I knew what was the last step and I was curious to feel the changes. The first to come was the strangest : my nose flattened out and my nostrils were soon covered in skin. That was when I felt that something was wrong, missing even: I couldn’t breathe any longer. No matter how much I tried to pump my lungs, no air could find its way in. A sudden pain at my sides, like a razor slicing them open and air wheezed inside: my gills were open.
This was wrong. So terribly wrong. There was too much air, it was too dry. I could feel the scales covering my face, my skull reshaping to make my eyes fit on either side yet I could not revel in the sensation. I was drying out. I was a fish, not a human anymore and needed water to live, to survive. I flopped a bit, trying to make my body move. A part of my brain became aware that the changes had stopped, my hair had joined my dorsal fin and my teeth had retreated into my gums. I could feel it in my bowels, the last changes were coming.
Every part of my body was soon being pressed on, a pressure I had never felt before that would have made me wince if I hadn’t been gasping for air. I knew I was shrinking to the size of a normal koï fish as my gills reached the level of my now-gone neck.