Animals. They were people, and now… Now they were animals.

They had been a group of college friends, making fun of a blonde woman. Apparently she ran a farm? Thomas didn’t catch the full gist of it, since he wasn’t that interested. That is, he wasn’t that interested until the leader started to bray like a donkey.

Then… He’d become one. It was like something out of a fantasy movie, made all the worse by the fact that it was so real. There was no way that what he was seeing could be some effect, or illusion. No, it was the real deal. One by one, they had all changed into animals: a horse, a pig, a cow…

Then the woman had spoken aloud, just to herself. “Well, Donna… I suppose that’s it for the witnesses. Unless we have a little rat around here.”

Thomas’s heart pounded in his chest as he stood from his hiding place, sprinting around the corner. He fumbled for his phone, not missing the woman’s next words.

“Oh, maybe we don’t have a rat. Maybe he’s a chicken.”

 

Thomas had run until his legs ached, and he fell back against a corner, panting. Phone in hand, he tapped the call button. “Pick up, pick up…” He muttered, looking to the screen.

Lara. She was his girlfriend, and right now the only one who could calm him down.

“Hello?” She answered, and he could picture the smile on her face.

“Lara, thank God! Listen, you’ll never believe what was happening today, or what happened, or… I mean! It’s incredible! I saw a bunch of people become animals and GWACK!” He blinked, blushing at the animal sound he’d just made.

“What? Animals? Are you kidding?” She was concerned. Of course she’d be, she’d believe anything he said. That was lucky, because even he wasn’t sure that he believed this.

“Cluck… No, I mean I-WARK! UGAWK!” He squawked again, eyes wide. “BUGAWK! WARK!” Any and all further attempts to speak were completely useless. His cheeks flushed and he looked down to his phone, hands trembling.

“Thomas? Baby, are you okay? What’s wrong?” Her voice was laced with worry now, and for good reason.

Thomas quickly ended the call, working his fingers while he still could. He knew fully well what was going to happen to him, he’d seen the others change. So that meant that he didn’t have long. Even though this spell had taken much longer to start on him than it had on the others…

+Listen, this is going to sound crazy, but I’m going to be turning into a chicken. I know it sounds impossible, but please believe me.+ He sent, tapping his foot madly as he waited for a response.

The world seemed to grow around him as he waited, his clothes getting larger and larger on himself. He had to be two feet shorter by the time his phone buzzed, and he frantically opened it.

+I believe you… Can I do anything to help? I mean, it sounds so crazy…+

Thomas hurriedly snapped a photo of himself, wincing at how large his clothing looked on his body in the camera’s reflection. He looked like a toddler wearing the clothes of an adult. It was embarrassing to even think of Lara seeing him when he looked like this, but… It was better than the alternative.

+Oh my God! Seriously? This is crazy! I’ll be right there, baby! Don’t worry, okay?+

He smiled, holding his phone to his chest with a sigh. That was a relief… He smiled, looking left, then right. This alley was… Well, it was completely unmarked. That meant she’d have no chance of finding him if he would become a hen.

And if he was a hen in the middle of the street… Well, they’d probably send him to a slaughterhouse. It was a morose thought, and one that prompted him to tap out another quick text. Luckily, smaller hands didn’t affect the touchscreen.

+Not here! You won’t find me, okay? Meet me at the bookstore, where I work. I’ll be in the locked room at the back, the one with an electric button pad. The combination is 1134. Back entrance, don’t go through the store!+

Thomas knelt down, tying his shoes a little tighter around his feet. He had to tie them tighter… He chuckled, shaking his head. “Gwack…” He clucked. He’d been a size twelve for years now, he couldn’t remember any year he’d worn smaller shoes.

And now he had to tighten them.

His cheeks burned as he held his pants around his waist, jogging for the nearby shop. Luckily, the mall he’d been in was only a block away. He made it into the building without any issues-until he ran into Denise.

She was his coworker and friend, exactly the last person he’d wanted to run into. “Oh hey!” She smiled, waving to him. “You’re…”

Her voice trailed off, and she looked him up and down. Thomas felt his cheeks burn as he began to shrink a few more inches, holding his pants tighter. Why did he go through the store? He’d just told Lara not to…

“I’m sorry.” Denise smiled, shaking her head. “I thought you looked like a friend of mine.” Then she grinned, pulling out her phone. Before Thomas could say anything, she snapped a photo of him, tapping away at her pad.

“I hope you don’t mind, but he’s not going to believe this. You look just like him, but… You know, not as tall? Is that a hate crime to say? I hope it’s not, I really don’t mean anything by it. Just a ditzy millennial and all, you know!”

Thomas kept his mouth firmly shut as she rattled off her list of excuses: a series of inane statements crafted to get customers to leave. It was always funny to see her use them on a customer, and now she was using them on him?

He smiled, then his eyes widened. Quickly, he muted his phone-just in time for her message to pop up on his screen. That was close, he didn’t want to give her any reason to bother him further. The young man turned and stumbled towards the back door, making sure that she wasn’t following him.

She wasn’t, that much was nice. Of course, it didn’t leave him feeling any better. Worse, his clothes were starting to become a hindrance. His pants were bunching up around his feet, and his shirt was starting to drag across the ground.

His shoes… Well, he’d left those behind with Denise. Thank God the woman wasn’t observant, but… The rest of his clothes… The man blushed, knowing what he had to do. He waddled out of his pants, then his underpants. His socks simply slipped off, and he ran towards the door with only a shirt on.

Well, perhaps ‘ran’ was too good of a term. It was more of a wobbling gait, the kind of waddle that a chicken would be known for. The young man flushed, struggling all the way past the back of the store, into the employees only area.

Thankfully, he was too small to be noticed-as small as a child. Thomas reached the door, tugging at his shirt for the dozenth time, trying to keep it from slipping past his shoulders. It was a near-fruitless task, and he abandoned the effort to keep it on, letting it fall to the ground.

Just in time, because another inch would have made it impossible to reach the door handle. He wrapped his small hand around it, tugging the latch down and tumbling inside. The door shut behind him, leaving the only light in the room the proximity sensor.

The storeroom. This was perfect. As expected, it was left open-he was the only one who bothered to lock this end. The other end was meant to lead to a loading area, though really it just led to the back parking lot. Lara knew about it, since she’d picked him up from there before.

He looked down to his phone, wincing as he saw the picture Denise had taken of him. He really did look like a miniature version of himself… And now? Now he had to look even smaller. The young man sighed, scrolling past her messages to Lara’s.

+Be safe.+

+I’m on my way.+

+I love you so much be safe+

He smiled, wincing as his arms began to tuck in, giving him the distinctive appearance of a hen. “BUGAWK!” He crowed in distress, dropping the phone to the ground and stooping beside it. He quickly typed out a response, sending it to Lara in a hurry.

+Changing faster but here and safe might be chicken love you forever+

It wasn’t verbose, or intelligible. But it was heartfelt, which had to account for something. Thomas left the phone on the ground, walking in a small circle, his heart pounding. This was it, this was really it. He’d be changing into an animal and there was nothing he could do about it.

He could feel his body fattening, starting with his thighs and progressing with his belly. His spin started to shrink, and he groaned as his neck stretched out, head shrinking. A look down to himself told him enough: that he looked like a fat chicken.

Ready for the slaughterhouse…

“Cluck-awk…” Thomas half-sobbed, curling his toes as they cramped. He watched them in shock and horror as they stretched away from the rest of his feet. The arches of his feet pulled back, shrinking and dwindling away almost in time with the lengthening of his toes.

His heels began to stretch away from his feet too. It left him with an even more chicken-legged gait… Heh, chicken-legged. Thomas clucked bitterly, groaning as his ankles and calves cramped up, getting thinner and smaller.

This was really the end for him, nothing he could do about it…

Thomas sighed, groaning as his bones lightened. He started to instinctively hop anxiously, his whole body feeling so light for how fat it was. He blushed, feeling his ungainly, ugly form. He was so vulnerable like this!

The feeling of weakness was only made worse as his fingers fused together, leaving him with a posture reserved for those of hens. He couldn’t use his phone now even if he wanted to… Thomas regretted not sending Lara something different, something more than that disjointed last message.

His lips stretched away from his face and his head and neck grew the red combs of a chicken. He could see the beak growing on his shrunken head, clearly visible in his peripheral vision. That was probably the worst part about these changes, that he could see his beak moving every time he squawked.

The young man shuddered, looking down to his body. This was it. He was a plump, juicy chicken, fat and freshly-plucked. His mottled pink hide was bare, though he could tell that was soon to change.

A tingling crept across his entire body, and he flapped his fleshy wings as they became feathered. Quills were shooting out from his skin, carpeting him like spines on a cactus-no, like spines on a porcupine. Each and every quill grew a lush set of feathers, downy and soft.

They covered his skin, leaving him oddly warm-though with feathers literally ruffled. He could feel the quills shifting with each of his movements, a constant reminder that he was just a bird. But at least he didn’t have a bird’s brain…

The door opened, interrupting his thoughts. Thomas looked up with a squawk, watching as a silhouetted figure walked in from outside. For a moment, he worried that he’d made the wrong decision, that someone had stopped in for a delivery and had found him, ready to be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Then soft, warm arms wrapped around his body. A woman hugged him tightly to her chest, sobbing openly. “Oh my God, Thomas… This really is you, isn’t it?”

He clucked, nuzzling against her cheek.

Lara.

For better or worse, he was safe. He nestled into her arms, realizing absently that he was now probably more of a she. She hadn’t even noticed the change, but now that she was thinking about it… Yeah, she was meant for laying eggs, rather than fertilizing them.

Well… It could be worse. She was a hen, safe from the slaughterhouse. And she could still be useful to Lara, even like this-her girlfriend always loved eggs in the morning.

Her new form was incapable of tears, and she was glad about that. Because… Even if there was any bright side to all of this… She was still a chicken. And she’d remain as one for the rest of her life. She’d be a hen, forever.