BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The harsh sound of my phone’s morning alarm blared in my ears, forcing my eyes to open sluggishly while my fingers searched out the source of the noise and promptly turned it off. Sunlight was filtering through the mesh front of my tent, making waking up a little bit easier as I sat up and groaned. It would have been a relaxing moment was it not for the immediate sense of vertigo I was hit by. Why the hell was everything around me so big?

“What the fu-” I managed to say before the entirely foreign voice coming out of my mouth shut me up with shock. The words I’d just uttered were several degrees higher in pitch than what my normal voice could pull off, and it was just so… feminine. That’s not to say it was melodious and outright beautiful either, as it was somewhat shrill, not to mention just a little bit husky especially when my vocal cords dared to form consonants.

Had I suddenly become seriously ill, right in the middle of a camping trip? I did feel just off enough for that to be possible, but a glance downward confirmed something entirely different.

As soon as my eyes caught sight of my body, the first thing I noticed was that I was outright swimming in my clothes. Either those bastards had somehow become larger, or I’d shrunk down massively, but I was heavily leaning toward the latter option. “Okay, what the hell is going on here?” I muttered and ignored the new voice just so I could lift up my extremely oversized shirt to check underneath it. That very same new voice got instantly stuck in my throat the second I saw the breasts that now adorned my chest. On top of that, my skin possessed a swampy-green color now, though at least its physical feel was soft and not slimy as the color could suggest.

My mind tingled with a confusing mix of delight and alarm as I slipped off the shirt entirely to get a better, unobstructed look. Sure enough, perky breasts sat right there, perfectly fitting my evidently shrunken size. I guess they were actually on the smaller side of the spectrum even if I was back at my normal height, but I could still feel some weight there. “Actual tits…?” I whispered to myself, cupping them both into hands that were appropriately small, though I was quick to notice that my nails were much darker than before, and they even seemed just a tad claw-like.

“I’m not human anymore, am I?” I surmised before I kicked away my pants as well, my underwear going along with them.

“Holy fuck!” I gasped as my naked crotch revealed the presence of a vagina, and I couldn’t help but let out a squeal of happiness. Never had bringing my thighs together felt that good, and so I broke out into a fit of giggles. I didn’t even care about the green skin or the claws or whatever else now, but I knew all of that had to be investigated. Still, I spent a moment just running a hand over my abdomen and the light sprinkling of dark pubic hair that adorned my crotch, even slipping a finger along the lips of my brand new vulva. “Fucking hell, man. Am I tripping?” I grinned, but that need to look into the situation overrode my desire to test out the lovely equipment between my legs.

And so I gave my body one more good look over. Freckles that weren’t there before dotted my shoulders and upper chest, and my overall body shape was an interesting mix of thin and kind of gaunt, but undeniably feminine. The hips made sure of that last part, as well as the fact that my body had a clear hourglass-ish shape in spite of the relative lack of body fat. “I mean, I can’t complain too much,” I noted to myself with a shrug, but I still had to check out my face and head. Long, dark hair fell down along my back and shoulders, I’d already seen it when I’d fumbled to remove my clothing, so I disregarded it for now as I picked up my phone. The thing was a bit more clunky to use than usual thanks to my shortened digits, but I managed well enough to navigate to the camera app and open up the selfie mode to use as a mirror.

My new face was plastered on the screen unceremoniously, and a large pair of brown eyes stared back at me from the screen. I still couldn’t help but snort as I realized what I’d turned into. “A goblin,” I stifled laughter. “I’m a fucking goblin!”

I promptly allowed myself to flop down onto my back as I continued to take in my appearance with a smirk on my face. Dark green freckles continued their invasion of my skin there, particularly along the bridge of my small nose and underneath my eyes. The now-familiar dark hair was there too, ending up at my lower back in all its unkempt, scraggly glory.

Most noticeable, however, were my ears. The damn things were fucking massive now, twitching with curiosity on the sides of my head. It looked like they were naturally kind of droopy, and they had pointed ends. Honestly, they were pretty damn cute, but I just knew they were gonna get in the way. “Hi there, hot stuff. Wanna raid a village together sometime?” I winked at myself and laughed some more before getting up to assess the situation again, this time with knowledge of what I looked like. But why had this happened in the first place, and what had caused it?

Carefully, I peeked out of the tent to make sure I was indeed alone before I dared to step outside. The forest around me was as dense as it was yesterday, with huge pines dominating the landscape around me. The weather was good though, not too sunny but not too cloudy either. Just perfect for a trek back to my car, since I wasn’t super jazzed about spending time alone in the deep woods as a tiny goblin. “What am I, three feet tall? Figures,” I said and dipped into the tent to try and put on some clothes. As expected, however, every single article of clothing I’d packed was now far too big, and so I had to subject them to the pointy end of my survival knife.

Cutting the clothes into something even remotely usable took a while, and in the end I had something an actual seamstress would have gladly kicked my ass over. The new – hopefully temporary – wardrobe consisted of makeshift panties and pants that had been eviscerated into a smaller size and then kept on me with the ever-helpful drawstring. The look was finalized by a cut-up shirt that was still too big, but not as big as it was before, so that was a win in my book. I could also easily use some of all this extra fabric as a cloak of sorts if need be, but I had to make do without a bra. Could I even find one if I tried?

I breathed an annoyed sigh. “Christ, I look like a miniature feral crackhead.”

Such was the fate of goblins, I supposed, as I then began to pack up all of my belongings, tent included. It took another annoyingly long while with such short arms and legs. I’d been here in the woods for almost a week now, and I hadn’t looked forward to this particular task even once, short arms or no.

Before I began the trek back to my car, I checked my phone. Of course there was no reception here in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t receive or send messages, and so I was left to my own devices for now. Had something like this happened to others as well, possibly? I couldn’t be the only one, and if I was, I was gonna have a hell of a time when I’d make it back to civilization.

With my trusty satellite GPS in hand, I put one foot in front of the next, with nothing but too-large socks to protect my feet. This was going to be a bitch of a walk.

– – – –

I was right.

My feet ached like hell, the socks stained in dirt with pine needles sticking to them all over. That’s not to even mention the mess that my back had become. I had to take several breaks during the trek, and I even resorted to pushing my large backpack along more than a few times, as if the thing was Sisyphus’ infamous boulder.

“Gah!” I exhaled and pushed the backpack to the car, reaching it at last. The sight was incredible to my tired body, and I quickly unlocked it before hauling my stuff into the trunk. “Won’t miss carrying you,” I sneered at the backpack and closed the trunk with a hop. The sun was pretty close to setting already, and another look at my phone confirmed that I didn’t have service here either, as I was still pretty deep in the woods with no people nearby for dozens of miles. “Should I even try to drive this late?” I mused to myself, but I did hop onto the driver’s seat for a moment’s rest. However, when I did so, something became terrifyingly clear to me. My feet couldn’t fucking reach the pedals! I was too short now!

The blood in my veins felt like it froze in that moment as my eyes went wide. “No no no no!” I desperately tried to reach down, but no matter how much I shook my feet and strained my poor calves, I literally came up short every single time. I could grab onto the steering wheel easily enough, but even then I would have needed something to prop myself up with if I wanted to see the road. “Fuck!” I cursed loudly as I grit my now much sharper teeth.

I didn’t even want to think about my other options. They would have been nigh impossible to execute on top of everything else, as there was no way I could have trekked god knows how many miles to the nearest town. Not with these damn goblin legs.

It turned out that this body came with drawbacks.

I almost gave in to the urge of gnawing on the steering wheel out of sheer frustration, but I held myself back thanks to how tired I was. “Just… think about it in the morning,” I muttered, rubbing my face. “I’m not gonna let myself die in the woods, for fuck’s sake.”

Fueled by both sleepiness and irritation, I retrieved my sleeping bag from the trunk and settled pretty comfortably onto the backseat of the car in a warm bundle. Sleep took me before the sun had the chance to set fully, and I remained in my little nest, sleeping, until the sun peeked from the horizon to wake me up in the morning.

Upon rousing from my sleep, I slowly withdrew from my soft mound of a bed only to remember what I was going to have to do today. Shit. Guess it was my fault that I wanted to go out here in the first place, away from modern conveniences to recharge my inner batteries a little. My ‘modern life detox’ had come to deliver its consequences.

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It would have been a massive waste to just leave the car here, even if I could come back for it later. It made for a safe shelter, and I still had enough gas in the tank to drive a good distance if I needed to. And of course I didn’t want to haul all of my stuff; it was probably the biggest reason in the back of my mind. The question then was: how could I drive a car while being the size of a small child?

What followed was several moments of going through my belongings in search of any solutions. “Time to MacGyver this shit, I guess,” I said under my breath as I picked up a folded-up camping chair. Its frame was sturdy, which gave me a hint of an idea, and so I placed two of the chair’s legs against the car’s pedals. Thankfully I had a roll of duct tape in my bag, so I used that to tape the legs onto those same pedals a little more securely. “Jank as hell,” was my comment as I then tested the idea, pressing down against the frame that now acted as an extension for the pedals. It took more strength than I would have liked, but the damn things actually moved after a moment of experimenting with which spot to push for maximum effect.

“Yes!” I pumped my fist in the air triumphantly. The car was an automatic one to boot, so I didn’t need to worry about having to fiddle with a gear stick, and so I took a second to thank my past self for not going for a car with manual transmission. Thank you, past me.

From there, it was easy enough to haul my backpack onto the front seat for me to sit on top of. Now I could see the road, and while the act of driving had me leaning forward uncomfortably, it was something I could deal with. After putting away all of my stuff for the second time, I enjoyed a small meal of yesterday’s leftovers before getting on the road, having the car roll along the lonely dirt road with way more effort than it should have taken.

A lack of traffic was a definite boon, as that gave me one less thing to stress about. And besides, how would people react to seeing a goblin anyway? Would I have to be stealthy, like the diminutive greenskins in many fantasy settings? The idea sounded simultaneously fun and annoying in almost equal measure, but the annoyance won out in the end.

I turned onto a paved road at last, after about twenty minutes. The weather was much the same as it was yesterday, calm and just sunny enough for it to be pleasant. It made sense for there to be no traffic here especially this early in the day, so I could drive on at my own pace, which I definitely needed.

Forest surrounded the road on both sides as I mused to myself in my thoughts. How were my family and friends doing? Maybe I could ask them about what’s going on when I could finally get a signal. Being alone with all these questions wasn’t fun, but I hoped I’d get answers for them soon.

“Mom’s gonna freak the hell out,” I sighed and briefly rubbed the bridge of my nose before I put on an exaggerated, mocking voice as I imitated my mother’s nasally tone. “Oh my god, why are you an ugly little gremlin? Are those breasts?” After an exasperated head shake, I scoffed as I took another turn onto what was supposed to be a halfway-major road. The lack of traffic here was a bit odd for starters, but the time of day could have possibly explained it if there weren’t other, much more worrying possibilities. “Have other people transformed too? Probably,” I muttered in thought. If I really was the only person who’d faced this weird fate, I’d be ready to fight the universe itself for payback. Not that this situation didn’t come with boons, but it would still be kinda cruel.

– – – –

Minutes upon minutes went by as I drove, still not meeting any traffic from either direction. I should have been able to see a town coming into view any moment now, and I squinted a bit at the road as if that would make the buildings appear out of thin air.

However, at that exact moment, my phone decided to find the signal as it sat on the dashboard. An absolute cacophony of simultaneous notifications assailed my ears, startling me before I realized what that horrendous sound was. Carefully, I reached out and grabbed the phone to take a look since there were no other cars around anyway.

“Jesus Christ!” I stared in disbelief as hundreds of message notifications sat on the screen. I… should have expected that, in hindsight.

Scrolling through them, I saw what could only be described as utter chaos in text form. My Discord chats had blown up with activity in a massive deluge.. I stopped the car just to take it all in, my eyes wide as I scrolled and read through what I could. Again, no traffic to worry about.

From what I could see, some of my friends had also been affected, as they’d actually posted selfies of their transformed selves. Some wore expressions of pure happiness, while others were clearly panicking as they got to enjoy their new bodies, regardless of whether that was a good thing or not.

August, an old classmate, had become some sort of absolutely adorable deer person, maybe a satyr. Their previously-lanky body was now on the shorter side, and they looked as huggable as a basket full of puppies with their sparkling green eyes and small doe tail. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

Similarly elated, Sarah – who was a newcomer to the friend group – had found herself turned into what looked like a werewolf. In the picture, she was making the goofiest pretend-scary pose, but the more-or-less literal puppy eyes that she sported gave away how happy she was. She did have a fursona, now that I thought about it, so this suited her extremely well.

Among the pictures, there were more messages than I’d ever seen squeezed into the span of a few days. Evidently a good amount of people had stayed human, so this gave me a frame of reference for what to expect later when I’d get home, but the drive there would be a long one. Stopping at the small town I was approaching was as good a place as any for getting my bearings and to scout out the overall situation.

So my friends were safe by the looks of things, but how about my family? The family group chat had similarly exploded, and I grimaced as I hovered my thumb over the chat’s icon. The latest message in the preview was filled with my mother’s panicked rambling, so I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic to open it up.

I felt like I still had to update everyone on the fact that I was alive and well, however, and my family was likely the most important party to start with.

KA-THUNK!

The second I entered the chat, a loud noise of crunching and thumping filled my ears. My head swiveled to look at the source of the sound to my left immediately, and utter dread filled me in less than half a second.

An absolutely enormous insect the size of a rhinoceros was running at me and the car, having emerged from the woods as it felled trees with its mad charge. The thing resembled a mix of a cockroach and a stag beetle, and its carapace looked like the armor plating of a tank. A very angry, living tank.

“OH MY G-” I screamed, but in that same second, the creature reached the car, cutting me off and…

CRASH!

The car was rammed with tremendous force, and the vehicle quickly found itself being flipped over as I gripped onto the steering wheel for dear life. However, the sickening, violent motion didn’t stop there, as the monstrous insect then pushed forward, and I could only yelp as the car was pushed off the road entirely.

Unfortunately, the side of the road just so happened to be an incline straight into the woods; not a huge or extremely steep one, but it sent the car into a thunking and thumping spin yet again as it crashed along the slope. I had luckily buckled myself in earlier, but as I focused all of my strength on keeping myself alive, I’d entirely forgotten about my phone. My eyes widened all over again and I gasped as it slipped from my hand. “No!” I shouted, but I could do nothing as it bounced against the inside of the car over and over. The cracking I heard more than once from it only deepened my panic before the car finally came to a stop, upside down on its roof.

By some miracle, I hadn’t received more than minor bruises and scrapes once everything settled down, but my head still thumped from the force of it all. Shuddering from sheer adrenaline, I blinked wearily and unbuckled myself to allow myself to crawl free from the wreckage my car had become. “Fuck…” I groaned, careful not to scrape myself further on broken glass or metal edges.

Halfway out of the car, my eyes fell on my phone as it sat there right next to me now, but even from a mere glance, I could tell it didn’t work anymore. Aching pain radiated from behind my eyes as I winced just before the insect approached the car for the second time. Maybe it saw the car as an opponent to be taken down? For an idiotic bug brain, the logic was sound.

I quickly crawled further away from the vehicle, not wanting to get trampled. I didn’t even have time to extract my backpack from the car as I scurried behind a tree and peeked out to watch. “What the hell…” I whispered as I then got to witness the bug crawl on top of the car only for it to dig right into its metallic underbelly. It was… eating my fucking car?

I watched, almost entranced by the bizarre sight. Reddish rust bloomed around the areas where the insect bit down, and I gasped again as I realized something that should have been all too obvious from the second I saw that monster. People hadn’t been the only ones to change. What had perhaps been a small beetle had now transformed into a hulking beast, but at least this one didn’t seem to care about going after me specifically.

Defeated, I began to walk away and back up onto the side of the road. If I wanted to find some way to see my friends and family again, my best bet was to finally reach that town, no matter how much my knees hurt.