About 20 minutes after Wanda left, Ryan made his way to the bathroom to wash up his face a bit. That's where he noticed something strange in the mirror: his nostrils were a couple of shades darker, and the inside of his earlobes seemed a bit flatter than usual. It was odd, but he decided not to think too much of it. He rinsed his face off and kicked back on the sofa to have a beer and a short TV episode before time to get cleaned up for his 10-hour cleaning shift today. It was a bit stuffy in the apartment this morning, but he found it wasn't nearly so bad when he breathed through his mouth. He barely noticed and just sat there sipping from the can. The sounds and smells in the apartment gradually got more vivid, but most of the latter were drowned out by the stronger smell of his beer, which was pleasant to him anyway. He just tuned out and kept his attention on the screen.
It wasn't for another half-hour or so that Ryan began to notice something was really different. His feet weren't touching the floor, and he was also sitting much lower on the couch than before. He'd barely changed position since turning the TV on... how could the furniture seem so much bigger after only a short while? He stood up, and that's when he really noticed he'd shrunk--he'd lost almost a foot of height while he watched TV!
He tried to make his way back to the bathroom mirror to figure out what was happening, but he kept tripping over his previously tight jeans. It was no use: these clothes didn't fit anymore, and he was going to have to go naked for a while. He was tempted to call an ambulance, but what could he possibly tell them? He wanted to text Sherri, but he knew she wouldn't really want to hear from him right now. Maybe he should at least call work and tell them he'd be late...
"Calm down, Ryan, just figure this out first and then make your next move," he said to himself in a higher pitched voice.
He left his jeans on the floor around his ankles, but it was when he finally let his boxers down on top of them that he noticed something really unnerving: his genitals were smaller than they'd been in years! Most of his body hair was shorter and fluffier, too, but there also seemed to be more of it somehow. It was bizarre, but at least he could walk more easily now. As he made his way past the bedroom, he found he could still smell the beer even from several away, and he could also smell the pungent odor of his and Wanda's sexual fluids even more clearly than he during the act itself. By the time he got into the bathroom, he had to pull himself up on the counter to look in the mirror, because he wasn't any taller than a kid. There also seemed to be something partially in the way of his normal eyesight.
Ryan finally got a good look and saw that his lower face was jutting out under his eyes quite a bit, and his ears were now not only flatter but they had grown and were hanging down on either side. His nose and lips were shiny and black, which really freaked him out. This could not be normal. If he didn't know better, he would have said his face was almost dog-like. His chest was even hairier with yellowish-white fuzz, and to the extent that he still look human he looked massively younger. He had to get back to his phone and try to call somebody and try to tell them something. Unfortunately, as he made his way back out of the bathroom, shrinking more by the minute, he couldn't find his phone anywhere. He couldn't smell the sex anymore, interestingly, but he also couldn't find his clothes or any other familiar belongings. He could however, smell lots of plastic and rubber, which turned out to be a living room floor covered in... pet toys?
Yes, the Chronivac was altering his reality, but he was unaware of such a device. He didn't think for a moment that his girlfriend could be behind this. He really couldn't think of any cause or reason at all. And right now, he was much more worried about the changes to his body than the changes to the apartment. Finally it started to become very uncomfortable to wander around on foot anymore, and Ryan sat down and got a better look at his feet. They were longer even has his legs were shorter, and his toenails seemed to have sharpened. Some skin at the bottom had puffed up and darkened. He reached down and rubbed them, unsettled by what he was feeling.
Ryan's escalating anxiety triggered a new reflex in his rear which felt like it was trying to jerk something downward in the vicinity of his back. Somehow, this was blocked by the floor uncomfortably while he was sitting down, so he lifted his butt up just enough for whatever-it-was to get tucked up underneath him toward the front. This is how Ryan discovered his tail, which was now poking up between his legs! He grabbed it with both hands, not believing what he was seeing, but tugging it too hard sent a sharp pain through his spine and made him give out a shrill yelp. Fingering it more gently, it was just as fuzzy as the rest of him, and he held his tail cautiously in a much looser grip, intrigued by this new discovery.
At last, Ryan's hands stretched out and became paws, and Ryan was left on hands and haunches with his tail between his legs, whimpering and noticing that he was now only inches tall looking around his apartment with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Meanwhile, Sherri and Monica were on there way to see whether Ryan's transformation had been a success.