Chad's natural inclination to swagger everywhere he went had changed to an instinct to scurry for cover in dark corners.
The former star athlete hadn't quite figured it out, but he was definitely no longer a 6'3" dude with curly blond hair, broad shoulders, and a narrow waist.
For the moment, he remained an insufferably arrogant bastard, but that might not continue as the truth began to sink into even his dim-witted brain. A single water droplet on the locker room tiles provided the transformed quarterback and water polo captain a glimpse of his new reality. Staring at his reflection on the surface of the shimmering, translucent droplet, Chad freaked out. "Click! Click!" The jock exclaimed, making the odd, irritating noise with his new mandibles. He saw with a large, single compound eye located in the center of his hideous new face and a pair of twitchy antennae. He recognized in an instant what he had become. After all, he'd stomped one only moments earlier.
He was much smaller, only about two centimeters, than the ugly bug he had stomped earlier. His hard, shiny exoskeleton wasn't quite as dark.
"It can't be," he clicked. "I'm a damn cockroach." Of course, as a consequence of becoming a cockroach, he didn't really speak. His mandibles just clicked in a futile attempt at constructing human speech.
Thoughts raced as he listened to the clicking noises his mandibles made. What could he do? Could he change back? Who could help him?
He thought he had an answer to his last question when he heard a loud noise and saw his friend, Todd, walking toward him.
"Todd!" Chad clicked. "Help! Help me!"
His friend continued walking across the locker room, heedless of the unnoticed little bug on the floor. He had planned to catch Chad before he left. Despite the fact that he found some of his buddy's clothes strewn on the floor, he saw no sign of Chad.
He called out Chad's name, got no reply and was ready to leave when he heard a strange clicking noise. He zeroed in on the source of the clicks and that's when he saw it. A tiny, very tiny, little baby cockroach, much smaller than the bug he had stomped earlier.
"The damn pests must be multiplying," he said aloud and raised his right foot.
"Todd! No!" Chad clicked desperately. "It's me! Don't step on me!"
"Chad took out your ugly mama earlier," Todd said. "I guess I will take care of you."
As the shoe came down on top of him, the jock-turned-cockroach clicked, "Oh shit!"
Todd heard the squishy crunch of the tiny roach stomped beneath his shoe. To make sure, he scraped the sole of the shoe back and forth on the tiles a few times.
"Filthy pest," Todd grumbled.