The Roommate

Having had enough of Darrel’s sloppyness and Darrel having ignored him yet again, Steve walked over to his bed. Pulling out the ancient text from the small chest beside his bed, he looked for an appropirate spell. He was skeptical that any of these spells would actually work, but was getting desperate. Turning though the dusty pages, he found a spell that seemed appropriate. After nearly an hour of reading though of reading through some very intruging, but not quite fitting spells, he was on the verge of giving up when he finally found one that looked promicing.

“Match the form to fit the habits” . He wasent sure eactly what this would do to Darrel, but he assumed it would teach him a lesson and maybe embarss him a bit at most. Looking at the words of the spell, he started to chant it.

Darrel sat at one of the rooms 2 computers playing a game when it started. At first he thought he was just imaging things. Reaching his hand over to his back, he scratched at the area that was itching. His hand touched what felt a lot of like fur. Ignoring it, he continued to play his game. Feeling a wave of dizzyness and nausea, he ran to the bathroom thinking he was going to be sick. Fortunatly for him, by the time he got there it had passed. Pouring a glass of water,he noticed something odd about his reflection. There appeard to be a small white stripe going down his forehead. He reached up and touched it. It felt soft.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked himself. Now feeling even more itching on back, he removed his shirt. Turning his back to the mirrior, he saw that his back now had a fine coating of fur on it. It was black, with a white stripe going down the middle. He reached a hand over to touch it. It was indeed real, he really was growing fur on his back. And the pattern of it looked much like that of a skunk. Franticlly, he grabbed his electric razor, and as best as he could, he tried to shave the fur off. The fur ‘came’ off, but as soon as he got rid of it, it quickly grew back!

“What the hell!” he said loudly. Suddenly feeling a warmth in his chest, he turned arround. The fur growth had spread. On his sides, he could see black fur growing, which turned white on his chest. Too terrified to watch, he put his shirt back on.

Steve finished chanting the spell. The text said that it will have begun by now, and that it would take a couple of hours to finish. There was some find print under the paragraph, but he chose to ignore it and closed the book. He walked out of the room and into the main room where Darrel was now sitting, watching TV.

“Everything alight? You look upset” he asked, sounding sinsere.

“I’m fine, I’m going to take a walk”. Darrel responded, thinking that if he went for a walk, maybe it would help with whatever was happening to him. He still held out hope that it was all his imagination and that taking a walk would fix everything. As Darrel exitied the room, Steve guessed that the spell was working, and that was what was wrong.

As Darrel walked the trail, he could feel the fur growing under his shirt, and he was starting to feel it spreading to his legs and arms.

“This is crazy” he thought to himself. He looked at his arms, and to his further horror, he saw black fur spreading from his chest to them. The fur growth quickly spread down of his arms. He was glad that no one else was on this trail. He decided to stop for a rest to watch the fur grow on his arms. It was mostly black, becooming white at his wrists. It looked like he was wearing gloves. Making sure no one was looking, he took off his shirt and pants. His entire chest was covered in a pelt of thick and very soft fur. Touching it felt nice. His legs wern’t doing much better. While the fur wasent yet as thick on them, it was coming in fast. It was black, except for on his inner thighs and below his ankles, where it was white. Putting his shirt and pants back on, he decided to go back. Maybe Steve could figure out what was going on, or maybe he was somehow responsible. As he ran back, he started feeling a pushing sensation in the seat of his pants.

Steve had been watching TV for about 60 minutes since Darrel left.

“It’s been about 90 minutes since it started, I hope he’s okay as whatever’s supossed to happen is supposed to finish in the next 30”. As he finished that thought, he saw a paniced looking Darrel burst through the front door. Just as he closed the door, the back of his pants ripped, and a long, bushy black tail with a white stripe down the the middile of it pushed it’s way from just over Darrel’s rear end.

“What’s happening to me?” Darrel asked, the terror in his force very clear. Steve was afraid to tell him the truth so simply answerd that he didn’t know. Taking off his shirt and jeans, Darrel said

“Look at me! I’m a freak”. Lifting his hands up for Steve to see, he could see that Darrel’s hands had become 4 fingered, almost like a cartoon characters. Kicking his shoes off, Darell saw that his feet had been changed as well. Instead of 5 toes, he know only had 3, and his feet had changed shape so 3 toes would be normal. Tears rolled down Darrel’s face and he started to beg Steve to do something.

“I don’t know what do to!”. Suddenly reaching his paws up to his face, Darrel said

“No! Not my face!”. Steve watched in horror as Darrel’s face pushed out into a short muzzle, as Darrel opened his mouth Steve saw that his teeth had changed, and become much sharper. Fur grew all over Darrel’s face, and his ears moved up his head slightly and became more rounded. Running into the Bathroom, Darrel looked at his reflection. He looked just like a humanoid skunk.

Walking back into the room, Darrel Picked up his clothes and put them back on.

“What am I supossed to do now?” he asked. Steve looked at the time and saw that the spell still had a few minutes left.

“I don’t know. Um Darrel?” Steve said.

“Now what’s going on?” Darrel said, suddenly feeling light headed. From Darrels point of view everything seemed to be getting bigger, including his clothes.

“Um Steve?” Darrel asked, his voice sounding higher pitched them normal. Steve could only watch as Darrel quickly shrunk. Finally stopping, his head was sticking out of his shirt, which was now big enough to cover his entire body. Looking at Darrel, Steve said

“I hate to admit this Darrel, but you certainly look cute like that”. It had been 2 hours and the spell was finished. It had turned Darrel into a 5 year old skunk kid.

Darrel ran up and starting hitting Steve with his much smaller fists.

“You’re a meanie! You did this to me!”

Darrel was really to small to do anything to Steve, and he gently pushed Darrel’s paws away.

“I did it so you’d be a better roommate, lil’guy. Kids can get away with messy rooms, right?”

Darrel sniffed.

“But I don’t wanna be little!”

Steve prepared himself, knowing that the last part of the spell, the mental part was going to start soon. He tried to console Darrel while waiting for the spell to work.

“Hey little guy, it’s OK.” He sat down at patted his lap. Darrel obliged and sat down.

Steve couldn’t help cuddling the little fur ball once he was in his lap. Darrel shivered but didn’t try to stop it. In fact, though Steve didn’t notice at first, Darrel was actually purring, or the skunk equivalent of it. Both of them were quite content; it was something of an idyllic scene, until there was a loud noise behind them. They turned around quickly and Steve saw a shimmering figure. It might have been a skunk, but he couldn’t tell.

He stared at it, and though no one heard anything, he was made to understand that his spell had upset a delicate balance. Darrel had to be changed into a complete skunk to

“fix” things. Even though this was obviously a creature of magic, Steve found himself defend his roommate. Granted he was sloppy and messy, but he was also really nice, from time to time, he had gotten Steve out of a couple monetary fixes…and it didn’t seem right to make him into a skunk and leave him to fend for himself.

If it’s possible for a shimmering ghost to smile, this one did. It seemed Steve had passed a test, had proved himself worthy to use more magic in the future. For now, though, there was a cost. With that she disappeared.

Darrel looked at Steve.

“What’s happenin’?”

Steve looked down.

“What do you mean?”

Darrel giggled.

“Go look at yourself!”

Steve ran to the mirror and saw what was happening. His nose had turned black and was pushing out into a muzzle., his ears were already sitting at the top of his head, at some point they had gotten a lot smaller and furrier, but he could actually hear better now. He pulls his shirt off and watched black fur run down his chest and arms. His pants dropped off as he slimed out, quickly covered completely in fur. Only his underwear managed to stay on and that started to bulk up quickly, until a huge fluffy tail burst through it. As this happened Steve found himself giggling as an idea formed in his head.

He took a quick run at Darrel and tackled him to the floor.

“Gotcha!”

The both found themselves giggle at their antics, till suddenly they realized they weren’t in their room anymore. They were lying on the grass in the back yard of a big old-fashioned two story house. In the back door, and pleasant looking skunk lady wearing a floury apron was watching them happily. She smiles as they continued their wrestling match.

“Seems like a price you were willing to pay, my little kit…”