Experimental Trootment

“He’s coming around”

Those were the first words I heard as I woke up and opened my eyes. My vision was blurred, my body ached and I felt ill.

I looked around, taking a few moments to get my bearings. I was in a bed with blue sheets in a white room with a window. I was wearing a hospital gown and had an IV attached to my left hand. The décor of the room along with the IV and gown made it clear I was in a hospital. I had faded bruises on my arms and stitches on my lower right arm. There were three doctors looking at me with concern, one in front of the bed, and one on each side.

“Mr. Jones, can you hear and understand me?” came a voice from the left.

I turned to my left to see one of the doctors, a woman with blonde hair tied in a pony tail and dressed in traditional physician garb.

“Just Steve is fine and yes, I can understand you.” I answered.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

I wanted to tell her what the last thing I could remember but needed a minute to think about that. What was the last thing I could remember? I remembered being on vacation on Australia. I was driving in the outback when my truck experienced mechanical problems. I remembered stopping, but after that it’s a blank.

I tell the doctor what I can remember.

“That’s okay. We have a pretty good idea of what happened to you. A group of tourists found you unconscious by your truck. You looked like you had been attacked by an animal. They saw a kangaroo hopping away from you just before they found you. What matters is that you’re here and fine now. You’re in a hospital close to your home.” The doctor says.

A kangaroo attacked me? I don’t remember that happening. Maybe I blocked it out?

“I honestly don’t remember. How long ago was that? How badly was I hurt?”

“You had several bruises and a few cuts. You needed some stitches but luckily, nothing was broken. You’ve been unconscious since we found you a week ago, we aren’t sure why. We’ve done several tests and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of internal injuries or infection. The best we can tell is that you were simply sleeping.”

Sleeping? I’ve never heard of someone sleeping for a week for no apparent reason. That didn’t explain why I feel ill.

“Why do I feel achy?” I ask.

“We’re not sure, blood tests don’t show anything. It’s probably a resulting of not having eaten anything in a week. To be on the safe side, we have medication we’d like you to take for two weeks. It’s mostly a precaution in case the animal that attacked you infected you with something we cannot detect.” The doctor at the foot of my bed said to me.

“Are there any side effects I should worry about?” I ask.

“In some very rare instances there have been unusual side effects. The odds of them are one in a million though. We can discuss the exact details if you wish”

“No, it’s okay. If it’s one in a million then I won’t worry about it”

The doctor nodded and then handed me a prescription. He told me to call a number that would be listed on the medication if I experienced any symptoms such as unusual hair growth, my voice sounding strange or difficulty concentrating. I found that symptom list a bit strange but preferred not to know what would end up happening if I experienced such symptoms.

The doctors took a few more readings of my pulse and blood pressure before allowing me to shower. I was starting to feel better; my vision had cleared up and my stomach felt more stable, in fact I felt very hungry. Considering I hadn’t of eaten in a week, that was to be expected.

After showering, I got dressed (the hospital having provided clean jeans, a tee shirt, underwear, socks and sneakers) before eating a large meal of two eggs, six pieces of bacon, three slices of pepperoni pizza, coffee, orange juice, milk and a bowl of oatmeal.

Confident that I was okay, the doctors discharged me.

***

On the way home, I filled the prescription at the local drug store.

The pills were very strange looking. The capsule was blue with a green semi-liquid inside.

Before going to bed that night, I took one as the instructions called for.

I had a very strange dream as I slept.

It began with me waking up in the outback. I had no idea how I came to be there. When I picked myself up, I realized that I was naked. In the distance, a kangaroo hopped towards me. I wanted to run but legs wouldn’t co-operate.

Forced to stand there, I watched as she approached and stood before me. Her fur was orange and she was a little shorter then me. She looked me over before suddenly jumping up and kicking me in the stomach! The force of the kick sent me flying onto my back with a thud. As I lay there looking up at the sky, she hopped beside me to my right. My chest hurt like hell from the kick. She put her right foot on my belly and looked down at me.

I tried to say something but the words refused to leave my mouth.

“Join us Steve, you’re one of us.” she said in plain English.

“What do you mean one of us?” I desperately asked.

I suddenly felt a wave of dizziness before blacking out for a few seconds.

When I opened my eyes, I was still laying on the ground with the females right foot on my chest. Something was very wrong however. I wasn’t human anyone, I was a kangaroo!

The female quickly backed off as I stood up. I looked down to see a furry body with large feet and legs.

“What’s going on? What did you do to me?”

“You’re one of us Steve. Don’t deny what you truly are!” She said over and over until everywhere went hazy and I found myself awake in my bed.

I surveyed my body to make sure I was okay. Sure enough, I was still my human self.

I had slept through the entire night, so got up and took a shower before getting dressed in a bathrobe and going downstairs.

I took a pill before eating my breakfast of toast, bacon and eggs.

As I ate, I felt strange, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

For some reason the bacon and eggs simply weren’t appealing. I tried eating them but they tasted bland. The toast however was fantastic. I quickly found myself discarding the bacon and eggs and making three more pieces of toast.

As I finished the last piece of toast, my entire body felt itchy. I stood up, removing my bathrobe off. What I saw shocked me to say the least.

The color of my body hair was way off. It’s normal brown was now reddish brown. It was getting redder by the second and its texture was changing.

I didn’t have time to react before the hair thickened as new hair started growing. The new hair was coming in dark red color and it’s texture was much finer then hair, almost like fur. I quickly realized that my existing hair’s texture and color were changing to that of the new hair!

“What the heck is going on?” I asked out loud. I of course, didn’t really expect an answer.

I was pretty sure this qualified as unusual side effects and quickly ran towards the stairs to get the medication bottle in hopes of learning the number to call.

Unfortunately, before I could get to the stairs, my tailbone and legs started aching. I wasn’t five feet away from the bottom of my stairs before my legs gave out and I fell to the ground onto my right side. In retrospective, it was good that this happened before I started climbing the stairs.

By this point the hair or more accurately; fur growth was getting pretty extreme. Only a few patches of skin were left on my body, the rest of it now covered in dark red fur.

Laying on the ground, I felt a very strange sensation. Something was pressing against the back of my boxer shorts, something thick. I quickly realized that I could feel what was pressing against them. The feeling worsened until I heard a loud rip and felt whatever it was pushing through my boxers. When I felt this new extension of my body touch the floor, I was about to tilt my head to get a good look at it when the sides of my shorts were torn by my expanding legs.

I was so distracted that I didn’t notice my upper legs were now much thicker and stronger. I could feel muscles building as they expanded. I could also feel them getting longer. As if that weren’t enough, my waist started to expand, severely stressing my boxers.

I was finally able to turn my head enough to get a good look at what had penetrated the back of my boxers just as they ripped from my expanding thighs. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first but when I reached out and touched it, I knew it was real. I had a tail, a long red furred tail. I quickly recognized the tail, it was the tail of a kangaroo!

My legs were still expanding and by now looked little like human legs and more like the kangaroo legs they were becoming. My feet quickly joined in the changing as they started to grow. One each foot, my big toe merged with my index toe and my pinkie toe merged with my ring toe. It was quite a sight to witness a five toed foot become a three digit foot. Both feet were getting longer by the second, stopping at 50% longer then their normal length. From each of the now three digits on them, a long black claw grew.

With my right hand, I took off what was left of my boxers, if this was going to go all of the way, I wouldn’t be needing them.

I gently stroked my new kangaroo legs and feet. The sensation of being touched brought home that the appendages were mine. Perhaps the fact that they were more or less modifications of my existing legs and feet didn’t make the magnitude of what was happening to me register. When I ran my hands down my tail, a brand new appendage, the realization hit me, I really was becoming an animal. I wasn’t simply getting harrier or getting stronger legs, I was changing into a whole new species!

Fear unlike anything I had ever experienced quickly overtook me.

I tried to stand up, hoping to run and get help. I did manage to stand but fell flat on my face when I tried to run. I quickly realized these legs were built for hopping, not running. I wanted to hop but the ceiling was too low and I didn’t want to smash my head.

The changes had stopped with my legs, feet and tail. From the waist down I was a kangaroo with fur elsewhere. I thought that was going to be it, I was wrong.

The changes resumed, spreading to my arms and torso. My arms lost much of their strength as they shrunk to about two thirds of their length. My insides hurt like hell as they were rearranged into a form more befitting of a kangaroo. My ribcage changed shape as my hands were converted into five digit paws with claws. My posture changed as I slouched forward.

I was beyond panic at this point, I definitely did not want to be a kangaroo! Before me, my life was slipping away. All of my hopes and dreams were being vanquished. The life of a kangaroo was not the life I wanted. I had plans for my future and they didn’t include being turned into a kangaroo. I looked down at what was now a kangaroo body from the neck down, tears in my eyes. Why was I being forced to be something I didn’t want to be? Why was my humanity being torn from me? I begged the changes to stop, this wasn’t what I was supposed to be!

Unfortunately, my body had other ideas. The changes spread to my face and it hurt like hell! I closed my eyes from the pain and could feel my skull reshaping. I felt an enormous pressure behind my jaw and nose as they grew out into a kangaroo snout. I felt my human hair falling out as my ears moved to the top of my head, becoming huge and pointed.

As the pain subsided, I opened my eyes. The changes seemed done, but I had to get to a mirror to be sure.

I managed to walk to the bathroom (where I had a full length mirror) in a five footed motion, using my tail like a fifth limb. When I faced the mirror, I saw a dark red furred male kangaroo standing before me. That kangaroo was me!

I simply stood there touching my fur, tail and new legs for several minutes. Damn, this body felt strange. It didn’t really feel like my body. It felt like I had been transported into the body of someone that wasn’t me. I felt a sense of futility. Something about the way I felt told me that this was permanent, I would never be human again. I didn’t want to accept this, I wanted to fight it. A natural born kangaroo should be the one to live a kangaroo’s life, not a human! But, I had to accept that I wasn’t human anymore and was going to have to get used to being like this.

I reached what was now my right paw and touched my face, or more so my snout. It felt bizarre not only touching it but also having a snout being touched. Dammit, what the heck was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t just go to work as kangaroo on Monday! With today being Saturday, I still had a couple of days to do something about this. The question was, what am I going to do about it? I wondered if I could still speak and tried to say my name.

The sound that emanated from my snout was a peculiar combination of a grunt and clicking like sound.

Okay, so I couldn’t speak, that ruled out that way of communicating. Damn why does everything have to be so hard?

There was also another issue that was rather embarrassing; I wasn’t wearing any clothes! I couldn’t just go hopping around naked! Or could I? If any humans saw me like this, they wouldn’t see it as abnormal; it’s not like kangaroos we wear clothes in the first place.

Clothes, what was I thinking? I’m a kangaroo, why would I need to wear silly human clothes? And what am I doing in a human house anyway, I should be out there doing what I feel like doing, hopping!

Suddenly realizing what I was doing, I got very nervous. For a minute there, I was thinking of myself as a kangaroo, not as a human that simply currently resides in the body of one! This wasn’t good; I had only been a roo for a few minutes and it was as my brain was already adapting to it. Come on brain, don’t convert to a kangaroo brain! It’s bad enough that I’m forced to live in an animal body, now I’ve got to think like one?

Feeling upset and scared, I slowly walked out of the bathroom, trying to figure out what to do.

I felt something inside of me, a strange desire to do something. When I arrived at the front door, I opened it, taking in the warm summer air and wonderful scents of the outdoors. I heard birds chirping and squirrels chittering.

What the heck!

I walked outside, closing the door behind me. I stand there in the sun, damn it felt nice against my fur. Reaching down, I petted my legs with my paws.

I don’t know what it was but stepping outside triggered something in my mind. The air felt so nice against my fur and the sun so warm. My feelings of upset and remorse over the loss of my human form were already fading away as I thought the first thoughts that were more kangaroo then human.

I want to try these out, I am a kangaroo after all, it’s time to do some hopping!

I wanted to resist, to try to retain my human mentality but the air just felt so good. It seemed that my inhibitions were gone as any desire to resist simply wasn’t there.

I looked around, trying to make sure no one was watching. I saw several humans milling about and could hear them all saying something. They had spotted me and I could hear them talking amounts themselves, trying to figure out just what a kangaroo was doing standing on my patio.

Bah, silly humans! Let them worry about that! I want to hop!

I slowly walked onto the front lawn, the grass felt funny against my feet, tickling them. I decided to hop to the park a few kilometers away, there is plenty of space there to do some real hopping. Time to see what this body can do!

Taking a deep breath, I make my first hop, covering several meters!

That was freaking awesome! I want to try it again!

And that was exactly what I did, I took several more hops down the sidewalk heading north. I ended up several houses away from mine!

Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. It did feel pretty cool hopping. I certainly wasn’t going to have to go to work like this on Monday, in fact I wouldn’t have to go to work ever again! Without wearing clothes, I wouldn’t have to worry about the laundry or keeping up with the latest styles anymore. Heck, I doubt I’ll have to worry much about human stuff at all anymore. Looking back, I realized the amazing distance I had covered in a few short seconds.

Damn, I can cover amazing distance like this! Time to go for a walk, kangaroo style!

There was a walk I enjoyed going on, at normal human walking speed, it normally took two hours. I wanted to see what kind time I could make as kangaroo.

I was already starting to think more like a kangaroo. Well, not exactly like a kangaroo, perhaps more like a very intelligent kangaroo. I should have been scared and worried someone was going to see me. I should have been bothered by my unclothed state. Oddly, not wearing clothes was starting to feel normal. After all, humans wear clothes, kangaroos do not, I’m as kangaroo not a human, why would I wear clothes?

Taking a deep breath, I started hopping in the direction of the path I walked on.

Each bound felt incredible, every contact of my feet against the ground made me want more. The feeling of the air and sun against my fur, the smells of the grass, flowers, trees and animals in peoples yards and eventually, the scents of the animals in the forest the path crosses though. The feeling I experienced was an intense euphoria.

With every hop, I thought of myself less and less like a human in a kangaroos body and more like a natural kangaroo. Not only did I make incredible time, but I felt amazing. Human worries were melting away, human inhibitions were all but gone. My unclothed state was no longer in question, it felt right being like this! I was no longer worried about what I was going to do about work, having a job was a human concern. Dammit, why couldn’t this have happened sooner? If I knew it felt this good, I would have volunteered for this to happen.

***

I arrived back home in only 30 minutes. When I did so, I saw several people milling about around my house. When I stopped in front of them, they pointed to me.

“It’s a kangaroo! What’s he doing here?” a little girl asked.

Of course I’m a kangaroo! What else would I be? As for why I’m here, well, I just finished a walk and am back home!

Well, my human home anyway, somehow human quarters didn’t seem fitting for a kangaroo. I wondered where I was going to live now.

I had my answer when I saw a van drive up on the street beside me. Two humans dressed in zoo uniforms got out, both holding weird looking rifles.

The first one, a tall man with dark skin walked up to me. I felt a bit nervous, knowing they were here to take me away.

“Don’t worry big guy, were going to bring you somewhere where there are others kangaroos and where you can hop, play and lay around relaxing all day.”

That sounded like fun! Even a short while like this was great, somehow the idea of a lifetime wasn’t exactly offensive!

I nodded my head to say yes, this was what I wanted.

They led me into the van and injected me with something, telling me it would make me sleep for the trip. I quickly lost consciousness.

***

When I came to, I was in a very large pen. There were several others kangaroos around, including several females. I slowly stood up and looked around. Yes, I was still a kangaroo, my experience was real and not simply a wonderful dream.

I was in a zoo in a very large habitat for others of my kind.

In a way, I felt sad for what I had lost. My human existence was finished, but a new existence lay before me.

When I realized that while I was no longer human, I wouldn’t have to worry about human responsibilities anymore. From now on, I could simply live and enjoy being alive and life’s simpler pleasures.

A smile crossed my snout when I realized I was finally home.