The old man mutters to himself as he leads you into the backroom. You don’t catch much, something about your choice, and becoming insignificant. In any case, he doesn’t seem willing to engage with you any further. “Take off your clothes and leave them ready for the incinerator chute," he now says more clearly, and bluntly. You hesitate, it brings a strange chill through your body as you recognise that this is the final time you’ll ever undress.
“Come on”, he orders. “You’ve signed up to this, now let’s get on with it. It’s a slower change this one too. You have a lot of mass to loose”. His eyes are on you impatiently. You raise your eyebrows back and he seems to get the hint. He turns away to give you chance to undress.
As you take of your t-shirt and trousers, looking at your skin, you can scarcely imagine what it will look like in a few minutes time. You’d always had a soft spot for hamsters. One was your very first pet, Lucky. And between you and your family it received lots of attention. And a large cage that you’d filled with a wheel and other toys. Over the years you’ve imagined what it could be like to be a large number of animals, but it was only when you’d understood the possibility of transforming for real and browsed a pet shop for all its possibilities that you found your attention pulled back to the hamsters. You’d been increasingly frustrated with a society and world that was doing everything it could to jeopardise a better future. And here was an extreme way of minimising your own carbon footprint… a chance to be a tiny vegetarian! One which would have comforts fully provided for. To see the world from this small perspective excited you, even if there was no going back!
As you thought about it now, while you removed your underwear, it was also giving you a strange thrill to think how you will soon be waiting to be selected. That you will be completely undistinguishable from a regular hamster. To be treated just like you looked after Lucky.
“Will I get a new name…?”, you asked. The old man responded gruffly, “would you like one?”. A lump in you throat stopped you from using words. The man turned around to look at you, and you quickly cupped your hands in front of your genatiles. All you could manage to do was nod. His face showed disappointment. You think that when you, as all customers before you, have no mechanism to complain, that customer service probably suffers. You had already signed away your humanity. There would be no return or refund on this.
“Well, it’s not my job to name you”, he said, “We’ll tell any customers that you don’t have a name and they can choose. Ok!”
It was the answer you realised that you wanted to hear, as you stood there, feeling the air a little cooler on your naked skin.
He stepped forward, to take your clothes and shoes and dropped them into the incinerator chute on his way out the room. He steps through a glass side door with a console. Muttering as he went about good riddance and rodents being vermin in his eyes. He locks the door and clicks a few buttons and the medí-bots arrive and circled your body. A bright red light switches on as the system scans you from head to foot. The light then went orange, and a gas was sprayed from above you. It felt heavy, as though it was settling onto you body, and clogging your airways. It also caused you to blink, and your vision to dull and blur.
Although was the blurring from just the gas? Something was shifting in your eyes, and you know that hamsters don’t have the strongest eye sight. The smell was also getting stronger, despite your nose starting to shrink inwards in size. You are changing! Producing a new sensation long white hairs start to grow out of your cheeks. You reach up to touch one, and you shudder with the sensitivity.
In fact, your whole body is starting to tingle now. Looking down you see the short hairs beginning to bristle across your whole body. With pleasure, you feel the layer of warmth that it’s starting to bring. Despite the old man and the cameras around you, you can’t control your cock hardening. Especially as you see the orange and white colours. You hadn’t specified what fur you would have, and it now seems it’s that of the most Syrian common hamster. In fact less exotic than some of the real rodents already in the shop. But this was the patterns that Lucky had, and it excites you to be taking his form.
You rub your hand across your chest, and with the reactions of your new fur, it feels better than any touch you’ve had before. You hope that whoever picks you will know how to gently take you between their hands to give you a full body massage with ease. Especially as your own hands will soon have their limitations. Your fingers are starting to shrink, and the thumbs completely disappearing.
You notice that the room is starting to look bigger. And as you focus as best as you can with your increasingly blurry eyesight on the door, a queasiness hits you as you see it getting bigger. “I’m really shrink- squeak!”. Your last word becoming a distinctive rodent sound. For any exclamation of emotion, fright or happiness, this will be the sound you make now. That first squeak was of shock, but testing your vocalisation, you make another one, this one with eagerness.
You hear your new sounds clearly, and are pleased that in contrast to your eyesight, your hearing is getting stronger. You’re just able to touch your ears. Rounding and higher up your head. But you can’t touch them for more than a minute. Your arms are shrinking into your body and you loose the reach.
You contemplate going onto all fours. But first, in these final moments of being on two legs, you take a look down at yourself. Your belly is now fully covered in excellent silky hairs. Your cock has stayed hard, although it is becoming just a small lump amongst your fur. And while everything in your body is shrinking at accelerating pace, your testiculs are deminishing a little bit slower. They’re proportionally large, and you wonder for a moment f you’ll ever get chance to use them. You want to touch it in experimentation, but your arms really are becoming very short!
Instead, your attention is diverted. Feeling a little growth at your behind. Finally your small tail has arrived. As you attempt to wriggle it you fall onto your new paws. Arms shifting towards legs. And on your old hands, nails now growing out into little claws. ‘This is it’, you would have said. Although now, you just emit a short series of squeaks.
You must be about half your old size now. Crouching down in a pose that you hope befits a hamster, you’re overwhelmed with sensations as your body shifts and clicks into new shapes. Some kind of force is squeezing your mass increasingly smaller. Your skull is reforming, setting your round ears, pink nose, and small black eyes into the correct place. Your front teeth growing out. Your legs becoming short and stumpy. While your back stretches out, your spine easing into it’s new flexibility.
The increase in size of the room around you accelerates in speed. You’d desired to be small, but you’d never quite been able to truly imagine how it would feel to be less than 10cm in size. As the changes stop, the excitement of discovery is mixed with new instincts of a creature that knows it is low on the food chain. You heart beats at pace. Is this fear or just the normal speed of a hamster?
You had picked one of the smallest pets possible. It’s indescribable, almost blissful, yet you hadn’t envisaged these defensive thoughts of being a prey in this large room with nowhere to hide. You squeak as strongly as you can, but in this new form, it’s barely audible across the room.
You hear a rumble and feel thudding vibrations in the floor. You don’t see much more than two giant boots approaching. And then an enormous hand, as the old man bends down and scoops you up with ease. “Your hurting my back”, he grumbles, in a voice that now takes on much more gravity. But even if you could have said something, you no longer have right of reply. You become breathless for a moment from the dizzying sensation of being lifted up quickly.
Cupped in his hands you don’t see much. Not until you’re dropped into a small cage. Eyes adjusting you notice a small bowl of food, a water bottle, and a wheel. The door clicks shut, and you start acquainting yourself with your temporary home.