Why walk when you can fly?
You find yourself drawn to one of the more unusual-looking costumes in the room. It looks somewhat like the dragon costume next to it - it has scales, anyway, and some folded things that look like wings. Unlike the dragon, though, you can't make out most of this costume's shape. It seems to be almost entirely tail. There's no obvious place to put your arms. The fabric is nice - sky-blue scales on the back, white underneath, with a smooth surface that practically begs you to put it on - but the costume itself just looks... odd. It's almost as if the idea of humans wearing it was an afterthought. In the end, you choose the costume more out of curiosity than anything else. You want to see if it looks any better when you wear it.
The costume fits surprisingly well. The fabric is slightly stretchy, clinging to your bare body without restricting your movement. The smooth blue scales cover you like a second skin. The mask is long and narrow, consisting mostly of a bony muzzle that looks rather front-heavy; once on your head, though, it's so light you can hardly feel it. The legs are barely worthy of the name, just two stocking-like tubes of white material, but they fit well enough. The only problem is the tail. Most of it drags on the floor, and you keep tripping over it.
A further search proves that there are, indeed, no arms in the costume. That's what the wings are for. They hang in folds from your arms, like a cape, and your fingers are more or less useless inside them. All you can do is wrap the wings around yourself. As you do so, your arms explode.
You yell in alarm - it feels like every finger has flown off in a different direction. It takes you a moment to realize that there's actually no pain. Your arms are growing, stretching to fill the costume's sleeves with wiry muscles, but all your bones are still together. They're just getting longer. Your fingers stretch until they're no longer fingers, but the struts of batlike wings. Only your thumbs remain - though with the addition of claws, they're more like talons.
There is a tugging feeling at the base of your spine as your tailbone stretches, turning from that silly little vestigial thing to something more worthy of the name. The growing vertebrae fill the costume's empty tail like an arm in a sleeve. Muscles fill it out the rest of the way, and you find yourself with a whole new limb, an extra ten feet of your body that flexes like a snake. The webs of your wings are growing as well. By now, the bases of the membranes stretch from your shoulders to your hips; you watch as they continue down your tail.
Your face bulges out into a reptilian muzzle, filling the space inside the costume's head. Your tiny human teeth grow into sharp fangs. Licking them with your long, serpentine tongue, it feels like there are about twice as many as before. The rubber on your face melts away, and you feel a faint itching as the scales become firmly attached to your skin. The effect spreads over the rest of your body, the costume becoming skin rather than merely skintight. Except for the scales, you're naked again.
This soon ceases to be a problem. The costume squeezes your torso, flattening your chest and groin into a smooth, snakelike underbelly. Looking down, you see nothing but flat scales. You remember the sign on the door and realize that you're probably female now; you can't tell just by looking. Without warning, your body begins to stretch, and you overbalance and fall forward. Fortunately, your wings are strong enough to hold your head and chest off the floor. They're much longer than your legs now. As if to emphasize that, your rear end sags; you look back to see your legs shrinking like deflating balloons, dwindling to shriveled claws, then to tiny nubs on your sides, and finally vanishing altogether. Your belly and tail lie flat on the floor, more snakelike than before.
There are a few more subtle changes, bulking out your flight muscles and streamlining what used to be your hips, but you're more or less done. You've become a wyvern - not so much a dragon as a giant serpent with wings. Aside from your tail, the leathery blue membranes are your only remaining limbs.
You're also much larger than before. Your coils take up most of the room, and your wings are cramped under the low ceiling. You wonder how much you weigh now.
Too much, apparently. A moment later, the floor starts cracking under you. You try to spread your weight, but it's already spread over the entire room, and there's just too much of it. A hole opens up under your chest. Almost immediately, the entire floor gives way, and you're falling through open air - very open. You look below you and see nothing but clouds in empty blue sky. There's no ground in sight.
You'll have to learn to fly the hard way, but it looks like you'll have plenty of time.
Written by Chrysalis on 02 July 2010
The end (for now)