Bat Outta Hell
Story by draconicon on SoFurry
A little transformation story from a while back, commissioned by Rayoelgatubelo
If you enjoyed this story, please consider dropping me a tip at spencer-gorman
.com . I make my living by writing these stories, and every little bit helps.
If you're interested in contributing more frequently, consider visiting my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/draconiconlibrary?ty=h for good rewards and better stories.
If you simply want to get a commission for yourself, keep an eye on my journals and my twitter DraconiconWrite for updates on when I'm open.
And if you simply want to get to know me, my writing, or my characters more, take a look at my tumblr at http://draconiconcharacterask.tumblr.com/
[b][u][center]Bat Outta Hell
For Reyoelgatubelo
By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]
“Well...at least I have some sunlight left…”
Catalina shook her head as she looked out of the cave. Or rather, up and out of the cave; the hole in the roof was the only exit that she’d managed to find over the course of her exploration. Just a few feet too high for a human to jump to, if they could stand. Which she couldn’t.
Which was the biggest problem of all, when it came right down to it. Catalina looked down at her leg, the redhood wincing as she saw the way it twisted underneath her. It was a fair bit worse compared to what it had been when she’d first fallen, due to forcing herself to crawl up and down the length of the cave to find a way out. Instead of being sprained, it was probably broken, and in more than one place, from the sheer amount of pain she was getting from it.
The hunter bit off a scream as she tried to move it, immediately letting it slump back down. Yes, it was most definitely broken.
She didn’t try to scream. There was no help nearby, and anyone that might actually hear her would wish her more harm than good.
Instead, she worked backwards, pushing herself inch by inch away from the hole in the ceiling. Her sword was the only weapon she had left, as her bow had broken in the fall, and she knew she was dulling the edge of the thing using it as a crutch, but she had no choice. If she was in the light, she’d be spotted the instant one of the beasts came back, and if she was in the shadow…
Well, maybe she could cut the legs out from one of them when it dropped down. Maybe.
[i]This has to be one of their dens. There’s no way that they could have hidden above ground without us finding them. I’ll just wait...one of them has to come back here eventually…[/i]
Catalina closed her eyes, and decided to rest. They’d not come before nightfall, if then.
#
[i]One week later…[/i]
“You...spawns...of Satan…”
The redhood groaned as she looked down at her little pool of water. A scant inch covered the bottom of it, all that remained from the storm five days ago, and no more could be seen across the rest of the chamber. With the weather nothing but sunny since, she had little confidence in getting anything more.
Her stomach growled, and she wrapped her arm around it, no longer biting back her pained groans. She held no more fear that the beasts would find her. If this was one of their lairs, it had been abandoned long ago. Nobody had come back for it, just as no one had come back for her.
Catalina slumped back, shaking her head as she looked through bleary eyes towards the sun again. It was setting, she supposed. It was either setting or rising, and it felt too warm to be rising. Soon, the moon would be out, and she would have quiet and cold again. The cold was nice, these days, considering…
She looked down at her arm again, at a wound she hadn’t noticed until yesterday. Surprisingly, the bleeding cut hadn’t festered, for which she was thankful. The pain of hunger was bad enough, but if she’d had to deal with an infection as well, she doubted that she would still be alive.
At the same time, the two dotted marks on the inside of her arm were not healing. And only a very specific would didn’t heal after that long.
The redhood groaned as she glanced toward her sword. It would be the honorable way out, to take her own life before the transformation. If only she hadn’t worn the edge to something impossible to cut with, in her attempts to get around the cavern. As it stood, the most she could do with it was knock herself out. The tip could no longer cut into her flesh, and she doubted there was a sharp part along the sides at all.
Catalina groaned as the hunger clawed at her belly again, taking several deep breaths as the gurgles of her stomach echoed throughout the cave.
“Let me die...just let me starve to death before...before I turn…”
Her prayer went unanswered, and she closed her eyes again.
#
Scritch...scritch scritch...scratch…
Her eyes flicked open at the sound of something moving across the rocks. Catalina stayed still, her eyes flicking around in the darkness to find the source.
There, a rock shifting as something passed by. Something small, she thought. Something that lived. Something…
It moved again, closer. A rat? Yes, looked like a rat. Small animal, but a plump specimen. Looked like he’d been living down here for a while. Probably the only one of his kind to call this place home, after the original occupants left. She smiled.
Her arm darted out faster than she believed possible, with energy she didn’t know she had. She grabbed the little rat around the neck and yanked him in, her teeth sinking into his back. The little guy squirmed in her grip, fighting to escape, but her grip was tight as death. Her teeth sank in deeper and deeper, until she felt his spine against her lips.
She bit hard, and snapped it in one go.
As the rat fell limp in her hands, and his blood poured down her chin, Catalina finally realized what she’d done. Her eyes went wide, and she dropped the rat to the ground, staring at the corpse and the bloody teeth marks that she’d left behind. It stared at her with glassy eyes, as if giving her the blame for his death.
“No...no...I…”
She started to reach for the sword, desperate to try and end it, but it was too late. As her hand crossed into the moonlight, the change began.
Her fingers curled tight as her nails began to grow, spreading out like claws from her fingers. Catalina had no strength to pull her hand back, and could only stare as dark brown-red fur spread along her fingers, then over the back of her hand. It got thicker as it went further, spreading along her wrist like a bracelet before moving up along the palm of her hand, creating pads as it went.
Catalina couldn’t tear her eyes away, her stomach wretching and trying to throw up what little it had taken in. As the change continued up her arm, past clothes wet and starting to rot from the damp, a strange leathery set of skin seemed to grow from the sides of her arm, spreading downwards as it went. She shook her head, covering her eyes.
“Dreaming...hallucination...I’m not actually…”
But she was. She was, and there was no escaping it.
She fell as the pain of hunger hit her again, this time for something other than meat and bread. Her eyes fell on the rat again, the blood still coming from its back, and the hunger doubled in on itself. She stretched out her other hand, saw it changing, and groaned.
“No...can’t...give in...AGH!”
The pain and the change wracked her as she fell on her back, rolling into the moonlight. It poured down on her face like a waterfall bringing the change with it, and she clawed at her face, her new, dangerous appendages ripping at herself.
It was useless. As much as she clawed at herself, the change healed it almost instantly. Fur sprouted where her fingers ripped, and her body continued to change. The first ends of hair continued to sprout from her arms, and then across her shoulders as it got thicker, heavier, stronger. She felt...lighter, in a way, as the fur grew in and spread through her body, as if she was losing weight...or something else.
She curled into a ball, watching as her clothes could no longer hold her. They ripped around her frame, either shredded by the fur getting too thick or simply rotted too far to hold together. The leathery stuff that came from her arms attached to her sides, and her hips, working its way down her legs until it touched her ankles, and seemed to stop there.
The lightness seemed to spread through her body, as if she no longer weighed as much. Moving her arm, formerly a task that she could barely accomplish with her hunger and fatigue, was...not easy, but much easier, like the weight of a dozen pounds or more had been taken from it. She panted, looking down at herself.
Her legs were the one place where the fur didn’t seem to spread, but at the same time, her skin wasn’t immune from the change. It darkened, darkened almost to a blackish-blue as the color streamed down like a paint stain. Her legs hadn’t quite been fair before, but their original color looked like ivory compared to this. Catalina groaned, feeling the change reach the break in her leg.
Her scream echoed through the caves as her leg suddenly snapped, forced back into the proper direction. It snapped again, and again, each time ‘fixing’ a break, before it was back to normal. She panted, gasping for breath as she looked down at her, now, uninjured legs.
[i]This is...a gift from...hell,[/i] she reminded herself, even as she felt the strength flowing through her. Strength that might yet take her out of this place.
The change spread over her feet and her head at the same time. Her toes grew, and her heel arched upwards, pushed off of the ground with her ankle. Her toes lengthened, getting an inch longer, two, three, becoming more flexible with each additional bit of length. They felt more sensitive, like, like she could use them to grab things, or -
“AH!”
Another scream as her ears felt like they were being pulled off of her head. Upwards, backwards, forwards; they got longer and longer as they were yanked outwards by some unseen hand, reshaped, reformed. Her own shouts came back painfully loud, but she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t silence herself, not with that agony.
She flopped back on her back as she screamed towards the moon, her face twisting, distorting, stretching forward as she grew a short, pointed muzzle, her nose sloping forward to meet with her lips in a way that only a beast could like, and she whimpered, feeling the loss most keenly.
And then…
Catalina yelped as the first tooth started pushing free, sharp and needle-like. It prodded against her tongue, and then against her gums until she opened her mouth. In the basin of water, she could see the glint of moonlight off of her forming fangs, and watched with tears in her eyes as she realized what she had become.
[i]Spawn of Satan...indeed...a creature of bloodlust…[/i]
No sooner had she thought it than the hunger hit her again, and this time, it was undeniable. Her eyes turned to the rat, but it was already dismissed. Too small, and too dead; the blood was no longer warm, no longer filling.
She spread her wings, and felt the power in them. She was weak, but she had the strength to get out, and the strength to hunt.
Catalina rapidly faded beneath the force of the hunger. She was a shadow as the bat left the cave, and little more than a memory as she soared above the treetops, little more than a silhouette against the moonlight.
[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]