Rick, having always fantasized about finding a magic book and doing the magic things he'd seen on TV, didn't even think twice about what he decided to do next. He'd read so many books about shape-shifting superheroes, and seen so many movies that glorified werewolves (even the scary ones) with strength and lust, that he was now fantasizing about running through the woods on the hunt for the rest of the day, howling at the moon all night, and coming back in the morning with no one the wiser. He could just magic himself into a wolf, go out and live on the wild side, and turn back whenever he felt like. So he would!
He ran out of the building, through the mowed lawn, and up the hill into the nearby woods. He found a clearing and took off his clothes, just like they say to do in the Internet werewolf spells. Then he opened the book to the wolf spell, and read the chant out loud as the wind rolled through the trees. He got butterflies in his stomach as he continued on, pleasantly anxious to see if the this would work, like a gambler waiting on numbers to be announced from the lottery. Ricky didn't know they meaning of the words he was saying, but he didn't really care about that. He was calling on the names ancient and mysterious forces deep in the metaphysical archetype of the forest that mortals couldn't couldn't intellectually understand, but Ricky didn't understand that. He was like a collector, this kind of book was a trinket that had always been just out of reach, and now that he had it he was ready to play with it. He believed the book could do magic, but even real magic was just a game to Ricky--a game with no rules, albeit a game he had sought far and wide.
At least, it was a game until after he had finished his chanting and was sitting naked on the ground taking deep breaths, for it was at that moment when a sculpting feeling took over his hands. His pulse quickened as he took a closer look, excited the book might work as well as he hoped it might, but that feeling evolved quickly as fantasy turned into reality.
A bloated feeling stretched his hands and thinned out his palms, as though unseen hands were molding his own like pizza dough. Rick yelped when his joints popped and his fingernails surged: it wasn't really painful, but it sure looked painful enough. His fingers blunted and thick dark claws pushed out from the tips. He couldn't really move his thumbs anymore, for they had shrunk to irrelevance on the sides of his wrists, far away from the toes his fingers were becoming. The undersides of his "fingers" were thickening out into rough, dark skin, and so were the ends of his "palms." They were pads, meant for him to walk on. He had daydreamed about living on the wild side, and now he had real paws like an actual wolf.
"Fuck!" he exclaimed to himself, staring at what he had done to himself, when a tugging feeling took hold of his foreskin. Glancing down to his crotch, he saw new skin growing on to it, raising it up closer to his tummy. The foreskin itself totally covered up his lengthening dick, which firmed up and thickened as a bone grew in. What's this? He didn't even have his human cock anymore? So much for manning up like his dad was always hounding him to.
He had to stop this. He looked back over to the book and realized the turn-back spell wasn't on the same page. He hadn't even thought to check on that when hurried himself out here to wolf out. He didn't have hands anymore, but surely he could turn the page somehow?
He gasped when sudden jolt hit his tailbone. It sounded like a cracking joint, and afterwards he felt a little something extra down there, like his spine was a tower of legos and someone had just put an extra one on the bottom. Another jolt (crack!) and another extra piece. Crack! There was more. Crack! Crack! Crack! His spine was like a chain with more and more links hanging off the end. Crack! Crack! He felt new skin touching the ground and spreading onto the dirt and leaves behind him.
Rick craned his neck around to look and saw a thin cord of skin stretched tight over joints and bones. Crack! It got longer. He jumped up and felt it lift off the ground with the rest of him. He looked back at the book, then back at his new bones and flesh. Crack! Crack! He lost count of how many new bones he was growing, but he feel the lot of them back there, bending and twisting at the joints. Muscles were forming around them, so he could bend his new part one way, and another. By the time it was as long as from shoulders to hips, he was fully focused on it, watching it dance and sway at his discretion. It was when he finally noticed the cracking had stopped that he came back to himself and acknowledged aloud what had happened.
"T-t-t...tail..." he stammered. He hadn't thought about what it would really feel like to have his own tail, even though it was intellectually obvious that turning into a wolf would give him with one. He let it settle to a rest behind him and turned his attention back at the book. He brought a paw down on one of the pages and scooted it to the side with his broad, fleshy pads. He had to be careful not to tear the pages with his claws!
His feet felt funny, and his race against the spell intensified. He was losing his humanity out in the middle of nowhere! A chill ran down his spine, and a reflex tumbled all the way down through the joints of his new tail like dominoes. The whole thing ducked between his legs and tucked itself up tight against his belly, not far from his new penis. It made him look like a terrified, hairless dog!
"Come on, come on..." He was flipping through the pages as fast as his clumsy paws would let him. In the vast collection of animal spells in this ancient tome, not one of them seemed to be labelled "human." There were human transformation spells in other sections but he couldn't find any for actually changing oneself into a human. He could change his race, his sex, or his hair color, but not if he turned into a wolf.
He tried not to look down at his feet; he wanted to ignore the feelings from down there and focus on the book, but he shivered knowing he wasn't going to be able to stand for much longer. He was on tiptoes now, balancing on long thin feet with shortening legs. New claws grew out, just like they had on his hands, and he felt the forest floor get more comfortable underfoot as cushioning pads began to emerge. The thought was not comforting that, if he couldn't find a reverse spell, he would never need shoes again.
Rick was almost to what he thought would be the index when his back changed again, this time in such a way that it became impossible to stand upright for more than a few seconds. He toppled over onto his front paws, plopping his rubbery pads down onto the ground where they belonged. He was close to giving up hope, but he powered on and bend his nose down to the pages and started sliding through the book that way. What would his dad think if he disappeared off into the woods and never came back? How would he hang out with his friends if he wasn't even the same species as them anymore? How would he get all this power he wanted the book to give him if he changed himself a wolf without knowing how to change back?
He tucked his tail even tighter against himself, if that were possible, when the change spread up through his neck and into his skull. His ears reshaped and grew up into points, while his cheeks and jawbone creaked and stretched and narrowed. Bit by bit, the magic tugged his face out in front of him, until the front of his mouth was no longer back behind his nose. New flesh filled his longer mouth with an improved tongue that was longer and more flexible. The pointy ears kept growing, up above his head, until the were big enough and muscular enough to jerk back and point behind his neck. The sounds of the forest got louder and clearer around him, and his nose and mouth continued their slow push forward. The smell of the woods around him was stronger, the scent of dirt and wood and leaves bursting from the background to the forefront of his consciousness. His vision blurred up, reds and greens blended into yellows, and any hope of reading the spell book slipped away. His teeth sharpened and strengthened, and sensitive long hairs pushed out from the sides of his narrowing muzzle. It pushed out even a bit longer, before his nose darkened and started to glisten as new moisture settled on his nostrils. The smells that were coming in through them now were so detailed that he could tell, from here, which trees had furry animals in them how many kinds of birds were up above him. The generic smell of dirt had split up into the scents of worms, clay, decaying plant products, insects, water, and different sorts of roots. He could smell the steps people and animals had taken here before him. Different sorts of urine beckoned to him in different parts of tree trunks and the ground. He felt slightly cold, for he still wasn't much hairier than a human, but a tingle in his follicles signaled that it wouldn't be much longer.
He finally calmed down a bit and looked around. He knew he didn't belong here in this type of body, and that he never meant to go this far. He was supposed to be a human, but the word for that seemed distant and mysterious. He knew it had to do with this flaky dark-and-light thing in front of him (the book, but he couldn't really remember what that was called either). He sniffed it a few times trying to make sense of what exactly was so relevant about it. He knew that it belonged to him, so he wondered if maybe he should pee on it. He was having so much trouble remembering what a book was even supposed to be used for. He was well aware of the main points of his human life from less than ten minutes ago, but the details were much too complicated for him to understand anymore. Even if he could still see the blurry marks on the leafy rectangles in front of him, he couldn't even imagine how they might help him learn how to change back. There was nothing he could do now, he realized, but get on with life in his body and maybe go find some food.