Condition: Gray

It was the middle of the night, 3am to be exact. It was a cold and clear night outside. Timothy and his lab partner Tabitha were hard at work on their research. They were researching a cure for lycanthropy, more commonly known as

“werewolfism”. Poetically, that night there was a full moon. The light from the moon lit the lab up though it’s windows.

For months, Timothy and Tabitha had worked hard and were finally on the verge of a breakthrough. With a friend who was a victim of lycanthropy, they were especially motivated to find the cure. They had studied the effects of the moon rays on his blood, skin and hair samples. On each night there was a full moon, he would go through the classic changes, becoming a wolf man creature. With medication they had managed to keep his fury and instincts while a beast under control. So far, it had worked. While in wolf man form, he was completely ‘tame’ and coherent. Tonight he was at the lab with them while they worked on developing a cure. Using blood samples taken from him after the full moon changed him; they worked on a way to return the DNA and cell structure of them to their normal human form while they were still exposed to the full moon.

Timothy examined the sample that had been exposed to the latest potential cure up under a microscope that was in the moonlight. The cure was working! The cells were slowly reverting back to their normal human forum.

“This is incredible! It’s working!” Timothy exclaimed. Tabitha walked over to look at the sample and jumped for joy.

“Complete restoration of human form! Jim is going to love this.” Tabitha said.

“Love what?” Jim asked, hearing the commotion and walking into the room to find out what was going on.

“We have what we believe is a cure for you!” Tabitha said.

“Really? That’s wonderful news! Thank you!” Jim said, running up to the two of them and giving them both a huge hug.

“What do I have to do?” Jim asked.

“See that chamber over there?” Timothy asked.

“Yes” Jim, asked.

“You need to step into that. We are going to adjust the field it generates to match the one in the small chamber we used on your blood, skin and hair samples” Tabithas said.

“And then I will be human again and finally cured of this?” Jim asked.

“Yes” Timothy, said.

“Cool!” Jim said. He quickly ran over to the chamber and got in. Timothy pulled out the control panel for the chamber field generator, while Tabitha pulled out the power flow control panel.

They secured Jim in the chamber, and activated it.

“Now Jim, your going to feel very strange for several minutes, this will probably hurt a fair bit too, so get ready” Timothy said. Jim steadied himself and nodded his head.

“I’m ready.” He said. Timothy and Tabitha put on their safety goggles and activated the chamber.

“Okay Tabitha, lets start at 50 Kilowatts and raise it by 5 kilowatts per second, maxing out at 100 Kilowatts. The emitters are very sensitive so any more then that could blow them out.” Timothy said.

“No problem” Tabitha said as she started the power flow. The chamber began to power up and lit up like a Christmas tree as the emitters hummed. Timothy made the appropriate settings to the emitters.

“Setting them at 30 TerraHertz and holding it there” he said. The chamber began to hum louder and louder as the power to the emitters slowly increased. Jim growled.

“You okay?” Timothy asked.

“My entire body aches!” Jim said. The fur on Jim began to fall out and his muzzle shortened in length.

“It’s working!” Tabitha said. For another 2 minutes, Jim appeared to be changing back into his human form and everything was going as planned, until something went very wrong.

The lights in the room suddenly dimmed and blinked on and off several times.

“What the heck?” Timothy said.

“Power levels are fluctuating!” Tabitha said.

“Shut it down!” Timothy yelled. Alarms on the chamber began to blare loudly. Jimmy yelled as his fur began to grow back in and as his muzzle increased in length.

“The control’s aren’t responding! My god it’s going to overload!” Tabitha said.

“We have to get him out of there!’ Timothy yelled. Suddenly all of the lights in the room came back on and began to burst in succession. Jim was now on all fours and looked almost like a normal wolf.

“It’s going critical!” Tabitha yelled. Before Timothy could react, the emitters exploded and the door to the chamber blew open, showering the room with the particles the emitters emitted. Timothy and Tabitha were knocked back as Jim was thrown across the room, coming to a rest on a table.

With only the moonlight to light the room, the room was pretty dark. Timothy picked himself up off of the ground and dusted off dust that now covered his clothing.

“Tabitha! Are you okay?” he asked as he ran towards where she lay. She moaned a bit and then got up, dusting herself off.

“I think so. What happened?” she asked.

“I think there was an overload of some kind,” he said, suddenly feeling dizzy.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m not sure, I feel a bit strange” he said.

“Jim!” Tabitha said. They both ran over to where Jim, who was now a complete wolf lay on top of a table unconscious.

“I think he’s okay, but he’s out cold,” Tabitha said. Timothy started to walk over to her when he felt an intense pain in his groin. Clutching himself there, he bent over in pain, closing his eyes.

“Timothy! What’s wrong?” Tabithas yelled.

“Oh god! The pain!” Timothy answered.

“Where?” Tabitha asked. Timothy took off his lab coat, and opened his eyes and took off his goggles. Tabitha gasped.

“Timothy! Your arms!” she said in horror. Timothy held out his arms in front of his head. Both of his arms were covered in a thick coating of gray fur, fur that looked just like Jim’s! His hands felt strange so he threw his gloves off. Both of his hands looked odd. His fingernails were longer and black and his fingers were getting shorter. He turned his hands around to see pad’s forming on the bottom of both hands.

“Oh god!” Timothy said. His chest felt incredibly warm and itchy so he threw his shirt onto the ground. His entire torso was covered in the same gray fur that his arms were covered in. Tabitha walked over and petted the fur.

“Not bad” she said.

“Tabitha, this isn’t funny. It’s” he said, suddenly being cut off by a pain his face. He clutched his face which both of his hands and closed his eyes. Under his hands he felt his nose and mouth getting longer. Tabitha watched in fascination and was about to say something when her own groin started to hurt like hell. She gasped from the pain and doubled over. Timothy’s muzzle had about fully grown in and he withdrew his hands. Looking at them, he realized that paws were now a better description.

“Tabitha!” he yelled.

“It’s happening to me too,” she said. He helped her take her lab coat, gloves and goggles off. He could see that her arms now had the same gray fur that his had. Poking out from under her shirt was a bunch of gray fur and her breasts seemed smaller. Gently cupping them she frowned.

“Why do they have to shrink?” she asked. Timothy’s legs began to ache and his pants ripped as his hips reformed.

“To heck with this!” he said as he took the rest of his clothes off. With all of his clothes off, he was able to see the extent of the changes. His legs were starting to shrink somewhat, changing a shape more fitting for a wolf then a man. His arms were starting to join them. He gasped in pain, as his spine seemed to lengthen.

“Timothy! You have a tail,” Tabitha said. Timothy turned his head as best as he could and saw that he now had a long busy gray tail. His center of gravity felt strange and he felt himself being forced onto all fours. His feet were changing and started to look much more like the hind feet of a wolf. His legs and arms length had changed such that moving on ‘all fours’ would be easily attainable. He decided to go with what his quickly changing center of gravity seemed to want and shifted to ‘all fours’.

Tabitha wasn’t far behind him. Since she weighed less then Timothy, her changes seemed to go quicker. She already had a well-developed snout and her eyes had changed from baby blue to the deep brown you’d associate with a wolf. With some difficulty she had managed to get her clothes off, seeing no point in keeping them on. Timothy looked at her chest. Instead of a pair of breasts, she now sported several rows of nipples. Her tail was starting to grow in and Timothy walked up to her and nuzzled her. He tried to speak, but only growing and howling type sounds came out. Tabitha seemed to be losing balance so Timothy motioned for her to stand on all fours. He nuzzled up to her legs and licked her arms to indicate to her that such a position would be far more comfortable. She complied and stood on all fours. Timothy walked up to her and sniffed her. His new powerful senses allowed him to take in her scent. He growled happily. As Tabithas final changes took place, she stood there in shock.

They could both hear a whimpering sound. Timothy looked at Tabitha and she looked at him. They both made sounds that were reminiscent of a growl, but much lighter. They weren’t sure how, but they could understand eachother. They could both smell another wolf. They both realized that it had to be Jim. Sure enough, on the table where he had landed, Jim was there in full wolf form. He was just starting to get up. Timothy and Tabitha jumped up on the table and Timothy licked Jim’s face. Jim seemed to recover and stood up, looking at Timothy. He jumped back and managed to whimper out something that roughly translated to

“Timothy, is that you?” Timothy nodded his head. Tabitha walked up to him and they confirmed that she was indeed Tabitha. Timothy growled out something that translated as

“something went very wrong. It seems were stuck like this”. They nodded their heads and agreed that they would have to find somewhere to stay, 3 wolves certainly couldn’t stay in the lab. And that is exactly what they did. There was a forest closely. They managed to get out of the lab and found their way to the forest, where for nearly a month they lived as wolves and managed to survive.

It was during the next full moon that something unexpected happened. It was very late that night and the 3 of them were resting in their den when they started feeling strange. Their fur starting to fall out and their tails receded into their bodies. Their muzzles shorted and their hips and legs changed shape, becoming a more human shape. In a matter of minutes, they all had become human again. They all shivered in the cool night air.

“What’s going on?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know” Timothy responded.

“Are we like this for good now?” Tabitha asked.

“I don’t know, but we have to find clothes” Timothy said.

“There’s a store not far from here,” Jim said. The three of them quickly made their way to the store. As expected, it was locked. But since it was almost midnight, it was to be expected.

“Were going to have to break in,” Timothy said.

“But that’s stealing,” Tabitha said.

“It’s either that or we freeze” Jim said.

“Agreed, we really don’t have a choice,” Timothy said. They walked around to the back of the store and managed to find an air vent. Timothy managed to get into the vent and crawled his way into the store. From there we was able to let Tabitha and Jim in.

“We’d better hurry, we don’t know how long it will be until someone catches us” Tabitha said. They quickly found underwear, shirts, pants, shoes and socks as well as coats. Within a matter of 5 minutes they were out of the store and running back towards the woods.

They spend the next few hours discussing what they should do.

“If were human again, then we should return to society” Tabitha said.

“Yes, but after living as a wild wolf for nearly a month, getting used to being human and living in a society again is going to be difficult” Jim said.

“I guess we don’t have a choice. But I think we should wait until morning.” Timothy said. Tabitha and Jim agreed.

A few hours later, the sun started to come up. The three got up; ready to make they’re way back to their human lives.

“I guess it’s time,” Timothy said. But then another unexpected thing happened. They all started to sprout fur.

“I think were changing back!” Tabitha said. And she was right. Their changes happened much faster, but were oddly much less painful then before. They barley had time to strip this time. Within less then a minute, they were all wolves again. They looked at eachother in shock, they all guesses that the full moon had something to do with it.

The next night the process repeated itself, and the night after that it did the same, until the full moon was gone until the next lunar cycle.

When the next full moon came, they didn’t become human till the second night of the full moon, and even then they were only human for a few hours. The next night a similar occurrence happened. Over the next several months the process would repeat each time they would spend less and less time as humans, until finally one day they no longer changed back. But somehow they didn’t care. They had come to enjoy their new forms and freedom; somehow the idea of going back to being human again was simply unappealing. They knew that in a sense they had lost something and had lost a part of themselves, but they had also gained much more. And later that year, what they had gained became much more obvious. Timothy and Tabitha had been close for some time. They had thought about marriage and having children together but had never really had the time. But now, without human constraints such as worrying about getting a job or paying bills they had the time and freedom to pursue what they really wanted in life. And they went though with it. Several months later, Tabitha gave birth to 6 adorable puppies, 3 boys and 3 girls. Raising them was one of the most amazing experiences of their lives. Their lives were now complete.