After a quick hot lunch, Mary settled down with the vials and began to browse through the impossible infinite contents again.
Eventually, she settled on a particular vial with the picture of a human man on it, and her grin widened. She turned back to the countertop near the kitchen window and stood looking down at her little goldfish again.
"Hey, buddy..." she whispered, leaning in and uncorking the vial. She poured just a little bit into the water, knowing that a high amount, even dilluted, would result in a fast change.
No, she wanted a slow and steady transformation this time. Mary leaned over the counter excitedly and crossed her arms, staring in childlike wonder.
Slowly, oh so slowly, oh so gently and slowly, Goldie began to change. First, his side fins behind his gills seemed to grow a little bigger. Mary watched him circle the bowl with indifference to his plight.
Next, she watched his pubic fins start to grow longer. After a little while longer, his front and rear fins began to develop stubby limbs behind them. His tail fin was growing, his body was losing roundness. He looked like a little half goldfish / half ceolocanth for a while, before his gills began to shrink and close behind his head.
Startled, Mary watched as the little fish's developing arms and legs began to sprout longer and defined. The fish suddenly blinked, eyelids growing in, and a sudden look of confusion and bewilderment overtook his much more expressive face.
The fish floated to the bottom of his bowl and stared at himself in shock. He was losing the round oval of his fish body. He was gaining a torso. His gill slits were almost entirely closed, bubbles raising from his mouth now as he continued to breathe the water in and out with hybridized lungs.
As Mary watched in wonder, the goldfish continued to develop into a half man, half fish. A neck pushed his head up and it curled down to face forward. His scales seemed to harden. His wispy fins were growing the structures of fingers and toes. His tail shrank into his rump. His arms lengthened. Hips emerged from his waist, carrying his legs.
The goldfish suddenly looked to Mary staring at him in shock and the long back fin trailing down the back of his head to the start of his tail raised up in alarm.
When she guessed he was about halfway into his transformation to a man, Mary quickly reached into the water and pulled him out. As she hoped, the fish gargled and coughed as air filled his hybrid lungs and he spat out the water of his former home.
He was now able to breathe on land as well as water. With a six inch tall half man half goldfish held in her closed fist, Mary smiled down at her much improved pet.
Goldie blinked several times. Mary grinned wider.
"H-Hello, little dude..." Mary smiled.
The fish brightened at the words and visibly smiled at the edges of his puckered lips. "H-Hello!" He replied, voice high pitched and small. "I... I remember you! You... you feed me and take care of me."
"Yes!" Mary nodded excitedly, placing the tiny piscine down on the counter and letting him shake the remaining water off his glistening scales for it to pool around his webbed feet.
"Was... was I very big for a while?" He raised an eye ridge, alarmed. "I... I remember being somewhere new and being big."
"Uh, could be!" Mary shrugged.
"Huh." The fish considered, before taking a good look around the counter and the kitchen beyond. "Everything looks so strange out here! And... and... I don't have to be in water all the time!"
"Do you like it?" Mary grinned, leaning in and admiring the fish man's nicely shaped boyish curves.
"Oh, yes!" Goldie nodded excitedly. "I can't wait to explore!"