Colin winced as he drank the bitter liquid.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, thought Colin. I doubt it was a real potion. But who knows what those guys actually put in there? It might be poison!
He rushed to the bathroom, ready to vomit it out. But by the time he reached the sink, he no longer felt queasy.
I guess it was nothing, thought Colin. Or was it?
He looked carefully at his reflection in the mirror. He could not see any changes. He felt silly for even looking.
Colin decided to give Karen a call. She loved animals, especially mythical ones. Karen was always blathering about how she wished she could meet one some day. And she had been the most vocal when his friends teased him about his fearful dream of transforming into a bimbo during some kind of apocalypse. She had to be the one who had sent him the vials.
Colin dialed her up on his phone, hoping to have a video chat with her. She answered after several rings. She blinked bleary eyes at him.
"Colin? Why are you calling? It's late and I have a big test tomorrow, " said Karen with a hint of annoyance.
"It's not that late," said Colin looking out the window at the dark night sky.
Karen sighed loudly. "It is for a college student. Not everyone gets to spend all day and night just playing video games."
Colin bristled a little at that. It wasn't his fault that he lost his job. What else was he supposed to do while he was waiting to hear from an employer? He had applied for several jobs, but no one seemed to want him. Apparently being good at video games was not a very marketable skill. He had considered college, but it just seemed like a waste of time and money. You acquired a lot of debt and were not guaranteed a job.
"I just wanted you to know that I got your package today. It was pretty funny," said Colin sarcastically.
He was pretty angry at Karen now. Maybe it was a bad idea to call her.
Karen rubbed the sleep from eyes. "Package? What package? What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb. I know it was you that sent it to me. You know - the package of vials that transform you into something else? You were laughing so hard at my dream that you must have thought it would be a good joke to give it to me, " said Colin.
Karen looked at him seriously. "Colin, I didn't send you a package. I promise. What did you say was in it again?"
Colin began to feel a little nervous. If Karen didn't send it, then who did? It had to be one of his other friends .... didn't it?
He nervously scratched at his chest. He was beginning to regret drinking from the vials.
"It was a box of vials, each one allowing to you to partially or completely transform your body. There were some for physical features, like size and gender. But most of them seemed to be animals..."
Karen brightened up a little at this.
"Really? " she said with excitement. "Which one did you choose?"
The itching on his chest was getting worse. Colin continued to idly scratch at it.
"Um, I thought you sent it. So, I decide to use a combination. A little bit of lion, a little bit of eagle, and something else. So I could become a griffon .... sort of."
"A Griffon! Oh, that is my favorite! " said Karen with excitement. "Did it work?"
Colin rolled his eyes. "What do you think?"
"What is that on your chest?" said Karen.
"Ha, ha, very funny," said Colin.
"No, I am serious. Right there ... on the middle of your chest," said Karen pointing at him.
Colin looked down. A small white speck sat on his exposed chest. He tried to brush it away, but it stayed firmly attached to his skin. He reached down and yanked it off. It was more painful than he expected. Colin was shocked to see a small white feather in his hand.
This has to be some kind of coincidence, thought Colin nervously. You can't really transform. Magic isn't real...
But that was when he noticed his hands, still holding the small feather. His fingers looked yellow and tough. The skin almost had a pebbled surface. His fingernails were dark, almost black. And seemed to be getting slowly longer before his eyes. It looked a little like - the talons of an eagle!
"Um, I have to go," said Colin.
"No! Don't hang up..." pleaded Karen.
Colin hung up the phone with some difficulty. His long fingernails made it hard to maneuver his fingertips to the screen of the phone, and the touch pad had difficulty recognizing his finger under the hardening leathery skin. He thought he had hung up the phone, but now he had other problems. The itching had spread up and down his body. His clothes were uncomfortably tight. Thankfully, he was not wearing any shoes. But he could already see his socks stretching and tearing.
Colin had to get back to the box of vials. There had to be some more instructions, some way to stop this or reverse the changes. He stood up with difficulty. His feet hurt and didn't want to cooperate with him. He couldn't place his feet flat on the ground. He ended up walking on the balls of his feet, stumbling down the hallway back to the kitchen where he had left the vials.
Each step was more difficult than the last. His thighs grew larger, stretching the legs of his pants tightly across them. His shirt had already split down the front, revealing long white feathers trailing down his neck and across the top of his chest. His pant legs soon followed, tearing open down the seams. The mild relief he felt when the pressure was relieved was quickly met with fear as he saw tawny brown fur covering his thick muscular thighs.
"No, no," mumbled Colin in a deep gravely voice.
He stumbled and grabbed onto the doorframe of his small bathroom. His hands had now completely changed into the talons of an eagle. The wood splintered as he tightly gripped the frame, his claws creating deep divots in the wood as they dug into it. Colin looked up at the mirror and gasped.
His body was much larger, the clothes straining to hang on to his growing frame. Only the arms of his shirt remained, split open to reveal large furry biceps. His pants hung on only at the waistband, which was uncomfortably tight around his abdomen. He ripped the rags away in annoyance.
But what shocked him the most was his face. His hair was gone, completely replaced by white feathers that trailed up his neck and over the top of his head. His ears had been reduced to tiny nubs, still shrinking as they disappeared into the side of his head, quickly covered by even more feathers. His teeth ached painfully.
"No, stop," he mumbled. It was difficult to speak. His mouth felt ...wrong. It was difficult to move his lips to form the words.
Colin fell to the ground, resting on his hands and knees, as his back was racked with a new pain. He moaned loudly as things shifted around on his back and in his mouth. Finally he screeched loudly with relief as two small nubs erupted from his back, rapidly growing in size as feathers grew from his new appendages. At the same time a beak pushed past his lips and a tail burst from his tailbone. He cawed loudly as his tail grew longer, a bushy lump of fur at its tip.
The changes complete, Colin began to relax a little. His heart was still racing from the excitement, but it no longer hurt. He stared at his reflection in the mirror with awe. He was big, at least eight feet tall. He was muscular but it was lean muscle, more like a professional athlete than a body builder. More like the muscles of an animal, he supposed. He had the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. Sharp talons had replaced his hands while the paws of a lion had replaced his feet. A lion's tail wagged behind his back while large eagle wings flapped behind his back.
He reached up to touch his face, still convinced it had to be a dream. But his beak felt real. This was real.
"Cool," he said in a deep voice.
A sudden loud insistent knock on his door brought him back to reality.
Oh no, thought Colin. How am I going to explain this? Even if I can quickly find a vial that can reverse this, it will take at least thirty minutes for the change to be complete. What am I going to do?