“You really didn’t think you were going to get 20 grand to be experimented on, did you, Ms. Finley?”
The hapless trout stared at that revelation with complete hurt and helplessness. “Y-You’re a monster!” She managed to whimper, as a pump kicked in and hot chemical steam began to flow from the vent above and into the chamber.
The temperature rose immediately. Amelia was suddenly engulfed in a boiling hot mist that filled the chamber in seconds. Her entire body was coated, little droplets of moisture fell from her skin. She felt weird. Tingly. Hot. As if it would help, she suddenly closed her gaping mouth and shut her eyes, holding her breath and clenching her fists if that might stop whatever was about to happen to her.
She felt the first crunch from head to toe. Flesh and bone shifting. The tingling grew to a maddening itch. The trout screamed out loud and doubled over. Everything hurt. She felt insides shifting. She felt herself beginning to compress. She reached up through the rolling fog and let out another cry. Her breasts were already shrinking. Her figure was diminishing. She grabbed at her neck frantically and felt the gill slits opening up. She clawed at them in horror and screamed. Her fingers were losing shape. Her arms were shrinking. All of her was shrinking.
By the time she fell to her knees they were trembling to hold her up and reduced to half their size. Her torso was nearly gone. She let out another scream and clutched herself. Her body was thickening, rounding. Her hands were floppy and lifeless. The bone had faded. Her fully fins were pulling into her side. Her tail was fattening and pushing out behind her. The slit between her legs was pulling in even tighter losing definition.
She knew she was shrinking rapidly. Her legs grew stiff and rigid. She collapsed and found herself lying belly down on the floor. Everything was huge. It was getting harder to breathe the air. She knew her lungs were reducing fast. She knew she was completely helpless. Trembling, crying, the pathetic freak of a fish woman could do little more than lie there and shrink away as he legs finally vanished completely and even her feet fins reduced to nothignness. Her body began to slim. Not so round anymore, she fell to her flattening side gasping for breath. The gills were deepening. She could feel them growing in deep down her fattening neck. Her spine snapped tight. Her head locked forward. She flailed and struggled, felt her massive tail slap against the floor. She let out one last cry, wanting to her her voice one final time as it turned to a rough heavy gasp and then nothing.
Then, she felt it. The last breath of air she would ever take ejected from the closing nostrils on the tip of her snout. Shrinking. Shrinking. Shrinking. She couldn’t breathe! It wasn’t the instantaneous suffocation she had thought it would be, either, it was a slow agonizing death.
She felt the jolt as she shrank to her new size and then everything stopped. She felt so thick, so heavy. All of her sensitive nerves were gone. She knew her brain had shrunken too. She couldn’t even cry anymore. She couldn’t even blink. Her eyelids were gone, forcing her to stare two ways at the floor and the mist still flowing above. She tried to move. She had no locomotion anymore. She could only flop, but she was scared flailing about and hurting herself. Her tail pulled up. She curled her body in agony. She was dying now. Her gills burnt for liquid. She was drowning in air.
The mist finally abated and the chamber began to clear. Her vision was so much worse. Indistinct blobs of light and dark assaulted her eyes. Even those were burning for cool water to cover them. She tried to gasp and felt her mouth open. She tried to hold on as the door to the tank opened. She felt the giant sized hand grab her tail fins. Oh God, she was so small! She was so tiny now! The fingers were enormous as they yanked her off the floor. She struggled, flailing her body. Just let me die. Just let me die!
She had the sensation of flying through the air, mouth agape, eyes wishing desperately they could close. She felt herself rest on something hard. Her skin had none of the nerve endings she had known her entire life. She couldn’t feel anything through her thick coat of fish scales and muscle. No texture. Just a vague sense of something pressing against her.
Her mind raced desperately. She was so close to passing out from lack of oxygen. Everything hurt. Everything was numb. Her body burned. Her gills were on fire, pulsating frantically beneath their slits. She was being measured. Her one eye could make out the movement of a hand whizzing by holding something. Her mind knew it was a measuring tape. She tried to scream for help. No sound emerged but her mouth opened to try and make the plea regardless.
She flailed again. Death was close, her body was weak. Her tail slapped something. She felt the vibration in her head but not the noise. My God, she couldn’t hear anymore! She had no ears!
SPLASH! Nearly rigid, she found herself plummeting into cool water. For a moment, she forgot about everything as a rush of clean delicious life giving water filled her senses completely. Her terror momentarily abated as she took her first breath of water. She had done it many times swimming throughout her life when they had been inside of her, but this time the sensation of her new full gills breathing was enough to make her cry had she been able to still do so.
She felt her heavy form hit something. The bottom of something. The buoyancy of her swim bladder kept her upright. She saw with clarity again. Bubbles, the liquid surrounding her. The dim light reflecting through... something. It was confusing. She took another breath, her gills vibrated behind her head and stopped burning. Only cool refreshing water flowed into them. She felt herself suck in the particles of oxygen. She felt complete and total relief. Relaxation. She felt heavy. Sleepy.
Somewhere, deep down, whatever was left of the fish woman fought back. Don’t go to sleep. Stay aware. Stay focused. She tried to remember. The last few minutes. Her name. Her mom’s face. Her dad. Where she lived. Anything. She focused on the memory of her boyfriend leaving in his fancy car and that pissed her off. Anger was good. She could use that. The trout stirred. Her pectoral fins began to undulate. Her eyes flicked. Focused. She was enraged. How DARE this human do this to her.
Fuck her. Make her feel good. Betray her. Use her. Make her suffer. Turn her into a helpless animal. Shrink her brain.
She fought back with everything she had, feeling her mind trying to contract itself down to her new size.
Tom finished putting his clothes back on and stared through the plastic of Amelia’s new home with shock. She was really trying to stay conscious, wasn’t she?
The fish saw him. She turned slightly to meet the giant human face leering at her, distorted, through the bin she was in. All of the hatred she had ever felt in her life focused on that hideous, monstrous, giant, bastard of a human being. How DARE he do this to her! The sweet good natured little trout who loved to laugh was completely and totally red hot enraged for the first time in her life.
Tom rose from the little cart he had placed the container on and gulped. He could see the intense anger in the fish’s eyes. They were burning with hatred. Her mouth was curled angrily. Even without facial expression, she managed to convey how pissed she was.
There was a snap inside Amelia’s shrunken animal brain. A switch flicked. She suddenly blanked out. Her expression softened. Her mind paused. Something had happened.