A tourist in the Australian outback comes across a stall in the middle of nowhere, and purchases a strange, sparkling necklace with a boomerang pendant. Gift for my friend,  thatonenerdykangaroo

==========================================================================

“In four hundred yards, turn right.” The GPS on the dashboard casually announces. The glow of the dashboard lights and the GPS reflect off Jason’s face, being the only light source inside the jeep. Jason carefully follows the road, driving slowly so as not to pop a tire or something, especially after hearing about the two guys that went missing a while back when their jeep broke down in the middle of the outback. He seems distracted thinking about that, and nearly drives past the place he’s looking for but the headlights reflecting off the metal trinkets at the small wooden stall catch his attention, and he screeches to a stop, kicking up a cloud of dirt behind him.

Jason gets out of the jeep and walks up to the stall, examining all of the various items on display. It’s mostly jewelry: necklaces with different kinds of pendants, bracelets, charms, rings. Each of them shine and twinkle in the headlights from the jeep, making them look very attractive. Jason looks over each of them, each one bearing a sticker with a price. They all seem really…inexpensive, but not cheap. They look to be of a good quality, but oddly they’re priced rather low for how intricate they look, and for the gems that are used. Jason questions for a few moments if the gems are fake, or if the metal is cheap metal plated with a more expensive-looking metal but as he picks each of them up, they all feel solid and real, at least as real as they can to a layman.

The shopkeeper simply smiles and watches as Jason browses the products, he’s just happy someone’s come to stop by. Not exactly many customers out here in the outback. Probably not the best place to set up shop, but at least it’s cheap. As Jason looks, his eyes are caught by a glint of something oddly shaped, hanging from one of the sides of the stall. He gets a closer look at it; it appears to be a necklace with a small boomerang pendant. He takes it off the hook and looks it over. The chain seems to be made of stainless steel, and the boomerang pendant is made from silver, with tiny zirconia studs along the middle of the boomerang. Jason stares at it, smiling, seeming almost entranced by it. “I’ll take this one!” The shopkeeper smiles, and rings him up. Jason hands over a wad of cash and tells the shopkeep to keep the change. He rushes back to his jeep, smiling the whole time, seeming very happy with his purchase. He speeds off down the road, back towards civilization.

The door to Jason’s hotel practically bursts open as Jason heads inside and locks the doors behind him, and he sits on the bed. He takes the necklace out of his pocket and looks it over. The pendant shines inside just as brilliantly as it did outside, almost as if it was giving off its own light. Jason turns the pendant over in his hands, then puts it on. He stands up and heads for the full-length mirror in his hotel room and admires how it looks on him. The brilliant glow of the pendant seems to go well with his grey t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts. “Wait a minute…” Jason thinks to himself, “…Was this thing…glowing before?”

Before Jason can dwell on that too much, the glow intensifies and then soon Jason can feel a warm, tingling sensation wash over his body, then stops. The pendant stops glowing and, apart from having to blink to adjust to being nearly blinded by the pendant’s glow, Jason doesn’t notice anything else odd. “Strange…must have just been a trick of the light…and maybe I’m just getting tired, although…” Jason turns on the TV and sits on the edge of the bed and starts flipping through channels. He lands on a local broadcast channel that seems to be running a late-night show that he’s enjoyed watching the past two nights of his vacation. Jason happily sits on his bed and watches the show, oblivious to the odd itching sensation starting on his neck, just below the necklace and spreading around his body as hair starts to poke through his skin and spread around.

It seems he’s tuned in just in time for the host to begin his monologue, which starts every episode. As the host goes on, cracking jokes about politics and society in general, Jason idly starts itching at his neck, jostling the pendant around. The hair grows in thicker, coming in as a sandy brown color, not unlike his hair. He starts itching other spots of his body, and then looks at his arm to see what’s causing the itch. Jason’s brow furrows as he sees the thick brown fur grown in on his arms. He rubs his arm up and down, feeling the fur that has grown in. “That’s odd…I don’t usually grow this much hair…must be my diet.” He then goes back to watching his show, not paying much mind.

As the host finishes his monologue, and goes to sit back down at his desk, Jason’s shoes begin to feel tighter on all sides. Jason shifts around some, twiddling his feet around, trying to get comfortable. He idly tries to kick his shoes off, but at this point they’re stuck and won’t come off easily as his feet grow longer and thicker. His toenails have grown much longer now as well and darkened to almost black. The show’s host is about to bring out his first guest while Jason starts to feel a similar pressure in his shorts, mostly around the back of the waistline, and in his hips. Between the shoes and his shorts feeling tight, this gets Jason’s attention and he jumps off the bed to his feet to look himself over. “What the hell?” He exclaims as he notices more fur on his legs, looking almost a light sandy brown on most of them but near his feet it looks a darker brown color. He tries to get his shoes off but struggles with them being stuck on his growing feet and nails. He falls over after losing balance and yelps in pain as he lands on the appendage growing out from his tailbone. He looks back and feels around, feeling a large lump in the back of his pants, and then notices the pressure in his hips increasing.

Canned laughter can be heard coming from the TV as the host and his guest crack some jokes, with the audience forced to laugh along, then the second guest comes out and greets the host and the first guest. By now, seams are beginning to come undone and rip out of Jason’s shorts, while his shoes start to come apart in a similar fashion. Jason groans as the pain from the pressure increases, and he tries harder and harder to get his shoes and shorts off, but they seem almost glued to his body due to the increasing size and pressure. His feet have now doubled in size and length, while his nails have nearly fully formed into long, thick claws and sunk back into the tips of his toes. The lump in the back of his shorts grows and grows, and soon several seams rip at once and an immediate relief is felt as a long, thick tail pops out from the back of Jason’s shorts, leaving several shreds of fabric on the floor. Given he’s sitting down still, his shorts remain on his waist despite nearly falling apart. This burst in his shorts helps the hips grow out wider and thicker as muscle mass continues to build within.

Applause can be heard coming from the TV as now a performer comes out onto the stage and prepares to demonstrate some plate-spinning. Jason reaches back and feels his tail which has grown to three feet long, and almost as thick at the base. Soon, his shoes can no longer contain the growing feet and burst into several pieces on the floor, with a few shreds remaining on the tops of his growing feet. Claws that are several inches long can be seen coming from the tips, sharpened enough to do some serious damage. Jason feels his massive paws, which have since swollen to grow pawpads on the bottom and, as he does, notices his fingernails are looking sharper and longer than before. His palms and finger swell as paw pads grow in just like on his feet and he spends some time squishing them, almost amused at how they feel soft and rough at the same time.

Music erupts from the TV as the show’s musical guest is now on, playing their latest hit as fur sprouts from Jason’s face and his jaw stretches forward. He reaches up to feel his face growing longer and his nose flattens against the end of his growing muzzle, reshaping into almost a large v-shape. As his muzzle grows in, his teeth grow larger and flatter, to accommodate an herbivore diet, while his tongue grows longer and thicker to fill his now larger mouth. He feels a ticking sensation on his upper lip area, and whiskers on each side of his face sprout out and grow long. He feels each of them and winces as he adjusts to the new sensitive appendages on his face. His eyes turn a deep chestnut brown, then finally he can feel a tugging at his ears like someone is pulling on them. Jason reaches up to feel his ears growing much longer, nearly tripling in length, and moving to the top of his head.

Jason shakily stands up as his feet pop and crick to become digitigrade, but his massive tail serves as a counterweight to help him maintain balance. He raises a paw and tries to step forward but falls over as he tries to take a normal step. He gets up and tries again, quickly realizing after the second fall that he can’t walk normally. It finally gets through to him that there’s only one way for him to move: hopping. He crouches and stands back up, almost bouncing in place to get acquainted with his new, more powerful muscles and spots a target a few feet in front of him. He wiggles his butt in anticipation, then leaps forward. There’s a loud crash as he manages to launch himself into a wall just as the musical guest finishes their song on the show. He gets up and shakes his head, realizing that he put too much power into that hop. He steadies himself, tries again, and manages to successfully hop only a few feet forward, landing on his feet.

At this point, many things go through his mind: How is he going to get home like this? Will he still be able to drive, or fit in a plane seat, will anyone treat him as normal, despite him being able to do everything he could as a human, will he have a job to come back to? He realizes it’s very late now as the credits on the show roll and he looks over at the clock, showing 1 AM. He sighs and decides to just go to sleep for now. He hops over to his bed and clambers in, with a bit of difficulty and spends the better part of an hour tossing around, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Eventually he finds a good position and falls asleep.

He wakes up the following morning feeling sore all over, likely both from the transformation last night and from the constant tossing around to get comfortable. He hops out of bed and realizes something is off. He looks back and realizes that his tail doesn’t feel right and places a hand on it. He realizes at that moment that he can’t feel it and rubs it over and over. Eventually, a tingling sensation starts in the base of his tail and spreads around, all throughout his tail followed by the feeling of hundreds of needles poking it. “Damn”, he thought, “must have gone numb…” After a few painful minutes of the needles, the feeling in his tail returns and he starts swaying it around. He gets up, and starts gathering the tattered remains of his clothes, and hopes to hell that the hotel and airport don’t mind him not wearing any pants or shoes as God only knows if he’ll be able to find any that’ll fit him now.