Robert and Elena were husband and wife, they were also both avid backpackers; Robert was six foot even with brown hair and Elena was five foot-nine with brown hair as well. They both wore an array of camping gear as today they were planning on an excursion to a temple said to contain ancient tomes deep in the Central American Jungle.
Their base camp lay just on the outskirts of the Jungle and to reach the temple, they first had to get through the thick undergrowth between it and them for about ten miles. Grabbing their machetes, they began hacking through; it was a slow process, only disturbed by the occasional bug zipping past or drinks.
The sun continued its march, dipping down below the tree-line as Day made way to Night and the Jungle came alive with night-time creepy crawlies that liked to get in their boot tracks; but they eventually cleared the final sew pieces of undergrowth to reveal a large, stepped, square-based pyramid; obviously Mayan in design.
Ascending the stone steps worn with time and moss, they were confronted with nothing, no door, no secret passage, nothing, just a solid pyramid, and now it was getting too dark to see clearly. Breaking their glow-sticks, both Robert and Elena sighed and turned back to head back to their base camp when Elena stepped on a pressure plate.
Suddenly the floor beneath them gave way and they both plummeted deep inside the Mayan pyramid, falling down the twists and turns, leading out into a chamber with an exit on the far side. "Wow, would you look at this? This must be thousands of years old, I wonder if the traps still work…" Elena said, stepping out into the main chamber area.
The floor began collapsing, and only Robert's quick thinking got her back to safety without her falling down onto a spike trap and probably to her doom. "Damn Elena, be careful next time, okay? I don't wanna lose you." He replied shakily.
A grinding noise followed their conversation and the wall behind them began pushing forwards, forcing them towards the spike pit. "Oh great, are ya' happy now? We're gonna die if we don't figure this out, there must be a lever or a button, something to stop that damn wall."
Elena began panicking "There's nothing okay, I'm sorry, but there's nothing but more walls and the pit. Hold me, Robert." She cried hysterically, hugging Robert tightly as the wall loomed ever closer.
Within a few minutes, the wall had closed any remaining space behind them and was now pushing them forwards; so they moved and fell… only to hit a transparent barrier; blocking their fall to the apparent spikes. "Mirrors… Incredible; they reflected the light of those…" at this he pointed to the stalactites clinging from the ceiling "onto the glass here, making it look as though we were to fall to our death had we jumped." He said, tapping the glass in disbelief.
Robert and Elena quickly crossed the chamber before anything else were to occur, only to find themselves in another, apparently empty and long, but they both knew how dangerous THAT could be. "Now be careful… We don't want to set off another…" Robert began, only to find that Elena had set off this room's traps, swinging bladed pendulums, circular saws and tough oaken logs "Trap" Robert finished.
Elena blushed "Sorry, but at least this is easier, it's a rhythm, look, One, two and three" at each number there appeared a gap between the instruments of death. "I think it’s a Waltz, we can do that, come on Robert." She said, and led Robert into a dance, where they pirouetted around each of the sections in time to the dance.
Suddenly a large saw dropped from above and Elena quickly responded by falling into Robert, who dipped her as the saw past, then they both ran clear of the maze. "Good timing there, Elena, let's continue, shall we?" Robert asked, and with that, they both made their way to the next room.
It was the treasure room, a bounty fit for ten kings and multiple scrolls long since thought lost to the world. Picking up a random scroll, it seemed as though there were Latin inscriptions on it. "I wonder what a Latin scroll is doing in a Mayan Temple" Robert said, so he read it. "Transformo de Leporidae et de Gorellini a Vir et de Femina" It sounded like an incantation, but before he could even look for a counter-spell, it had already taken hold, his wife, Elena began complaining of pains in her feet, so taking off her shoes and socks she could see why, somehow her toes were growing, changing position.
Soon they grew new tendons and she could hold things in them that she hadn't been able to before, and with a final burst of pain, they locked into place, with an opposable thumb they looked more like hands than feet, and were an odd colour, though it seemed as though that wouldn't last; hair, or was it more like fur was already filling in much of her new foot-hands and spreading upwards, making her sweat in her hiking clothes.
Taking them off, she noticed that the fur, brown in colour like her hair had progressed all the way up to her chest, which barrelled outward; this also had the effect of forcing her onto her hands and hands… god this was going to get confusing.
Her hands began hurting as they began changing to match her feet-hands; though the pain experienced was much less as they were already nearly there anyway; the main thing was the inclusion of fur.
Soon, the only part of her unchanged was her head; but even that fell to the inexorable change begun by a simple spoken incantation; her nose flattened out as her mouth changed ever so slightly, allowing for larger incisors, it also pushed out slightly into a small muzzle-like shape with her flatter nose.
Elena's hair, once long and flowing now shortened drastically, becoming fur, and spreading across her face, concealing it and matching the rest of her body, suddenly her back snapped and she could walk bipedally once more, and she could still talk, but for all intents and purposes she was now an Anthro Gorilla.
Robert's changes were next, and it seemed as though it was waiting for is wife to finish before his even started and instantly his feet lengthened, toes shortening until he was standing only on the balls of his toes, which quickly grew pads for comfort and; unlike his wife, whose fur colour was the same as her hair, his fur was a pale white, and quickly made its way up to his navel; where he felt a growing pressure.
Rapidly taking off his clothes he could see why, out of his coccyx grew a white cotton-like tail, the fur then continued upward, reaching as far as his shoulders before descending down his arms. Robert's hands changed slightly, the digits becoming stubby but not immovable and his thumbs kept their position, but they did include pads on the undersides like his toes and were covered in the white fur.
Soon the only thing of Robert left was his head, and even that soon was taken, his nose turning into a triangle shape, whiskers growing from his cheeks as two buck teeth grew from his uppermost two front teeth. His nose and mouth pushed out into a small muzzle and his ears lengthened and migrated until they rested on top of his head, then the whole thing became encased in white fur, with his hair receding until, it too was consumed by the white fur.
Suddenly that was it, it was as if a huge pressure had been lifted from them and the changes stopped, the scroll becoming inert until some other poor soul came across it. "So… what do you want to do now?" Robert asked.
"Let's get out of here" Elena said, pulling a lever on the nearby wall that wasn't there a minute ago, revealing a passage back to the surface and out of the cursed temple.
"Agreed" Robert supplied and hopped over to Elena "Come on, there's a whole jungle out there, welcoming us."
THE END
All characters © ImmortalDragon (AKA Raisus) May 2012
