Ken didn’t know how much time had passed for him, before he woke again. He was still in the gurnery he’d been in before, but he was in a different room–one without the machines observing his vitals, and the IV drip into his arm had been removed, and was bandaged up. He could still remember lying there in pain, Harris looking down at him from the side of the bed, and then he had passed out–he hadn’t woken up once since then, that he could recall. Had it been hours? Days? There was no window, and no clock–the room just had a mirror (most likely a one way mirror, he supposed), and a door, but he felt too exhausted to even try and sit up.
Something had happened to him, to his body. He could tell that much, just from how much everything still ached, from his face and mouth and nose, down to his legs and ankles. There was an odd smell in the room as well, something…like a barnyard, as well, and he could still hear the nightmarish cries of terror and pain coming from all around him, but they seemed sharper, or perhaps closer, than they had been. Finally, he lifted his head, looked down at his body, and screamed–or at least, he tried to scream. The sound was just as inhuman and horrifying as every other noise surrounding him in this place, but there was no other reaction he could have had, to the nightmarish body below him.
His torso was thicker, almost the size of a barrell, and was covered in thick, brown hair. The same with his shoulders and arms, and the muscles were so thick now. He raised one paw to his face, and from the short black claws, and the black pads where his palm had been, he realized that his arms, and his chest, were that of a grizzly bear. Below that, attached to his hips, the long brown fur shortened and grew mottled, a lighter brown and white, with thick legs and rump, all the way down to two massive hooves where his feet should have been–like a minotaur.
He swung the heavy legs off the side of the bed and sat up as best he could, facing the mirror on the wall, and there he could glimpse his new face as well–small beady eyes, a pig’s snout, heavy brow, floppy pink ears, with two bull horns also coming out from his temples–short, perhaps, but from the pain in his skull, they might still be growing. That left his cock, which had begun to slide out of his sheath, corkscrewing as it did, but massive–with a huge set of bull balls swinging below, and a bull’s tail swishing behind him on the bed.
Tentatively, he stood up, trying to figure out how to balance on his new feet, and when he did, the mirror in front of him clarified into a window, and there, watching him, was Harris. The rage that boiled up in him was terrifying, even to Ken, and he charged forward, slamming his horns into the barrier, but all he did was bounce back, and fall on his rear. Harris laughed–he could hear him through the intercom of the room, and then he said, “Well, pet, I must say that you’ve exceeded all of my expectations, and I think you’ll have a buyer, as soon as we tame you. Just relax–the faster to let go, the more I might let you keep of that old self of yours, instead of just reducing you to a stupid, docile beast.”
The mirror returned a moment later, and then it became a screen, projecting a series of colorful swirls and spirals, and before Ken could look away, his eyes were sucked into the pattern, his mind disarmed as words poured out of the intercom, telling him was a stupid beast he was, that he wasn’t human, that he was meant to service men, that he was a pet, that he was obedient, that he wanted to be this way, treated this way, abused this way, that he deserved it. Harris just watched, groping his cock, and went down a couple cells to one of the beasts well along the way towards being fully conditioned for release, and fucked the desperate animal, pleased with his newest acquisition, and eager to see just how readily the thing would debase itself for Harris’ pleasure.
I think this will be the end of Arctos: Mall for a little while, though I might revisit it again in the future. There will be a short intermission for interactives–I’ll have a new one to start next week!
Bracken's Corner 