-Repost-
Everyone knows Alligators don’t live in the sewers of New York. Sean, a local from Queens, however planned to find prove that they could. Bringing a small hunting knife, Sean slipped through a manhole to investigate for himself. The cover slid off, and the infectious air cascaded over him. Holding his nose, he descended down into the darkness. With a soft thud, his shoes made contact with the ancient concrete, above the nasty foul smelling water.

He walked against the curved tunnel above the sewage, following the pipes. He navigated his way miles below the city of New York, kicking a nasty looking sewer rat, before coming under a subway hub when the ledge abruptly came to a stop on his side. Sean took the opportunity to jump to the other side, which still had the sill beneath the raised tunnel. However he completely misjudged the distance and splashed into the green-brown water. The brackish liquid seeped into his pant legs, and into his skin. The feeling should have been cold, but it sent jets of icy flames through his entire body. They subsided quickly, and he resumed his scouting for the elusive reptiles.

He trudged through the slime, and eventually the putrid scents became less pronounced, Sean actually didn’t mind it anymore. He soon couldn’t hear the sounds of automobiles pounding on the road in the noisy metropolitan area above, and his eyes were finally adapting to the lack of light. Sean still saw no sign of alligators, and he prepared to put his knife away, when he glanced at his hand. His fingernails had grown deathly sharp. What was worse, thick greenish brown discolorations were appearing on his arm. They were rough to the touch, and his other hand proved to have more of them.

Even more shocking was his torso, his body was straining his shirt, his stomach slightly expanding, and his chest and abdomen where becoming sectioned, like the scutes of a reptile. Unbeknownst to him, his pupils had slight, and his Iris had enveloped his eye, turning yellow. His ears shriveled to holes, and his nose began to push forward, invading his field of vision more than he was used to. His spine was aching now, and his legs and arms were shrinking in length, even as he grew in size. More of the greenish scales green on his arms, and his changing body destroyed reduced his pants and shirt to shreds. But, as he began to realize, he was not going to need them anymore.

A tail exploded relieving his posterior aches, and changing the shape of his body, making it difficult to stand on two legs. His face grew into an alligator’s snout, confirming to the scared college student, that he was going to have to discover personally how a sewer could be a habitat for an alligator. His last thoughts were on his family, before food became more important. His hair receded, and his eyes bulged out as his skull drastically reshaped. His neck to his groin became his underbelly, connecting with his newly grown tail and his legs became stubby hind legs, his feet turning into clawed talons. His arms shrank, as he fell forward into his sludgy domain. The water swept the Alligator’s former human clothing away. Sean was gone; an urban legend took his place. Every now and then, the alligator would lapse into Sean’s memories and try to remember who he really was, but ingesting a colony of sewer rats always easily repressed it.