Roxanne looked at her soon-to-be snack and graciously said, "Well, Oskee, it's up to you. This is the end of YOUR separate existence, after all. Where and when do you wanna do it?"
"I think I've waited long enough for this. I was born to be an animal's prey! To be YOUR prey. I don't want to go all the way to back to where you live. Unless you do."
"I told you, I don't want to choose where and when. Yes, let's do it here! But you should go first. You deserve at least a little bit of time in your new form. Maybe you can start learning to use those wings while I'm transforming."
"Okay, yes, YES, I'm ready," agreed Oscar. The injection was pushed into his arm. He winced a bit but soon it was over: the last shot he'd ever be getting. "Wow, that feels funny," Oscar said. A tingling was starting all over him, and then there was a pressure in his torso.
"Are you OKAY Oskee?" asked Roxanne concerned.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. It's just-----ooh, ooooh, OOOOOH, I gotta cramp!"
Oscar crosses his arms and clutched his sides. Maybe he wasn't so fine! The pain on the left and right sides of his was building up, and then it gave way an explosion of RELEASE and new feeling. He looked down and saw what had pushed his (original) arms out of the way and ripped his shirt to bits.
"Wow, look at me, I've got new arms! Check this out..." he waved them around in awe and clapped both pairs of hands. He wiggled his twenty fingers, but fingers they would not remain much longer. His old arms, his new arms, and his legs became long, stick-like, segment appendages with spurs growing out from them. Crunchy chitin formed upon his skin, the beginnings of his new exoskeleton. His hind pair weren't designed for an upright posture anymore, so Oscar toppled over and caught himself on all sixes. He tested out the new and altered limbs and managed to propel himself forward. "Look at me, Roxy, I'm crawling like a bug!"
"I can see that! You're really getting the hang of it. What does it feel like?"
"Oh, you have no idea, it's the most powerful feeling I've ever--"
Oscar's mouth kept going, but his voice shut off abruptly like a speaker. There was no more airflow coming in or out that way. He grimaced like he had before his new pair of middle limbs had burst out. And then he looked content again. No one else could see, through the tattered remains of his top, what new change had seemingly burrowed in or out of him. But Oscar could feel it. He'd lost his breath for a second, and then new tubes had tunneled through his torso and holes bored open in his sides. The cool passage of air through his spiracles soothed him, but the breezes through his mouth and nose had stopped. The rising and falling of his chest, which had been keeping time like a clock since his birth, fell still. Then something strange and different happened to his face.
Oscar tried to see what the others were seeing, he really tried. Roxanne and the Animalia employee were looking calm and supportive, but not happy. They could try to hide their disgust all they wished, but he could tell that whatever his face was doing was freaking them out. That's okay, he chose to be a housefly so he could be eaten, not so that he'd be pretty. He couldn't like his lips anymore, couldn't feel his mouth swallowing or salivating like it used to. But he could feel something surging, something swelling up and spewing slime below him, way down under his chin. And then he felt it TWITCH. Oh, good, he could move this new organ! It felt big enough that maybe he could stretch it out in front of him and --- there it was! A spongy wide proboscis, of his very own. Whatever noxious sustenance he might manage to soak up with it in the next few minutes would nourish Roxanne, not Oscar, though. Everything his body was becoming was destined to be her first meal as a frog. He shivered a bit and wiggled his proboscis at the thought.
The tingling came back with a vengeance, but he didn't seem to be getting any new body parts this time. He just felt a strange dull grip from all directions, as though he were gently squeezed by something that could wrap all the way around him. A few seconds later, he noticed Roxanne looked bigger. The room looked bigger. His stubborn clothes felt baggier. His six insectoid feet slid closer to each other across the floor, with no prompting from him, as they needed much less separation to kept his stance the same.
"He's shrinking," announced Roxanne with some wonder.
"All the better to fit in a fly's mouth," hinted the employee, who clearly knew what was up. It wasn't long before they couldn't see him any more, but Roxanne bent down to watch the hump in the clothes get smaller until it wasn't in them anymore. Oscar had shrunk so much that the pants had fallen flat behind him, and the neck of his torn T-shirt was just about to slide down the end of his changing body. All she could see was a tiny and shrinking ball of chitin balancing on six limbs that must have rivaled her hair in thinness. His exoskeleton had thoroughly enclosed him and part of it was sticking out as a housefly abdomen. He crawled forward almost with pride as he saw she could see him. Presenting his currently-unappetizing body as a gift before her. Her human friend, soon to be the first of many flies she would have to eat to live. A part of her felt more guilty than she had ever felt. But another part of her was more flattered and grateful than she had ever been.
And for his part, Oscar really could see Roxanne. He and soon he could see much more. His eyes overflowed their sockets and spread out across his head. The lenses split into kaleidoscopes, but he began to piece together what they were showing him. He could look in almost any direction without rolling his eyeballs or turning his head! All the better to evade predators and escape flyswatters with. But there was one predator he didn't intend to evade for too long. His old, useless nostrils were nothing more than holes in the exoskeleton of his face for now, but he felt something extending down there and new they would be filled. Hairy growths emerged from him, the antenna he would smell and taste with as a fly. The remaining holes from his ears closed up, but he could almost hear the sounds of this increasingly gargantuan room when his antennae began to take in air vibrations--Roxanne moving her hands and knees to watch him on the floor, the doctor's shoes squeaking back into the distance to not crush him. The loud flicker of the faraway fluorescent lights.
At last, spindly limbs wiggle free and then spread tall and wide above his back. Filaments and membranes spread from them, forming clear, wide appendages that began to vibrate fast and loud. His wings. Digging into the air and hauling him up like a helicopter. "My wings! I'm flying, I'm flying, look at me Roxy, I'm flying!" he wanted to say, but the only movement in his mouth was that huge proboscis flexing a little bit. But his antennae, they didn't just hear his wing-beats, they smelled deliciousness, they tasted particles of bliss upon the air currents, they were detecting... sugar? Roxanne watched him hover with tears held in her eyes; she pulled out a small white cube that was larger than he was.
"Here, I brought you something, it seemed only fair since you're giving me, well, YOU. I've heard insects like sugar, do you want to, TASTE a bit?"
Oscar DID want to taste. His wings buzzed even faster with glee at his best friend's thoughtful nature. He landed on the cube and set his new proboscis to work dissolving the hard white crystal with his fluids. * It's all for you Roxie * -- he thought affectionately as he sampled his final meal -- * Everything that's in me, everything you've given me, I want it all to live in YOU. *