Jon had been occupied with thoughts of their situation. It occurred to her that it was also quite likely that in this new world, if new people existed who didn't exist before, that other people who existed before had ceased to exist. She had checked online and apparently the world population was now 9 billion. It had not been anywhere near that before. That meant it was possible that everyone who existed before, existed now, in one form or another, and with some others in addition. But if not, then the ethics of finding a way to keep this world would be more murky, even if Jon had wanted to do that. Jon dreaded considering doing something like that, since she knew what it meant for herself. But she didn't want Karyn's sister to die for Jon's sake.
And there were other things that seemed very strange. It seemed like pretty much every guy his age who hadn't gotten a girl pregnant had become a catgirl in this new reality. But didn't that defy statistics as well? The implication of that would be that literally every single male who existed in this world and was Jon's age, had gotten a girl pregnant already! Put another way, not ONE of them would have thought to wait until at least high school was over? Were men so characteristically shortsighted in this new world? Was it just too irresistible, being surrounded by such a large quantity of available females? No wonder the world population was 9 billion. The logical consequences constrained by the world that had been created by the dice were in some ways far stranger than the issues they had seemingly been invented to take care of in the first place.
And what was the situation with Jon's relationship with Karyn? Karyn would apparently not see Jon as a guy inside, was elated that Jon, that "Joni", was now her female friend. But the situation had had the opposite effect on Jon. Being naked together with Karyn the morning before had only clarified within that she actually did have feelings for Karyn. But now she knew she had these feelings, she seemingly would now have less chance of doing anything about that than ever. Could she wait out a whole year? Would Karyn even see him as a guy again at the end of the year?
This anxiety reverberated in Jon's mind all through the next morning and school the next day.
"You're bothered by something?" Karyn asked her at lunch.
"Is it that obvious?" Jon asked.
"Your tail doesn't lie."
Jon looked down and realized she had been furiously waving her tail around for several minutes without even thinking about it. Extremely embarrassed, she stopped moving it and would have blushed if she could. A few years ago, Jon had the habit of rubbing his fingers together on his left hand when he was pensive, and had rid himself the habit. But while he was doing it, he would forget he was doing it. This was kind of the same. She could feel her new tail, completely control it, it felt natural, too natural, and could voluntarily stop waving it around, but while she was doing it, it was completely happening without careful thought.
"Want to talk about it? Or is it just distress in general?" Karyn asked.
"Both?" Jon answered.
Jon explained the first two things she was worried about to Karyn. Though the third one was the one that weighed most heavily on her mind.
Karyn said, "I hadn't thought of that. I not only have to think of my sister, but there could be others who we snuffed out of existence, that will only exist again at the end of the year when it all goes back to normal. Oh, why did it have to be for a year. It would have been so much less cruel if it had been a much shorter amount of time."
"I have been thinking about possible methods to keep both worlds. Like maybe replacing the moon with another copy of the Earth, and one will have one world, and the other would have the other."
"That would be crazy. Since there would be both versions of many individuals. They could speak to each other by radio."
"I know, it's just an idea. And it would do some weird things, for instance the tides would suddenly become 81 times stronger, unless instead of being at the moon's distance, it was made 4 or 5 times further away. But then the orbital period would be different and it would have all sorts of other weird effects."
"It is outside the range of the rock anyway," Karyn pointed out.
"We have already proved there are ways of getting around that," Jon remarked.
After that, they had to go back to class.
It was on the way back home after school, that Jon realized that as complicated as things were already, they could only get more complicated.
Bernie had been moping around after school, kicking a can. He didn't want to go home. He didn't have much else to do either though. He had suffered through the confrontation with his fake "mother". It seemed to be incidental to her. After all, "what does she care," Bernie figured. "I'm not the good child. And I'm not her child. She doesn't give a shit about me. It's better for her if I flunk out of school, she probably wants dad to abandon me and focus on her child, with her genes. God I hate catgirls. I wish they'd all just die. They're not real people. They're monsters."
Bernie gave the can an epic kick, which spun it at such high speed that it could be heard whirring in the air. It landed in the middle of the next street intersecting perpendicularly to the street whose sidewalk he was walking on. He ran as fast as he could for it and was about to try to give it an even more epic kick, when he heard another whirring, and a honking. A car was headed straight for him at what must have been 70 miles an hour, down this little residential road with a speed limit of 30.
Bernie didn't have time for his life to flash before his eyes. He didn't close his eyes. He just wasn't fast enough. He was stuck as if in mud as death rapidly approached him, as one ton of metal relentlessly closed the distance to him. He had just enough time to give into his fate.
The last thing he expected was for a soft gray blur, moving to the side to swipe at him and tackle him out of the way, just in time. He realized to his shame that his life was being saved, by one of them. He was feeling so embarassed. He had officially hit rock bottom.
"OHHHHH!!!! OW! Oh GOD this hurts!" Gasped Jon. "OH shit, oh it hurts so much! Owwww ahhhh ahhh somebody help me!" She was crying. It had been years since he had cried just from physical pain. But this hurt more than getting kicked in the balls. This was like a whole different dimension of pain.
Was she hit? Bernie looked at the catgirl. She was clasping her tail and bawling.
"H... ha ha ha!!!!" Bernie laughed. She had gotten her tail run over! Oh that was precious! Serves her right! That was so... and then he looked down at her shivering on the ground, in pain. Trembling and crying. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I laughed. I'm so sorry!"
She cried on his shoulder and clasped around him so hard he felt like his organs might be crushed, as she continued crying. He took a look at her. And it struck him that she was beautiful. For the first time in his life, he thought one of them was pretty. And she was hurting. She was suffering. She needed help. Just like a human could. As he held the crying catgirl, he couldn't see her as anything but a human being. She was a person.
"Thank you for saving me," he said.
The car had continued to speed off. It was a hit and run. Her tears started to come under control. "I have seen enough sadness," she said between gasps.
And at this, Bernie started crying too.
Karyn had already split off from Jon, to go her own way to her own house, so Jon was otherwise alone at this point.
"Let me see it," he said. The girl blinked at him.
"Your tail," he said. She didn't resist as he tenderly picked it up. The tip was flicking in pain and anxiety, so that was a good sign, it hadn't severed the spinal cord. Which is of course what is inside of a tail, it's just an extra long backbone.
"Calm down," he said. "Is it here?" He gently touched the swollen region.
Jon nodded and sweated more tears. "It hurts, it hurts so much, even just you touching it."
Bernie gently patted at it. Jon bit her lip.
"I think it's just bruised," he announced. "I think it's going to be all right. I can get my mom to bring you to a hospital if you want though."
"No, no," Jon said. "I think I'm going to be all right."
"My house is right here. At least come in and we'll put ice on it."
Jon followed him in. No one else was home at the time.
Bernie looked in the freezer. There was a tray of ice cubes. He took them out and knocked them out into a ziploc bag.
"Don't press it too hard, or you'll get frostbite," he said, as she held it to her tail, sitting on the side of his bed.
"I know that," she said. "Thanks."
"Thank you," he said. "What's your name?"
"Jon... um, Joni," Jon answered.
"Are you feeling better now Joni?"
Jon answered "yeah. It's burning a little, but more numb. I think I'm going to be fine."
Bernie sat down on the bed right next to her. "Want to play Playstation?" he asked.
"Ok," Jon answered.
Bernie genuinely enjoyed his time with Joni. Jon had almost forgotten about the pain altogether when Bernie's sister got home.
"Hi big brother! Whoa, who's that?"
"Uh," Bernie said, flustered, "this is, um, Joni."
Lucy looked at the late-teen catgirl who was probably at least 5 years older than her brother in amazement. "Good job, brother!" she contratulated.
"Wait, that's not what this..." he protested.
"No no no, I'm a big girl, I'll leave you two alone." She slammed the door of her own room in her excitement to give the two their privacy.
"Ai yi yi," said Jon. "I'm going to be fine. All's well that ends well. I should probably get out of here now before I cause you any more trouble."
"No wait," Bernie said. "You can, you can stay longer, if you want. I'm sure if I invite you for dinner, considering what happened, my family would..."
"No, that's all right, I have some things on my mind, and..."
Jon was driven into stunned silence. Bernie was kissing her. On the mouth. "MMmm!!" she said. But what alarmed her more, was the effect it was having on her. All of a sudden. The electric thrill. Her heart, palpitating. This overwhelming... feeling, that she could be lost in. And then she knew. This wasn't just a girl thing. It wasn't even a human thing. This was something she had read about, in researching catgirls as they were on this world today. Something that not even all catgirls went through. But it was the cause of the world population being 9 billion at this point. And now she knew, it also solved one of the other puzzles. It was why there were no late-teen males in town who weren't fathers.
"Meeooowwwwwwwww!!!!" she said aggressively, flipping Bernie around, and pinning him on the bed. It was almost as if Jon was watching this other creature control her body, and she was watching it from a distance. At least that was what she would like to believe. "MEOwwwwwwwwww!!!!" she called again. She wanted to apologize to this kid. She wanted to scream inside her head that this was all wrong. But she would be lying to herself; ultimately something deeply animal inside her, a part of her, said it wasn't.
"Wha what are you doing, Joni?" Bernie asked meekly, as the catgirl undid the snap button on his trousers.
Things were about to get a good deal more complicated with this whole situation.
