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"This isn't going to be anything weird, right?"

Eric shifted uncomfortably from where he was perched atop the uncomfortable exam table. These things always hurt his back and his ass. Also, who exactly did they think they were fooling with the cushioning? A centimeter of cheap padding with wrinkled plastic covering it only served to create the illusion of comfort. You're safe, see? There's a cushion. Everything is okay when there's a cushion. We care about your safety. Our rigid steel bench provides your aching posterior with the thinnest of amenities. Everything is a-okay. Did we mention the cushion?

All of these rooms were pretty much the same. White walls. White floor. Fluorescent white lighting (that hummed, they always hummed). A generic neutral portrait of something guaranteed not to be found offensive by anyone who looked upon it. Flowers, or trees, or some babbling brook trickling beneath a bridge paved with white cobblestones exhumed from what was almost certainly the soft umber soil of some Dutch countryside. Make sure the one object in this sterile room that was actually meant to depict something ends up as neutered and aseptic as the room itself. Give the patient something to look at, but not something he'll spend much time observing. Make it something boring. Boring will cause the patient's eyes to become unfocused and his mind to dull. Boring means the patient is more apt to want the procedure to be over with as soon as possible. Boring means no questions.

The pause was long enough for Eric to realize the doctor had already given his answer to the earlier inquiry, but also long enough that it would seem awkward to ask for it to be repeated. The thin man in the white coat played with a large ring on his finger, waiting for Eric to give some acknowledgment that he had heard the response. Perhaps some sort of affirmation that the information was received as expected. Possibly--as radical a scenario as this may be--Eric would even go so far as to give a nod.

Gambling that the man whom Eric assumed was a doctor had said something reassuring while Eric was in the midst of his art critique, the young man smiled and said simply. "Oh. Okay. That sounds fine then."

Eric felt the doctor's heavy ring press against his shoulder as he patted the young man reassuringly. "No worries, champ." Did he really just say "champ"? "This clinical trial will have absolutely no long-term physical or mental effects. We'll just be administering an injection and monitoring the effects over a period of a few days. The microbes interact with your body in a very specific way, but they're designed to reverse any effects they may have at the end of the trial. This experiment has been carried out dozens of times before with no issues. We just need to make sure we have a large enough sample size to ensure our findings can be as accurate as possible."

Eric pushed his mop of brown hair out of his eyes. "That seems like slightly nicer way of saying 'It hasn't fucked up yet, but then again we haven't used it on you yet, have we?'"

The doctor guffawed. There was no other way to describe it. Not a chuckle, not a giggle. It was certainly a guffaw. "It's safe. You'll notice some changes, yes. And in an effort to maintain the integrity of the experiment we can't divulge what exactly is going to happen." The thin man gave a smile which Eric thought he must practice daily in front of the mirror. It was beaming, radiant. Transparent. "But we guarantee at the conclusion of the trial, you'll be as you are now. Only $1,000 richer, of course."

Eric nodded, although he was anything but reassured. "Easy money, am I right?"

Something didn't seem right, of course. Heinlein was correct. TANSTAAFL. PGGB was getting something out of the exchange. This hadn't been the first trial Eric had signed up for, but hopefully it would be the last. In the past, the results of the tests were usually benign. He'd wake up with an itchy spot on his shoulder, maybe a few warts that would go away after a few days. The data that would be gathered from the tests was seldom shared with the participants, other than a few vague phrases about advancing cancer research, or monitoring the effects of heart rates under a new type of hair care product, or watching for signs of increased appetite. Half of the time, Eric wasn't given any injection at all, "serving his time" as a member of the control group given a saline injection and left to munch on crackers in a white room for a few hours.

Despite what his mother claimed, Eric wasn't stupid. Just lazy and directionless. Usually clinical tests like this one paid very little, if anything. They certainly didn't pay $1,000. Back in college, Eric had signed up for a few tests in order to get some extra credit for his medical classes. Contribute to the cause of medicine, get a better grade, scratch your arm uncontrollably for a few days. Not that bad a deal, right?

Except for the fact that there weren't enough extra credit trials throughout the entire world to make up for the fact that Eric was a very bad pre-med student. Halfway through his junior year, Eric discovered that he wasn't cut out to be a doctor. He wasn't even cut out to mow a doctor's yard. If he had gained an extra point per trial, he would've needed thirty trials to get his head above water.

So he flunked out, left the campus, traveled via bus back to southern Illinois, got yelled at by his parents, and found himself sleeping on his friend's futon. That first night he had vowed he would turn things around. Get back into school. Find something that clicked with him and really pursue it until he could make something of himself. His friends had always told him he was bright, he just didn't seem to have any real focus. That wouldn't be the case anymore. Things would change. He'd show them all. It was either that or try to convince Todd that having a dropout living on his couch was good for his credit score.

After a few weeks, even that piece of prime real estate was no longer an option. Todd was getting ready to graduate. He was always kind of an asshat and had never paid for a meal if he could coax someone else into picking up the check. That sort of utter malevolence guaranteed Todd a spot as either a financial planning consultant or an evil sorcerer's apprentice. He had opted for the former, and was picking up his diploma in a few months.

Todd had dropped the news of Eric's eviction the same night he and his date came in the door reeking of Jagerbombs, cigarette smoke, and fresh money. In the time it took them to get from opening the front door to closing the one to the bedroom, Eric had become homeless. Eric's consolation prize was the giggling sound of two drunk assholes commemorating their union.

Fuck Todd.

"Open up and say 'ow'."

Eric blinked. In his efforts to feel sorry for himself, he had somehow not noticed that he had rolled up his sleeve and the man was pressing a needle into his flesh. The doctor pressed the plunger flange and a nondescript clear fluid entered Eric's circulatory system. It burned a bit, but that was nothing new.

The thin doctor pulled the needle away and pressed a cotton ball into Eric's newly-earned battle scar, then patted him on the shoulder. "Right. All done. Feeling okay?" At least he hadn't said "champ" this time.

"Yeah--should I not be?"

"Nope. You should not not be. Let's get you to your feet."

Eric rose, feeling strangely accomplished, like Alexander surveying a newly-conquered domain. Or like someone who could pay the rent and have a little left over to buy groceries. A very little.

"Not feeling dizzy?"

Eric shook his head.

"Alright, let's get you over to your new home."

"New ... home?" Eric followed the doctor into the hallway.

"Yeah, for the next few days at any rate. You're required to stay throughout the next three days for observation. You ... did know that, right? It was in the ad. And the form you signed. And explained to you by admissions and, y'know, me."

"I, uh, must have zoned out through that. Those." Fuck. Not like I have anything going on, but fuck. Hope they have Netflix.

The doctor signed as he opened the door to a small hospital room. There was a queen-size bed, strangely bereft of sheets. The room was temperature controlled, and they probably wanted to monitor him for any changes during the night. On the wall hung decent-sized TV. It seemed like a typical hotel room, albeit one with no windows and several cameras staring into all angles of the room. In the corner was a comfy-looking leather recliner. The bathroom--also with a camera pointing at it, he wasn't pleased to notice--looked rather spacious and modern. The shower was tile, surrounded by glass on all sides, with a detachable showerhead. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad.

"Netflix?"

"Netflix."

Eric nodded. Not so bad at all. "I guess I can get used to this for the next few days."

"Good. It's what you signed up for," the doctor said under his breath, a little pettily. "All your meals will be brought to you. There's a button on the wall if you have any issues. Someone will be monitoring you 24/7. We'd prefer if you sleep in the nude, but please don't worry about that if it makes you uncomfortable. Hit the green button if you need something simple, hit the red button if you feel like there's any sort of emergency. Which there won't be, of course, but just in case. Any questions before I let you get started on your marathon viewing?"

"Uh, don't think so. What's for dinner?"

The doctor gave a wry smile. "I'm not sure, but I hope you like cheese."

"Who doesn't?"

"Right answer. Tomorrow is Sunday so we'll be a little light-staffed and the food won't be so great, but things will pick back up Monday morning."

"Guess I'm gonna miss church then."

The doctor paused before giving an impatient sigh. The second one in so many minutes. "You didn't indicate on your application that you were religious. We asked."

"No, just being snarky I guess. I'm not too big on God these days."

"Good." A dark look came over the doctor's face, as if an unpleasant thought had again recurred. "This is America. Our God is war."

Jesus. How long had he practiced that one in the mirror?

Eric and the doctor both jumped as a loud baritone voice came from a speaker in the ceiling. "Doctor Smith, you have a call in your office." There was something about the voice. It sounded almost like a celebrity or something.

"Have a good night, and let us know if you need anything." He quickly exited the room, loudly shutting the door a little ominously. Eric could hear the doctor's voice retreating down the hallway as he continued to speak to the voice in the ceiling.

"O-kay. Yeah." Eric kicked off his shoes and flopped onto the bed. It was a good one for flopping. Comfortable yet firm. He absentmindedly rubbed the crook of his elbow where the needle had injected him as he fiddled with the remote with his other hand. Eric's misgivings about this little endeavor slowly faded as he lost himself in the misadventures of '80s kids as they struggled against a large gooey monster. He fell asleep as Winona Ryder had her sixteenth freak-out.

* * *

Eric woke with a start. He lay panting in a cold sweat, shielding his eyes from the fluorescent lightning he had forgotten to dim before falling asleep. He looked around, confused as to what had woken him. He hadn't had a nightmare or anything. In fact, his dreams were pretty good ones, involving his having sex with Todd's drunk girlfriend. He wiped the sweat from his brow with both hands, rubbing them together a few times as he did so. For one weird moment he had the urge to lick his hands, but opted instead to get up and turn off the light. As he walked towards the switch, he could faintly hear a woman's voice screaming from down the hallway.

"What the actual fuck? That doesn't sound good." Eric paused with his ear the door, straining to hear more. He could tell the voice was from further down the hallway. It was faint enough that he had to make a conscious effort to hear it. The sound seemed to change in volume as he listened, varying from a quiet whisper to loud enough to wake him. There was sobbing one moment, followed by pleading, followed still by screaming.

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?" Okay, he hadn't signed up for whatever the hell was going on if it could cause that kind of a reaction. For a moment he considered pressing the red button, but with a mounting dread he knew for one reason or another he shouldn't call on the people in charge of this place. He glanced back at one of the cameras. No red light. No red light means off, right? Wasn't that like a rule?

Eric's hand touched the cold steel of the door handle. "This is going to get me in, like, so much fucking trouble." For a moment he felt his hand start to slip off the handle and he fought the urge to mind his own business and go back to sleep. But at the sound of another scream and the sound of something being hurled against a wall, Eric's door was opened and he was standing in the dim light of the hallway. He wondered why the door wasn't locked, and then wondered why it would be. This wasn't a jail, it was a creepy hospital for broke college kids.

Eric slipped down the hallway in the direction of the sobbing. He walked past several rooms, all bereft of any sound, before arriving at a room at the far end of the hallway. He briefly wondered how he had heard the voice from all the way back in his chamber. He pressed his ear against the door, then immediately regretted it as a fist began to pound on it from the other side. Okay, fuck this. No experiment should leave someone in this state of distress. His hand grasped the door handle, noting there was a faint red square glowing just above it. To the right of the square was a green one that wasn't illuminated. Red means stop, green means go. Why was he allowed to leave his room and she wasn't?

Eric held his breath and he slowly pulled the door open. The room inside was dark and he almost tripped over a food stand that was laying on its side just in front of the threshold. "H-Hello? Are you alright?"

Something scrambled in the dark, pressing itself against the wall in an effort to get away. Eric heard a whispered "No. Please!" as it huddled on the floor.

Eric pushed the food stand into the doorway, fearing the door would lock behind him. He slowly crept forward. "It's okay. I heard you screaming. Are you okay?"

"Please no please no." The frightened form repeated the mantra over and over and Eric felt his heart start to break. What the fuck was going on in this place?

He took a few more steps toward the figure. He could hear nervous breaths, in and out, in and out, as if she were hyperventilating. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay. What's wrong?" Eric had always had a bit of a softness for the damsel in distress types. He leaned over, holding a hand out to comfort her. "It's okay. I'm here to help."

Eric was rewarded for his chivalry by a metal dinner tray slamming him in the face. He fell backwards, lost his feet, and hit his head on the floor rather hard.

The figure, once cowering in fear, now stood in triumph. "Help yourself, mother fucker!" She swiftly leapt hallway to the door, suddenly remembered she had neglected to kick Eric in the ribs, corrected that error, and then disappeared.

Eric contemplated recent life choices as he waited for the pink stars to disappear from his vision. "What ... the fuck ... just happened?" In reply, a loud blaring siren filled Eric's ears as the fluorescent lights turned an angry shade of red. In the distance, he could hear swearing followed by the sound of glass breaking followed by the sound of more swearing.

Stumbling to his feet, Eric exited the room, nearly tripping over the food stand and his own wounded pride. He glanced back in the direction of his room, suddenly missing Stranger Things quite a lot.

The baritone voice returned to the speakers above. "Mr. Mateu, please return to your room. This is not part of the examination. Please, return to your room."

Eric looked in the direction in which the woman had run. A shattered window gave little question to where she had gone. He could hear footsteps hurrying down the hallway behind him. Eric found he now had several misgivings about this experiment.

"Oh, fuck this." Eric sprinted down the hallway and leapt through the shattered window. Very action movie-esque. Not his usual mode of exit. He fought for balance as his feet hit the asphalt, praying that he wouldn't cut his feet too badly on the glass below. He scanned the parking lot quickly, looking for the quickest method of egress. For a brief moment he thought he saw someone scaling a nearby fence into an alleyway. With no better option besides being executed in some mad science experiment, Eric leapt atop a car and over the fence, wondering as he went how it was that he had just leapt atop a car and over the fence.

* * *

He was pretty sure she had gone this way. He wasn't sure how he was sure. He was just sure.

It could've been some sort of empathic bond he now shared with his fellow captive. Some sort of deeper connection created when she had introduced his face to a stainless steel dinner tray. Face? This is my friend, tray. I'm sure you guys will get along. You have a lot in common. You're really into football and he's really big into smashing into faces.

Or maybe it was the trash-can-sized hole in the window of the abandoned mall.

He was sure.

Eric ducked his head, careful to avoid any further injury to his cranium from the jagged dirty glass as he stepped inside the derelict. Getting a tetanus shot was not high on his list of things he was interested in at this point. He was much more interested in whatever was causing the back of his god damned neck to itch. He scratched, muttering under his breath as he took stock of this new environment, overjoyed at the changes his life had undertaken.

As far as abandoned malls went, this one was fairly nice. The windows around the front entrance were boarded up, while the storefront windows were simply covered in a thin film of cardboard paper that was certainly no match for a trash can thrown by an angry medical experiment escapee. Said can had made its landing next to a creepy blue cartoon monster riding on a tiny bright orange motorcycle. Nothing says your precious child is having safe fun like setting it in front of Grover's coked-out cousin.

Casting his eyes to the heavens in penance for his wicked deeds, Eric noticed a rather elaborate chandelier hanging from a glass dome. He felt a strange sense of sadness gazing up at the thing. This was once the pride of Columbus--or at least the pride of its capitalism. It probably once brought the town together. Moms could shop, dads could grab a beer, and kids could be traumatized by scary blue monsters riding motorcycles. Malls were a part of Americana that had faded away before we even realized we needed them. They were a place for the whole town to come together. Like sports? Come to the mall. Like new shoes? Come to the mall. Just want to buy an overpriced cookie-cake that will make you feel sick five minutes after eating it? Brother, have I got a place for you. If you were rich, you came to the mall. If you were poor, you came to the mall and watched the rich come to the mall. The point was, the mall forced all walks of life to gather in one place and interact with each other, even if it was only to stare at each other and nervously walk past each other hoping to avoid any sort of eye contact or--heaven forbid--some sort of human interaction. There's a soul behind those eyes. There's a person. Now get the fuck out of my way and let me buy a CD that I'll listen to once before consigning it to the oblivion of the shoe closet.

His neck itched. His neck itched, his face hurt, and he was having a Neil Gaiman moment in an abandoned shopping mall. How had this happened?

Oh yeah. Todd. Fuck Todd.

Apart from the shattered glass and discarded bin, nothing beside remained round the decay of that colossal wreck. Certainly not his tray-wielding assassin. Why was he following her? He sure as hell didn't need anything from her aside from perhaps an acknowledgment that the attack wasn't necessary and his face still hurt, thank-you-very-much. But she was on the run as he most assuredly was now. They'd need to work together when the evil scientists sent the men in lab coats after them.

Sure. Yeah.

Eric walked forward and around a corner, squinting as the light from the overhead glass dome became dimmer. She had gone in this direction. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew. As he passed what was probably once a Foot Locker he pondered what he'd say to her. "Hi. Did you get experimented on or something? Because I think I did too. What exactly happened to you, because it's probably going to happen to me. Hi." That wasn't good. "Hi. Again, hi. Yeah, so, I sort of followed you. Don't be freaked out or anything, I'm just kind of wondering if you might want to team up against the weird experimenty people. Sound good, you game?" Idiot. How about, "Hey, think you left this here. Thanks, appreciate that," before throwing the dinner tray at her feet.

Fuck. Didn't bring the tray. Shit, that would've been good too. Nothing breaks the ice like a culinary platter assault weapon.

"Oh shit, what the fuck are you doing here?"

Yeah, that would probably work too. Not the most original, but if the shoe fits. Except he hadn't said that. She did.

Eric spun around before he even realized he had done so. She was hunched over behind an empty display booth in the center of the aisle. It was hard to make out anything but her rough shape, but she seemed poised to run away or to tackle him.

"Wait, cool it, no! Let's not ... No more TV trays okay? That kind of hurt." He rubbed the back of his neck, either because of the awkward first encounter or because of the thrice-damned itching. "Be cool. Please?"

Her posture didn't change, although he got the feeling that the fact she wasn't fleeing was probably a good sign. "I'm not going back."

"Me either. Not even Netflix is worth that shit. What ... uh, are you ... okay? You didn't sound so great back there."

"Neither did you, from what I remember."

"Yeah, I mean ... before the hitting-in-the-face thing. Are they ... what the hell was going on back there?"

She cocked her head to the side. "You aren't ... Who the fuck are you?"

"Donald. My friends call me Eric, because Donald is kind of a stupid name. I guess I signed up for the same thing you did. Which I was hoping you could kind of clarify, since I'm thinking you know slightly more about what the fuck is going on than I do."

"You ... really aren't with them, are you?" She stood straight, resting her hand on the counter. Good. Not running is good. Not tackling is good. Everything is good.

"I really aren't with them."

She sighed. "Okay. Yeah. I'm not sure." She had a slight accent, although he couldn't place it. "I signed up for the medical shit. A thousand bucks. I kinda needed it. Need it, present tense. I sure as fuck didn't sign on for this shit."

"Are you ... in pain?"

She made a slightly indignant sound.

"No, I mean you didn't sound so great back there, and they gave me an injection too. Just want to find out if I'm about to grow a third arm or something."

She shook her head. "No, it doesn't hurt. I was just hoping a nurse or an orderly would come into the room and I could try to escape. Didn't figure it would be another inmate. Uh ... sorry about that."

Eric (not Donald) grinned. "It's fine. It didn't hurt that much."

"Bullshit. You got knocked the fuck down."

"Okay, yeah, I'm just being macho, it hurt like hell."

She leaned against the booth. It was hard to tell in the light, but she seemed to be relaxing a bit more. "Heh. Yeah. Well, yeah ... sorry."

He waved her concerns away, the motion causing him to wince from a cramp in his hand that he hadn't realize he had. "It's cool. First impressions usually go something like that for me. So what's going on? Did you get sick? Stomach pains or something?"

"No third arm, just this other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

She was silent for a second. They weren't on the same page about something. "Wait, you don't ... Fuck, you don't know, do you?"

"Know what? Shit, did we get like cancer or something?"

She seemed to flinch at the mention of the Big C. "Fuck, man. Have you looked at your hand?"

With a sudden dread, he slowly pulled his hand away from the incessant itching at the back of his neck. Slowly moving it into his line of sight, he strained to see it in the dim light. A light coating of hair covered his knuckles and wrists and his fingers now ended in pointed fingernails that he could swear were growing longer as he examined them.

"Oh what in the fuck?"

She moved into the light and for the first time he caught a decent look at her. She was shorter than he was, which wasn't saying much. Her hair was jet black and her skin gave the impression she might have some Mediterranean ancestors. She was wearing a loose, wrinkled gray t-shirt that covered her down to mid-thigh and a pair of pajama pants. Eric guessed she had gotten comfy in her PJs before whatever was happening had begun to happen.

From there, however, the normality of her appearance veered suddenly off a cliff. Her nose was slightly upturned, her eyebrows threatened to meet in the center, and a light dusting of black hair framed her sideburns and trailed away below her chin, nearly meeting with the off-white buck teeth that extended past her bottom lip. She brought a hand to her face, quickly licked at her sharp fingernails, and brushed her nose with the hair on her fingers.

"Um ... yeah."

"What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck?"

"Yeah. I know."

"What. The. Fuck?"

"Yeah, we covered that already. Let's skip ahead to the next lesson."

Eric's heart beat rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. He became aware of a strange smell coming from his companion. Not unpleasant, but certainly unusual. "Okay ... yeah, okay. Uh ... hi?"

She smirked. "Wow, you took that a hell of a lot better than I did. I only just recently got to the 'Uh ... hi?' stage of denial."

"Heh ... I'm a quick learner." He leaned against the booth and slowly sank to the floor. "What the fuck?"

"Wow, I thought we had a real breakthrough, but now we're back to WTF territory." She sat down on the floor at the far end of the booth. "You okay?"

"No," he answered as he examined his sharpened fingernails and rubbed the inch-long brown hair on the back of his hand.

"Good. Only an insane person would be okay with all this."

"Guess I can fly a few more missions, Colonel Cathcart."

"What?"

He gave a nervous laugh. "Nothing. Holy shit. How long have you been like this?"

"I noticed it before I fell asleep, but I was too out of it to really put two and two together. I think they gave me the shot around two o'clock."

"I think I was injected around three. Shit, so I'm going to look like you in another hour?"

"Yeah, thanks, fuck you too."

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He glanced at her for just a moment. "I mean as far as werewolves go, you look good."

"Gee, thanks." She brought her legs up, brushing the long black hair sprouting from them as she pulled her t-shirt lower to afford herself as much modesty as was possible. "I don't think we're turning into werewolves here." She rubbed at her protruding front teeth, wincing a little as she did so.

"What then? What other sort of guinea pig are they turning us--Jesus fuck please don't tell me we're turning into guinea pigs."

"No, I don't think so. I think it's, uh ..." She brought her hand underneath her shirt and rubbed at the small of her back. "I ... kind of think I'm growing a tail. I don't think guinea pigs have tails."

"Oh. Okay. Thank God. Can you imagine? If I'm going to turn into something out of Ninja Turtles I at least don't want to be a fucking guinea pig."

"No, I think it's less of a guinea pig and more of a ... um ... lab rat."

He methodically began banging the back of his head on the wall of the booth. "Ah shit."

"Yeah. Hey, you got it right though. Ninja Turtles. We're gonna be Master Splinter."

"Shiiiiiit."

"Yeah. Hey, he was cool though, right?" She seemed oddly comforting for someone turning into a rodent.

"Yeah, sure. What does that make PGGB then? The Shredder?"

"I guess so. Shit!" She suddenly leapt to her feet. She did not quickly stand. She did not push herself off of the floor. She leapt into the air and to her feet and seemed ready to bolt down the darkened hallway. She looked around as if she was slightly confused. "Wow, okay, I guess that's something that just happened. We need to get out of here. They're probably looking for us."

Before Eric was aware of it, he was standing next to her with his hand on her shoulder. "You're right." Realizing where his hand was he quickly withdrew it. "Sorry, didn't mean to."

She gave him a puzzled look. "It's fine, I guess we've got to get used to some weird behavior. I jumped off of a car a little while ago."

"Me too! I also did the car jumping thing!"

"Yeah, that's great but let's continue this conversation over in the McRae's. Shit, the window ..."

"I think it's fine. Kids have broken a lot of the windows in this old place, I don't think that's really going to stand out. What's McRae's?"

"Old, shitty department store. Back when those were a thing. I just think we need to move away from the main entrances, maybe hide out in the offices down in the basement or something. If there's a basement. Why the hell do I want there to be a basement?"

"Rat thing?"

"Yeah, I guess. Rat thing. Let's go." She started walking further down the hall. Eric caught himself sneaking a glance at her ass as she went, although he wasn't quite sure whether he was checking her out or looking for a tail. She glanced over her shoulder. "Hey, eyes up here, mamabicho."

"Sorry, I uh ... sorry." He followed her, glancing over his shoulder as if expecting they were already being followed.

She made an annoyed hissing noise. "Whatever. You were right about something at least."

"Something?"

"Yeah. Donald is a stupid fucking name."

He laughed a little too loudly, the noise echoing down the dark cavernous hallway. "Told you."

"You did ... And my stupid fucking name is Lydia."

* * *

Eric-not-Donald followed his fellow mutant rodent as she led him further into the bowels of the corpse of Reagan-era consumerism. Lydia glanced over her shoulder every so often, although Eric was never sure if it was to make sure he was following or to make sure his eyes weren't straying where they shouldn't. Truth to tell, he was far more concerned with the way his feet hurt. Not because he was tired, more because they were turning into gross rat claws. Paws. Do rats have paws?

"Do rats have paws?"

"What? Yeah, I guess. Why?"

"I was wondering what to call my feet."

She stopped walking. "Why?"

"I ... Yeah, I got nothing. I have no idea."

"Are you okay?"

Eric sighed. "I mean, all things considered, yeah. I'd like to think I'm handling the loss of my humanity fairly well. You?"

She looked surprisingly concerned. "If you need to stop and rest, we stop and rest, okay? We're kind of in this together, at least for now."

"No, I'm fine. Just ... keeping my mind busy, I guess. Where are we going?"

"The food court."

"Oh, you've been here before."

"Nope." She resumed walking. "We never really got to this side of town. I think I've seen the outside of this place twice."

"But you're sure this is the way to the food court? I didn't see any signs." He hadn't seen anything, really. It was dark, yes, but he felt like his eyesight was getting worse.

"Yeah, I can ... smell it. I guess."

Eric inhaled deeply. The place smelt like dust and mold. "I can't smell anything. You smell cookie cake? The mall I grew up around always had cookie cake."

"No, I don't smell cookie cake. But I'm pretty sure I smell the food court, and I'm pretty sure it's this way. My feet ..." She paused, her gait skipping a step.

"Your feet? Paws?"

"My feet smell something this way."

"What?" he asked, not sure how to interpret what she had said. "Your feet smell?"

"Yes, I think my feet smell." She hissed pleasantly. "Fuck you. My feet don't smell, they're ... smelling."

"I'm not sure that makes sense."

"I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Come on."

The hallway opened into a larger area filled with chairs stacked on empty tables. The golden arches, the green mermaid, the auburn-haired girl in pigtails.

"See? Food court. Come on."

Lydia tried to lift the metal gate barring the front of an ancient McDonald's, then moved to an Arby's and repeated the motion. She strained and growled in frustration when she noticed Eric standing still. "How about you stop jerking off and help me look for some fucking food?"

"I'm not jerking off." Eric notices his hand was scratching at the front of his jeans. "Oh. Um, I'm not intentionally jerking off. Just got some pain around my waist, I guess."

She stopped trying to break into the Subway. "What? When did that start?"

"Just now, I guess. I'm okay, Lydia. Why are you so worried about me all of a sudden?"

"I don't know, maybe because you're the only other person in this mall turning into a fucking animal? Unless you know of somebody less annoying I can hang out with, eat cheese with, gnaw everything with ... Huh, wait." Lydia leaned forward and began chewing on the metal gate while shaking it with her clawed hands.

"Jesus. You're going to need like twenty breath mints after that."

She seemed to abruptly realize what she was doing and quickly stopped, wiping a strand of drool from her face. "Fuck. Didn't mean to do that."

"Yeah. I mean, it's Subway. We should probably check out the other abandoned fast food joints first. We might be transforming into animals, but there's no need to lower our standards."

Lydia stuck her tongue out of her mouth, gagged, and began licking her hands and rubbing them over her mouth.

"What do you hope to find in there, anyway?"

She spat on the floor. "I don't know. Canned food or something. They're going to be looking for us and it might be a while before we can get out of here. I think we should lay low here for ... Dude, fucking stop!"

Eric again noticed he was scratching at his crotch. "Fuck, sorry. Maybe, uh ... Maybe I need to check something real quick."

"Yeah, knock yourself out. Like, literally. Please render yourself unconscious in a violent manner."

Eric ducked into a hallway and stood in the doorway to a restroom. He undid his belt and immediately the button of his pants flew off and his zipper split halfway. An immense feeling of relief passed over him as he dipped his hand into his underwear. Carefully prodding himself with his clawed fingers, he felt along his privates. Everything seemed in order. Certainly fuzzier than he remembered, but nothing too alarming. Probing lower, he found his balls had definitely grown larger. Each one felt roughly twice its original size, probably even larger.

"Well," he whispered. "As long as something's gotta grow, I guess that's not so bad." He felt himself becoming slightly aroused just in time for Lydia's voice to angrily echo down the hallway.

"Hey! Everything okay in there?"

"Yeah. I'm good." Eric tried to adjust himself, but only ended up splitting the front of his pants even more. "Fuck."

"That doesn't sound good." Eric could hear her padded feet slowly walking toward the restroom. "You need some help with something? Because if so, fuck you, you're on your own."

"I'm fine." Another wave of discomfort passed through him and Eric slipped his hand back down the front of his pants. They were growing noticeably larger and his underwear threatened to cut into his skin. In a panic, Eric simply ripped the offending garment into two pieces, pulling it out of his pants and tossing it into a sink. The relief was short lived as his testicles continued growing. "Um ... So, I think I might need a change of wardrobe?"

The sound of Lydia's footsteps stopped. "Oh. Really? That bad?"

"Yeah."

"Ohhhh. Oh shit. Mr. Squeakers."

"I'm sorry?"

"My mom, she used to have a rat named Mr. Squeakers. He, uh ... Well, he was definitely a he. I think that's a rat thing. Bigger than ... uh, you'd expect."

Eric thought he could smell something interesting, if only for a moment. Whether it was with his nose or his feet, he couldn't say.

Lydia cleared her throat. "Hang on. I'll, uh, try to find a ... tablecloth or something."

"Thanks!" Eric echoed the sound of Lydia's footsteps by hitting the back of his head repeatedly against the wall. He was certain that at some point in his life he had felt more embarrassed, but at the moment he couldn't think of when. He carefully poked along the crotch of his pants. The swelling seemed to have stopped, but they were definitely larger. He felt like he was smuggling baseballs down there.

Eric waited patiently in the dark, hating every event in his life that had ever transpired. All of them. Every one. Eventually the sound of Lydia's feet-that-may-also-be-noses returned. She had the tact to clear her throat in sympathy before addressing him.

"So, uh ... Good news and bad news."

"Let's go with bad news."

"Bad news is I wasn't able to find a tablecloth."

"That's not horrible as far as bad news goes. Good news?"

"I found a garbage bag tucked under the gate guarding a Jack-in-the-Box."

"Fuck. That may be the first time in history finding a garbage bag has been considered good news."

"Well, beggars and choosers and all that. I don't think it's been used? For garbage purposes, I mean?"

"Fantastic. That makes all the difference."

"Yeah. Sorry. Here you go. Take it or leave it, I guess?"

Eric could hear Lydia's clawed hand rubbing against the wall on his side of the doorway, his plastic loincloth flapping in the not-so-much-breeze like a pennant of some glorious battlefield. He graciously took the bag from her, the sparse fur on the back of his fingers lightly touching hers as he did so.

"Might, uh, be a minute in here."

"Yep! Okay, yeah. I'm gonna get back to ... examining ... stuff. I'll catch you on the flip side!"

"Thanks. And, uh ... seriously, thanks."

He wasn't sure she had heard him over the sound of her muttering curses under her breath as she retreated. Whether the curses were due to his embarrassment or her own was open to debate.

Eric undid the clasp of his belt and slowly pulled what was left of his jeans off, having difficulty getting them past the offending part of his anatomy that was so intent in causing him such distress. His boxers were basically in tatters, so he simply sliced them with his claws. Finally more or less comfortable for the first time in half an hour, Eric let loose a sigh of relief and took a moment to examine himself. It was too dark in the bathroom to see much of anything, but his hands told him that the baseball analogy wasn't too far off. They rested between his upper thighs and seemed to sway back towards his backside. Surely some men would be less than bothered by having an upgrade to this particular part of the male anatomy, but given the circumstances it was not entirely welcome. He carefully wrapped the plastic bag around his waist, unsure if it would be worth the attempt to try to fashion some sort of belt out of them or to just wrap it around his waist and afford himself some small bit of modesty. Without any experience in the fine art of garbage bag tailory, he opted for the latter.

"Heh heh. 'Tail-ory'. Fuck my life."

With a defeated sigh, Eric waddled down the dark hallway back in the direction of the food court, his black plastic kilt mocking him with its incessant rustling. Lydia was hunched over on the other side of the court, doubtlessly peering in awe over some newly discovered treasure. As he approached, Eric could see her spine protruding slightly from her back, which had become quite a bit hairier than he felt a young lady would've appreciated. Beads of sweat rolled down her back as Eric took the time to wipe his own perspiration from his brow. It was hot. The mall would've been much nicer with the inclusion of air conditioning. He'd make sure to bring that up with the owner. It made turning into a rat monster all the more inconvenient.

Eric cleared his throat, trying not to startle her. She paused rifling through a cardboard box with her paws ... Hands! They're hands, Eric. Hands.

"Um," he said. "Thanks. Again. For the, uh ... garbage bag."

She was gracious enough to at least attempt to not laugh. Standing in a wrinkled t-shirt with a trash container covering his genitals was about as disheveled as Eric believed he could ever be.

"It's fine, don't worry about it. You doing okay?"

He sighed. "Yeah. Peachy. What've you been up to?" It was like they were making small talk about the weather, but it was probably easier than discussing their current predicament.

"Just checking the Subway. Look man, um ... don't worry about it, okay? I think we're both gonna have to get used to some weird shit until we can figure out how to get some help. We don't need to be embarrassed about this. We're in the same boat here, and we're gonna need to work together. I don't want you making fun of me when I start to grow a tail or something, okay?"

He smiled. If he had to mutate into a rodent, at least he wasn't doing it with a shitty person. Lydia was alright.

"Thanks. Appreciate it." He paused. "You're not, um ... Did you? Grow a tail, I mean?"

"Shit, I hope not. I don't think so."

He gave a frustrated sigh. He was doing that a lot lately. "Anyway. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Besides, I think gray skies are about to clear up, so put on a happy face. I just hit the mother load." She picked up the box and turned it over, spilling its contents onto the ground. Shining yellow and red bags tumbled out like mana from the heavens. "I found us some god damn Fritos!"

* * *

The pair sat on the floor, leaning up against the wall next to the Subway counter. They had eaten Fritos. They had eaten the Fritos. They had eaten all the Fritos.

Eric tossed the last single-serving bag in the pile they had created and stifled a burp. His stomach was going to get its revenge on him for this, he was sure of it. "You know ... Given the current circumstances and all ... These things aren't half bad."

"Yes. Yes, they are. They are half bad. They are all bad."

"Yeah, you're right." He stood and stretched his legs. "They're ass. What are we going to do about water?"

Lydia stared at the mostly-corn-based deliverers of their salvation, a concerned look on her face. "The faucets may still work. Not sure why they wouldn't turn them off, but I don't think we'll die of thirst any time soon." She idly rubbed her jawline as if she was in pain. It didn't look any different to him, although there could be just a hint of a five o'clock shadow forming.

"You okay?"

She shook her head as if to dispel a concern. "Yeah, no worries. You?"

Eric smoothed his impromptu loincloth. "I'm gonna hit the little rat boy's room. This should be an adventure. Wish me luck."

She didn't respond, and merely rubbed the back of her neck. Something was going on. Lydia struck him as a fairly private person and he didn't want to pry, but she was kind of his only ally in this madness. He shuffled back down the hallway to the men's room, trying not to let on that his fucking rat nuts were chafing something fierce and making him walk like a penguin.

He smiled even as he winced at a sharp pain emanating from his upper thighs. At least he wasn't turning into one of those.

He passed the hallway and was soon back inside the men's room. It was here his journey into pantlessness began. He shuffled over to the urinal and moved his garbage bag kilt out of the way. The heat emanating from his downstairs was quite annoying, and he sniffed a potent male scent as he released his bladder. "Yuck. Lovely." His balls had continued growing since his momentary reprieve from his new home in the abandoned restroom. Because of course they had. The heft to them was physically uncomfortable, although he was starting to feel a strange sense of pride. They had reached the size of large grapefruits. No woman in the world would ever be able to resist him. He'd be insane not to get into the adult cinema industry. His porn name could be Mr. Squeakers.

Finishing up, he reflexively attempted to flush the urinal before remembering there wouldn't be any running water. He was attempting to adjust the garbage bag and protect what was left of his modesty when he heard her high-pitched scream.

As he pounded down the hallway on his knobby rat feet, rodentine testicles flopping comically back and forth in the humid air, one simple thought kept running through his head. <i>Hurt. She's hurt. Get to her, she's hurt. Have to work together. Can't let her be hurt. We're us. Help those who are us.</i>

He slipped on the tile while rounding the corner back into the food court, nearly crashing into a table before regaining his footing. In the dim light he could make out Lydia's form, curled up into a fetal position and clawing red lines in her sides from what could only be excruciating pain. He slid to a stop just beside her, touching her back and resisting a strange urge to lick the wounds she was inflicting upon herself.

"Oh shit, what happened, oh shit. Are you okay, what--" Without any warning his face erupted into pain and soon he had joined her on the ground, screaming in agony. He grasped his face, red drool running from between his hands as with a wet crunch his jaw pushed slightly forward. It hurt too much to make any further noise. Inch by inch it slid forward, relieving a bit of pressure as it did so. He forced his eyes open, blinking through tears. Crossing his eyes, he realized he could see his short muzzle slow its growth.

The pain gradually left as he pulled his hands away from his face, realizing that they were undergoing a change of their own. His fingernails were continuing to sharpen. The knuckles on his hand looked puffy, almost like plastic, and tiny white hairs were poking here and there from the pink flesh. His fingers were growing longer even as he reached down to rub at his aching feet. They had undergone a similar reaction, although moreso. They had stretched grotesquely, and he knew he would be forced to walk on the balls of his feet from now on. His toes flexed, almost apelike as they grasped for purchase on the cold tile.

Eric cast his gaze to Lydia. Her wails had ceased sometime after his had begun, although her sweaty form was now being assaulted by sharp, violent breaths. She had ripped her shirt in several spots during her ordeal, but she appeared to be feeling somewhat better. He coughed, wiping the excessive drool from his short muzzle, accidentally scratching his knobby hands with his extended incisors. "Are you--"

Again the pain, this time centered on the small of his back. He whined piteously, sounding less like a person and more like a rodent with every passing second. His coccyx was pressing forward inch by inch. He had been anticipating this change, but definitely wasn't prepared for it. He fumbled to reach it but it had apparently not grown as long as he was anticipating. He continued twisting but gasped as he felt someone touch the newly-acquired appendage.

"It's okay." She had crawled to his side and was helping to pull the garbage bag from around his waist. "I think we're done. For now, anyway."

Gradually the pain seemed to subside. He twisted his neck, but could only just manage to see his tail. Its growth slowed as it neared maybe a foot and a half in length.

"Oh Jesus." He slumped to his side before rolling onto his back, his furry nuts feeling magnificent on the cool tile. "I thought it would be more gradual."

"Yeah. It seemed that way before, but I guess it's going to come in fits and starts." She looked at her hands in disbelief, stretching her fingers experimentally before running her claws along her mouth and toying with the yellow incisors that stuck from between her lips. Her nose was twitching, something Lydia appeared very much cognizant of and she crossed her eyes to attempt to examine it closer.

Despite the pain, he gave a short giggle at her almost cartoonish expression. "Hehehe. Tom & Jerry." He sounded high. Probably the result of whatever endorphins his brain was producing to try to keep him from going insane.

"What? Argh." She slumped into a sitting position, rubbing her head. "More like Rescue Rangers."

"Those were chipmunks."

"Fuck you." She rubbed her eyes and licked her lips. "You okay?"

"Yeah. All things considered. You?"

"All things considered. Not eager to go through--" She cut herself off and gasped, her eyes wide as she stared between his legs.

"What? What's wrong--oh fuck." The garbage kilt had given up the ghost. It had died for the realm and now it's watch had ended. He attempted to scramble into a sitting position, which brought about a sudden bout of vertigo. He lay back down, attempting to cover himself as the room slowly stopped spinning.

"It's, uh, okay." She turned her head to look at his face, although her eyes remained glued to his privates. "I think we're, uh, going to have to get used to a bit of indecency before this is all over." She cleared her throat and managed to peel her gaze away. "Although I'm going to miss seeing you in your little dress. That shit was funny."

He managed to sit, started to cover himself instinctually, and gave up. "Yeah. He nodded at her exposed chest. "You've got some, uh, indecency of your own going on there."

She looked down and gave an audible shriek as she ran her hands down her tummy. "Holy fuck, I hadn't even thought about that."

"That? Oh." He watched as she pinched what he could only assume were budding nipples down the length of her torso. "Yeah. That."

Her hands traveled down her torso, her expression gradually changing as she explored further. As her fingers felt just below her small breasts to her upper ribcage her expression settled somewhere halfway between shock and curiosity. As she felt lower to her belly, her expression had changed to disgust. At her waistline, annoyance. As her hands drifted below her still mostly-intact waist, she had apparently decided to settle on an amused incredulity. "That's unreasonable."

He cleared his throat as he tried and failed to cross one leg over the other. He was back to attempting to conceal himself, although this time for a different reason. "How many?"

"None of your goddamn business, that's how many!" Her hand lingered a little bit longer down the front of her pants as she tried to see if she had missed a bump or two. She sighed as she freed her hand and wiped it on the black hairs covering her belly. "Fucking twelve."

"Wow ... that's uh ..."

"Do you have something you'd like to say?"

"Not even a little bit." He sat up, though he still didn't feel well enough to stand. Instead he tugged at the scraggly hair growing from his arms. It had grown to a few inches long and he swore he could feel every bit of the humid air around him. He thought it might be some kind of prey defense mechanism, sensing for any movement.

Lydia wiped her brow. They were both sweating profusely from the combination of the stress, the change, and the humid air of the abandoned mall. "Have to talk to management about the air conditioning." She tucked her twitching nose closer to her armpit. "I smell like ass."

No, she didn't. She smelt wild. She smelt like running, like leaping, like hunting and hiding and fucking and breeding.

He shook the intrusive thoughts from his head. "No, you don't. You smell good--fine. You don't stink." He swallowed hard and glanced away.

"Thanks. You say the sweetest things." She started to rise to her feet/paws before deciding she was a bit too unsure of them. "You smell good-fine too, rat balls."

He smiled. "According to your feet?"

"According to my feet."

* * *

Eric matched Lydia's stride, step for step, from the far end of the thoroughfare. It was a pact neither had made, but both had silently agreed to. Eric didn't trust his new rat brain, and he doubted Lydia did either.

"Why are you still carrying that bag?"

Eric looked down at his misshapen paw-hand and discovered that he was, in fact, still carrying the garbage bag. "We've been through a lot together. Can't leave your friends behind."

Lydia gave the barest "hmm" of approval.

"Why are you carrying those bags?"

As if in answer, several Fritos bags slipped out of the box Lydia was carrying. She muttered a curse as she sat the box down. As she reclaimed the two errant bags, two more slipped from the box, earning them a louder, more direct curse. She violently shoved the snack bags back in their home and grunted as she lifted the box. Satisfied that she had reclaimed all of her lost sheep, Lydia straightened up and seemed to realize she hadn't given an answer. "We need a place to sleep."

Eric released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding ever since he saw Lydia bend over. "Uh ... I don't think we're going to fit."

"Not in the box, on the bags."

He squinted his eyes in confusion, which only seemed to annoy his companion.

"A nest. We need to make a nest. How am I getting this before you are? You're a rat mutant too, don't you want some Frito bags to lay down on?"

Eric felt momentarily annoyed before realizing that, yes, he also wouldn't mind some corn chip-bereft plastic to nap on. "Yeah. I guess I kinda do."

"Well, okay then. Moving on." She continued their trek, leaving him a few paces behind before he followed. Eric had known Lydia for a few hours max, but he had known her long enough to learn she was someone that took adversity in stride. But the recent changes they had been forced to undergo and the general stress of their environment and the thus-far-neglected threat of pursuit had seemed to have taken their toll.

Eric followed a few paces behind, content to leave further inquiries about trash-based sleeping arrangements alone. He was encouraged to see Lydia slow her pace just a bit to allow him to catch up, though she was still leading the way. "If you're staring at my ass again ..."

"I ... wasn't this time, actually."

"Good."

The pair spent the next hour silently scouting the rest of the mall. It was a two-story deal, with probably thirty stores side by side, and a large department store on either end. Here and there were kiosks, goofy kids rides, even at one point a fake rock wall you could attempt to climb in an effort to win a PlayStation or something.

After looping back around to the food court where they had started, Lydia came to a stop. She leaned on the wall and slid down to the floor, rubbing the sweat from her brow.

"It is so fucking hot."

Eric was content to simply drop to the ground, pinching his swollen sack in the process. He rubbed the pinched skin, quickly stopping when he caught Lydia staring at him. She rolled her eyes but there was the faintest hint of a grin.

Eric looked above to a nearby skylight. It was dusk when they had passed the broken window near the entrance; it must be dark by now. He stifled a yawn. "We could break one of those, maybe let some air in? Don't know how much good that would do."

Lydia's only reply was to sigh and begin licking her hand and rubbing her face. Eric felt a strange need to move to her side and help her with her grooming. Realizing what she was doing, she lurched to her feet. "What about the store at the end? The Sears or whatever it is? We can hole up next to the escalator, or maybe find a closet to pass out in. This is just too ..."

"Open?" he offered.

"Yeah. Too open. Come on."

Eric struggled to his feet, but found that retaining one's footing with several pounds of rat scrotum between one's legs created balancing issues. "You don't think there's a Serta Master Sleeper? One of those memory foam mattresses would feel pretty nice right about now."

Lydia strode to his side and offered a hand. "Okay. Up you go."

"Thanks." He stumbled to his feet with her help and only a bit of indignity. He gently pressed against her as he regained his footing, catching her scent as he did. It was a nearly overpowering musk, and he could tell she had caught wind of him too.

She glanced at his package for a second before shaking her head. "Um ... What's ... Do you ...?"

"What?" He could feel his ears flatten slightly.

"Never mind. Come on."

The pair hobbled along on their tired olfactorily-enabled feet, Sam leading Frodo as he struggled along bearing his heavy burden. Instead of the One Ring, Eric was afflicted with swollen rat testicles. Eric felt he suffered more by comparison.

"You're quiet back there, what are you thinking about?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Mercifully, there was no grate covering the large department store and the pair were allowed entry. They were both instinctively drawn to an area underneath the escalator on the bottom floor. It seemed the coziest location, and easier to hide in should anyone else make an appearance.

Lydia sat about tearing the Fritos bags into shreds, and with a heavy heart Eric started tearing apart his garbage bag loincloth. When they had finished they set about tearing apart the box as well, then pushed the scraps together to create a makeshift nest. Eric flopped on top of their newly-created mattress. "Well, that was the single weirdest thing I've ever fucking done."

"Yeah. Not how I usually spend my Saturday nights."

They were silent for a moment, Eric catching his breath, Lydia lost in her thoughts. Eric could already feel his sweat soaking into the cardboard scraps. The musk coming off of Lydia was starting to give him an erection, and that was definitely not a conversation he felt like having with his companion right now. He lifted his left leg, draping it slightly over his right to try to afford himself some modesty. Lydia was back to licking her hand and rubbing her face. A host of whiskers sprang back into place each time she rubbed her nose. Eric hadn't noticed those before, but soon discovered he had grown them as well. They were stiff like nylon strings and touching them made the short hairs on his cheeks stand up.

He stopped playing with his whiskers and looked at his silent companion. "Penny for them?"

Lydia sighed and tore off what was left of her shirt and began tearing it into shreds as she spoke. She brushed a bead of sweat from one of her many nipples and Eric shifted his leg in an attempt to cover his rapidly stiffening member.

"What the fuck is the point of all of this?"

"What do you mean? The purpose of the universe, or what are we doing changing into Mickey and Minnie in an abandoned mall?"

"Definitely the latter. What does a shadowy organization gain from turning people into rats? Are they planning on taking over the world with an army of creatures that want to hide and fuck ..." Lydia glanced awkwardly at Eric before looking away. "And ... hide all day?"

Eric licked his hand and began rubbing his nose. Great. He was doing it too now. "I think we're just test animals. Scientists use rats for testing, right? Maybe it's what they're used to, and we aren't the end result, just a way to get more data before they do ... something."

"And beagles."

"What?"

"They do testing on beagles."

"Really? That's fucked up."

"Yeah, we're like the only country that does that. I read it on the Internet so it has to be true."

"Huh. That's shitty. Hey, at least we aren't turning into one of those? I don't think I'm up for chasing squirrels at the moment."

"You do that a lot, don't you?"

Eric stopped rubbing his nose. It twitched as if protest when it was no longer getting attention it deserved. "Do what?"

"Change the subject when a conversation gets weird. You've done that a lot."

"Yeah ... I guess? I don't think any conversation we've had today has been not-weird."

"Point. Hmm." Lydia tossed the scraps of her shirt onto the pile, then began rubbing one of her lower nipples for a moment before retracting her hand like she had touched a fire. She put her hands together and began twiddling her thumbs.

"I don't think I've ever actually seen somebody do that. With your thumbs?"

Lydia looked down at her hands. Her thumbs paused for a moment before resuming their motion. "Something my grandad used to do. I can't remember much about him, but I remember going to his house as a child. He would sit on the corner, sipping his coffee and twiddling his thumbs in his rocking chair. The whole family would go over there on the weekend. I'd play with my cousins in the yard, then sit in his lap when I got tired and start mimicking him. It always made him laugh. We'd sit there literally twiddling our thumbs together until my mom and uncle finished making dinner." She leaned back and bumped her head on the bottom of the escalator. She muttered a curse in ... Spanish? Portuguese? "I ... don't know why I felt the need to share that."

"No, that's ... cool. I was never really close with my family. I was pretty happy to get away when I went to college. Are you still close to them?"

"Yeah. I guess so. Especially my sister. That little shit is the whole reason I'm here, I guess."

"What?"

"The thousand bucks. I've been doing whatever I can to help pay her medical bills. Cancer."

"Fuck ... Fuck, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." She picked up her pink, scaly tail for a moment, then tossed it to the ground in disgust. "Our shitty insurance called it a preexisting condition. What the hell isn't a preexisting condition? I figured this is an easy way to help pay for the copay. I'd need to get turned into a rat like thirty times to make a dent in it, but every little bit helps. So it's her fault I'm stuck here changing into a freak with your goofy ass. Her and her stupid fucking cancer. But ... she's worth it. She's smart. Scholarships and all that shit. I think she could really be something someday, you know? Do some good in the world. She's worth it."

"Yeah. It sounds like it. That's really good of you. Not everyone would mutate for their sister."

"Hmm ... What about you?"

"What?"

"Why are you here transforming into a rat under an escalator in a dusty old mall? You have a sob story too for needing the money?"

Eric stared at the ceiling. Vertigo swam across his eyes and he held his breath in a moment.

Shit. Fuck you, Eric. Fuck you, fuck Todd, and fuck school. But mostly fuck you, Eric. Can't blame other people for your problems this time. This one is all you.

He inhaled the musty air and exhaled a lie. "I ... just needed the money. For school stuff." Eric had never felt like such a failure in his life as he did comparing Lydia's reason for being here and his own.

Lydia nodded. "Makes sense. That shit's expensive." She crawled on top of the nest. "Okay. I'm exhausted. And hungry and thirsty and fighting to stave off a screaming, crying emotional meltdown."

"Ditto. Let's get some sleep."

"Right. No cuddling, fucko. And we sleep head to foot." She leaned back, intending to plop down before discovering her face was hovering close to Eric's groin. "Oh ... Oh, fuck, that's ... Um, maybe head to head is a better idea." Eric didn't know how, but he could tell she was sweating even more now and was visibly trembling. He couldn't tell whether she had recoiled in revulsion or another, rather awkward reason. She lay down and turned her back to him. For a moment her short tail plopped onto his leg before she draped it over her hips and began rubbing it to give her hands something to do.

They were silent for a while, but Eric knew neither had fallen asleep. It was too damned hot.

"Hey ... Eric. You awake?"

"Yeah. What's up?"

"I've been thinking ..."

"That's never a good idea. The worst things in the world always came about because of thinking. Doesn't get anyone anywhere."

"Yeah. I think ... this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Do you ... remember that weird thing on the news?"

"What weird thing?"

"That flying snake thing. Landed in the middle of some town?"

"Oh shit. Yeah." It was all over the news for the ten minutes that anything is all over the news these days. Some fucking monster had crash-landed in the middle of a busy intersection. It had a vaguely humanoid shape, but with a freaky long snake tail, enormous wings, and a host of other weird animal parts. It proceeded to grab someone nearby and fly back up into the air, leaving this gross slime on the pavement.

Lydia cleared the dust from her throat. "They said it was like a cloning experiment gone wrong or a biological weapon or something. But ... what if it wasn't?"

"Yeah. What if it used to be a person? Shit. I remember the government tried to hush that up, but it was too freaky of an event to keep quiet about. Oh God, maybe we got off easy, huh? I couldn't imagine how horrible it would have been to turn into something like that."

"Do you ... remember what happened to it? After it flew away?"

A knot the size of a fist suddenly appeared in Eric's stomach. "Oh. Yeah."

They had killed it. They scrambled a fighter jet and shot it out of the air. The news said it was violent and probably related to whatever was going on with chemical weapons research in Iran or some such bullshit, and they had cut it to shreds with a machine gun and sent it plummeting to a forest outside of town. They said the guy it was carrying died on impact. The pilot that shot it probably got a fucking medal.

They had killed it.

Eric found a sudden need to rub saliva on his nose.

* * *

Eric woke up screaming. He hadn't remembered sitting up, but it must have happened. He frantically looked about as if he were being attacked by something.

Satisfied he wasn't in any immediate danger, Eric lay back down and tried to keep from hyperventilating. It was some moments before he realized he was alone.

Lydia was down the hallway, crouched down beside a creepy clown helicopter kiddie ride that he couldn't imagine any child being remotely enthusiastic about sitting in. He wasn't in any way sure how, but he was absolutely certain about this information.

Eric began creeping down the hallway, unsure of what he would find. He was almost sure that Lydia wouldn't try to leave in the middle of the night to strike out on her own. She didn't seem like the type of person that would abandon someone while they were turning into a rat monster. Had she found food? Water? Either would be fantastic right about now. The bygone days of 2AM peanut butter and jelly sandwiches seemed like such a distant fond memory at this current point in his life.

As he neared he could tell Lydia was sitting on the ground with her knees drawn close to her chest and her head and arms resting atop her knees. She was wringing her tail, which must have grown at least another foot in the hours he had been asleep. He was certain Lydia wasn't aware of his presence. Sneaky rat feet were good for that sort of thing. As he crept closer still he was finally aware that she was crying.

Eric wasn't sure what to do. He had never dealt with this sort of situation before. Clear his throat to make her notice he was there? Reach out to her, pat her on the shoulder? There, there, it's quite okay. Everyone freaks out a little bit the first time they transform into a rodent. You'll look back on this and laugh one day.

What is the best way to act given this situation? Eric thought long and hard about this as he slunk back to his Frito mattress.

* * *

"Hands off, jerkass."

Eric wasn't used to hearing this from his alarm clock. As he slowly came to he realized three things. One, it was fucking hot. Two, plastic bags tend to stick rather uncomfortably to one's side if one should decide to sleep on them. Three, he was feeling one of Lydia's multitude of nipples and his erect penis was pressing against her ass.

He retracted his hand as if he was touching a hot iron and scrambled into a sitting position, attempting to cover himself up and failing miserably as he struggled to keep from sliding on the makeshift mattress. "Oh God, shit, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I swear."

Lydia sat up, no doubt discovering the previously-mentioned point #2 as she peeled a snack container from her left side. She had changed a bit more during the night. Her tail was definitely longer, probably three feet in length at this point. The hair covering her chest had developed into fur that nearly covered her skin, although still not thick enough to cover up those damnable fascinating fleshy bits on her chest. Her pupils were dilated as if she had come back from a visit to the optometrist. Her nose was perhaps a little wider and a good deal pinker.

Eric groaned in embarrassment and physical discomfort as he rubbed his head. It pounded like he had been out drinking tequila all night. As he rubbed his forehead he discovered that his nose had decided to undergo a similar change, although was probably even larger than hers now. Aside from that discomfort, his mouth was dry and his stomach empty. He was intimately familiar with these early morning feelings as a 20-something college kid, although morning hangovers seemed rather enjoyable compared to his current arrangement.

"Holy shit, it's like an ice cream scoop!"

He rubbed his eyes before looking at her. "I'm sorry?"

Her eyes were firmly affixed to his penis. Her analysis was not without merit. It had grown several inches during the night, probably more given that half was now hidden by a furry sheathe resting comfortable just above his football-sized testicles. It had turned a sickly pink color, wet with dark purple veins visible through the almost translucent skin. The end of his cock was blunt at the top and curved concavely down to the bottom, which jutted out farther.

"You could spoon up some sherbet with that thing!"

"Stop it. Jesus, that's weird."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't presume. You strike me as a rocky road kind of guy."

Eric felt strangely hurt over the insults thrown at a part of his body he very much wasn't in favor of changing. "Laugh it up, Miss I-Could-Feed-an-Army-Simultaneously-with-My-Chest."

"Right? It's like I planted a row of trees over here." Lydia rubbed her breasts, her strange hand-paws tracing the curve of them before trailing lower. Her hands lingered over her second set of teats before moving to the one below that ... and the one below that. She paused as she realized what she was doing, her gaze drifting from her strange nipples up to make eye contact directly with Eric's new development.

And there it was again. That smell. The pair both held their breath. Eric was certain she had just become wet.

She shook her head and again began cleaning her face with her saliva. This must have been the rat equivalent of twiddling your thumbs. "Jesus Christ, that's ... Okay, look. Something is obviously going on with our hormones."

"Y-Yeah. You could certainly say that."

"We just need to keep that shit on lockdown, okay? We are not going there."

"Right. We're on the same page here." Eric was not on the same page here. He was fairly certain Lydia was not either.

"Good. That being said, I am not wearing these fucking pants any more. My tail is about to push them off and my hips feel like they've been conspiring with my tits to ... well, you know."

Eric swallowed a lump the size of a large bowling ball. Why the hell was she telling him this? "Okay?"

"We're adults. Just ... Yeah. Adults." Lydia tried to pull her pajama pants off, but discovered they were hugging her hips too tightly. She began tugging at the waist of offending garment but was having some degree of difficulty. Eric was about to ask if she needed any help, but decided that question probably wouldn't go over very well. Finally she decided to use her claws to simply tear the waist of the cotton fabric apart and was able to rip the offending garment off. In the process of cutting it, her panties had also come apart.

Lydia was aware that Eric was staring before he was. "A ... dults. Right?"

"Right."

She sighed and tossed the sweaty pajamas near their nest. "Guess I might as well add this to the pile."

"Um ... that might not be a good idea. The smell, you know?"

"Fuck you, they don't smell. I wash my clothes. Don't you?"

"Yeah ... Um."

Lydia snapped her fingers to try to regain his attention. "Hey!"

Eric remembered that there was a person attached to her vagina. "No, I mean ... Not stinky smell, um ... The smell of, you know, that."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, I guess that could be a problem." She tossed the garment away. Eric had a moment to enjoy the way the sweat glistened off what little of her skin could still be seen as she twisted her torso, her inch-long nipples still pressing through the fur. Why were those so endlessly fascinating? Eric knew that was a question man had asked himself since the dawn of time, and he certainly wasn't going to be able to add any further insight into the phenomenon.

Eric silently cursed his rat brain.

"Okay," Lydia panted. "Slightly better. Now we're down to damnably hot instead of lava hot." She looked at him and smiled. At least, he assumed it was a smile. It was more of a gnashing of teeth but for some reason he knew that was a symbol of contentment. Somehow. "Your turn."

"What?"

"Off with the shirt. Show a rat girl the goods."

"Didn't you just say ..." Eric began to protest but decided fair is fair and it was too hot to muster any sort of defense. He pulled his shirt over his head, having some momentary trouble when his claws got stuck in the fabric. He tossed it aside. She was right. It provided some measure of comfort.

"Wow. Nice. Work out a lot?"

"Not even a little bit. What ..." Eric noted his muscles were a bit more defined. He wasn't going to win any bodybuilding competitions, but he had a lean, sinewy look about his torso and arms. "Oh. Huh."

Lydia's teasing now seemed to have turned the tables; she had made herself uncomfortable. "So, um ... Food?" Eric's stomach piped up in sudden agreement as it rumbled loudly. Lydia giggled.

"Food would be good. Think they have a Sbarro?"

"Yuck. Seriously? That shit's nasty."

"It's not great." Eric felt his hardness start to go away. Getting his mind on something else was doing wonders in that department. "McDonald's?"

"Can't. I saw that movie. With the guy getting fat? Can't touch the stuff."

"Such a picky eater for a starving rat person. Okay, you pick."

"Hmm." Lydia sat in thought as if they really had some sort of option. "Chinese would be nice. There was this great place near my house. They delivered and everything. Could bring it right to the mall's busted-ass entrance if we tip them enough. It shut down after a health inspection or something."

"Did they find some or our relatives running around the kitchen?"

She giggled again and gnashed her teeth. Eric was surprised at how good it felt to see her happy. "No. Think the owner was selling cocaine out of the manager's office or something."

"Huh. Yeah, Mr. Squeakers wouldn't deign to frequent such a shady establishment."

She gave a very unladylike snort that Eric felt she couldn't blame on the transformation. She rose to her feet and extended a paw to help him up. "I'd settle for more Fritos at this point."

"Wait, let me try." Eric slowly got to his feet on his own accord. The newly-gained muscles in his legs seemed to allow him to more easily heft the swinging weight between his legs.

"Good job. Baby's first steps. You'll be out of your diapers before long." Lydia took notice of the way his sack swayed back and forth, shook her head, and began walking toward the entrance. "Got to be something around here. Or maybe a dumpster that a nearby restaurant still uses."

Eric's stomach rumbled again as he followed her. "I wish I could say that disgusts me, but even that sounds pretty good right now.

And thus began the great search for more Fritos. Most of the stores had old sliding metal grates preventing entry, but they were only held in place by some mechanism under the floor and with both of them lifting they were surprisingly easy to break open. Most stores were empty save for the unpleasant smell of unclean dusty carpet. In what they assumed was once a Great American Cookie store they discovered a large plastic bag that Eric joked were pants in just his right size. Hoping for some of those tubes of cake icing, it sadly only held wrinkled bags of newspaper.

"Wow," moaned Lydia. "Thanks guys. Good thing you held onto these valuables."

"Probably supposed to be package filler. Keep stuff from getting damaged in transit or something." Eric leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. He squinted his eyes in discomfort as sweat dripped from his brow. He was wheezing loudly and it didn't sound healthy.

"Are you okay?"

"Just out of breath."

"No, that's not just out of breath. Sit down for a second."

He shook his head. "Wouldn't want to get back up. Besides, it's too fucking hot in here."

"Okay, but let's head back to the food court. It was a little cooler in there." She stood up, put a hand on his hairy back, put her hands on both of his cheeks, and proceeded to lick his nose and mouth. Her breath wasn't particularly pleasant, but it was warm and strangely comforting, even if it did reek of Fritos. Instinctively he began to return the gesture before she seemed to realize what she was doing, recoiled in shock, tripped over her tail, and crashed to the ground, carrying Eric along for the ride. He landed atop her, his swollen genitals gracefully alighting on her belly. He could feel four of her nipples stiffen and actually felt the heat rise from between her legs. He could also feel a rising of his own slowly occur.

Her voice was breathy. "Get off. Please, get the fuck off." She sounded like she wanted the exact opposite of that to happen. He leaned forward and licked her neck. "Off!" she screamed as she shoved against him and kicked at his balls. He tumbled off of her and scampered away. He debated whether or not it was merely a crawl, but it was most definitely a scamper.

"Oh Jesus, I'm sorry. What the fuck."

She said nothing as she sat up, hugging her knees against her chest. "Don't ever do that again."

"No, God, I'm so sorry. It's just ... You were licking me and you smell so good and I can't think with these fucking thoughts and ... Lydia." Her name dragged her thoughts from wherever they had gone back to the familiar safety of the abandoned Great American Cookie. "I'm so sorry. I would never ..."

She nodded. "I know. Just shut up a second, okay?"

He got to his feet and leaned against the wall. She was silent for a long while. When she finally spoke, her voiced seemed far away. "It's ... hard for me to do stuff ... like that. I mean, I'm no Mother Teresa or whatever. I'm not a virgin. But ..." She tried to make eye contact with him, but only for a moment. "Was raised religious. Don't go for that stuff so much anymore, but casual sex is still kinda something I'm not big on."

"That's perfectly reasonable. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. That's the last thing I want to do. I'm sorry I got ... I'm sorry."

She grunted something that sounded vaguely like a thanks, then saw something in his expression, squinted one eye, and grinned in amusement. "Do you want to lick my face?"

"No ... Kinda?"

"You can't lick my face."

"Understood."

Lydia began fidgeting with the end of her tail. It had grown at least half a foot in the time they had been exploring. "Okay. Your turn. Quid pro quo."

"My turn for what?"

"To share some formative bullshit from when you were a kid."

"Oh. Um ... Didn't know we were getting that personal."

"You didn't seem to have a problem with getting personal when you were laying on top of me."

He was silent for a while. "I don't know what to say. It's been kinda uneventful for the most part. Grew up, watched cartoons, went to school, went to more school, graduated, went to more school."

"Parents still together?"

"Yeah. Doesn't feel like it so much these days, at least the last time I saw them. Get the feeling they were sticking it out because they felt like they were supposed to."

"I know that feeling. Siblings?"

"Nah. They broke the mold when they made me."

"Wow, full of yourself much?"

"No, I mean they broke the mold. On purpose. They took a sledgehammer to the thing. 'Not going through this again.'"

She gave a small laugh. "So ... No dark past to that keeps you awake at night? Bor-ring." She gave an exaggerated smile to indicate she wasn't seriously mocking him.

"Why do you ask anyway? I'm not the most interesting person around."

"You're literally the only person I know that can help me through this insanity. We might as well try to get to know each other. Favorite food?"

"Uh ... cheeseburgers."

"Not an exotic choice, but a firm ground to plant your flag on."

"You?"

"My grandma would make asopao when I was a kid. It's probably not the best tasting thing in the world, but I miss it."

"I don't even know what that is. Favorite show?"

She avoided eye contact and mumbled her response.

"I'm sorry? Something you'd like to share with the class?"

Her mumble turned into a groan that was only slightly less audible.

"Little bit louder?"

"The fucking Kardashians, okay?"

"Wow. Ugh. Wasn't really expecting that response. Are you feeling okay? Running a fever? Hallucinating? I thought I heard you say the Kardashians, but no living human being would admit to something like that."

"Har har har. We're not exactly human beings at this stage, so there's my excuse. Yeah, it's terrible. At least I'm up front about it. You?"

"I guess I honestly don't have one. Can't remember the last time I watched something. Too broke for Netflix these days. I started watching Stranger Things before I decided to mutate into a rodent."

"Okay then, movie?"

"Hmm ... Oh! Robocop."

"Wow. A man of refinement after all."

"Hey, you asked about early formative experiences. Robocop made me the man I am today. It's actually a legitimately good movie."

"I'm not disagreeing. I love that movie."

"Seriously? You're shitting me. You don't strike me as the Robocop type?"

"No way, man. That part at the gas station? Where he pulls up on the guy on the motorcycle? 'Dead or alive, you are coming with me.'"

"And then the bad guy realizes he knows him!"

"Because they shot him when he was just Regularcop!"

Eric found himself getting way too excited over this conversation. "And that part with the melting guy?"

"I almost barfed the first time I saw it! Like actually almost barfed. He gets hit by the truck? Splat, head goes rolling."

They shared a laugh. Lydia was okay. After another long silence, she got to her feet. "Come on. I thirst."

"Like rat Jesus hanging on the cross?"

"Basically. I'm that awesome. Gotta stay hydrated when you're becoming a monster. Even Robocop needs sustenance."

"He needed baby food."

"Shit, I forgot about that part. I need to rewatch that."

"There has never been a time in anyone's life when they didn't need to rewatch that movie. That movie reminds us that the human race is capable of artistic expression. That we're going to be okay as a species."

"I don't disagree."

Eric smiled and followed her back to the food court, his own discomfort forgotten in the awkward silences they had just left behind. When they arrived, Lydia led him down the hallway before walking into the women's restroom. "Come on. I've got an idea."

"I'm not supposed to go in there." Both of them realized how stupid of a thing that was to say at the same time.

"It's okay. I won't tell anyone you're a massive pervert creeping like a giant rat into the ladies' room."

"But that's like your most sacred sanctuary. I'm not worthy to enter under thy roof."

"Are you Catholic or something? That's a lot of Jesus in the past ten minutes."

"Hey, you too. No, raised something like that." He stopped being stupid and followed her into the pitch blackness. His eyesight seemed to be getting slightly worse due to the transformations, but he could "feel" where he was going through a combination of scent, the proximity of Lydia, and the air around his whiskers.

Lydia crawled underneath the pipes and lay back against the wall underneath the sink. It was one of the old ones, nothing fancy, with the pipes in plain view. Lydia began chewing on the part of the pipe between the wall and the--what was the curved part called?

"What in God's green fuck are you doing? No water, remember."

"Water pressure is off, but there might be something on the other side of the P-trap."

"It's called a P-trap?"

"Yeah. You know anything about plumbing?"

"I know enough to know P-trap is a terrible name and that what you're doing is fucking nasty."

"I'm not enjoying myself here, but ... Wait." Lydia began gnawing in earnest and made a sort of happy squeaking noise. "Dude. Oh my God. You need to try this."

"Fuck you."

"Get down on the floor and gnaw on this pipe."

"That was my first pickup line attempt in junior high. It didn't work then, and it won't work now."

"Now!"

Eric crawled underneath the adjacent sink and propped himself against the. Not for the first time in the past twelve hours did he enjoy how the cool tile felt on his gnads. He hesitantly nibbled at the dirty pipe, completely disgusted with himself ... before he realized the absence of a discomfort in his incisors he hadn't noticed up until now.

"Oh. Wow, that's ..."

"Right? Who knew gnawing on PVC was this great?" The pair continued for several minutes, the thick pipe refusing to relent against their combined siege. Just as the immense feeling of relief was starting to plateau, Eric felt room temperature water on his lips. Lydia must have felt a similar sensation and she gave off another satisfied squeal.

This was the most amazing water Eric had ever or likely would ever taste. The fact that he was drinking it out of a dirty pipe in a restroom of an abandoned mall wasn't even a factor at this point.

After what felt like several joyous hours, the trickle of water slowed but Eric no longer felt dangerously dehydrated. Both lay panting on the ground, unwilling to stand up after experiencing such rapture.

"Was it good for you too?"

"Best of my life. Aren't we supposed to smoke a cigarette and talk about my mom or something?"

Lydia sneered. "Gross. The first part yeah, but what the fuck?"

Eric was quiet for a while longer. When he finally spoke up he was amazed at how much better his tongue felt. "We can't stay here forever."

"This isn't exactly my dream house. I'm not really attached to the place."

"Aside from the fact that they're surely still looking for us, and this place is stupidly close to the lab, we aren't going to survive on Fritos and sewer water for long."

"Yeah. Find somewhere else to lay low for a while."

"Still probably safer moving in the dark."

"Yeah. Isn't there a depot nearby? Hop a train or something?"

"That's a pretty good idea. I left my bus pass in my other garbage-bag-pants."

She was on her feet in half a second, seemingly hopping from a prone position the floor to fully standing in one second. He wasn't sure that was a motion he could repeat. "We should do one more sweep of the place. Both floors. Just to make sure. Maybe see if there are any shopping carts left out in the parking lot to carry anything useful along with us. Maybe there's a janitor's closet we missed with a bucket. Carry some water along with us. Then just haul rat-ass to the train station."

No. He couldn't. He lumbered to his feet like a drunkard. "Are you a prepper or something? How the hell are you taking this so well?"

"I'm staying busy. If I stop to think about what's going on, I'll probably lose my mind." She led the way back into the food court.

"Seems to be working. I'm just going to keep slipping further into insanity. I'll meet you at the asylum when you decide to catch up. Think we should split up?"

"No!" She startled the both of them with the sudden shout. "Something about that ... feels weird. I don't think we're supposed to do that."

Eric nodded. "As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that was a dumb idea. Pack mentality or something I guess?"

His eyes quickly adjusted to the brighter light of the food court. He almost bumped into her as she suddenly stopped. "What the--"

Eric looked up. There was a rainbow coming down the hallway. "Wow. What's going on there?"

The pair quickly walked back into the main thoroughfare and made their way to a wide space underneath a yellow glass dome. The light of the early morning sun filtered through a broken part of the dome, hit a large glass chandelier, and cast a display of multifarious light in all directions. He felt like this must be what it's like to stand in the center of a rainbow. Or a Pink Floyd concert at least.

Swirling around at the top of the dome were several black dots hovering both clockwise and counterclockwise. Eric wondered how it was possible that there were tiny shadows spinning inside the splendor until he realized they were birds. Blue jays, cardinals, mockingbirds, and several other species Eric couldn't name were circling nests they had built in the crooks and crannies of the chandelier and along a rim surrounding the dome's interior. It was strangely beautiful.

Lydia must have felt the same way. She gnashed her teeth and smoothed her whiskers with her saliva. The sight wasn't strange to Eric anymore, and he wasn't surprised to find he was doing the same thing. It meant that Lydia was happy. Which made Eric happy. Before he knew what he was doing he lay his hand on her shoulder. She was surprised at the touch, but evidently didn't mind as she returned her gaze upwards.

"This place wasn't bad," Eric whispered. "Back in the day. Like the giant fly monster said: 'Life finds a way.'"

"Yeah. I guess so. It's weird--and I'd never tell her this--but I kind've wish my sister could see this. She loves stupid stuff like this."

Hearing her mention her sister reminded him of something. He let go of her shoulder and took a deep breath. His eyes remained fixed on the aviary above him.

"I dropped out. I just stopped trying and I started flunking my courses. My roommate is an asshole and partied all the time, and I went to the college my parents wanted me to go to instead of the one I wanted. And I couldn't pay attention, and I thought I knew most of what they were teaching to start with, and blah blah blah. And none of that was true. I've spent the past few years blaming other people, other things, for the simple fact when it's all my fucking fault. People didn't have the opportunities I did, and I wasted them. That's why I took part in the test. I was getting kicked out of my apartment because I wasn't doing anything to pay the bills or help my asshole roommate in any way. Todd is a dick, but he was right to do what he did. You're here because you were being noble and shit and I'm just a fuckup."

At some point in his self-inflicted diatribe she had turned to look at him. He glanced at her, expecting to see scorn in her eyes, but she just looked sad. "Hey. It's okay. Sounds like you learned from it. Everybody has--"

And suddenly she was screaming. A second later he was doing the same. It felt like his spine was being ripped from his back. They both fell to the floor. Lydia looked at him with terrified eyes that were slowly turning solid black. Eric felt his back arch, pushing his spine's natural curve forward. His arms grew slightly longer, his hands deforming further. His sweating palms stretched, his fingers turning stubby as they pushed further away from his thumb. Lydia's scaly tail was stretching longer, tiny white hairs dotting it every few inches. Sweat was pooling below both of them and Eric gagged at the musky scent they were both giving off. His feet were on fire as they stretched in the same way his hands had. Eric prayed he would still be able to walk on two legs when this was over. If it was ever over.

Lydia crawled closer, reaching out to him for some sense of comfort. "It hurts. Oh God it hurts." But the pain was only a prelude to the feeling of his nose growing further from his face. It slipped forward nearly six inches, his skull slanting backwards and putting pressure on his brain. He felt simpler thoughts rising to the surface of his mind and he prayed that he wasn't going to suffer some sort of brain damage. Lydia fell to her side and clutched her face as it grew, her wailing causing the birds to scatter. The black hair on her back thickened until it could now only be called fur, the swell of her contorted spine still visible.

Despite the terrible pain, her near proximity caused him to feel a stirring in his loins as he pressed against the swell of her ass, her tail draping across his leg as it continued to stretch until what used to be his foot was now equal in length to his shin. If he could move after this, he'd be walking on the balls of his feet from now on. Meanwhile Lydia's hips began to grow wider, her ass swelling and pressing against his sweaty balls. She turned around to face him, her black eyes growing wide as she glanced down at his erect member. She reached down and rubbed her pink hands against the soft fur covering his testicles, trailing her hand higher until she was holding his slimy manhood. Rathood. Her other hand felt the new swell of her ass and before dipping between her legs to touch herself. Eric leaned forward, lapping at her neck, relishing in the taste of her sweat. She smelled dirty, filthy, amazing.

He stopped his strange ministrations as the pain in his growing muzzle reached a crescendo, his yellow front teeth audibly scraping against the bone of his upper jaw as they finished their growth. The back of his front incisors rested against the front of his lower ones as he closed his mouth, the four large teeth remaining just behind his lips in the open air. Lydia rolled onto her back again and grasped her teeth with both hands as her muzzle finished. She rolled onto her other side and used the momentum to carry herself to a crouching position on all four paws. The pain was subsiding. Eric prayed the change was finished with them. He didn't want to lose what humanity was left to him.

Lydia panted, sweat sliding down her furry back, giving it an oily, greasy look. Whereas his fur was light brown with white covering his front, hers was as jet black as her hair, or at least what was left of her hair as she pulled the loose strands from her scalp in chunks that drifted to the floor. She rubbed the short fur now covering her scalp, taking note of her much shorter fingers as she tried to flex them apart with only some small bit of success. "Oh God," she moaned. "What am I?"

Eric tried to get to his feet and succeeded for only a few seconds before he crashed down to all fours again. It seemed like he would still be able to walk on two legs, but it was just as comfortable now to hunch over onto four. He coughed violently as he drooled onto the sweaty tile. He looked up at Lydia and noticed another type of drool emitting from between her legs.

She looked back him, a strange terror in her eyes. It was as if she were only just noticing the monster crouched behind her. He felt like his brain was still running on all four cylinders--well, maybe two-and-a-half where he was concerned. Strange base thoughts of mating, eating, and hiding were present now in a way they had never been before, but he ran through his multiplication tables and felt he was still all there. The thought of Lydia no longer recognizing him was more painful than anything he had just gone through.

Lydia's awareness seemed to return. She seemed to recognize him, although her attention was quickly reduced as she began hyperventilating. Her breathing gradually became more normal, but inhaling so much of the musky air was now having a different effect on her. She gave a moan that was equal parts lusty and sorrowful. Eric started to ask if she was alright before she began to try to grasp unsuccessfully at her long tail. It took her a few tries to get some sort of grip on it, and when she did she was only successful in moving it a few inches before it flopped back into place. What was she doing?

"God, what the fuck are you waiting for?" She looked back at him with violence in her eyes. Her voice was scornful, demanding, as if he had done her some great wrong. What was going on with her?

Then he smelled it, a musky smell somewhere between mucus and urine. Not the most flattering scent, but one that had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. She fumbled again at her tail, grunting in frustration with her new hand's lessened mobility.

Oh.

Eric needed no further instruction and he quickly scrambled forward and pressed his nose underneath her tail. She cried out as if she had been stabbed, but the scent of her need grew even stronger. His nose pressed awkwardly on the thin bit of skin between her tail and anus and he began lapping at her folds. It was like making out with a bowl of hot syrup, not a description he would've found interesting before but now was of utmost importance in his current existence. Her labia gave way easy to his long flat tongue.

The sounds she was emitting almost sounded like sobbing at this point. "Please. You don't know what this is like. Just fucking do it."

Seeing no reason to decline her request, he rose onto all fours and pushed her tail aside, his angle giving him better luck with it than she had. He pressed her ass backwards onto his chest, yearning to begin. His cock danced back and forth underneath her tail, the strange spoon head rubbing against her folds in a way that was driving both of them mad. She moaned out another plea just as he felt himself slip inside her. The squeaking sound that Eric emitted was one of pure joy, hers an almost sob of relief. He began thrusting as hard as he could, the attention for the needs of his partner almost completely absent in his mind as he reached a climax after only a few seconds.

Lydia's groan was almost comical as she grunted out in disappointment, but soon turned into a sort of laughing joy as he began thrusting again. Eric apparently had a zero second refractory period as he didn't slow down for an instant after his initial release. In the time it took for his second orgasm to build, Lydia had passed him in the race and must have been onto her third. They were made for reproduction. Eating, sleeping, hiding, and littering rat babies seemed to be the entirety of their new existence. Eric wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing as his second orgasm coincided with what must have been her fifth or sixth judging by the multiple crescendos of high-pitched squeaks she was giving off every few seconds. This time there wasn't even a pause in his duties as he continued fucking her. Was this what life was going to be like now? Endless rutting?

Eric decided to leave off the philosophical questions of ratkind's existence in this strange world as he felt his balls slide against the back of Lydia's legs as he completed round three and prepared for round four.

* * *

After what seemed like hours, Eric's pace slowed and the pair sank into a sweaty heap on the floor, Lydia moaning as she felt his weight on her back. He rolled off of her, pulling himself from her with an audible squelch and rolling exhaustedly onto his back.

Eric felt his eyes drooping as he fought to remain conscious. No, damn it. Stay awake. It'll be dusk soon and we'll have to move on. Run. Hide. Train. Lydia was already snoring softly.

He placed his paw on the back of her thigh and shook her softly. "Lydia. We have to stay awake. Lydia. Lydia!"

She woke with a gasp, her black eyes going wide and her ears standing straight up. "Oh shit. Oh no, oh shit." She struggled onto all fours, nearly slipped on the wet floor, and was bolting down the hallway before Eric could even follow her movements.

"Lydia, wait. Shit." Eric had some similar difficulty getting to his feet. His rear feet. He was glad he seemed to be able to stand on two legs at this point, albeit hunched over and tempted to steady himself with his paws on the floor. "Lydia."

God damn it. You fucked up again. Surprise, hold the press, alert the newspapers. Eric fucked up, news at 11. He felt himself retreating into the sheath between his legs. Yeah, that's right. Go away, you little bastard. You've gotten us into enough trouble today. God damn it.

Lydia suddenly bounced into view from around the corner. It was most definitely a bounce, a cute little hop that he found strangely adorable. She lifted one paw into the air somewhat expectantly, like a dog waiting to go to the park. "What the fuck are you doing? You coming?" She turned around and stood on two legs, steadying herself on the wall as she looked over her shoulder at him. She seemed worried, uncomfortable with his absence. When she saw him hobble towards her, she was gone again, onto all fours and darting behind the corner.

Huh. Okay. Eric leapt onto four legs and followed. The breeze generated by his sprint felt absolutely amazing after the heat they had generated in their rutting. She lead down the main thoroughfare back towards their hiding spot in the Sears, or whatever it was. The nest? Why? Eric found himself bouncing off of a bench and soaring through the air at one point in an effort to catch up with her. This was actually kind of fun.

After covering the length of the mall in less than a minute they entered the store. Lydia leapt down the entire length of the escalator, alighting safely on the first floor as if she had hopped off the curb before catching a bus. Eric repeated the leap, giggling as he landed, his claws scraping across the floor as he turned 180 degrees and followed her underneath the escalator.

Lydia hopped onto their Frito-garbage-bag-shredded-clothing mattress and lay on her back, rubbing her sweaty brow on the back of her arm and watching as Eric approached. He flopped down unceremoniously next to her. An awkward silence filled the air as they both stared at the slanted ceiling.

Eric was the first to break the silence. "I could drink ... like ... a gallon of water right now?"

"From a bathroom sink pipe?"

"From a bathroom sink pipe. That's fine. Anything is fine at this point."

"I could go for some cucumber. Is that weird? I hate cucumber."

"Cucumber sounds good."

Another awkward silence, this one shorter. Lydia snuggled up next to him, rolling onto her side and laying her head in the crook of his armpit, her cold nose pressing against his chest. "Whew. You stink, man."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I kind of like it."

"I didn't have time to grab my deodorant after you hit me in the face with a fucking kitchen tray."

She giggled. He could tell she was trying to stay awake. "Sorry." She snuggled closer, playfully running her clawed feet against his. "What the hell did we just do?"

"I'm sorry. You were just right there and you smell so good and I couldn't think straight and--"

"Shh. I know. I needed it. I've needed it since I was hiding behind that cell phone kiosk. But we have to be careful with that, okay? That's some complications we don't need right now."

"Right. Um ..." He had no idea what he was trying to say.

"Just hold me for a while okay? This doesn't mean we're a thing. We just had casual rat sex. You're not meeting my mom or anything."

Eric nodded.

"Good."

"That was ... incredible doesn't do it justice. I can't believe we did it for so long." He rolled onto his side and embraced her, the comfort eliciting a sigh and more teeth gnashing from her. "It was great. I mean, I still want to change back but ... Damn."

"I mean, yeah, it was fine."

Eric scowled at her in disbelief before she laughed and began licking his face. They groomed each other for several moments, her tongue hot and soft against his skin. He began to feel a stirring between his legs.

"Holy shit. Already?"

"Wow. Yeah. I guess so."

"Yeah, no more of that, okay?" The way her twelve nipples stiffened in the humid air indicated that she might have been speaking more to herself than to him. "I could use a nap."

"It's almost dusk. I'm so afraid of what's going to happen if we stay here any longer."

"I know, but ... I don't think I could get up now if I tried. Let's just ... stay in the moment for a while, okay. Five--ten minutes? Then we'll head out."

Eric nodded. "Ten minutes. I could use ten minutes." His eyes were drooping and Lydia was already snoring. "Just ten minutes."

* * *

For the second time in the past 24 hours, Eric woke screaming. He was dreaming about bright white lights shining in his face and figures moving silently in the dark. He tried to control his racing heart, but with a start realized that Lydia was sitting up next to him and struggling to stand on her inhuman feet. The glare of several flashlights settled on his face about the same time he realized he hadn't been dreaming.

"Sir, we have them." The voice was followed by the squawk of a walkie-talkie. He had never heard one before in real life. He had always assumed the noise was some sort of convenience device for the audience in movies. Apparently not.

There were at least half a dozen of them, all dressed in black. Black suits, black guns, black hoods over their faces, black goggles over their eyes, black Kevlar vests over their chests. Was that last part really necessary? How likely was it that two rat mutants would be carrying a gun?

Lydia had reached her feet and was baring her incisors at the approaching soldiers, or mercenaries, or whatever they were. "Watch that one!" Several of the lights left Eric and focused on Lydia as she crouched, glancing over her shoulder, back to the guards, back to Eric. Her mind was struggling between fight or flight, hesitating because ... why? She didn't want to leave him? Apparently she had settled on fight as she prepared to leap at the nearest guard.

"Watch that one, put it down, put it down, put it down!" There was the flash of several muzzles and the deafening sound of gunfire. Lydia flew backwards and slammed against the back of the escalator, Fritos bags flying into the air. The nest was gone now. She was gone now.

The sound that issued forth from Eric's mouth was somewhere between a squeak and a sob. Oh god. Oh no.

"The other one, get it down!"

Eric couldn't have resisted even if he had time. His eyes never left her prone body as for a split second he felt the all-consuming pain against the back of his skull as his world was taken from him.

* * *

The thin man in the lab coat walked down the hallway, flipping between the pages of his clipboard. This one was a nightmare. He'd have some serious explaining to do. The short fucker wasn't around anymore, but now he had to contend with generals screaming in his face if there was any sort of setback or unexpected outcome. He wondered what the next level beyond a general screaming at him was going to be. The head of DoD? The fucking orange moron in the White House? Who would he have the pleasure of getting screamed at by now?

"Smiles?"

The deep baritone voice issued from the speakers in the ceiling. "Coffee, sir?"

"No thank you. Clear my schedule for the rest of the day. And tomorrow too."

"Tomorrow is your meeting with the vice secretary of DOHS ..."

He sighed. God damn it. "Okay, don't clear that one." He paused outside the door and sat his clipboard in a container on the wall. "No, fuck it. Cancel that one too."

"Sure thing, sir."

So much fucking paperwork with this one.

* * *

"On a scale from one to ten, one being normal and ten being the most discomfort you've ever had, how would you rank how you feel?"

Eric came to slowly. He was lying in a hospital bed, an IV plugged into his arm. His vision was still blurry, but he was mostly certain of his surroundings due to the sterile smell of floor cleaner and fabric softener. As his vision slowly cleared he came to recognize the doctor from before this insane adventure had begun. The man that had given him the injection that started all of this. That had turned him into ...

Where was his tail? It was the first thing that his mind went to as it put the pieces together. He felt behind him, remembered fully the experience he had gone through just before being violently struck on the back of the head, and began thrashing, pulling the IV from his wrist and frantically searching for something to defend himself with.

But there was definitely no tail.

"Mr. Mateu, please calm yourself. I know this is a shock, but everything is fine. Your little ... escape wasn't a normal part of the experiment, but we decided to let events run their course and continue monitoring the pair of you in an abandoned urban setting. We hadn't reached that stage of testing yet, but the opportunity was perfect enough that we let things unfold as they may."

Eric stared in stupefied silence at his hands. They were no longer pink and scaly with translucent claws at the end of swollen digits that could no longer quite be called fingers. They were the hands he had been born with. The hands he had signed up for this insanity with. He wondered if Lydia had changed back as well.

Lydia.

"You fucking shot her."

"Yes." The response was flat, as if he was answering if it was still raining outside.

"You fucking murdered her."

"No. Why on earth would you assume that?"

Eric's next breath was caught in his throat. "What?"

"It was a mild sedative. Why would you assume we had killed her but you were only knocked out?"

"But the sound ..."

"They really are quite forceful. Leave nothing to chance. And I'm sure the acoustics in your little hiding spot created quite an echo."

Eric rubbed his eyes and tried to control his anger. "How could you do this to us?"

"You signed the waiver. You are completely back to your normal self, as was the agreement."

"You turned us into animals and left us fucking our brains out in an abandoned shopping mall."

"You ... signed ... the waiver."

"Oh shit. What if she's--?"

"Pregnant? Not possible. Your hormones are too shaken about for that to be possible, on either side of the fence. But just to make sure, the injection has added contraceptive properties. Completely back to your normal self, as was the agreement." He echoed his words with the smug satisfaction of a prison doctor.

"Shaken about? Jesus Christ. What was the point of this? What possible benefit could this have on anything? Science? Military? What?"

A look of genuine sadness seemed to come over his face. "Things are about to happen in this world. Things we need to have data on if we're going to come through them unscathed."

"Who the fuck is 'we'? The country? The military? The human race?"

He simply answered, "Yes."

"Were you the ones that killed the thing? The flying snake thing?"

The question seemed to snap the tall man out of any pretense of empathy he seemed temporarily able to present. "You can check out when able. Please feel free to rest until you're sure you're ready to go. Should I call for lunch? There's a Burger King down the street."

Eric got to his feet, made a fist, and took a single step towards the tall man, who watched his approach with absolute boredom. "Here we go. This is always my least favorite part."

"I'll sue."

"You'll lose."

"I'll expose you. Alert the press."

"We'll be gone by the time they get here."

"I'll go to the authorities."

"Mr. Mateu, we are the authorities." Here he nodded towards a clean pair of clothes that was sitting on a table next to his bed.

With a feeling of helplessness and an urgent need to get out of the room, Eric quickly put on the brand-new pants that were oddly in his size. They'd been prepared for everything. We were just following the experiment, hurtling toward the expected outcome. He threw on the white shirt and was walking out the door as he asked "What about my wallet? My ID?"

"Recovered from the incident site."

"'Incident site.'"

He faintly heard the tall man ask if he would like to pick up his check at the door or if he preferred direct deposit. Eric was already in the hallway. They could keep their fucking money.

* * *

Eric stood at the bus stop that would take him back to his life, such as it was. He hoped he had learned something from this experience. The value of researching a good thing before jumping into it. The meaning of working together with someone to overcome staggering events. Something. Some profound revelation on the way to Damascus that would change his life, get him back on track, solve his problems. If there was a point to this, it hadn't reached him yet.

"Easiest grand I ever made!"

Eric turned around to the sound of the voice. It was Todd. It wasn't Todd, but it was certainly A Todd, if not THE Todd. "Excuse me?"

The man bounced the check playfully off the back of his hand as if it were a new toy. His spikey gelled hair indicated that he had woken up after being turned back into a human being and had taken the time to stylize his hair. "Easy money, am I right?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You think that was easy money? They fucking turned us into monsters."

"Monsters with huge balls, am I right? Come one, you can't tell me that wasn't cool."

Eric could only stare at the stranger in mute disbelief. He was younger than Eric, but not so young that he had an excuse to be this stupid. "You know what ... fuck you."

"Excuse me?"

His voice became louder, more direct, probably a tone he had never before taken in his life. "You heard me. Fuck you. Fuck everyone like you. I'm sick of people like you. I'm sick of associating with you, I'm sick of being associated with you, and I'm sick of not being better than you. Get the fuck away from me. I'm done with you. With all of this."

The Todd's mouth opened as if to say something, but thought better of it after looking directly into Eric's eyes. "Guess I'll catch another bus." He walked away, muttering something that sounded possibly like "crazy asshole". Eric watched him go, hoping he would never see someone like him again. No, not hoping. Determined not to.

"Some people, right?"

"Yeah. Jesus. Some people." He answered her as if she had been standing beside him the entire time. When his brain registered who he was talking to, he spun around on one foot a bit too quickly and nearly fell over.

Except for the new buzzcut, she looked the same as the night she had bashed his brains out with a kitchen tray.

"Be honest, okay? Does it look as bad as I think it looks?"

"N-No, it looks ... it looks fine."

"Wow. 'Fine'. Smooth talker."

"It looks nice."

"Huh." She smirked as she rubbed the back of her shaven head. "Can't stop rubbing it for some reason. It's kind of fun. Hey, at least now I match my sister. She starts chemo Monday."

"Hey, that's great! Well, I mean ... not great but ..."

"I know what you mean, Eric. It's cool."

He felt strangely pleased to hear her say his name. He cleared his throat. "Jesus, I thought they had killed you."

"No such luck, fucko." She seemed like she was putting off saying something difficult. He doubted the next question she asked was that something. "So, uh, any leftover rat-mutant traits?"

"Um ... I kinda want to eat grilled cheese and curl up in a little hole and sleep for twenty-four hours."

"Is that any different than normal?"

"Oh, God no."

She stared intently at her sneakers.

"Penny for them. Again."

"I got nothing. Just, uh ..."

"Do you think you might want to, uh ..."

The bus was coming, like Charon drifting eerily toward him to ferry him off to the underworld. She saw him notice it and glanced over her shoulder at the approaching vehicle. "Oh, uh ... guess that's you?"

"Yeah. Guess so."

The engine was loud as it accelerated towards them.

"Lydia ..."

She looked at him with an expression of ... What? Eagerness? He wasn't sure what to say. He never was.

Say something, Eric. Say something, God damn it.

"Your sister is going to be okay.

"Yeah?" She smiled warmly. "What is that? Is that some side-effect? Psychic rat powers?"

"Absolutely."

The wheels on the bus go round and round. Round and round. Round and round.

"What about you? Are you ... going to be okay?"

He sighed. "Yeah. I think so. I'm just ... If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. I'm tired of letting people fuck up my life. I can do that so much better than they can."

"Heh."

Say something. Say something!

He opened his mouth to ask her something just as the grating whine of the bus's brakes overruled all conscious thought. It came to a stop. The door opened.

"Um ... Take care of yourself ... Yeah?"

Good job. Good fucking job. That's the perfect thing to say right now. Great, great job.

"Yeah. You too." She gave a little wave and slowly turned away. He turned to look at the bus, finally finding the courage to ask now that he wasn't looking at her. He turned to say something, but she was walking away. Quickly. She was probably getting as far away from him as possible.

"You coming, son? I got shit to do."

Eric glanced at the driver, nodded, and climbed aboard. He took a seat near the front of the bus. It was empty and cold as it drifted away. It rounded a corner and Eric found himself looking at an old abandoned shopping mall. The front window was bashed in and there were probably birds nesting near the food court. It might have had some empty snack bags piled up in a little cubby somewhere. Probably. He found a strange fondness for the place.

The bus was already gone when Lydia ran back towards it, waving her arms to get his attention. She stood silent for a moment as it rumbled along into the distance. Then she turned and slowly went on her way.

He never saw.