You always had an interest in the Creature from the Black Lagoon so it was a no brainer really.
"The Creature from the Black Lagoon", you say. "Sure thing", the shopkeeper says and rummages through one of his cupboards in the storeroom. He brings the costume back placing it onto the counter. Upon laying eyes on it, you were amazed at the handiwork that had gone into the costume. The main body of the costume appeared to be made of latex and was amazingly detailed right down to the webbing in the hands, the individual scales and scutes along the abdomen area. The mask itself was also very visceral and even looked better that how it appeared in the original film. The eyes literally glare straight into your soul which makes you shudder slightly. You knew now that you NEEDED this costume.
Hastily picking up the costume, you ask the shopkeeper if you could try the costume on. "Go right ahead", he says and leads you to the changing rooms. The inside of the changing room had a bench to sit down on and a full length mirror on the door. Shutting the door behind you, you strip yourself of your clothing and sit down on the bench. You hold up the mask again and stare into those orange eyes. Something about the eyes seems alive. You shrug it off and hold up the costume looking for an opening.
Pausing for a bit, you reminisce over your fascination for the creature. Over the years, you had amassed a large collection of memorabilia, figurines, classic film posters from the film but never in your wildest dreams did you ever imagine that you'd ever have a full blown replica costume of your own let alone one that looked better than the original source material. You've even had a couple of dreams in the past of actually transforming into the creature and then living out the movie as if you actually were the creature. Maybe now you could live out your dreams albeit partially of course.
Now back to the task at hand, you look for a way into the costume. There's a zipper that runs down the back from the neck down. Unzipping it, you place one leg in and then the other. The latex clings closely to your skin and yet felt somewhat well lubricated allowing you to slip into it quite easily. You slide both feet down into the feet of the costume. Looking down, you notice the webbed feet for the first time. Like the rest of the costume, they were very well detailed right down to the claws. The material inside felt silky smooth on your feet and the soles of the rubber feet feel like they were adhering to your own feet. Standing up, you pull the rest of the costume up to your chest area and start to pull the zipper up a bit.
You slide your arms into the arms of the costume along with your hands and pause once again to scrutinise the detail of the costume. Looking in the mirror, the costumes details were now much more apparent. You look down at your hands and flex your fingers. The webbing realistically stretches and you end up wondering if you could literally swim with the costume on. The time has come now to put on the mask. Picking it up, you once again look into those orange eyes. You see that the eyes themselves were made of glass and were removable most likely for display purposes. You remove the eyes and place the mask onto your head. You carefully match the eye holes to your own eyes noticing how well the mask fits you, clinging to your skin.
Now with the costume fully on, you look at the mirror. A dreamy high comes over you when you see yourself as the creature. It was apparent now that the costume was feature film grade. You could literally sit there and count each individual scale on the body. Looking down at yourself, you flex your hands and feet taking in all the details. You try out a couple of poses in the mirror with arms outstretched whilst pretending to make beastly sounds with your voice. Deciding that the costume was definitely for you, you prepare to undress yourself.
Reaching behind yourself with a webbed hand, you reach for where the zipper was and had trouble finding it. Dismissing it as a loss of your sense of touch, you spin around to find it in the mirror. Your heart skips a beat when you see that the zipper was no longer there. Frantically feeling around your back, heat spreads across your body and you start feeling dizzy. You feel a crushing sensation all over your body and fall back against the wall. You try to pull the mask off but instead feel it sticking to your face. Falling back against the bench, you hear a loud crack come from your nose along with a flash of pain as it flattens against your upper lip. You feel the area around your face pulling out to fill the mask whilst making loud crunching and snapping sounds. Your mouth widens and feels as though it's getting bigger. Your nose seals over and your forced to breathe through your mouth. Now breathing heavily, you try once more to remove the mask only to find that you now felt your own skin through the mask as if it were your own. A stinging sensation goes through your eyes and you briefly close them. Re-opening them, You see yourself in the mirror and see your iris's were now orange and expand in diameter covering the whites of your eyes.
The sensations flow downward and the costume starts feeling too small. You shakily look down at your hands noticing that you could no longer feel the costume around your hand. It was as if the green, webbed hands of the costume were now your own hands. A piercing sensation goes through your fingertips as the claws fuse with the bones of your fingertips. With a trembling hand, you feel the fins on your forearms and could feel them as it they were your own. You realised that the costume was turning you into itself. Your mind briefly zones out in shock when you realised that you really were becoming "The Creature from the Black Lagoon". Wondering if this was another one of your transformation dreams, another loud series of crunching sounds snaps you back into reality when you felt your musculature toning up across your body. Looking down at your feet, you suddenly realised you could feel the cold floor beneath your feet. The same piercing sensation that went through your fingertips goes through your toes as the claws fuse with your toe bones. The pain eventually stops and you sat back bewildered and confused as to what happened to you.
You let out a sigh of relief suddenly noticing that your voice sounded slightly deeper and more hoarse. "Wait, that's not my... voice" you say. Or at least try to say. Your mouth felt somewhat different and didn't quite move the same way that it used to.
Glancing up at the mirror, the costume now seemed even more realistic and no longer appeared to be made of latex. Pulling yourself up, you nervously looked into the mirror and see your eyes were now like the glass ones you had previously removed except they were quite real. Thinking you were seeing things, you slowly approached the mirror to get a good look at your face. Your own orange eyes send a tingle down your spine. More so when you realised they were now your own eyes. You open your mouth in shock and the "mask" does the same. You run your webbed hands around your new face taking in the sensations amazed at how different your face felt to touch.
Part of you denies that this real and is some kind of crazy dream. You try to pinch yourself but found that your webbed hands prevented you from properly doing so. Instead, you use your index claw and middle claw to try to pinch yourself. A slight stab of pain goes through the area you pinch. You notice that you had drawn a tiny bit of blood from the area you pinched which heals over quickly.
Still in a bit of a dreamy daze, you sit back down on the bench and look down at your body. Looking further down at your feet, you see that you can now wiggle the toes as if they were your own. Upon further examination, you could distinctly see webbing between your toes. You smile at this and look further up your body. Looking down at your webbed hands, you notice that you had lost some dexterity with your fingers thanks to the webbing you now have between your fingers. Flexing your fingers noticing the webbing stretch back and forth, you wonder if this would make you a better swimmer. The claws themselves appeared to actually be part of your fingertips and were now made of actual bone as opposed to plastic. You run the claws of your right hand down the side wall visibly scratching the wall leaving small trenches behind. You were shocked and slightly scared at having such irremovable weapons on your fingertips.
Looking down at your chest and abdomen, you run your hands over the scutes you now possessed. They were armour like in nature and felt very solid to the touch. Going up to your chest area, you feel the musculature of your chest and arms amazed at how solid and defined the muscles felt underneath. The muscles in your legs felt significantly more solid which would no doubt help you propel yourself through a watery area. Standing back up again, you take a deep breath and once again look at your face in the mirror letting your new identity sink in for a couple of moments. For a minute, you were mesmerised at how different it felt to have a monsters face looking back at you from a mirror, more so when you knew it was now your own face. The reality of the situation kicks in and your heart sinks when it dawned on you that you were now a real monster. A living, breathing relic of years gone by except now real and living. You wonder if there's a way to reverse this or if you'd be stuck as a monster for the rest of your life forced to live in seclusion away from humans.
The changing room door is still closed. You reach out with a webbed hand to open the door but hesitate knowing that you'd eventually be hunted down by humans in your current state. On the other hand, the shopkeeper may be able to explain your predicament.