Seth followed his two friends into the darkening woods. The cold February air bit at his face, as he tried to hide the rest of his body in his thick jacket.
Despite being late winter, the looming shadows of the pine trees gave a Halloween, horror movie vibe to the world around them.
Made sense, considering what they were about to do was monstrous.
"Gosh, did we really have to do this in February Skyler?" Wyatt asked, shoving his hands firmly into his coat. "Couldn't we have waited until everything thawed?"
"Oh it'll be alright," Skylar said. "We're gonna be warming up soon. Besides, it's my birthday, and it seemed like a fun way to celebrate."
"Well let's get going with this," Seth said. "My balls are freezing off."
Their boots crunched against the frosted dead leaves of the forest floor, and eventually, they came to their usual hangout spot in the forest.
It looked really eerie, looking nothing like it did in the Summer. The firepit had a trace amount of snow covering it. Anything that wasn't covered in snow was covered in dead leaves.
"Well," Wyatt said sarcastically, "I don't know about you, but this seems like a great way to celebrate a birthday."
"Well if you were to just give me access to your bank account," Skylar said, "I'd happily change my mind and we could go play basketball on the Moon instead."
"C'mon you two," Seth shivered, "Let's get this started so that we can hopefully start warming up."
"Agreed," Skylar said with a devious grin.
They all dug in their pockets, pulling out similar looking dark colored bottles, with a discernable liquid inside.
"Well," Skylar said, "bottoms up."
He went to unscrew the cap, but anticlimactically, they all had a hard time doing so, with their freezing fingers and all. It was also hard cause' the light was dim, and it was hard to see how to undo the protective cap.
"Got it," Wyatt said.
They got their caps off, and hesitated a moment.
This is safe, Seth reassured himself. We did our research. Everything will be alright.
He downed the contents of the bottle, and very nearly spit it back up.
"Augh!" he grunted, sticking his tongue out in disgust.
Wyatt made a similar reaction. Skylar tried to hide his own sickening feeling to look tougher, but it was still very apparent.
"I wonder if they have a different flavor depending on what you picked," Wyatt said.
"Maybe I should've chosen to become a sentient cheesecake," Seth said. The mere action of talking was making him feel sick.
Even though the logs around the firepit didn't look dry at all, Seth and his friends felt compelled by their bodies to sit down.
Wyatt groaned, and clutched his stomach. "I thought fun things you weren't supposed to have made you feel good first, and then bad later."
Skylar was about to crack some joke, and then suddenly looked really naseous.
"Don't puke on us now," Seth struggled to smile.
Skylar looked like he got close a couple of times, but never blew chunks.
After several minutes, Seth thankfully felt the nausea subside.
"Okay," Skylar admitted it, "that was awful. But I hear the first time is the worst."
"I sure hope so," Wyatt said. "If we ever plan on doing this again... I'm gonna have to say no if it's that bad."
"It won't be," Skylar said with confidence.
"So," Seth asked Wyatt, "you feel like a furry yet?"
Wyatt laughed. "Yet? You're asking the wrong guy. You guys however..."
"Hey," Skylar said, "Seth and I are gonna be awesome wolves. You're just gonna be... like some family pet or something."
Wyatt shrugged. "I like golden retrievers. A lot of other furries are into them right now."
"You wasted your two hundred bucks," Skylar huffed.
"Well," Wyatt said, "I feel like I got what I wanted. I've always wanted to see what it'd be like to be a dog. You guys however -"
"Ow!" Skylar said, reaching up to his nose. "The stupid thing is like, cracking and shifting."
"It looks like it's also turning upward," Wyatt said, looking closely at Skylar's nose. "It's turning darker as well."
"Feeling anything Seth?" Wyatt turned to him.
Seth shook his head.
"Me neither."
"You're panting like a dog Wy," Seth pointed out.
Wyatt was sticking his tongue out, and it appeared to have grown longer.
"Huh," Wyatt said, pulling it back in for a moment to talk. He then let it roll out again.
"This is really weird," Seth said. "Not sure how I'm feeling about this anymore."
"Hey Seth," Skylar said, "think of it this way. We're following a time honored tradition. Our great grandpas would be going out like we are and getting drunk, my grandpa would go out and smoke weed... this is just our time to act like stupid teenagers, and then be boring and responsible later on."
"I guess," Seth said.
He looked back at Wyatt. He was unabashedly licking his nose, which was now a dark snout like Skylar's. Seth also noticed that Wyatt's ears seemed to be getting bigger and moving up the sides of his head.
"Nothing's happening with you huh?" Skylar asked, his own ears becoming larger and pointier.
"No," Seth said.
"Maybe you got a dud," Wyatt shrugged. "That sucks man. Hopefully you can at least get a refund."
"I dunno," Seth said. "Maybe I dodged a bullet."
"Silver bullet," Wyatt said with a smirk, looking at Skylar.
Skylar rolled his eyes. They both looked like they were growing visible fur now.
"I don't get how some people can do this all the time," Seth said. "It... it just feels a little unnatural."
"There are a lot of people who use gene juice," Wyatt said. "And then there are people who want to give up on life, but rather than suicide, they choose to give themselves to nature."
"'Give themselves to nature,'" Skylar smirked. "Yeah. You've heard about how bad that throws ecosystems out of whack right? There's some places where a bunch of people just became wolves, and because they wanted to 'give themselves to nature,' gave up on their human intelligence, and just ate all the prey in the area. Now the government has to do all these programs to feed these animals, and it's hard to tell which ones are humans and which aren't."
"Would you rather they committed suicide?" Wyatt said with a bit of a bark in his voice.
"I'd rather they lived happy human lives," Skylar said. "I think they should restrict access to gene juice that causes a permanent change."
"Knowing the government," Seth said, "it'll be 2150 before they get a bill passed."
"Then let's just ship em' off to Mars," Skylar said. "They can mess up that frozen wasteland all they want."
Wyatt suddenly fell down on his hands and knees. Seth saw that his hands had become more pawlike.
"Maybe," Wyatt said, quivering a bit, "it's good that Seth isn't changing. Can you help me out of my clothes man?"
Seth grimaced, and helped his friend pull off his jacket and shirt. Sure enough, it was all covered in golden fur. Tentatively, Seth began pulling down Wyatt's pants and underwear. Thankfully it was covered up with fur too.
Wyatt suddenly tensed up, and Seth saw his spine begin lengthening into a tail. It looked very unnatural.
Seth went over to where Skylar was, and saw that Skylar was also on the ground. Grey fur covered his face, and what were now his forelegs.
After helping him out of his clothes, he turned to see that the final stages of Wyatt's transformation were taking place. It was kind of unsettling to watch the changes occur, especially in Wyatt's strained expression.
As Wyatt's legs became hind legs though, a few moments passed, and he breathed in and out, panting slowly.
Even though Seth had seen videos of it before, it was still really strange. His friend that he'd known since elementary school was now a dog.
It seemed that Wyatt was no longer in pain, and now panted enthusiastically, wagging his tail with vigor.
"How do you feel Wy?" Seth asked.
"Arf!"
"Oh that's right," Seth said, "you didn't get one that let you keep your voice."
The dog nodded.
A bit hesitantly, Seth walked up to Wyatt the dog, and scratched him behind the ears. Wyatt seemed to enjoy it, and tried to lick Seth's face.
"Eww man," Seth laughed, "cut it out."
Wyatt looked like he was saying with his expression, "what can I say man, I'm a dog."
Seth heard growling behind him, and turned around to see Skylar, now a fully changed wolf. Seth wore an unimpressed look.
"You can't do that very well," Seth said.
"It's that I kept my voice," Skylar sighed. "Should've gone the full way. Well, almost the full way."
"You didn't even get the one that gave you wolf instincts did you?" Seth asked.
"No," Skylar said. "I... I'll admit, I was a bit scared."
Skylar looked with his wolf head over at Wyatt, seeing his dumb, happy smile.
Seth looked between his two canine friends. They seemed like they were no longer in pain, and had gone through the transformation all right.
"Hey guys," Seth said, "I'm not gonna lie - it's really cold out here. I think I'm gonna go back home."
"That sucks," Skylar said, licking his nose, "but I guess. We'll just mess around for a few hours, than come back and sleep at your place like we planned."
"Alright," Seth agreed. "Just make sure rover here doesn't wander off and get caught without a collar."
Wyatt looked at him derisively, which was a weird expression to see on a dog.
"Don't worry," Skylar said, "I'll take care of him. Oh, and Seth?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you take our clothes back so they're ready for us?"
"Yeah," Seth smiled, "but don't fall asleep out here in the woods. Wouldn't want you to wake up in the freezing cold naked."
"Augh, no," Skylar said, "definitely not."
Wyatt looked like he was experimenting walking around with his new body, with... interesting results.
"Well," Seth said, "have fun guys."
"Don't get eaten by a shadow monster walking back through the woods," Skylar laughed.
"Shut up man," Seth laughed in return.
As he walked away from his friends though, his thoughts soured. That was not nearly as fun as he thought'd be. Turns out reality makes things a tad more weird than seeing it in a video.
Plus, Seth was a little nervous that he hadn't changed. Something was off. He was going to have to find out what was going on somehow.
Slowly but surely, he made his way out of the darkness of the woods, and saw the light of his house up ahead.
After tonight, he couldn't wait to put this gene juice crap out of his mind for good.