Travis blinked from the shock of unexpected darkness as the overhead lights went out.  His mind started racing from fear.  Had the power gone out, or was the institution simply shut down for the night?  He had no way to know.  He’d never been here this late, certainly not after closing.  

Travis swore, cursing his luck.  He had simply run back to grab the spring jacket he’d carelessly forgotten after he’d already left at the end of his shift.  Travis didn’t think it would be a big deal.  He certainly didn’t know he’d be left alone in the dark.  Would he be locked in overnight?  

His cell was dead, and like a fool, he’d forgotten to bring his charger this morning.  He shuddered with the very real possibility that he’d be stuck here overnight.  What would his supervisor say?  He really didn’t wanna get fired for something so silly.  

Travis had been volunteering at a local science center for several months now, trying to get extra volunteer credits for college.  He was surprised the science center had taken him on, with his lack of experience in animal handling and care.  He hadn’t expected to learn on the job when placed on the floor with live animal exhibits, but he had to admit it had been fun.  Feeding, cleaning, and showing off the animals to the hundreds of guests that visited the center every day was incredibly rewarding.  

He enjoyed looking through their eyes, seeing their wonder and amazement of viewing these local animals up close for the first time.  He hoped they took with them the importance of their visit, to treat these animals in the wild with respect and compassion, just as they would the residents of the center.  All of the animals were local, acquired from zoos, sanctuaries, or otherwise places from where the animals couldn’t be reintroduced into the wild.  There were strict regulations on how the animals could be acquired and how they were to be treated, and that suited Travis just fine.  

Travis fumbled around in the dark a little, struggling while he waited for his eyes to adjust.  He could hear the myriad of sounds of the animals on his floor stirring, many of them nocturnal and waiting for that time between their afternoon feeding and lights out to rouse from sleep.  In particular, a loud splash coming from the beaver exhibit was a clear indication as to his location.  Travis felt along the tank, feeling the familiar plastic wall that kept the beaver’s sizable habitat intact.  

The exhibit was rather elaborate, all things considered.  It was built surrounding a massive fake tree with a large pond area and a dam the beaver could access from both land and underwater.  The habitat had a viewing area where the animal could be given branches, snow, or other forms of enrichment to stimulate his relatively intelligent rodent brain and limit his boredom from predictable stimuli.  It was a place where he could be seen by the public if he so chose, though his lodge was off-limits to give him much needed privacy.  

The science center had a single male beaver named Splash, born in captivity at a zoo in another state.  Though in the wild, beavers had social family units, Splash’s only socialization came from his several regular handlers.  Travis sometimes felt bad for him, knowing he must be lonely.  Still, a life in captivity free from predation and other dangers surely had its perks. 

Working along the wall, Travis felt something that made his heart skip.  The door to the beaver habitat had been left open!  That couldn’t be right.  Who had made a mistake like that?  Any one of the staff would be fired for leaving an animal habitat open overnight!  

Travis instinctively reached for the familiar latch to close and lock the door when he realized it was missing.  He grasped blindly in the dark, searching in vain for that vital piece of the door he needed.  He sighed.  Maybe it was on the other side of the habitat.  He only hoped that Splash hadn’t grabbed it to take it into his dam or into the water.  

Travis walked into the habitat, the familiar earthy smell washing over him.  As he did, a friendly grunt signaled Splash was nearby, and Travis looked up to see the beaver’s beady eyes watching him curiously in the gloom.  Travis wasn’t worried.  Though beavers could be easily agitated, Splash was very familiar with him.  Splash was more likely to sniff Travis for food than to bite or scratch. 

It was then that Travis began to feel a little warm.  He rubbed his arms, feeling a sleek sheen of sweat coating them.  Was he getting ill?  Great.  This was the last thing he needed.  To be sick with an oncoming fever while stuck overnight in a science center. 

Travis shivered, his body suddenly sore and aching.  In particular, his ass felt a little tender, the skin around his tailbone straining as though he’d fallen on it.  He grunted in shock as his fingers reported a bizarre bump that had not been there prior.  

Travis’s attention was diverted with a peculiar itching on his arms and frantically rubbed the flesh to alleviate the sensation.  His skin was slick with sweat, but something was off, something that alarmed him.  His skin felt rough, oily.  He rubbed his arm back and forth, feeling thick, damp hairs under his touch.  Travis was confused.  He had never been the hairiest of men, and such a sensation was completely foreign on his own flesh.  The texture of his arm reminded him of petting Splash, actually.  Did he somehow get a patch of Splash’s hair on his arm?  

Travis suddenly winced as his fingertips nicked his arm.  He could feel a trickle of sweat running down his arm and reached down to wipe at it when a coppery scent wafted into his nostrils.  Was it blood?  Surely his nails couldn’t be that long! 

Just then, an emergency light finally flicked on, and Travis was greeted with horror to the sight of his arm.  His skin was black, greasy with sweat, but also slick with an oily substance.  But it was far worse than that.  Thick hairs covered his arms, long and brown, and looking much like Splash’s!  And his arms were shorter, if that was possible.  His nails were black, thicker, pointed into mini claws that continued to extend.  All the while, his palms grew darker, the skin appearing coarse and thick.  They seemed to be forming lumps, almost like calluses.  What the hell was happening to him!  What kind of fever made his hands look like a beaver? ! 

Travis scrambled to his feet, suddenly realizing his back was aching and even standing erect he was hunched over.  He tried to stand upright, but a sharp pain above his ass made him stoop.  He reached back to touch it once more, his fingers brushing against something rough and scaly.  His mind went into shock.  He’d felt that texture before, many times as he touched Splash’s tail while feeding him for a crowd.  There was no way it was possible.  Yet the pains from growth and continued stretching of his spine seemed to indicate that he was indeed growing a beaver’s tail above his ass.  

Travis tried to reach for the door but was horrified to realize that it was no longer open.  When had that happened?  He hadn’t seen anyone else on the floor, even in the dim glow of the emergency lights.  He grasped the top of the plastic door, pulling and tugging on it with all his strength, realizing that his arms were weaker than they had been. 

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks.  He was clearly locked in with the beaver, steadily changing into one himself.  His supervisor had always said how they’d like to have a companion for Splash, another beaver to draw in visitors and teach them beaver socialization.  Travis shuddered at the thought.  Was he to be the new beaver?  He didn’t want to be a fucking animal! 

His attention was brought back to his hands as a stretchy webbing grew steadily between the digits.  They looked like flippers better suited for swimming, though they still retained a decent range of motion.  He recalled how well Splash could grab his meals, holding them in his front paws while his rodent incisions devoured the vegetables.  Travis had a horrified vision of himself being hand-fed like that, having to live the rest of his life swimming around in dirty water like a fucking animal on display!  

He had to get out of here.  Travis banged on the plastic door, hoping to make it open.  Yet he could feel his strength ebbing as he swung his shrinking arms.  His forearms shrank at an alarming rate, the muscles, bones, and tendons dwindling away.  His stature lowered as his legs too diminished to a size more appropriate to the rodent he was becoming.  His pants were pooling around his legs at this point.  New claws poked at the edges of his socks as his foot nearly slid out of the shoes.  

The wall of the enclosure was already higher up than he remembered, and Travis could hardly see over the stained wall.  He yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping to God someone would hear him.  In his panic, Travis hardly realized that the only people around might be the ones responsible for his change into the center’s newest exhibit.  Yet what else could he do? 

His whole body continued to ache from the terrifying transformation.  His skin itched fiercely with the growth of more of that damned brown fur.  His head felt strange as his mouth began painfully protruding forward.  Sharp pain from his gums gave Travis the mental image of the orange rodent sized buck teeth he’d be cursed with for the rest of his days if he didn’t escape.  His nose felt strange as he twitched it, feeling it flattening and expanding as the edges itched from sprouting whiskers.  Strange scents began wafting into his changed nostrils, and Travis shook his head in disgust from the sensory overload his mind was not yet ready to process.  

Travis could see the hairs on his head falling away around him, and he reached up with his paw hand to touch his head.  He wasn’t bald, at least.  More of that slick oily beaver fur had covered the top of his head as it spread downwards to merge his thickened beard.  In shock, he realized he could feel his ears were smaller and rounder and further up his head than he would have preferred.  Their current conditions made them much better for the streamlined swimming Travis’s form would soon be made for.  

Every fact, every trivia bit he’d spent the last few weeks memorizing floated through his head as he continued to change, shrinking and growing itchy fur as his clothes fell over him like rags.  Beavers were social, they spent most of their time underwater, they enjoyed chewing on trees and bark to wear down their ever-growing teeth.  They ate vegetation, had slick oily fur to keep water out as they swam.  This was to be his life now, just an animal on display.  

Travis hung his head in despair.  It was getting harder for him to yell, his voice sore and strained as his vocal cords began to shrink.  His voice dropped an octave as his face stretched out.  His shrinking tongue made his words much harder to articulate.  He would soon only be able to speak in a series of grunts and squeals and tail slaps! 

His tail was extending ever longer into a weighty bulge above his ass.  The new warm flesh reported a surprisingly level of tactile sensation from the ground faintly underneath it.  He realized, in shock, he could move it, smacking the strange appendage up and down on the ground with a resounding echo.  It felt so strange, this massive… THING above his ass that no human was meant to own.  

His legs were so much shorter now.  His knees were dwindling under him as his hips expanded relative to his shrinking body, merging with the flaps of skin under his bulging stomach.  He found it harder to stand straight as his heels extended, the muscles and fat seemingly evaporating into thin air as his bones and tendons shortened.  His arms steadily followed suit while his chest bulged outwards.  With an audible crack, his shoulders rotated forward as the bones flattened and reorientated on his skeleton.  His belly was chubby on his shrinking frame as that damned oily brown fur crawled its way over every inch of his darkening skin.  There was hardly any of the human Travis left! 

Yet it was the transfiguration to his head that scared Travis the most.  As his skull contracted, his thoughts began to jumble together.  He wasn’t sure if it was the panic of the situation or that his ability to reason in human terms was diminishing.  It scared him deeply, the thought that he might lose himself to a smelly animal.  Yet equally frightening was the prospect that he might remember himself, what he’d lost each and every day as he suffered in silence.  

It was already difficult to see in the low light, but as Travis squinted, he realized it wasn’t the lights that were diminishing, but that his eyesight had gotten worse!  The beady eyes of his charge couldn’t see as well as a human, and now neither could he!  

Yet Travis was still aware that the entire time Splash’s beady eyes had been staring back at Travis through the gloom.  It was strange that Splash hadn’t approached, neither begging for food nor attacking the unknown beaver for encroaching on his territory.  Splash seemed to simply sniff the air as though something caught his attention that Travis couldn’t identify, even with his changing nose.  

Even though the steady onslaught of changes, something stood out above everything else, something that confused Travis deeply.  The sensations in his groin were growing more intense, radiating through his now much smaller body.  Travis felt his crotch moisten, and in horror, he realized he was getting aroused.  It couldn’t be just some beaver thing.  The sensations, though strange from his changing body, were also familiar.  What the fuck was wrong with him? !  It was one thing to change into an animal, but why would it be turning him on?  

Travis blushed in embarrassment from his arousal, wanting to place his webbed hands over the area to hide his shame.  Thankfully, his groin was covered by his ballooning shirt anyways.  He repeated a mantra that it was simply curiosity rather than the urge to quell his growing lusts.  But still, he wanted to see himself.   

He forced himself through the rags, no longer ashamed of his nakedness.  He was too far gone to care about human modesty at this point.  Yet the sight before him was barren.  Where was his cock?  He’d never seen a beaver’s member before.  It was always hidden under the thick fur and flesh of the slow, plodding animal.  Yet there was no way his cock was absent with the ever-present ache from his groin.  

Travis reached down with his webbed digits to explore the flesh and was shocked when he felt something moist.  There was a slit present where his manhood used to be.  Travis’s blood froze as his supervisor’s words crept into his mind.  She wanted a FEMALE beaver to complete their collection. 

Why? !  Why would they do this to him?  He was a human being damnit!  Why did they need to change him into an animal, a female one at that, when an actual animal could simply be bought? 

Travis moaned as he finally fell over, his legs no longer able to maintain an upright stance.  His hips realigned, his relatively larger rump was thick and easily able to hide his short legs and chubby belly as he continued to shrink.  The beaver in the pen with him was now at eye level with what Travis was becoming.  Splash made a curious “NEEEEE” as he waddled over, sniffing the air around Travis.  

A sweet musky scent hit Travis’s changing nostrils as the other beaver waddled past, making his crotch moisten.  Oh no.  Not that!  Travis shook his head to remove the intrusive images, but his body had other ideas.  It was getting so hard to think as his skull cracked and diminished.  He was becoming a beaver in mind, his horny body betraying the former human.  

He could feel Splash sniffing around his backside, and he, now clearly she, raised her tail in an invitation.  Her own musky scent wafted through the air, the urgency of her need clearly resonating with her new mate.  Travis couldn’t think straight, she was so damn horny.  She just needed to be bred, filled with seed, nurse some kits from her newly developed nipples…

Her mind continued to fog as the fear from her change slowly faded away at the promise of pleasure and fulfillment of sexual need.  Travis’s shrinking skull was not able to process things in human terms anymore.  But that was ok.  The scents of male and home were deeply embedded in her mind, and she felt at ease, more so than she’d ever felt as a human.  

She felt a weight on her back as the horny male climbed up to give himself vantage, and she pushed back to give her would-be mate better access.  She didn’t care about human things any longer.  She NEEDED this, needed to be bred.  She felt something rigid and warm penetrate her, the male’s slick member entering her well-lubricated folds.  She thrust her hips back against the male, eager to take his tiny prick deeper inside her, to make him spill his life-giving seed.  

Any last traces of fear, doubt, or humanity were wiped away as the pleasure in her loins built towards a crescendo.  Ripples of ecstasy were generated by her quivering pussy and allowed her to be swept up in the pure animalistic bliss of the mating act.  The human Travis could never have imagined such rapture.  The powerful primitive animal psyche fully took over, allowing her to better enjoy the mating act.  Her orgasm flowed over her like a warm blanket, making her feel more alive, more fulfilled than she could have fathomed.  She felt the male stir on top of her, far too soon for her preference, but it did not matter.  He had deposited a healthy dose of semen to her womb, and she was sated, knowing she had successfully mated.  

Spent, the male lumbered way to gnaw on a poplar branch that had been left in the habitat earlier that day by the former human.  The center’s newest beaver moved to join him, feeling a rumbling in her stomach now that her sexual needs had been satisfied.  The human Travis was gone, yet the new female beaver found the human scent in the habitat somewhat familiar, like another life that had only been a dream.  She felt a connection with it and the strange bipedal things that sometimes visited.  But they weren’t here now, and Travis was hungry.  She rubbed her incisors against the bark, loving the pleasurable tingle as she began to eat, her mate’s excess seed leaking out of her new feminine opening.   

Travis’s former supervisor smiled from the sight of such successful breeding.  She had the perfect story cooked up for their new beaver’s arrival.  She had planned to change Travis eventually, making him a member of their beaver exhibit, but the fool had left himself alone that night.  It was too good an opportunity to pass up.  It was so much easier acquiring interns like this than waiting for animals to be available.  Live animals drew in much-needed revenue, after all.  And they always retained a little of their former minds, enough that they were completely safe for the handlers and children that went to pet them.  The checked off a few last items from her clipboard, then prepared to write up the announcement of the arrival of a new female beaver and the kits she was sure to bring with her in a few short months.