step, three giant leaves sprung from the ground, encasing him in a big cocoon.

He pressed against one of the leaves with his hands, finding it to be somewhat flexible, yet too rigid to simply fold it down and continue on his way. In fact, he couldn’t even bend the leaf far enough to allow any light into the cocoon. He knew that, by all rights, he should be terrified, either of being trapped or of hallucinating so badly that his hallucinations were preventing him from leaving, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel much fear from this, and that in itself was the scariest part for him. Yet even that fear quickly began to fade, leaving him feeling mentally numb, before he began to feel a wave of serenity wash over him, urging him so strongly to just relax and let things happen that he couldn’t help but do just that, sitting down in the cocoon and leaning back against one of the leaves.

His eyes changed a bit, allowing him to see in the darkness of the cocoon. He saw his mouth and nose starting to push forward, forming into a short furry muzzle, mostly white with a muted brown top, with a darker brown nose. He felt the rest of his face being covered in fur, with tufts on either cheek. Most of the fur was white, but there was a thick line of muted brown fur going from the top of his muzzle to the top of his head. His ears were moving upward toward the top of his head, becoming rounded animal ears. His hair shortened, converting to brown fur atop his head before two horns emerged there, curved toward either side.

Stripped of his fear of the situation, what remained was curiosity. When he felt a thick mane of green leaves forming around his neck, he reached up with his hands to feel it, before soon finding his hands changing to orange hooves, his arms changing to white-furred forelegs. And while he knew his past self would have found this terrifying, he couldn’t help but find it comforting.

He felt more leaves growing along his back, ending in a short tail of three leaves, as he watched thick muted brown fur growing along his torso. As his hind legs were being covered in white fur and his feet turning to orange hooves, he noticed that the leaf cocoon was quickly starting to seem larger and larger, as were his clothes. Not that he needed clothes anymore, of course. He began to slip out of them, quite easily due to his small size, and once he was done the cocoon began to open, revealing the paradise of flora that was the garden. To think that earlier, he had been nervous about this place! How very silly!

He began hopping about amidst the plants. He was still aware of his old life, but now it felt so very distant, so unimportant, and so undesirable. Looking at it from the outside, he saw now just how badly in a rut his life had gotten, and this was the perfect way to leave it all behind in favor of the carefree life of a young... Well, he wasn’t quite sure what to call himself, but whatever he was, he was happy to be it! No worries, no responsibilities, no anxieties, just a beautiful garden to frolic in!

And nearby, he saw a familiar creature, the one he’d seen right before he ended up in the cocoon. Judging by its expression, it was definitely happy for him.