The sign had said that all tickets were sold out; yet the crowd in the tent doesn’t seem as large as you’d expect. Of course, they had also said the show would begin at eight o’ clock, and your phone stubbornly insisted that it was just minutes away.

A glance down confirms both the time and your complete lack of cell reception. You tell yourself that it’s to keep any kids from streaming the event, but a part of you still found it odd that your signal died the moment you entered the tent.

A loud honk breaks the relative quiet. A sheepish girl a few rows across tugs up her face mask, stowing yet another tissue in her backpack. Little wonder that anyone is sitting next to her, though the people in her vicinity seem to be amused by the sound.

For the fifteenth time, you glance to your right towards your girlfriend. It wasn’t meant to get her attention, but she’s as bored as you are. She smiles back, rubbing her thumb along the back of your hand. Her lips open, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

“Get on with the show!” A middle-aged woman calls from a few rows below you, cutting off whatever your girlfriend was about to say. Neither of you mind, snickering quietly at the disruption she’s caused. “I mean, we’re all waiting here, so it’s time for the show to start!”

The woman spreads her arms wide, motioning to the rest of you. “It’s time for the show to start!” She repeats herself, her arms wobbling slightly. “It’s time for the show to start! It’s time for the show to start!”

Your laughter turns to unease. There’s something in her eyes, a mixture of surprise and horror. Your bag of honeyed popcorn falls from your lap, as you lean in, trying to make out what’s happening. Shells bounce across your shoe, but that doesn’t seem important right now.

“Babe, something’s wrong,” your girlfriend curls her hand around yours, itching at her neck.

The crowd feels it too, murmurs settling around yourself. Another honk helps to lighten the mood, but even the girl looks a little perturbed. She rubs at her mask, fidgeting in her seat.

“It’s time for the show to start! It’s t-time for the show to sta-AAART?” The woman can’t seem to move her arms properly. She’s bending them at the elbows, though her upper arms are still out at her sides. Her fingers flutter at her throat as she looks around for help, only for a young man by her to start clapping loudly.

He seems just as surprised by the action as anyone else, eyes wide and mouth falling agape as she begins to clap faster and faster. He turns to a nearby friend and barks in his face. “ARK ORT OURT!”

Between that and the rest of the night, it’s time to call this a wash. You grab your girlfriend’s hand tightly, moving to stand—only to catch sight of her throat. She’s still itching her neck, and for good reason: there’s a thin coat of hair circled around it like a collar.

She turns to you, smiling nervously, bearing canines that are decidedly sharper than they were last night. Her expression falls as she catches sight of your face, and you try to keep the shock from your eyes. But that’s not what she’s looking at.

“What’s wrong with your nose?”

You drop her hand, your fingers moving to your nose in stunned panic. It’s damp and wet. You cross your eyes and flinch back, as though that can help you escape the moistening

“AWWK! IT’S TIME FOR THE SHOW TO STAAWWK!”

Your eyes flick back to the woman. A hard black object is pushing from within her mouth. Her lips are squeezed against it, and a black wormlike object squirms within. It’s a beak, complete with a parrot’s tongue. You recognize it from one you used to have as a pet.

Your girlfriend grew up with a much less interesting household, and a confused rumble slips from her throat. She leans forward to look at it better, her backside on full display. It lets you see her spine stretch longer, thinner, a tuft of hair at the tip.

Another honk from your left, and you turn to see the girl pressing her hands against her mask as something writhes beneath it, as though a snake has slithered inside. A second later, a thick gray trunk tears it off of her and she lets out an earnest trumpet.

Part of your mind comes to the realization that the circus did find a way to start on time. Another part realizes that whatever’s happened, it’s too late. You still try to run, stumbling to your feet, in the process learning you’re not as unchanged as you’d like.

Your feet are bigger, thicker. They’d burst from the confines of your shoes without you so much as knowing, thick muscle and plush pads insulating your soles from your spilled snack. Your shirt lifts, exposing an embarrassingly larger, hairier belly.

You look up to see a couple across the tent from you, both of them turning to run from one another. The guy is staring at the striped fur on his arms in horror, seemingly ignorant of the breasts swelling down his chest.

The girl who used to sit beside him is turning to run, stumbling over her own legs. Thick tufts of fur adorn her wrists, but even that isn’t enough to block the sight of her thick and swollen hooves. As she falls, a thick mottled foot of horseflesh lifts her skirt, and she lets out a whinny that you can hear across the din.

Other cries join the cacophony. A loud squawk comes from a man pawing at his stretching neck, hair falling from his head as a beak juts from his mouth. A girl hoots and tugs off an empty brassiere with her feet. A gangly… person, you can’t honestly tell their gender, has fallen over three rows of seats, their neck stretching and stretching as they bleat pitifully.

These changes all have something in common, and you feel it hit you a moment later. It’s like a punch to your gut, a sudden feeling of emptiness settling within you. You hardly notice the feeling of your manhood reforming, the only sensation driving your body is sheer, unrelenting need.

You double over and your hands cramp as they pop and stretch. Thick fur grows from every pore of your body, so dense that it stretches your shirt further—or maybe it’s your new breasts causing this discomfort. Your backside swells with an unmistakably feminine heft too, adding further shame to your changes.

“AWK! TIME FOR THE SHOW! AWK! STARRT!” Colorful feathers cover the last of the woman’s skin, and her shirt loosely falls past shoulders that now sport a pair of bright wings. Her eyes are wide and panicked but she doesn’t seem to be able to stop herself from taking off, flying to the center of the ring.

A man falls from his ringside seat, sideburns lightening from brown to a brightish orange. A gray hat falls from his head, new ears pushing it away. He seems too stunned by the pouch settling around his waist to notice much else, not even the massive tail that sprouts through his cargo shorts.

You don’t understand why it had to happen like this; why everyone wasn’t just losing their humanity, but their gender too.

Judging from the dwindling intelligence in the eyes of the animals around you, you don’t think you’ll ever learn the answer.

Seats crunch and splinter beneath the thickening stumps of the rapidly-forming elephant. He shakes his head, and the last of his human hair falls from his head. You could swear they dissolve in the air kicked up by his sail-like ears. Then he lifts his trunk, stomping towards the ring as well.

You turn back to your girlfriend, your darker nose twitching as it smells something wrong. Your brain tells you that you should comfort her—him… But your instinct is telling you that you need to protect your den from this new predator.

He’s nearly a complete lion by now. If you squint, you can barely make out human features. His tongue hangs from his mouth, flopping weakly as he pants. Drool drips past a maw large enough to threaten your cubs. His thick mane marks him as a predator.

You push away from him, growling out a challenge before you can stop yourself. He bares his fangs, and you rear up onto your legs, flexing your newly ursine body and tearing off the remains of your old human clothing.

A loud growl bursts from your mouth, stretching it into a muzzle. You see it happen; feel your cheeks sag into a grizzly’s jowls. It doesn’t surprise you nearly as much as it should, and that horrifies you more than anything else that’s happened tonight.

Horror turns to anger as the lion bristles, and you roar again. Spittle from your maw flecks against his face, and he flinches back. You wonder why he’d do something like that, or why his eyes have that strange look. Then his pupils darken, and he snarls before turning tail.

You nod to yourself, feeling a calling deep within yourself. Or maybe it’s not a calling at all; maybe it’s just training. You stumble town the aisles on all fours, pausing a moment to swipe at a gangly ostrich. The squawk of an overhead parrot returns your attention to the ring, and your heavy paws carry you closer towards a spotlight that grows brighter and brighter with each passing second.

The light whites out whatever humanity you had left, and your consciousness fades into warmth. Your last thoughts are of pleasing your trainer, and of hoping that your owners find you a mate.