If Freddie had but taken a moment to think, he might have made a dash into his bathroom where a mirror on the back of the door, as well as another hanging over the sink, could have given him the means to monitor the changes rapidly progressing as his plantigrade locomotion and upright, bipedal posture made way for a digitigrade style of movement as his stance became relegated to all fours.
He wanted to work his phone. He wanted to call Michael. Michael would be able to stop whatever was happening to him!
He whacked the surface of his phone with the leathery paw pad of his right paw. No effect!
He got the idea to work the phone with his nose. He smeared the glass with the disgusting discharge from the canine nostrils at the end of his canine snout. He cried out in frustration and heard only a strange, whingeing whimper. In desperation, he licked at the device with a tongue that felt too long and thick for his mouth. He ended up doing nothing to help himself and leaving his phone covered with an unsightly amount of sticky dog slobber.
By this point, the transformation that must have been triggered by his unwitting recitation of the words etched into the ring had nearly run its course. Except for one final touch.
Freddie felt it in the seat of his boxers. A pressure pushing out from the base of his spine and bunching uncomfortably in the boxer shorts as a long, furry tail sprouted from his rear. "Ohhh." He felt the tail begin to wag despite the constraints of the boxers.
He panicked. He needed to get out of his room. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite mastered the skill of running on all fours and tumbled to the floor, smacking the underside of his canine jaw and biting his own tongue. He let out another full-throated howl from pain and frustration.
"Walking is going to take some practice," he thought to himself. Canine locomotion, he discovered, entailed walking on his toes. He felt off balance the first few times he walked around his bed to get the hang of it.
As he walked, the loose-fitting boxers slid and bunched. "I need to get out of these," he thought. "They're only in the way."
After some effort, he managed to hook the boxers. Rather than pull them from his body, his struggle tore a great rip in the fabric, allowing the shredded underwear to simply fall to the floor.
Success brought more tail wagging, a feeling that he couldn't quite compare with anything he knew from human experience.
"Well, I can walk," he said. "Wonder if I can talk..."
He tried, deciding to attempt the word "Hello."
"Ruff! Ruff!"
He heard the barking, a discordant, unwelcome sound picked up easily by his sensitive, floppy ears.
"Guess not."
What could he do?
"I can't let mom and dad see me like this," he thought, mortified by the prospect.
Michael represented his best hope. The prospect had more urgency when he remembered that Michael had taken the ring with him.
"I've got to get to him," he decided.
It shouldn't be that hard. Michael lived only a few blocks from him, but getting to him meant going out in public where any human he encountered would see him as a dog.
Come to think of it, what would keep Michael from mistaking him for a dog?
He decided that their connection, the one they had felt for each other since they first met, would be enough to overcome this extraordinary obstacle.
First...