Nexus: The First Visitor AKA Jeriko's Story

By: Fox Tenson
Daydreams, that's what Jake was known for in his senior classes. He could be called upon to read a passage or answer a question and he'd always be wrapped up in his own little world, his own drawings. His paper filled with doodles of strange characters and scenes, mostly animals in various states of antics, some anthro some feral, but always dancing through his mind and onto his paper. This was perfect for him, but hardly acceptable to his teachers or parents and his grades did reflect this a bit.

Another class came and went, another round of a teacher harping on him for not paying attention, it was the typical day and Jake really didn't seem to care very much. He had more important things on his mind, his little world, his stories, his fantasies, and even his characters. Adventures, comedy, drama! It was really too bad nobody else seemed to care about them like he did.

Thoughts dangled in his head about a new character, a new short story, plot devices, all as he walked down the school hallway. So many faces that really never got to know him, he might as well have been alone as he walked towards his next class. Nothing could distract his mind from his daydreams and erase the smile from his face as he ran over his new character in his head.

That was until the sudden rush of pressure, like a heavy wind blowing down the wall and right into his face followed by the feeling as if he had run into a thickly padded wall. He looked up and around to try to find out what had just caused the strange sensation, who he had run in to but everything was blurry and his vision wavering. He struggled on his feet a bit as he felt his strength leaving him, and collapsed with a gasping cry for help.

Images danced in his head as he lay dreaming, giggling laughter, applause, strange theme music that got the blood pumping. He could hear animal cries, clanging metal, and caught glimpses of a few animals and people too blurry to make out. He felt himself drawn into the mishmash of sounds and blurred images, galloping along with a blurry figure to do battle with another. Laughing over something he couldn't understand but was somehow funny to him, feeling himself crushed yet standing up just fine again. It was pleasing but seemed to lack much sense for a dream of any sort. Part of him didn't wish to wake up and leave this strange place, but his rational mind finally managed to wrench order into the chaos, ending the dream with the sound of a popping bubble and booing jeers from the unseen figures.

Jake awoke suddenly, covered in heavy sweat and panting heavily. He shook his head and rushed to his feet, staggering as he found his balance again. He looked around through clearing vision at the halls around him, relieved to still be in the school but a bit concerned that he couldn't see anyone else around him. "Hello? Anyone here? I..I don't feel so good, I think I passed out and need some help. Hello?" Jake called out, bracing himself against a locker door.

Silence, no response, not even the sound of a falling footstep could be heard as his calls echoed through the empty halls. "Did...did I lay here all day? What time is it..?" Jake said as he rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his vision fully before looking around again.

It was completely empty, even as he managed to gather enough strength to walk down the hallway to peer into the classrooms he didn't see a single soul besides himself, and even the classrooms were empty. His eyes grew wide as he looked out the windows through the door of a classroom, pure bright white light was shining in through some while others seemed to be pitch black and blocking the light that was coming in elsewhere. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, there wasn't even a sky, just black and white nothingness. "Maybe...maybe I'm still knocked out...maybe I'm dreaming still? I hope this isn't heaven because I sure as hell don't think school is heaven, haha..." Jake said in a half joking tone, trying to calm his nerves a bit.

"Maybe it's aliens! Or interdimensional beings kidnapping the others! Haha...man that'd make a good story. Ohh..my new hero character could totally work here, or maybe..." He grinned a little, trying to put things off as a dream. Humor and trying to make a story out of things always worked to calm him down a little...normally, but this was hardly a normal situation.

"Shoot...this is really, really strange..." Jake said as he scratched his head, walking through the empty halls and classrooms, getting more worried as he did so. "Where is everyone? I hope I'm ok and not in a hospital somewhere, or a grave even."

A sudden fit of loud laughter echoed out through the halls, followed by soft applause. Giggles of schoolchildren bounced from classroom to classroom as the lights flashed different colors. It only lasted for a few seconds before all fell silent again but it had worked it's magic well enough to send Jake screaming towards the exit doors. He banged on them, tugged on them, rammed into them to no avail. It was one thing to be stuck in an empty school with odd lighting, but it was something completely different to start hearing laughter and giggles from all around!

A sudden burst of images hit his mind again, this time of two animalistic creatures doing battle with swords to the sound of applause. He shook his head, taking it between his hands as the images switched over, this time to an almost toonish set of creatures chasing a very typical bad guy with evil mustache. One of the two ended up crushed under a sudden falling trap, but sprang back up flat as a pancake before using a thumb to blow himself back into full shape to the sound of giggles and laughter. "Stop fiend!" It called, making Jakes blood boiled and pump, the part that wished to keep dreaming wanting to run along with the two in his head.

He shook himself and slapped the sides of his head to try to clear the images, which faded to afterthoughts and soft giggles, music, and clangs of battle in his head. "I..I have to get out of here. This isn't right, I have to get home!" Jake yelled, running full tilt towards the gymnasium. "The emergency exit! It..it has to work!"

The hallway up ahead suddenly seemed to grow smaller and smaller, till he couldn't even fit down it. He panted heavily, sounds of laughter echoing out around him again which only seemed to make him angry, although part of him felt proud at being laughed at. He cursed under his breath, ducking into a nearby classroom that had enough exit into the next hallway over, perhaps that way was still open. He stopped to catch his breath as the door behind him sudden slammed shut, fell off it's hinges and to the floor, revealing brick wall where it once was and a sealed exit.

The laughter and giggles echoed out again, and he smiled as the feelings of euphoria at the sounds grew even stronger. He shook himself again to regain his senses, even if the images and laughter continued ever louder in his mind. As he started to run through the class a set of images on the chalkboard grabbed his full attention. His characters were drawn there, scenes from his stories. All of them in motion, either in battle or chasing each other around the borders of the board. He stared at them dumbfounded, glad to see them in a real fashion but scared beyond measure at how he was seeing them.

The chalk along the board suddenly lifted on it's own, floating over to a large empty space on the board. The images in his head hit hard quite suddenly, before quickly clearing into silence and nothingness. Something was stirring again in his mind, an image starting to take full root. Colors and shapes coming into place of a dashing creature colored by bright tans, blacks, yellows, and even some white. Green large eyes looking back at him as a large grin appeared. "J...Jeriko?" Jake said as he recognized the image of the new character he had though of earlier in the day.

It was then the floating chalk started to work, drawing frantically over the empty space. The image in his mind starting to be drawn onto the black board in chalky white outline. The backwards baseball cap with the ankh emblem, the structure, the stance. Somehow it was copying his image from his mind perfectly! The image pointed at him and smiled, before the eraser flew up to the board and erased it, sending clouds of white dust into the air and making Jake cough and hack.

"W..what the hell is going on here?" Jake yelled out as he bolted again, finally managing to wrench himself away from the images and chalkboard. He burst through the other door into the hallway, running as fast as he possibly could towards the gym. Images in his head grew back again, stronger than ever. This time he could see something in his vision and found himself taking part in all the antics, and enjoying them. He rational mind kept him running even as he seemed to drift into the unusually pleasant sounds of laughter and adventure.

Jake fell to the ground giggling to himself for a few seconds before grabbing himself into focus enough to get back up and keep running in an almost drunken stupor. A loud noise rang out behind him and caught his attention, leaving him to fall again and create a booming laughter from around. He looked at the source of the sound, the hallway was crumbling and pulling apart into the void he had seen out the window. Fragmenting into tile and pieces of wood and flying away into nothingness, even the floor was falling apart.

This got his adrenaline pumping enough to get back up into a stumbling run, trying to outrun the fracturing world around him. He ran and ran but the hallway never seemed to change, as if he were going down the same hallway over and over and over again. He started to cry, calling out as loudly as he could for help as the ground beneath his running feet pulled away, leaving him to fall into the vast void below.

Jake could feel himself falling at rapid speed even if the void around him never changed it's appearance. He could see himself perfectly as if in strong light, but nothing else was out there, it was pure emptiness. The giggles and laughter hit again from all around, and that same feeling of pressure hit from before all this had started, and Jake saw his hands starting to glow.

It was a strange feeling that came over his hands and soon spread all over his entire body, even his mind floating half in the strange high it gave him, the images suddenly popping away that were there before to be replaced by the feeling alone. He watched as the glow seemed to pulse over his form, his hands starting to swell in an unusual fashion. They were ballooning out in shape, rounded without visible joints and his pinky fingers seemed to be fusing in with their neighbor. This was a bit concerning but the euphoric feelings were keeping him sedated.

The ballooning shape his his palms and hands, rounding them out in similar fashion and staining them pure white, save for the rounded spots on his fingertips and area of his palms that turned a bright pink color and swelled out more than the rest of his hands. The unusual colors spread to the back of his hands now, turning them a yellowish tan color, save for his fingers, thumbs, and the palms. He poked at one with the other curiously, feeling them give slightly in an almost rubbery state, far from normal for any sort of hands he knew.

A sharp pressure hit at his feet and drew his attention to his shoes, which seemed to be bulging and creaking more by the second. It wasn't long before they exploded into scraps and bits, bringing giggles in the air around them with their demise. Out from the exploded footwear grew his ballooning feet, rounded much like his hands had been and looking almost comical in nature. His toes had moved about and one had disappeared entirely from existence, leaving him with four toes. the outer toes were shorter than the middle two toes which were the same length as one another, and his feet too were shifting to a similar coloration as his hands.

White on the bottoms and on his toes, yellow-tan starting halfway up the feet and traveling up his legs. He lifted one of the large flat feet to take a look at his soles, now dotted by pink dots on the toetips and a large section of pink where his feet hit the ground. Both his feet and his hands looked familiar, they looked like paws, very toonish paws at that.

He poked at them a little, giggling as the pads seemed to be quite ticklish, small claws extending from the toonish rounded tips of his toes and fingers as he laughed, but soon vanished back into unseen sheaths as he stopped. "Haha...I look like I've got cartoon feet..wait..th..that's not right." Jake said, although was having a little trouble finding his shifting body something to be scared about with that glowy feeling still having root inside himself.

He felt something very strange behind himself, as if part of him were pushing at his pants as hard as it could. The back rim of his pants was bulged outwards, creaking. It too suddenly bursted apart as a long flowing fluffy tail shot out from behind him, flicking about wildly in the air as the air pressure from falling hit it. It was mostly tan with a black tip saddle marking leading into darker brown before the tan. He flicked it experimentally, part of him somehow knowing how to move it. He laughed a bit at this "A tail...A tail! How can I have a tail? Ahahaha...I'm totally tripping right now. when I wake up I have to draw this."

The tail flicked about up into his face suddenly from the air pressure, hitting and tickling as his nose as it did so. He brushed it back out of the way behind him, but found himself building up a sneeze. He held it in for as long as he could but to no avail, sneezing as hard as he could. With each sneeze his face pushed out longer and longer, before the fit ended and left him with a sharp pointed muzzle in his vision. He poked at it, wincing as his nose suddenly popped into being at the end, jet black and moist, and more than capable of picking up the scent of his clothing, and sweat to excruciating detail and strength.

He gagged, opening his muzzle to do so, allowing his new sharp canine like fangs to pop out of the gums with enough force to send his old teeth scattered to the wind. His tongue grew out long, suddenly finding it streaming out the side of his muzzle and flapping in the wind. He laughed, he could feel it all, and it looked all like something out of a cartoon, especially when his tongue started to stretch out like it was made of rubber and he had to stuff it all back into his mouth where it pulled back into proper shape.

The glowing over his body started to fade alongside the feelings, bringing with it a bit of worry now. This was all a bit too real for him, even if it would make a very neat story. He yelped out a bit as he bit his tongue by accident, his clothing bulging and suddenly bursting apart as the skin below grew a layer of thick fur, which had frizzed out to comical proportions upon the tongue bite. He was now completely naked, making him turn a bit red all over. He looked down for the biggest shock of his life, finding nothing between his legs but a smooth section of creamy white fur that traveled up to his tailbase, between unusually shorter legs.

He looked over himself frantically as his ears grew much longer atop his head into very tall points, a golden color and ring pattern appearing inside the ears which themselves were tipped in dark brown. He turned his head in a way no human should be able to, looking down his back at the saddle marking similar to that on his tail, albeit bigger. It looked very familiar, like something that had inspired his new character, a black backed jackal, albeit a very toonish one.

He felt his head compress and his eyes bulge, and he could only guess what was going on out of sight. Even if he couldn't see them, his eyes had gone large and toonish, bright green and full of energy, his head shaping into a toonish canine shape. He frantically rubbed himself all over, trying to figure things out. "I have to be dreaming...but..why does it feel so real?" Jake said.

He crossed his arms as he continued to fall, trying to figure everything out as the glow completely left him. Just as it vanished the void around suddenly cracked like glass, drawing his attention. He barely had time to yell out before it shattered into millions of shards, revealing a strange world behind it's veil. Blue sky with toonish clouds in one direction leading into a realistic sky, which then bled off into what looked like outer space. He looked down below at the expanse of land before him. Below the toonish sky the land was vibrant and colorfully toonish, below the normal sky everything looked like the real world, and below the spaced area was a barren rocky landscape. Further in the distance things seemed to be shifting about, out of focus, the entire world around looking like something randomly pieced together.

He tapped his muzzle for a bit as he fell, trying to figure this strange scene out, before the realization suddenly hit him: He was falling towards the ground at mach speeds. His eyes litteraly bulged out of his head as he looked at the rapidly approaching ground, tongue lolling out of his muzzle as he screamed out. Desperately he grabbed at his body, pinching, pulling, punching, tugging, anything to try to wake himself up before he hit the ground. Nothing was working at all, he couldn't feel much in the way of pain and his tugs and pulls simply deformed his body as if it were made of soft rubber.

He closed his eyes and said a short prayer to himself as the ground got rapidly closer, tail tucking between his short toonish legs. He braced himself the best he could, and then with an instant slammed into the ground with massive force, sending up a small mushroom cloud of dust and leaving a crater where he had hit.

Jake awoke a little while later, lifting his head from the ground. Maybe it was all a dream, and what it dream it was if it had been one! He stood up, wobbling on legs that felt a bit strange and finding his hands rubbing a nose much, much too long. His eyes shot open with a jolt, starring at the muzzle that was blocking part of his vision, and the toony handpaws that was rubbing it. He jumped high into the air with a loud howling yelp, fur frizzed on end. He landed softly, shaking as he stared at his handpaws and arms in shock. It wasn't a dream, he really was a toonish jackal! He stared at his large footpaws then over his body once again, his long ears folding back against his skull.

"Are you alright down there Mr Jackal?" A voice called out from the lip of the crater, a group of humanoid shapes called down to Jake.

"A..ahhh...w..what? Where am I? I...I'm a toon?" Jake stammered out, still a bit confused.

"Hold on buddy, we're coming down." The voice said as the figures jumped down from the lip, sliding along the edge till they got within eyeshot.

Jake wasn't sure what was the bigger shock, his body or the figures he was seeing approaching him. One was a normal human female, decked out in armor with a pair of swords at her side looking as if she came from a movie of the middle ages. The other was a toonish looking fennec fox, flying over on tiny batwings and grumbling something about newcomers. The last was the biggest shock of all, standing the same height as the human woman was a realistic looking coyote. He walked on two legs and seemed to be wearing a type of roguish armor one would see at a ren fair, daggers at his sides and large phoenix wings on his back

The coyote spoke "Hello there, I don't mean to startle you, but I do hope you're alright? You sound like you're in a bit of shock."

The fennec sneered, saying the coyote "Of course he's in shock it's obvious he just came here! Not everyone comes from a place with walking talking dust dogs you know."

The coyote shook his head and poked one of the fennec's ears "Come now, that's not a nice thing to call a coyote. But yes, you are correct."

"Wh...who are you? What are you?" Jake said, falling onto his rump and scooting backwards away from the strange figures.

"We are people who have ended up here much like you have, young jackal, and we mean you no harm. Please stay your nerves and breath deeply." The lady said.

"I'm not a jackal! I'm a human! I'm not..." Jake shook his head, looking over at the lady, who nodded slowly.

"I understand your concern my friend, but please come out of the dirt and follow us, we can perhaps give some explanation as to your current fate." The coyote said. "We mean no harm, you're not the first to arrive here, although you are the first to arrive so dramatically I must say."

"Im not...not a jackal..this isn't real, I'm just dreaming!" Jake said, trying to pinch himself again.

The coyote sighed and walked over towards the frightening toon, pulling out a rather large mirror from a ripple in space and holding it before Jake. "Please, take a look. For better or worse you need to see what is shown here. Perhaps you hit your head and do not remember, but it is best that you come to grips with reality."

Jake looked up, staring at the image in the mirror. A familiar shape stared back at him, a toony jackal that responded to his every move, mimicked every quiver and shake. He poked at his nose and the reflection did so as well, he flicked his tail and it followed suit. It looked so familiar to him, and as he stared the answer came from above. A red cap floated down from the sky and landed atop his head, ears fitting perfectly in pre-made holes. A telltale ankh could be seen on the front and the backwards wearing cap fit the image of the character he had just came up with perfectly. He was Jeriko.

"J...jeriko...Jeriko?" Jake headtilted in a very canine way, trying to figure things out. The name felt comforting somehow. "Jake....Jeriko...Jake? Jeriko..." He repeated to himself, finding it worrisome that the name Jake had lost a lot of meaning and feeling to it. Each time the name Jeriko was said it felt more and more right, like his name, and Jake faded into a strange foriegn feeling. He knew this wasn't how it should be but his mind refused to respond otherwise.

"Jeriko? Is that your name, Mr Jackal?" The fennec asked.

"Y...yes...My name is Jeriko." Jake, now Jeriko winced and said in response.

The human lady came over, kneeling next to him and place a hand on his head, between his ears rubbing them a little. This felt wonderful beyond anything he could remember as a human, and he found his tail wagging and a foot thumping in response. He looked up at her with a half hearted smile, realizing now that he had shrunk a great deal in his transformation into a toonish creature. When before he may have stood at her height, he was now just up past her waist if even that, typical for a toonish animal he supposed.

"Where...am I? What happened to me?" Jeriko asked the three before him.

"This...is a place we've come to call the Nexus. It is a breach in reality, a breach in the layers of multiverses. We do not know the reasons but every so often people from various places are drawn here, like you have been now." The coyote stated. "We have a small town we have built for refugees from other worlds, as more visitors seem to be arriving more frequently as of late. It'd be best if you came back with us to recover."

The fennec fluttered in front of Jeriko, eying him over "I've never seen a creature like this one before. Looks like a jackal but it's all...bright, and survived that fall." The fennec said, before pulling at one of Jeriko's ears, making it stretch out. "And it stretches and compresses unnaturaly. Not to mention this landscape that started showing up where he came in at. Just what are you anyways kid?"

Jerkio hesitated a bit, dreading having to admit his current state "A...A toon...a cartoon. Umm...but I wasn't one before...I umm...I was human." Jeriko said, ears folding back.

"A toon eh? Well I'm not one to argue with something I never saw before. Human eh? How's that supposed to happen? You sure you just didn't hit your head hard?" The fennec said as he leered at Jeriko.

"No! no...toons don't...they don't really get hurt. They were supposed to just be drawings, animations, movies...You can drop a piano on one and they'll bounce right back. Jeriko is...I am...a toon that was supposed to be a mix of hero and toon humor. Good guy saving the day in comical ways but...but! I...I'm not lying! I used to be human!" Jake exclaimed to the fennec.

The coyote tapped his muzzle, swaying his tail. "Hmmm...the nexus has changed a few visitors in the past, but it was after they came here and had wandered into a dangerous area, or grabbed something they shouldn't have. Breaches in the multiverse draw odd energies...perhaps..."

The fennec growled "Just spit it out already and drop the mumbo jumbo talk, yote!"

"Alright, alright...basically, it's possible the various realities that bleed over here can change visitors to match. A forced adaptation as it were." The coyote said as he wagged a finger, then pointed at Jeriko. "It's possible that because he fell through the multiverse through this location, which seems native to these...toons...that it effected him as he passed through."

Jeriko headtilted again. "But Jeriko only existed in my head, not in a toon world, he was never made in my world."

The coyote perked his ears then nodded "It's likely then that the energies grabbed hold of what was strongest in you and closest to their own, and changed you into what you are now. First I've seen a change on entry, if this is the case.

"There's a way to change back then, right?" Jeriko perked his ears, wagging tail hopefully.

The lady shook her head "I'm afraid to say that...what you are now, is what you are going to be while here. There is no known way out of this place. People don't seem to grow old beyond adulthood, and the others changed have been stuck since their change."

"I have tried to dispel and morph them into other things with magic, but sadly they always revert, or the spell fails. It seems to change the very nature of things. In this reality, your true self is what this place makes of you, for better or worse." The coyote said sadly "I am sorry to bear this news, and that you weren't like us and found root as what we were before."

Jeriko's ears fell and tail tucked. "S...stuck? What I am..? W...what...I...I'm a toon for good?"

The coyote nodded again. "Do not worry though, we're here to help you. Please follow us back to town,I can give you a place to stay in my tavern and inn that I built, The Coyote's Den. By the way, you can call me Gradius. Gradius Whitesoul at your service."

"We will do everything we can to help you, Jeriko. Just like you we are stuck here, and we must all stick together. My name is Rose, it is a pleasure to meet you Jeriko." The lady said with a smile, giving him a loving scratch behind the ears again.

The fennec snickered a bit. "Ears are a weakness to anyone who has big ears, at least I can relate to you with that and offer some advice. My name is Jillus by the way."

Jeriko wagged and panted at the ear scritches, he was stuck here, stuck as a toon, stuck as Jeriko. Part of him was deathly afraid of this place, of what he had become but his creative mind was going wild. He really was Jeriko, he could really live out his fantasies to some extent here. "Alright...I'll come with you, it's not like I have much choice anymore." He said.

The coyote smiled and gave a short, polite bow. "Follow me then, to your new home. We shall have to get more acquainted over supper. As for the hero type...well, we could always use more help dealing with the unruly types that come through sometimes, and the new folk that drop in, haha." He said as he started walking out of the crater, leading the way towards the space looking landscape, where Jeriko could now see a small town in the distance, looking a mix of midevil and modern.

"I'll...have to think about that." Jeriko said as he followed the three. This would be his new home from now on. What would life here be like? Life as a toon be like? This place called the Nexus, was it a heaven or a hell for those who came here? His thoughts soon tapered off thanks to the new round of ear scritches from the lady whom he walked next to. Maybe this won't be so scary after all.