Towards the later hours of the morning, a rainstorm began to pass overhead. A squirrel in the area was seeking shelter when it smelled some odd scents coming from the cottage. With the back door open, it slowly came inside out of the rain.
Darrell was very still. His body was reacting mostly as he had hoped. Only in areas where the same portions of DNA were damaged in the random mix of decay did he still have damage, however the virus that was ruining his life before was now saving it. There were a few parts of his body that did take in some other DNA. Spots in his side and leg did have a few bits of wood against it, and although his legs did have a few small "twigs" growing out, they were small and manageable. Due to his forgetting to strip completely naked, he testicles were slowly growing back with some bull-traits as not all of it had been removed towards the end, and the virus worked off of what was left. Even some of his body hair was actually white wool, but it looked no different than hair with how thing it was. It was working.
But the squirrel didn't see any of that. She smelled that there was something odd here, but she couldn't tell what it was. She hoped it was food.
Looking around, it explored. She found some ham and nibbled on that. It also found a container of water, which it drank from. Then it looked for warmth. It saw the bundle of odd mess in the middle of the floor and thought the folds and openings looked like good cover. It went inside and rested, not realizing the still warm thing it was up against was a human being... mostly.
Soon, the squirrel started to feel odd. It shivered, but it stayed hidden where it was. Sickness was a time to stay hidden after all. Eventually it fell asleep, and it grew. Darrell on the other hand, with the virus now having a lot larger sample size, started to take on other traits into itself.
By late afternoon, Darrell was able to slowly regain consciousness. When he realized he was bounded up in the tarp, he froze. He was too nervous to see if it worked or not. Then he told himself he was still alive, and he could work the problem from where. Standing up, he didn't notice the startled figure behind him still in the tarp. He stumbled over to the mirror and stared.
He was shorter than before. He could tell that. But that's not what he focused on. The rodent-like face stared back at him with dark eyes, from there he looked down and saw his body covered in a soft fur. Oddly it looked like gray fur, but it felt like wool. His privates were also huge, relatively speaking. They were shaped like that of the bull-cock again, but the sheath was completely different. The short fur also covered almost all of the skin except for the head. He didn't even notice the twigs sticking out of him at various points.
Then he saw the movement from the tarp in the mirror. He turned around and saw a female creature, something like himself. She was still a foot shorter than him, but she was very squirrel-like with feminine human features. Her nose was also shaped more like a snout. She looked around in panic, fell backwards, and stared at herself for a moment, unsure of where and what she was.
She chittered at him.
"Wonderful," Darrell said with difficulty.