Megan Kikuchi laughed, normally a musical sound that Joshua’s mind with comfort and happiness. This time, it filled him with anger and pain. She was making a call in his room, talking to someone who was no doubt her secret lover. She’d been acting funnily for the past three weeks, darting away from him after school, trying to cover something up.
Joshua tried talking to her mother, her friends. None of them had any idea of what she was going on about. So he’d taken his game up a notch, started following her from time to time just to see what she was up to. She’d been seeing another guy. His girlfriend, the love of his life, had been seeing another guy. And now she was talking to him on the phone, laughing at his expense. Women were all the same, a bunch of cheating whores. He didn’t know how he didn’t see it better.
“Oh, Joshua’d kill me if he knew what we were up to. No, of course he has no idea!” She kicked her feet idly, their smooth cream a balance to the dark brown of her hair and her eyes. Her eyes... Once upon a time, Joshua had fallen in love with those eyes. Now...
He grit his teeth, listening to her continue to talk to whoever her new boyfriend was. To think he’d wanted her to take his last name, had almost made her Megan Adams. Looks like his friends were right about his first relationship ending so poorly. Still, even they didn’t know him that well. They were dead wrong about what he did for a living. Not even Megan knew about his work for Paul Sorenson, a local Mafioso.
The guy had approached him a few years ago, looking for a way to cleanly get rid of ‘problem clients’. At first, Joshua had been hesitant to comply. But the money had been fantastic, and the work was good. Morally neutral, but Joshua had found a way to dispose of bodies without leaving any evidence: by changing the victims into animals. It was a crazy dream of his since he was a kid, and once he had the funding, had the staff, his dreams on paper could be a reality, a reality he was gladly going to introduce Megan to. He’d pretended that he was out making lunch for her, when he was actually picking up one of the tools he’d made for the mob.
“Oh, hi Joshua!” She smiled as he walked into the room. Her tone was completely innocent; he’d believe her if he didn’t know what was going on. She even had that smile he used to love on her face. It faded once she looked at what was in his hand. “Is... Is that a gun?”
“Hang up.” He said simply, keeping it pointed at her chest. She did as he asked, then held her hands aloft. “Joshua, what’s going on?”
He replied by shooting her in the gut. Megan gasped as pain blossomed from her abdomen, looking down to find a dart embedded cleanly in her skin.
“What—what’s going on?” She pulled it out, finding whatever it contained was now coursing through her bloodstream. “Joshu-urgh!” She hugged her gut tightly, pain wracking her body. Her fists clenched tightly, and she grit her teeth as her entire body started to ache.
It was clear she wouldn’t be interrupting him anytime soon, so Joshua seized his moment. “What’s going on is you cheated on me. And now, I’m going to have a little revenge.” He grinned maniacally as she fell off her bed, grunting on the floor as her body started to expand.
“Wha—what are y—urnt urn!” She squeezed her eyes shut as her speech broke down to grunts and snorting. She looked up at Joshua with confusion, her nose flattening and turning upward. Her nostrils expanded uncomfortably and she gagged, a loud oink emerging from her throat. The voice was always the first to go, a little extra insurance to keep people from getting help.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Josh leaned back against the wall, a grin on his face. “I figured that you were a cheating pig already, so I might as well make your outside match your insides.”
Megan tried to grunt a denial, but only further oinks and snorting emerged from her mouth. Her clothes started to tighten around her body as her gut and ass expanded to almost cartoonish proportions. She squealed as the elastic on her shorts snapped, her designer shirt bursting at the seams. Joshua had bought that shirt for her a few months ago, and he grinned at its destruction. Somehow, it almomst all seemed fitting.
Her bare skin began to change in color from its normal creamy shade to a pinkish tone, and Megan tried to scratch it as short, rough hairs burst from her flesh. She squealed loudly as her arms started to pull back into her body, leaving her a pair of short stumps.
Megan’s skin continued to itch, and she rolled around in vain to try and itch the burning of her skin thickening into an animal’s hide. Her legs went the way of her arms, but that only served to make her rolling easier.
Joshua stuck one of his feet out, blocking her between her bed and his leg. She squealed angrily, waving her four legs in the air. Joshua raised a finger to his lips and looked down to her face. “This right here? This is something special.” He pointed to her hands, rubbing her belly as he gazed at her feet.
The skin on there was turning hard, bone-like as her feet slowly became hooves. One by one, her toes sank into her rapidly dwindling arches, her feet retracting into her ankles. With a loud crack her new hooves split down the middle, completing their changes. Though Joshua wasn’t watching her hands shift, from the snapping behind him, he could tell they were following a similar route.
She snorted at Joshua, looking up to him pleadingly. He could see her eyes start to widen, and he knelt down to her expectantly. This was his favorite part of every transformation. Megan let out a strangled whimper as her brain remolded, animal instincts flooding past her human desires. Her muzzle jutted out, ears lengthening to pointed tips.
Megan’s hair pulled back into her skull, removing any trace that a girl had been here aside for a pile of clothing. The pig whimpered, grunting anxiously as a curly tail corkscrewed out from her bottom. Then, just like that, the changes were finished.
Joshua left the dart gun at the doorway, atop his dresser. He walked over to the pig, looking down to meet her eyes with his. “And here you are, a fat sow. Don’t be too upset about it, that’s how you’d end up after a few years of marriage anyways.”
The pig oinked happily, no doubt pleased someone was paying attention to it.
Joshua giggled madly at the animal’s vacant expression. “Yeah, that’s right. You stupid pig, you thought you could get away with cheating on me? I might end up changing you back, once I train you to be an obedient sex slave. I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier, of course you’re undeserving of free will.”
The pig oinked again, then squealed as it spun to face the doorway. Joshua whirled to find his mother in the frame, one of her hands covering her mouth.
“Joshua... What did you do?” She gasped.
Joshua panicked. Her had to find a way out—he could change her! He lunged for the dart gun, but she followed his gaze and snatched it before he could reach the cool metal of its grip. Then, he looked up to stare down the barrel of one of his prized inventions.
“Easy, easy mom.” He tried to wave her down. “It’s cool, I caught her cheating on me, and had a little just punishment.”
His mother glared at him, flicking some of her dark hair from her eyes with her free hand. “Cheating on you? Just punishment? First off, she wasn’t cheating on you. Second, you changed her into a pig! I’d ask you how, but I’d imagine I’ll find more information on how to undo this in your room.”
“Don’t you dare come in here, you bitch!” Joshua snarled, standing up to try and hit the gun away. He found himself falling to the floor a moment later, a pair of darts embedded cleanly in his chest.
“Just like your father.” His mother scowled.
Joshua yanked both of the needles from his chest, knowing that it was much too little, too late. He glared up at his mother. “You stupid whore! Do you have any idea what two of thee-uree!” He snapped his mouth shut as his shouts degenerated into high-pitched squealing.
“No. But I think we’ll find out.”
He ignored his mother, frantically trying to get to the antidotes he kept in an old hollowed-out speaker. He made it barely a foot before he overbalanced, falling forward onto his rapidly expanding body. His jeans pooled themselves up around his too-short legs as his mother continued.
“You know, you’re just like him.”
Joshua tried to crawl forward, but his arms were sinking into his body at an alarming rate. He managed to make it to the base of the speaker, overturning it and spilling its contents. It didn’t matter, he only needed one of the sealed tubes.
“You watched, but never listened.”
His fingers started to scrape at the floor, the nails making small divots in the carpet as they darkened, thickening and overwhelming his hands. With a start, he realized he could no longer hope to uncork one of the tubes, much less hold it to his mouth and ingest the formula. Still, he had to try. He raised a hoof to break a vial.
“I’ll bet you didn’t even know that was me on the phone with her.” His mother saw his motion, and rolled him onto his back before he could complete it.
Joshua squealed, trapped in much the same way Megan had been earlier. He could feel his hips, his shoulders snap as his porcine form suited itself to four-legged movement. Wait... What did his mother say? He turned to look at her, snorting loudly as his nose flattened, pushing out into a muzzle.
“Yeah, that’s right. We were planning a surprise party.”
He looked down numbly, staring at his feet as they painfully reshaped into hooves. The adrenaline had run its course, and he could now feel every change. He could feel bone scraping against bone, feel how the cool calcite of hooves swept over his skin. With that, he realized the hoof was more akin to a hardened coating than a replacement bone. It constricted his flesh, squeezing it like a vise as it shrank around him. He squealed loudly, tears of physical and emotional pain forming at the corners of his eyes.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” His mother seemed genuinely shocked.
He managed to shake his head, his lengthening ears sliding against the carpet. He knew he didn’t have much longer, he could feel his skull tightening, watch as the world seemed to lose its color, its vividity. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t fathom what he’d done, and over such a simple mistake.
“She’s been planning it for the past few weeks, how could you not have known?”
The words his mother was saying were starting to lose their meaning. No, not just that—all words were becoming hard. Thinking was hard now. Joshu—Josh—Jo—the pig grunted as he realized he couldn’t remember his name. But why was that bad? There was no guilt now. Life easy now. Just need eat, sleep, mate...
The pig snorted, rolling to his trotters. He shook his floppy ears, regarding the other pig in the room. Before, he’d have thought her to be hideous, but now—she was beautiful. Just as beautiful as the day he’d first set eyes on her, in another time, another world.