(Woman to Rat)



Rachel looked to Erica, a bemused look on her face. “Sorry, would you care to repeat that?” The brunette flicked her head, sending a few locks of her hair over a shoulder. She locked her bright blue eyes with the dull browns of her friend’s eyes.

“I said: I know you switched our reports for that class, you dirty rat. And now I’m stuck with a C.” Erica was as upset as Rachel had ever seen her, which in a way was cute. Rachel wasn’t particularly tall, but even she dwarfed the petite Asian. Seeing her upset was in many ways like seeing a child throw a tantrum.

“And? I told you I needed a perfect score to pass this course, and you were so busy with that dumb spelling class of yours that you couldn’t even offer me any help.” Chuckled Rachel, her light eyes glinting with mirth. “I mean… What’s even the point of learning to spell in the twenty-first century? We have phones.”

“That’s not… I can’t even…” Erica groaned, steepling her fingers and pressing them to her forehead. She took a deep breath in, then a deep breath out. Her tensed shoulders relaxed as she mumbled to herself. “This is what happens when you have a mixed school.”

“Mixed? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about hiding in plain sight. That’s not a spelling class, you idiot. It’s a Spell Class.” The Asian flexed her fingers, looking to her hands curiously, as though she was contemplating something evil. Then a smile twisted across her face, and she looked up to her roommate. “It’s a witch class.”

“Which class?” Rachel blinked in confusion.

“And that’s my limit for this conversation. I can tell you’re not going to apologize for this, much less learn from your mistakes. Luckily, the extra credit for an extracurricular transformation should well offset this little lapse of yours, and I’ll maintain my flawless record.”

None of Erica’s words were making sense to Rachel, and the brunette didn’t like that. It was like there was some sort of inside joke that she was being left from, and she grit her teeth in exasperation, only to squeak at a discomfort in her mouth. It was like she’d pressed them incorrectly against one another, her teeth sharply aching.

“What the heck?” Rachel gasped, running her tongue along her teeth curiously. She noticed a victorious grin on Erica’s face, but had never been too great at putting two and two together. Hell, that was why she’d decided to cheat on this in the first place.

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough, I imagine.”

Rachel’s ears twitched slightly at the words, and she quavered instinctively. For some reason, Erica seemed louder than usual, even though she hadn’t raised her voice in the slightest. Still, that didn’t distract from the discomfort in her mouth, and she returned her mind to the task at hand.

Sure enough, her teeth felt… Odd. Her tongue struggled to tell her brain of an impossibility: that her perfect teeth had somehow been reverted to the state she’d had before a decade of braces. They were crooked, and her front teeth were larger than the rest of them.

Slowly, Rachel’s eyes lifted to meet Erica’s, and the brunette squeaked in shock as she realized she was at eye-level to the petite Asian. “Okay, what’s happening? Is this some kind of prank?” She whimpered, her fight or flight instinct triggering for some unknown reason.

“Far from it. You wanted my tutoring, and I’m educating you.” Erica purred, taking a step towards Rachel. As she did, the girl seemed to grow a foot in height.

It had to be some sort of trick, and Rachel was nobody’s fool. She looked down to Erica’s feet, expecting to see some kind of box, or platform shoes. When she couldn’t identify any, the girl looked down to her own feet, wondering if the floor was somehow sinking beneath her.

It wasn’t, but that didn’t keep her from feeling like the bottom of her world had just fallen out. Rachel’s UGG boots were larger on her legs, swallowing her ankles in their wooly cavernous depths. A sense of vertigo momentarily overcame her, and she stumbled backwards. With her boots as oversized as they were, the motion set her off balance, and Rachel fell flat on her ass.

A sharp pain made her squeak, and she rolled onto her side, rubbing her hands against her tailbone. It felt like she’d fractured something, and sure enough she felt a bone where there shouldn’t be one. Then the bone began to lengthen, and continued to grow beneath her trembling fingers. Rachel’s nose twitched as she looked back, finding a long and pink tail uncurling from her waistband.

“N-no way!” Rachel gasped, clutching it in her hands. The tail writhed like a snake, and she let go of it with a terrified squeak. Fear overcame every logical reaction, and a pungent odor filled the air. Her nose translated what every mote of the stink meant, and she realized she’d somehow marked the area as dangerous.

It was an inhuman act, and the fact that she’d realized it so readily spoke volumes to her. Her fingers scrabbled at her dorm’s carpet for purchase as she tried to run, only for a sharp pain in her tail to anchor her in place.

“Ah-ah. I need you as proof that I’ve done my job right.” Erica purred, her heel firmly in the middle of Rachel’s tail. “Or were you trying to cheat me out of another grade?”

Rachel squeaked loudly, whimpering as she felt her front teeth press against her lower lip. They were unkempt and… “Yellow! My teeth are yellow!” Rachel crossed her eyes to look at them, only to blink in surprise. “Hold on… Why can I see my teeth?”

“Maybe it’s your muzzle.”

Erica’s answer made sense, and Rachel wriggled her tail beneath the girl’s foot, suitably chastened. “Oh. That makes sense-wait, why do I have a muzzle!?” Her hands pressed up to her distended face, clutching at it. She hated how she could feel every inch of it, and how every inch could feel her ratlike hands scrabbling against her skin.

“Really? You need to ask? You’re not a smart girl, but I thought that even you would be able to figure out what was happening by now.” The Asian’s tone lost all of its warmth, and her shadow loomed over Rachel’s diminishing frame.

It was the strangest, most terrifying sensation of Rachel’s life. She could feel herself shrinking into her clothing, as though the fabric was being lifted over her. The sensations only grew worse as she dwindled beneath her shirt, her body retracting towards her pinned tail.

A loud, frantic squeal erupted from her lips as she watched the cavernous mouth of her collar stretch away from her, and she reached in vain for it as though that would undo this curse. Then her bra slipped past her head, obscuring the light.

“HghEEK! PlEEK! Not a mEEEK!” Squeals burst from her lips at the sensation of fingers on her tail, and her rat brain kicked into overdrive. Her every limb kicked and flailed even as her arms and legs pulled towards her rodent’s body.

Then she was pulled from the safety of her clothing, and her beady eyes squinted at the sudden flare of light. It let her appreciate just how much worse her vision had gotten, and the girl looked up to a blurry face she knew had to be smiling.

Her nose twitched, and she identified the acrid perfume of her roommate’s shampoo. She’d never noticed as a human how awful the artificial fruit scent smelled, but now she could easily place every mote that offended her sensitive nose.

“Not a mouse? Well, if you’re not, it shouldn’t be so hard to tell me.” Erica cooed, her voice loud as a giantess’s.

“Hhheek neek m… meese!” Rachel struggled to force words from her muzzle, pressing her tongue hard against her unkempt teeth in an attempt to sound out the words. It felt wrong to use her mouth in this way, and it seemed that her new owner agreed.

“Aren’t you? You know, you belong like this. You’re a rat, and you always will be.” Erica purred, and her words became truth.

A numb, warm acceptance began to flow into Rachel’s mind, and she squirmed against it fruitlessly. Thoughts of resistance disappeared as though they’d never existed, and in their place was a strange warmth.

To her surprise, there wasn’t even much that needed to change. She possessed the instincts and the mindset of a pet by now. The only thing that was missing was her acceptance, and now that was melting away she only knew warmth.

Rachel needed-needed these good-good thoughts, even if it made her brain simp… simp… slow. Even if it made her brain slow-slow, she knew it was best for her to think like the rat she was. Maybe someday she could hurry-scurry to freedom… Or maybe it would be better to live as a mouse, and be a pet.

Her owner made more of those strange not-squeak mouth-sounds, and Ratchel’s nose twitched. She didn’t know how to respond, but that seemed to be exactly what her owner was looking for. The amusement-chitters of Ratchel’s owner filled the air, and the rodent twitched her nose in agreement. That was good, she might be slow but she wasn’t as dumb as her owner thought. It would make escape easier… If it came to that.

For now, Ratchel would test what life as a pet was really like.