You shake, racked by spasms and feeling painful sensations, so many it's hard for your brain to just focus upon one particular. The carnie, for one, keeps looking at you, elated and fascinated. Curious at how your transformation might offer. It's impossible yo know how each might turn out. You're young and male and not ugly so it should be more than decent. Dark green scales spread across your body, wings erupt from your shoulders, leathery and bat-like, your face becomes a snout and a tail sprouts lashing from side to side from your lower back, banging into the wire cage, shaking it but not breaking it. You moan, groan and cry, lying down ob the ground as your two legs, then four clawed paws, cannot hold you together anymore.
When the transformation finally subsides, you tentatively rise to your feet, well, paws, dizzy and exhausted. You are now a dragon, still male, with spikes along your spines and a horn at the tip of your snout. You also have two darker horns on top of your skull and spikes at the tip of your tail. Your wings aren't big enough to use for flight but they should grow out.
The carnie whistles, impressed.
"Not bad. Not bad at all. You should make quite the attraction, once you are properly trained. And tamed."
You shout but only growls come out.
"Sorry, I don't speak dragon," casually says the carnie.
You roar but only a small flame erupts from your maw. The carnie remains unimpressed, though.
" Not fully grown yet to be that frightening, I'm afraid to say."
You growl and bare your teeth more, along stomping around the cage. Luckily, the carnie seems to get the idea, though, because he finally deigns to provide an explanation.
"The so-called shows with imaginary creatures at this carnival are all but imaginary. There're no animatronics or mere illusions. At first we were a safe haven for mythological creatures whose lands were encroached upon by man. But they reproduce slowly and miss the company of their peers and kin. Hence why some attractions are meant to 'recruit' new members. Through the game you chose, chance made you the victim of a dragon spell. You set your mind on the high stakes, making you a full dragon. If you had chosen a middle stakes, you would have ended up as a centaur, satyr or mermaid. As for the low stakes, you would have ended up with an animal part but still remained human, for the most part. Only the gold band would have allowed you to escape, not only with a nice wad of bills but also your human integrity. As you spun the wheel, a magic artefact, it produced the potion in which you were doused, all for the benefit of your transformation."
You roar, outraged by the ploy in which you were a victim. Oh, but people would come looking for you and as soon as the police came...
The carnie cut that thought out, as if he had read your mind.
"And don't worry about cops finding you, in dragon for or other. We're created an illusionary clone of you who shall go back home and live your life like a perfect replica. It will vanish in a few sunrises, enough for people to see you outside this carnival and imagine you ran away or something, never linking your disappearance to us."
You spit flames again, unfortunately, as you try to hit the carnie, a water hose, aims perfectly at you. The water hits you right in the mouth and throat, making up splutter and cough smoke. You attempt belching flames but merely vapor comes out. Other carnies have come out and with ropes and chains, one threateningly aiming at you with the fire hose. Quickly, the wire cage is pulled away and you are muzzled, your wings pinned and your paws shackled. A leather collar slipped on has a buckle and a strong carnie loops a strong rope through it, forcing you to step forward. Others hold similar ropes on each leg, getting you to move onwards and keeping you from trying to lash out at either of them. You resisted but slowly and surely you got dragged to where the other dragons were living, off to familiarize yourself with your new existence.