The Dirt Room
On the other side of the door, you find a large, empty room. Well, it's mostly empty. The floor, aside from a small platform you're standing on, is made of wet mud. The walls are still all mirrors, but the very high ceiling is covered with what look like sun lamps. There's something vaguely calming about the room. You see something else. A few feet away is an odd site for a botany lab--a robot.
It's carrying a beaker of bright green liquid, and appears to be looking at you.
"Come here please," the robot tells you, and you oblige. There's something about the room that makes you very laid back. Nothing could bother you right now. "Drink this," the robot says, handing you the beaker. You swallow the contents quickly, finding them to be unfamiliar yet delicious. Meanwhile, you're sinking slowly into the mud until you're about waist-deep.
The robot continues, "Thank you for testing our plant growth system. The Convertigrow process (patent pending)allows us to transform any organic life form into a plant using only specially treated soil, fertilizer," he shakes the now-empty beaker, "and water." Suddenly you snap out of your stupor and realize what's happening, but it's too late to stop it now. A moment after the robot says, "water," an overhead sprinkler system activates, drenching you in an artificial downpour. The robot walks off nonchalantly, obviously with other work to do. You can't pull yourself out of the mud, and so you just sit and sulk, resigned to your fate.
Soon, Convertigrow (patent pending) takes effect.
You first feel stiffer than normal, and that your skin doesn't bend as easily as it should. Your hair, too, has turned green and is reshaping into leaves. Then the changes start to become dramatic, and nearly instantaneous. Your arms involuntarily raise themselves over your
head. Your skin turns into dark, wrinkled bark. Your torso expands and extends wildly, branches shooting out at intervals. Your skull splits and your face vanishes, as that too becomes more leafy branches. Your legs, meanwhile, have split and gnarled into a root system. It's odd, though. You've lost every sensory organ, but you seem more in-tune with the world than ever before. Your roots can sense soil moisture, the chemicals in the dirt, and the fertilizer they've tested on you. You can feel your leaves absorb life-giving light from the lamps above you. And you don't have to do a thing, just stand there and enjoy it. Of all the things that could have happened to you here at the Transformation Institute, this isn't such a terrible fate.
Written by Zodiac on 09 April 2007
The end (for now)