The Change

The man chants softly to himself, almond eyes closed in concentration. He has to let go. He has to give over to the fire that rages within him. With minimal effort he relaxes his mind, his body…Any moment now it will come…it will take him. Already a cold sweat is slick against his naked, goosebumped flesh. Soon it will sweep upon him…the violent chills…and then…

It starts.

Convulsions rack his now writhing, tortured body. Blood boils. Muscles strain against his skin. His eyes roll back in his head, the bloodshot whites faintly luminous in the dark room. Bones shift and tendons snap. The pain is horrendous, but he has felt it before…many times before…Muscles swell and upon his white, bare skin a lattice of bloody tears race across. His back arches sharply and with arms held out wide he shrieks…as the echo of it dies away, his mouth is left wide and gaping and from the tears a red froth oozes forth coating him in a think blanket of mucus. Like acid it dissolves his skin leaving the pulsing engorged muscles, veins and ligaments exposed. The slime clears and a white residue solidifies and forms a new skin…a better skin. A skin through which short silver hairs sprout and then lay flat against him, warming him, protecting him.

His hands fisted in agony jerk open and his fingers curl into themselves, the nails blackening and dropping off…but immediately followed by dagger-sharp talons slicing through the tips of the stunted digits to gleam wetly with his blood. An appendage thick with the damp silver fur sprouts out cracking and grinding from his tailbone to now arc from above his buttocks, sweeping the backs of his thighs.
Violently his knees snap backwards as his lower limbs shrink leaving him to fall forward on his new front paws. His feet twist, break, and reform, accompanied by small yet still wicked claws.

Mouth still gaping, his eyeteeth grow into fierce elongated canines and the thick blond hair that was on his head blackens and lays sleek around pointed ears that slide up towards the top of his head, the new lightly furred skin of his face stretching grotesquely before there is another grinding snap and his jaw dislocates and juts forward as do his prominent nose and cheekbones to form a muzzle. His now wide nostrils flare with the sent of his own blood…the sent of his own transforming, mutilated body…and then sharply his upper lip splits and coarse whiskers fan out, sensitive to the breeze that is coming through the open window through which the pale full moon watches.

With a final anguished moan and a wet crunch, his spine rolls, undulating to a soundless rhythm. And then it stops.

It all stops.

New, golden, predatory, and still humanly intelligent eyes barely open, he pants as mercifully the agony recedes to a pain…the pain to an ache…the ache to a dull throb…he can relax now…he regains control over his body…and as he does so, he lets himself slip into unconsciousness…just for a few moments…for soon he will need to feed.