"Please sir, let me be a girl again," Emily said. "I just want to go home. I'll never tell anyone about this place, I'm promise."
The man laughed, grabbed Emily by the ears and tail and threw her into a pen where several others donkeys still wearing clothes stood.
"You had your chance to be a girl, brat," the man said. "I gave you the fun you wanted and now it's time to pay for it."
Emily was about to say something when she noticed the defeated looks on the other's faces.
"What's going to happen to us?" Emily asked. "Why did they turn us into donkeys?"
"My name is Alison. I don't know why they did this to us," a female little donkey in a white sleeveless-sundress with floral print said.
Emily looked at the man, who was attending to other donkeys.
"I don't want to be a donkey," a donkey girl wearing a red long-sleeved blouse said.
"We gotta find a way to escape so we can get our human forms back," a donkey boy with a cap, shoes and blue jeans said.
"But even if we escape, where do we go?" Emily asked.
The man walked over to the pen and cracked his whip.
"Quiet! Donkeys don't speak! You kids aren't changing back. Give up already!"
That seemed to be enough to silence the group. With little other options, Emily hung her head and lay down.
The island's magic had done its work on Emily's body, changing its form and function beyond her control and desire into that of a donkey.
Less than an hour later, she was already feeling strange new emotions and desires. It was somewhat like being in a bad mood that was getting worse.
As much as Emily feared it, there was no denying the change into a donkey probably wasn't going to stop with her body. Not knowing how much her mind would or could change terrified her.
Having retained her ability to speak and still wearing her shorts seemed to help Emily at least somewhat.
Her shorts allowed her to retain some level of her dignity and decency and allowed her some level of individual expression.
A donkey never wore clothes. They'd do the most private of things in public without shame or worry. Emily had trouble imagining what it would be like to live like that. Nicole and Evelyn had chosen to disrobe and seemed to want to embrace that way of thinking. It was ironic that as much as they protested becoming donkeys, it would give them what they wanted on some level.
Still being able to speak was a blessing. Being able to speak allowed her to maintain feeling like a girl in the body of a donkey. She could handle being this way if this was a far as this was going to go.
The idea of losing the ability to speak terrified her. It could mean she’d be a donkey even on the inside. It was a terrifying prospect.
Most of the other talking donkeys didn't keep that one small joy didn't for long. In some cases, brays replaced words over time. In other cases, they'd suddenly start braying. For some, they almost seemed to will themselves into braying, as though they were tired of fighting in a situation where there seemed no way to win.
When brays were all they could speak with, the man stripped and then loaded them into crates.