The shopkeeper sighed as he stood outside his store, "It seems a shame to throw this costume out, but at least this was way no one will ever buy it". He tossed the bundle he was carrying amongst the boxes and other rubbish that cluttered the back-street, before turning back inside.
It was starting to rain, and James hurried along, trying to stay as dry as possible. His black hair was streaked wet and hanging in down in front of his eyes, the same dull grey colour as the sky. Taking a detour, he hurried down a back alley, hoping it would take him home faster. Not looking where he was going, he slipped over something. Cursing his luck, he turned around and saw what looked line folds of dark plastic on the ground. Picking it up, it looked like snakeskin, only the fact it was plastic and the slit along it's front clearly showed it as a costume. It looked pretty decent though, and he thought he might be able to make some money from it, so he shoved it into his bag.
When he finally got home, he took off his coat and hung it to dry, trying to get as much water from his hair. Nearly forgetting he had the costume still with him, he took it to his room and laid it out on the floor. It seemed to be made out of some dark brown plastic material, and apart from the detailed head looked fairly plain. He decided he would figure out what to do with it tomorrow, and went back downstairs to get dinner and watch some TV.
As the film he was watching finished, he looked at the clock to see the time was already past midnight, and he felt pretty tired. Managing to drag himself upstairs and strip off his wet clothes. As he walked to bed, his left foot snagged on something, the tail of the costume. Caught inside it, he reached down to pull it off, only found it seemed to be stuck somehow. Cursing his look, he sat down on top of the material to try and peel it off his foot.
He suddenly noticed the costume seemed to be writhing suddenly, and all of a sudden it seemed to start to slither up his leg, which seemed to be firmly stuck. What the hell was going on? Tendrils seemed to split out from the costume, and it started to envelop the other leg two, bringing them together. Very soon both his legs up to his knees were firmly wrapped up in the material of the costume, which now appeared to constrict them. Despite his efforts to try and force the costume off, it slowly progressed further up his legs. He began to realise his mistake in sitting on the costume, as it seemed to slither up as tendrils wrapped around his pelvis, soon meeting with that on his legs.
With his body covered from his feet to his waist, it was natural he was pretty frightened right now, and all his attempts to remove the costume seemed futile. It had seemed to constrict his legs, the shape of which could be clearly seen through the material, and a length of limp tail hung off the end of his feet. Suddenly, the pain seemed to fill his legs, as if they were melting. He saw his legs loose definition through the material, the tail of which seemed to be filling up. He felt changes inside him as things shifted around, and he soon found he could flex the tail in ways the body shouldn't move. It didn't take a genius to realise the costume was somehow turning him into s snake, but it was terrifying all the same. He felt an odd sensation as the costume changed, hardening and splitting into scales which quickly spread from his tail. Diamond patterns formed on his back, whereas the much larger of his front remained a yellowy-brown.
The tendrils once more spread themselves up and began to cover his chest and arms. Soon he found his arms at his sides, stuck there by the advancing costume (which he now supposed was his skin). He tried to fight the changes, but soon he felt his arms melt and meld together with his chest, which soon began to shrink into the same cylindrical shape as his legs. As organs reformed themselves inside him, he looked down at himself and saw that most of his body was now that of a snake, only his head remained.
He felt the head of the costume behind him rise up and fold over his face, joining up with the neck of the costume, as his own expanded to the same width as his changed body. He could see the head of the costume hanging limply in front of his eyes, as his head started to change shape. Some places seemed to shrink while he mouth and face pushed out to fill the costume's. His eyes shifted to line up with the holes; his eyes becoming like that of the snake he would soon become. As his mouth melded with the costume's, he felt his tongue thin and become forked, as he probed his new sharp teeth with it.
Finally, his head was complete, as he was truly a snake. He tried to cry out but all that came out was a hiss. New instincts flooded into his mind as he tasted the air with his tongue. He tried to fight his mind, but there was no denying what he had become. He felt hungry, and the desire for raw meat. His human mind was disgusted, but soon the snake part of him won, and he set off, his body rippling, in search of some food.