HOME | DD

Description
Entry for Shapeshifter's Monthly
Gradual Transformation (August 2018)

Instant CameraA transformation storybyTransforming Guy
My name's Gage. Something I find myself thinking about a lot is how much I love my girlfriend. The way her blonde hair so smoothly glides between my fingers and the feel of her round face below my palms are pleasures one would kill to feel. She smiles, I smile back, I lean into kiss her and I'm...

...fucking blinded. A bright light overtakes my vision for a brief second.

"Heyyyy lovebirds, look what I bought!" A smooth voice calls.

Once my vision readjusts, I look forward from my spot on the couch. Standing in the doorway of our living room, just to the left of the TV was my idiot best friend Peter, who was staying over at our place for a week. I squinted at him in an "Are you fucking kidding me?" way as he wore a goofy grin, a small, square, blue object in his hand.

"An instant camera? Haven't seen one of those in a while." My girlfriend Gina says as Peter approaches, proudly showing off his device and removing a piece of paper from a slot on it.

"Yup! One that seems to make the photos at lightning speed too! Look!" He said, handing the paper to me. There I was, black hair, slightly whiskered face, square jawline and a black shirt and jeans wrapping around my body. I'm just about to kiss Gina and honestly, it's not a bad photo at all.

"Alright... I'm keeping this one." I say, whipping out my wallet and stuffing it in.

"Where'd you get that anyway?" Gina asks as Peter sits on the couch to her right.

Peter responds, turning on the TV. "A pawn shop that's on the way here. I think it just opened a little while back. The owner is the only one working there. What's weird about him is that he wore this fabric-looking mask and wouldn't say his name."

"Huh." I say in obligatory acknowledgement rather than genuine intrigue.

"Yeah. I took some other photos too." Peter shows us two more picutres, one of a fountain and another of an abstract statue that stands in our town square, a large, gray dog sitting in front of it. The sun is bright in the photos, so they must have been taken a few hours ago as it was about ten at night now.

"That's a big dog." Gina remarks. "Almost looks like a wolf."

Peter raises an eyebrow and turns the photo of the statue to him. "I don't remember that dog being there."

"You mean you didn't notice that big ol' thing?" I ask, chuckling.

Peter doesn't laugh, only retaining his confused expression. "Yeah, I really didn't. I... never mind." He puts the photos down and seems to forget all about whatever was concerning him, so I do the same.

Hours later, I'm squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste in a tube. Once I've wet my brush, I bring it up to my pearly whites and start brushing. As I go on with it, I start to feel like something's off. The bristles of my brush seem to be going in between my teeth a lot more than they should've been. I rinse and spit, then bare my teeth to the mirror. Some of them, mostly the ones towards the back, seemed to be drifting apart. They also seem to be a lot pointier. What the fuck? I think.

"Gage..." I hear Gina call from our room, concern in her voice.

"Yeah?" I call back, exiting the bathroom.

"Do my nails look a little skinny to you?" She asks once we're face-to-face, holding up her hands for me to see her nails.

Sure enough, they were showing off too much of her skin, and looked to be nastily curling up from the bottom. They were definitely too skinny.

"Yeah..." I say. "...do my teeth look weird to you?" I open my mouth wide for her to see what I mean, causing a small gasp to come from hers.

"What's going on here?" She asks. "We gotta go to a doctor, I don't like this!" Panic arises in her tone.

"Calm down, we'll be fine..." A sudden thought crosses my mind involving the dog we saw in the photo of the statue. "Just a second."

I walk over to the nightstand and lift my wallet from it, pulling the photograph Peter took of us from it. I examined it closely, looking for anything wrong. I found it quickly. My hair in the photograph looked to be a golden yellow color. Not quite blond, but close to it. That sold it for me. Without another word, I set my wallet down and marched over to the guest room, rapidly pounding on the door.

"Whaaaat..." Peter asked as he swung the door open tiredly, Gina walking up behind me.

"Was there a person in front of the fountain in that photo you took?" I ask.

Peter stared at me for a long while. "Yeah, I think there was a homeless dude leaning against the wall surrounding the statue... and when we looked at the photo again there was that dog there... how did you know?"

I flash the photo I held to him. "See anything wrong with this one?"

He squints his eyes, his vision darting back and forth between me, Gina and the picture.

"Your hair wasn't like that before..." He says.

I was confused about the wording, until I looked back to Gina and saw her hair had changed to that golden color I saw earlier. My hair must be the same way. I return my attention to Peter.

"Get the camera. We're going out."

A few minutes later, we're outside a quaint pawn shop, the sign on it stating they would be open at 7:00. Below that however was a phone number. I pulled out my phone and dialed it, putting it on speaker.

"Hellloooooo" A light, cheery male voice on the other end said. "Since you're calling this number, there's a good chance you're having a problem with a product purchased from my store. Is that so?"

"Y-yeah." I say into the phone.

"Be right there." He replies before hanging up.

I see a light at the back of the store turn on and as we wait, I feel a small itch at my stomach, which I scratch with my rather thin and rather sharp fingernail. Then, through the glass door, I watch the silhouette of a man approach us. He opens the door and the description Peter gave earlier checks out. The guy kinda makes me think of that comic character with the ink on his face. He has a white mask, a long, leather trench coat and a brimmed top hat on his head.

"What seems to be the problem folks?" He asks.

"Well... my girlfriend here and I had our photo taken with this camera and-"

"Ohhhh, you didn't read the label at the bottom did ya?"

I look over to Peter to see him turn the camera over and read aloud: "Warning: Photographing creatures with this camera will result in major transformation of body and mind."

"How were we supposed to see that?" I turn back to the shop owner. "Why would you even sell something like that?!"

"Well you were supposed to see it by turning it over." He replied cockily. "And I sold it because everything in my store does something along those lines. Why? I can't tell you that. Anyways I'm off to bed!"

He shut the door before I could say anything, but I threw it open again before he could lock it. "How do we stop it?!"

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you that. Head on over to that little town called Verwandeln and get your picture taken anywhere in the courtyard at the art museum, then return to this shop here with the photograph. I'll help you keep your humanity then."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Gina asks.

"You can't," He replies "but do you see any other options?" The smile behind his mask is evident in his voice.

Before the conversation can persist, he bolts off to the back room at a speed that could compete with olympians. No use going after him.

About a half an hour passes and we're on the way to Verwandeln. It's only a few hours away, but Gina and I's teeth have already moved far away from each other, and our itching stomachs revealed themselves to be rather hairy, the soft fuzz matching the color of our hair. Speaking of which, Gina's head hair seems to have shrunk to about neck level, being shoulder level earlier. I hope that this drive won't be too tedious.

An hour into the drive, which had been mostly wordless, Peter spoke up.

"This is my fault." He said from behind the wheel.

"Hey man, you couldn't've known. If anything it's because of that asshole in the mask." I reply, putting my hand on his shoulder, which I realized had more fur on the back of it.

Peter sighed and just went on driving. It was then I saw a speed limit sign. 60. We're going almost 90.

Getting pulled over was an awkward experience, but at least its over and we were left with a warning. The cop did check all of our eyes for signs of intoxication however and it might have freaked him out to see two of the occupants of the car had yellow ones with thin pupils. Like I said, at least it's over.

We pull into the town and our limbs have fur all over them, only a few spots on our whole bodies being left bare. My whiskers seem to be moving back and blossoming into a mane. Gina's hair is now only just as long as mine.

"Where does it say the museum is?" Peter asks.

I rub at a lump at the base of my spine as I stare at my phone, the GPS app open. "Left up here, then a right. We should see it on our left."

Peter follows my directions and we spot a large, white, square building.

VERWANDELN MUSEUM OF ART.

Fortunately, there's no fee to enter, so we make our way to the courtyard, a few people eyeing the way Gina and I were walking due to the fact that our legs had started to arch and move below us. We'll surely be walking on all fours soon. As we walk through the door leading to the exterior courtyard, I notice my feet have shrunk and widened, sitting uncomfortably in my shoes.

"Alright you two. Get together." Peter says.

With a click, another photo of Gina and I is captured. Then it's back to the car.

Gina starts to tear up in the back seat on our way. "That bastard probably tricked us to get us away from him. He's long gone by now."

I secretly fear the same, but I don't say so aloud. Instead, I cradle Gina's crying head in my soft arms, which are starting to slowly move under me like my legs, my shoulders seeming to be straight up disappearing. At around five in the morning, when the sun was just starting to rise, we noticed too late our car was gonna run out of gas any moment. Time to complete the journey to the pawn shop on foot. We can't be more than a mile from it can we? Peter opens the door for us and when we bound out, our clothes tear to shreds. I look over to Gina and see her face is completely covered in the gold fur and starting to push out into a muzzle. She was more of a really large feline than human. I saw her new tail swish to the side and recognized the growth of my own. I also noted that I was now on all fours.

As we walk, I feel paw pads bubble up, which at least makes my feet more durable and thus, easier to walk on. I don't want to try and speak with this muzzle as I'm worried only a growl will come out. Sometimes, my focus drifts to some far away scent my moistening nose would picks up off in the distance. After about twenty minutes, we arrive and Peter pushes the door open. It was then I realized how dull and solemn our journey had become. We weren't talking, and all of us seemed to be utterly emotionless.

The man in the white mask comes out of the back room, which was half surprising to me. Those fears that he had lied were very real.

"My my, quite some coats you two have. Ah!" He snatches the photograph from Peter's hand. "You got it! Splendid. This will make a fine addition to my collection."

"You gonna turn them back into humans or what?!" Peter spits, the first words he's said in hours.

The man turns his gaze from the photo to Peter. "Why young man, I promised to help them keep their humanity didn't I?" He says. "I am a dealer, and that was our deal."

Peter nods.

"Our deal wasn't that they'd be changing back though."

The weight of his words sink in as I feel my ears behind my mane lengthening. My mouth curls into a frown, where it stays due to the transformation.

EPILOGUE

My name's Gage. Something I find myself thinking about a lot is how much I love my mate. The way her beautiful coat warmly presses into my own and how her long face digs into my mane.

We weren't always lions, but sometimes, things just happen and you need to just go with the flow. At least we make some pretty damn cool pets for Peter.

The man who transformed us, who we've come to know as the Dealer, merely stopped our minds from becoming animalistic. Peter tried to beat the shit out of him, but gave up due to the Dealer's agility and dodging. Peter's still trying to figure out how to transform us back into humans, which we certainly won't stop him from doing, but for now, life as a lion with a human mind is pretty enjoyable. I'm currently cuddled up with Gina the lioness, perfectly content.

One question I just wish I could answer though, is what the hell the Dealer wanted that photo for. His words about adding it to a collection have puzzled me to this very day. Meh, some things you just can't explain.

Description
Entry for Shapeshifter's Monthly
Gradual Transformation (August 2018)

Instant CameraA transformation storybyTransforming Guy
My name's Gage. Something I find myself thinking about a lot is how much I love my girlfriend. The way her blonde hair so smoothly glides between my fingers and the feel of her round face below my palms are pleasures one would kill to feel. She smiles, I smile back, I lean into kiss her and I'm...

...fucking blinded. A bright light overtakes my vision for a brief second.

"Heyyyy lovebirds, look what I bought!" A smooth voice calls.

Once my vision readjusts, I look forward from my spot on the couch. Standing in the doorway of our living room, just to the left of the TV was my idiot best friend Peter, who was staying over at our place for a week. I squinted at him in an "Are you fucking kidding me?" way as he wore a goofy grin, a small, square, blue object in his hand.

"An instant camera? Haven't seen one of those in a while." My girlfriend Gina says as Peter approaches, proudly showing off his device and removing a piece of paper from a slot on it.

"Yup! One that seems to make the photos at lightning speed too! Look!" He said, handing the paper to me. There I was, black hair, slightly whiskered face, square jawline and a black shirt and jeans wrapping around my body. I'm just about to kiss Gina and honestly, it's not a bad photo at all.

"Alright... I'm keeping this one." I say, whipping out my wallet and stuffing it in.

"Where'd you get that anyway?" Gina asks as Peter sits on the couch to her right.

Peter responds, turning on the TV. "A pawn shop that's on the way here. I think it just opened a little while back. The owner is the only one working there. What's weird about him is that he wore this fabric-looking mask and wouldn't say his name."

"Huh." I say in obligatory acknowledgement rather than genuine intrigue.

"Yeah. I took some other photos too." Peter shows us two more picutres, one of a fountain and another of an abstract statue that stands in our town square, a large, gray dog sitting in front of it. The sun is bright in the photos, so they must have been taken a few hours ago as it was about ten at night now.

"That's a big dog." Gina remarks. "Almost looks like a wolf."

Peter raises an eyebrow and turns the photo of the statue to him. "I don't remember that dog being there."

"You mean you didn't notice that big ol' thing?" I ask, chuckling.

Peter doesn't laugh, only retaining his confused expression. "Yeah, I really didn't. I... never mind." He puts the photos down and seems to forget all about whatever was concerning him, so I do the same.

Hours later, I'm squeezing out the last bit of toothpaste in a tube. Once I've wet my brush, I bring it up to my pearly whites and start brushing. As I go on with it, I start to feel like something's off. The bristles of my brush seem to be going in between my teeth a lot more than they should've been. I rinse and spit, then bare my teeth to the mirror. Some of them, mostly the ones towards the back, seemed to be drifting apart. They also seem to be a lot pointier. What the fuck? I think.

"Gage..." I hear Gina call from our room, concern in her voice.

"Yeah?" I call back, exiting the bathroom.

"Do my nails look a little skinny to you?" She asks once we're face-to-face, holding up her hands for me to see her nails.

Sure enough, they were showing off too much of her skin, and looked to be nastily curling up from the bottom. They were definitely too skinny.

"Yeah..." I say. "...do my teeth look weird to you?" I open my mouth wide for her to see what I mean, causing a small gasp to come from hers.

"What's going on here?" She asks. "We gotta go to a doctor, I don't like this!" Panic arises in her tone.

"Calm down, we'll be fine..." A sudden thought crosses my mind involving the dog we saw in the photo of the statue. "Just a second."

I walk over to the nightstand and lift my wallet from it, pulling the photograph Peter took of us from it. I examined it closely, looking for anything wrong. I found it quickly. My hair in the photograph looked to be a golden yellow color. Not quite blond, but close to it. That sold it for me. Without another word, I set my wallet down and marched over to the guest room, rapidly pounding on the door.

"Whaaaat..." Peter asked as he swung the door open tiredly, Gina walking up behind me.

"Was there a person in front of the fountain in that photo you took?" I ask.

Peter stared at me for a long while. "Yeah, I think there was a homeless dude leaning against the wall surrounding the statue... and when we looked at the photo again there was that dog there... how did you know?"

I flash the photo I held to him. "See anything wrong with this one?"

He squints his eyes, his vision darting back and forth between me, Gina and the picture.

"Your hair wasn't like that before..." He says.

I was confused about the wording, until I looked back to Gina and saw her hair had changed to that golden color I saw earlier. My hair must be the same way. I return my attention to Peter.

"Get the camera. We're going out."

A few minutes later, we're outside a quaint pawn shop, the sign on it stating they would be open at 7:00. Below that however was a phone number. I pulled out my phone and dialed it, putting it on speaker.

"Hellloooooo" A light, cheery male voice on the other end said. "Since you're calling this number, there's a good chance you're having a problem with a product purchased from my store. Is that so?"

"Y-yeah." I say into the phone.

"Be right there." He replies before hanging up.

I see a light at the back of the store turn on and as we wait, I feel a small itch at my stomach, which I scratch with my rather thin and rather sharp fingernail. Then, through the glass door, I watch the silhouette of a man approach us. He opens the door and the description Peter gave earlier checks out. The guy kinda makes me think of that comic character with the ink on his face. He has a white mask, a long, leather trench coat and a brimmed top hat on his head.

"What seems to be the problem folks?" He asks.

"Well... my girlfriend here and I had our photo taken with this camera and-"

"Ohhhh, you didn't read the label at the bottom did ya?"

I look over to Peter to see him turn the camera over and read aloud: "Warning: Photographing creatures with this camera will result in major transformation of body and mind."

"How were we supposed to see that?" I turn back to the shop owner. "Why would you even sell something like that?!"

"Well you were supposed to see it by turning it over." He replied cockily. "And I sold it because everything in my store does something along those lines. Why? I can't tell you that. Anyways I'm off to bed!"

He shut the door before I could say anything, but I threw it open again before he could lock it. "How do we stop it?!"

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you that. Head on over to that little town called Verwandeln and get your picture taken anywhere in the courtyard at the art museum, then return to this shop here with the photograph. I'll help you keep your humanity then."

"How do we know you're telling the truth?" Gina asks.

"You can't," He replies "but do you see any other options?" The smile behind his mask is evident in his voice.

Before the conversation can persist, he bolts off to the back room at a speed that could compete with olympians. No use going after him.

About a half an hour passes and we're on the way to Verwandeln. It's only a few hours away, but Gina and I's teeth have already moved far away from each other, and our itching stomachs revealed themselves to be rather hairy, the soft fuzz matching the color of our hair. Speaking of which, Gina's head hair seems to have shrunk to about neck level, being shoulder level earlier. I hope that this drive won't be too tedious.

An hour into the drive, which had been mostly wordless, Peter spoke up.

"This is my fault." He said from behind the wheel.

"Hey man, you couldn't've known. If anything it's because of that asshole in the mask." I reply, putting my hand on his shoulder, which I realized had more fur on the back of it.

Peter sighed and just went on driving. It was then I saw a speed limit sign. 60. We're going almost 90.

Getting pulled over was an awkward experience, but at least its over and we were left with a warning. The cop did check all of our eyes for signs of intoxication however and it might have freaked him out to see two of the occupants of the car had yellow ones with thin pupils. Like I said, at least it's over.

We pull into the town and our limbs have fur all over them, only a few spots on our whole bodies being left bare. My whiskers seem to be moving back and blossoming into a mane. Gina's hair is now only just as long as mine.

"Where does it say the museum is?" Peter asks.

I rub at a lump at the base of my spine as I stare at my phone, the GPS app open. "Left up here, then a right. We should see it on our left."

Peter follows my directions and we spot a large, white, square building.

VERWANDELN MUSEUM OF ART.

Fortunately, there's no fee to enter, so we make our way to the courtyard, a few people eyeing the way Gina and I were walking due to the fact that our legs had started to arch and move below us. We'll surely be walking on all fours soon. As we walk through the door leading to the exterior courtyard, I notice my feet have shrunk and widened, sitting uncomfortably in my shoes.

"Alright you two. Get together." Peter says.

With a click, another photo of Gina and I is captured. Then it's back to the car.

Gina starts to tear up in the back seat on our way. "That bastard probably tricked us to get us away from him. He's long gone by now."

I secretly fear the same, but I don't say so aloud. Instead, I cradle Gina's crying head in my soft arms, which are starting to slowly move under me like my legs, my shoulders seeming to be straight up disappearing. At around five in the morning, when the sun was just starting to rise, we noticed too late our car was gonna run out of gas any moment. Time to complete the journey to the pawn shop on foot. We can't be more than a mile from it can we? Peter opens the door for us and when we bound out, our clothes tear to shreds. I look over to Gina and see her face is completely covered in the gold fur and starting to push out into a muzzle. She was more of a really large feline than human. I saw her new tail swish to the side and recognized the growth of my own. I also noted that I was now on all fours.

As we walk, I feel paw pads bubble up, which at least makes my feet more durable and thus, easier to walk on. I don't want to try and speak with this muzzle as I'm worried only a growl will come out. Sometimes, my focus drifts to some far away scent my moistening nose would picks up off in the distance. After about twenty minutes, we arrive and Peter pushes the door open. It was then I realized how dull and solemn our journey had become. We weren't talking, and all of us seemed to be utterly emotionless.

The man in the white mask comes out of the back room, which was half surprising to me. Those fears that he had lied were very real.

"My my, quite some coats you two have. Ah!" He snatches the photograph from Peter's hand. "You got it! Splendid. This will make a fine addition to my collection."

"You gonna turn them back into humans or what?!" Peter spits, the first words he's said in hours.

The man turns his gaze from the photo to Peter. "Why young man, I promised to help them keep their humanity didn't I?" He says. "I am a dealer, and that was our deal."

Peter nods.

"Our deal wasn't that they'd be changing back though."

The weight of his words sink in as I feel my ears behind my mane lengthening. My mouth curls into a frown, where it stays due to the transformation.

EPILOGUE

My name's Gage. Something I find myself thinking about a lot is how much I love my mate. The way her beautiful coat warmly presses into my own and how her long face digs into my mane.

We weren't always lions, but sometimes, things just happen and you need to just go with the flow. At least we make some pretty damn cool pets for Peter.

The man who transformed us, who we've come to know as the Dealer, merely stopped our minds from becoming animalistic. Peter tried to beat the shit out of him, but gave up due to the Dealer's agility and dodging. Peter's still trying to figure out how to transform us back into humans, which we certainly won't stop him from doing, but for now, life as a lion with a human mind is pretty enjoyable. I'm currently cuddled up with Gina the lioness, perfectly content.

One question I just wish I could answer though, is what the hell the Dealer wanted that photo for. His words about adding it to a collection have puzzled me to this very day. Meh, some things you just can't explain.