“No, stop this pleeeeeasse!” The now-helpless man squeaked, his brown-furred body shrinking into his clothes. Tara smiled at the sight. It was this moment, the moment where her victim, no, her subject, gave out a final cry before succumbing to the changes completely. This was the moment she lived for now. 

She watched as his ears got rounder, his nose pointy as whiskers poked out through the flesh and his shrinking head and beady red eyes sank from view. It had been a delight to see his hands grow sharp claws, his back hunching over as he shrank right out of his clothes. There was now a nub of pink flesh poking out from his pant leg but even that was gone now as the former man shrunk down to the size of the rat body where he would spend the rest of his days.  

The rat who had once been a man ran out from under his clothes and scurried off, clearly disturbed by the lack of safety in the open street corner. He quickly found a sewer hole and climbed down, no doubt attracted by the darkness and cover it afforded him. Frankly, Tara didn’t care. 

That guy got what he deserved. He’d seen a lone woman walking down the street, minding her own business, and decided to catcall her nonetheless. “Hey baby, looking fine! Mind passing me your digits?” he’d yelled, with that righteous tone implying that she actually owed him something! She knew if she ignored him she’d get the usual chorus of ‘filthy whore’ or ‘fuck you, bitch!’ So, in response, she simply smiled at him and raised a finger, channeling a spell to make him into the ideal ironic form. 

She considered turning him into a stray cat for the insult but a witch’s familiar was too good for him. Being a rat would teach him a lesson in harassing women. Well, would have, had he not just been condemned to a life of eating garbage and avoiding predators. Oh well. 

He wasn’t the only person Tara had changed today. A man who got her latte order wrong was struck with the sudden need to use the restroom. He stared in shock as the toilet seemed higher than before and when he tried to reach for it, he realized his fingers were fusing into insectoid claws. He tried to scream but no sound came out as two massive antennae burst forth from his head. Shrinking fast, his eyesight dimmed as it split into a thousand separate images. A few moments later, the only thing that exited his stall was an ungainly cockroach looking for shelter from the brightly lit bathroom. The only sign of his disappearance was the pile of clothes that had been left behind in his stall.  

A woman who had tried handing Tara some religious pamphlets found herself cawing in protest to Tara’s ‘satanic’ words as her entire body started itching. She dropped her stack of papers and tried to grasp at her throat as her fingers melted away into feathers and her mouth and lips extended out into a beak. The terrified look in her eyes excited Tara; the woman probably thought she was receiving punishment from Satan himself! The woman struggled as she shrank, her clawed feet lifting out of her shoes as black feathers overtook the rest of her body. Finally, a black raven awkwardly waddled out of the woman’s clothes as she took to the sky in a panic. 

A man who had tried to bum a cigarette off Tara sounded hoarse as he spoke, so Tara decided to fit his voice to form. The man asked again when suddenly an echoing “RIIIIBBBBIIITTT!” echoed from his lips. The man grasped his throat as a thin layer of skin expanded, forcing out another amphibian croak. His webbed fingers grasped frantically at the growth as the rest of his body began to shrink, his mouth opening wide as his eyes became beady. He felt dry as his skin changed, looking green and spotted and slimy as he sank into his oversized clothes. 

Finally, the new frog hopped out of the garments, instinctively looking for water. Tara had been doing him a favor, really, without the cigarettes he’d probably live a longer life, although as a frog. 

Tara had been getting in practice all day, improving on her ability to change humans into filthy vermin. Tara was a witch, born into a family of witches stretching back hundreds of years. She’d known all her life that her kin had the ability to channel energies granted to them by the goddess Hecate. She’d spent all her childhood studying, learning the lore and the spells that would one day make her a powerful witch. She was perhaps too eager, her mother and aunts always cautioned. Tara never listened, of course. She was keen on learning everything there was to know about her heritage, about what made her and her kind better than other humans. Naturally, she developed a bit of a superiority complex, much to her family’s chagrin.

Upon turning 18 she moved out of her family home, joining a coven of witches who, like her, thought themselves above mortal men. She strived to learn even what was considered dangerous or taboo by some of her more cowardly sisters. She especially had an interest in learning the more potent spells; those were witches’ best weapon, after all, what set them apart from the rest of humanity. 

Transformation spells were her particular forte. The idea of punishing men like the goddess Circe had in ancient times was simply exciting! To her dismay, none of the other women in her coven agreed with her. It was too risky, they’d said, to be caught by humans for performing such an obvious enchantment. They were far too outnumbered, after all. Again, Tara paid the words of caution no heed. If she was careful, no one would ever know what she was doing. 

Her victims would retain their human memories, of course. It wouldn’t be a fitting punishment otherwise. Yet their remaining human intellect would have no ability to control their new bodies, and they’d be forced to live out their days trapped in animalistic instincts and desires, all the while mourning what they’d lost. 

Tara had started small, turning her cheating ex-boyfriend into a pig, leaving him on a farm and destined to become someone’s sausages. She knew he was the type and had dated him just for the fun of it and the sex, waiting for the perfect moment when she chose to be done with him. It had been exhilarating, making him helpless before her. He had looked up at her with his beady porcine eyes, squealing as his tusks got longer and thicker, and his chubby ass tore out of his pants. He’d tried to reach for her with his fingers, but those quickly hardened into thick hooves. Men were swine, beasts, and she had no qualms introducing them to their new forms with her power. It was her right as a superior being, after all, to judge those beneath her. 

She had quickly moved on to test her abilities on others, those she deemed unworthy of even simple humanity. There were so many trashy guys in the downtown area of her city. So many humans were better off as skunks, raccoons, dogs, or if she was feeling particularly mean, snakes, flies, beetles, and other gross creatures. Not once had she ever been caught! 

Soon it was not only those who deserved it but anyone who annoyed her, man and woman alike who she changed to beasts. So long as she could get them alone, they were fair game. The more people she changed into vermin, the more of a taste she got for the art. She longed to change more humans, to satisfy her appetite for power and her lust for control. She longed to practice the limits of her abilities; her next goal was to change several people at once, perhaps even a large group! The thought made her immensely excited. 

But she was still in need of more practice. She figured the city’s homeless population would make the ideal targets for honing her skills. She was so often harassed by people asking her for ‘bus fare’ or money for a sandwich when in reality they would only spend any charity on cheap booze or drugs to escape from their troubles for the day. She would be doing them a favor; animals had a much easier time finding food in the city. And there were ample homeless people that would not be missed for Tara to practice on. 

That was what had brought her downtown today, looking for homeless people to work her magic over. The first several had been lucky encounters, but she was on a roll and her powers had only seemed to increase since she’d started today! 

She was interrupted from her thoughts by a scrawny older woman asking for some spare change. The perfect mark. Tara smiled and pointed a finger at the woman and chanted her curse. The woman squawked, feathers bursting from her neck as she began shrinking. Pigeons were much more suited to living in the city. The woman squawked and flapped her changing arms but could not escape as she slowly shrank down into a bird and flew off. All too easy. 

Tara’s next mark was a homeless woman beside the dumpsters of a normally busy restaurant, sitting huddled under some cardboard boxes. The woman ignored Tara even as Tara stood there and surveyed the area for potential passers-by. The woman stank of garbage and filth. She would be better off as a fly, mating with the millions of other flies buzzing around the rot and decay of the dumpster. She already looked and smelled at home among the buzzing insects, so why not fit personality to form?

Tara raised her hand as the woman finally looked up at her and regarded her curiously. But it was too late. “Goddess Hecate, here my words, channel thine energies and make the unclean thing crawl!” She said as a bolt of nearly invisible energy flew from her fingers and struck the woman. Tara waited with bated breath, excited to watch the disgusting changes. She loved viewing the fruits of her labors in action!

Yet nothing happened. The energy seemed to strike the woman, hovering around her as she stared at Tara, an enraged expression appearing in her eyes. Instead of changing, however, the woman stood up, the energies swirling around her as her withered demeanor began to fade into a clean, younger woman of impeccable beauty. Tara gasped at the sight. This was not the spell she’d cast!

“Just who did you think you were dealing with?” The woman said, now standing proudly. Tara was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to speak. 

“I condone the punishment of the guilty, but you have abused the gift given to your sisters! You do not punish only the guilty, but the innocent as well. And you would dare raise your hand to one of your sisters? Unforgivable!” The woman said as suddenly her aura changed and Tara’s spell was redirected back towards her!

“Your punishment will be a fitting one. You will share the same fate as your victims! The fate you intended for one such as myself! Let this be a lesson to you, sister. You never can tell when a woman you attempt to prey upon is the very goddess you pray to!”

Tara wanted to scream as the energy hit her, but the paralysis robbed her of the ability to do so. She could only stand there, helpless as the tingling energy enveloped her and she started to shrink, the transformative effects already at work. 

The change was slower than she’d expected, perhaps as part of the punishment. No! This was impossible! How could her Goddess have been laying in wait for her, looking to punish her! She didn’t want to be a fly, living only a few weeks, only eating garbage and mating for the next generation. It was disgusting, depraved. She didn’t deserve this! Yet there was nothing she could do to stop the beginnings of change. 

She heard a buzzing sound from behind her, not unlike the other flies congregating around the piles of garbage. A pair of glossier wings erupted from her back, unfurling as a smaller pair of nubs grew behind her still-human flesh. They buzzed relentlessly, the muscles for flight having formed under her still human skin, pulling at the smooth flesh like an irritant. She could already feel the area around her wings start to grow hard, the skin becoming grey while thick black hairs sprouted up around it. 

A moan escaped her lips as she felt a second set of legs erupt from her chest like tumors, growing against the fabric of her dress. Though she couldn’t see them yet, she could feel them getting longer, the skin around their base hardening with dark grey chitin and new muscles to work them. The clawed limbs caught against her dress, as something sticky began oozing out between them. She couldn’t get them unstuck! 

Tara wanted to scream but couldn’t move her lips. Clearly, the powers of a Goddess were far superior to her own. Not a sound escaped her as her horrific transformation continued onward She was mute, helpless, unable to move save for the parts of her that were already changed into a fly. The constant buzzing of her vibrating wings was driving her mad!

The horrific changes raced onwards as her fingers started to fuse. No! She couldn’t lose her hands! She needed her fingers to cast spells! Yet all she could do was stare helplessly as her ring and pinky fingers merged together, as did her index and middle fingers, while her thumb dissolved into nothing. All at once, she felt all the bones in her arms dissolve, and was shocked by the sudden snap as several new joints popped into place. She found she could move them once more, though there was nothing they could do to help her. She waved the disgusting appendages helplessly, seeing the ends ooze with that same sticky fluid that would help her cling to vertical surfaces. 

Her legs followed suit, toes fusing and forming similar grotesque claws that stuck to the fibers of her socks. Bones slowly, painstakingly dissolved away as her legs snapped and popped in disgusting ways, growing to match her other two pairs of limbs. It took a moment for her to realize that her fly limbs hung helplessly in the air. She was floating, and her feet had left her socks and shoes behind. All that remained was her panties, hanging loose on her shrinking form. She wanted to cover herself but knew it was pointless. Her panties fell off her body into the heap of clothes, though her oversized dress still covered what remained of her human genitalia.

An intense bloating overtook her body as her internal organs squished and dissolved slowly. The stillness of a once-beating heart made her panic, thinking that she was about to die. But would death be a worse fate than living the rest of a very short life as a fly? 

She would have moaned if she could as her breasts, her flattened stomach, and her womanly curves were all absorbed by her uniform thorax. All of the bones in her chest, ribs, spine, clavicles, and scapula began to dissolve and wither into nothing. She was naked by now; her dress had fallen off to join the rest of her clothes in the pile on the ground. Soon there was nothing left but a sack of loose flesh and bones hovering in mid-air! 

She desperately wanted someone to come by, to see her warping visage and do something to help her. But Tara knew that would be fruitless. If Hecate allowed anyone to come by and see what was happening to her, they would just as likely share her fate, becoming another buzzing fly, or worse. 

An internal gurgling signaled that her stomach, lungs, liver, and kidneys, everything internal, began to dissolve and wither away as a simple insect’s digestive tract formed from the oozing remnants. Small pores opened along the sides of her trunk, allowing enough air to enter and compensate for her non-existent lungs. The rest of her skin hardened a dark grey chitinous armor that enveloped her and held the oozing sack of guts and fluid that was her body in place, though just barely. A light swat from a passing human and she would be dead, and no one would feel remorse for her passing!

Her ass expanded, getting larger as her waist and neck pinched off tightly, forming the three-sectioned body of an insect. Her ass, now her abdomen, swelled larger, ballooning outwards as it tapered towards the end. She felt a strong discomfort as her ass slowly crawled towards her vagina, the two orifices merging into one gross simple hole for excretion. 

Perhaps worst of all, Tara felt her ovaries dissolve and simplify into a sperm receptacle and thousands upon thousands of eggs that she would have eagerly fertilized. A strange protrusion caught her attention as it extended and contracted from her opening. Had she become male? No, that wasn’t it. It was her ovipositor, retracting and extending with the need to mate. She was a mature fly, after all, and had only two purposes in life, one of which her body was making her painfully aware of! 

The changes to her thorax and abdomen were nearly complete, yet thus far her head had remained untouched. She was a two-foot-tall fly with a human head! Hecate was forcing her to see all the changes with her human senses, making her suffer before turning her into a bug as Tara had done to so many of her victims. Her insectoid body looked massive in comparison to her still-human head, her thick gray chitin filling up with dozens of gross hairs. Suddenly, they began detecting all sorts of vibrations in the air, a sense that she as of yet found difficult to interpret. 

Yet, the last visage of humanity was not to last. Tara desperately wished to yell her agony as her hair fell away towards the clothing on the ground. More of those tiny hairs sprouted up around her head, as well as something longer, thicker, a pair of antennae waving in the air. Her nose melted away, no longer needed for breathing or smell. Her ears, too, were reduced to nothing as she realized she could no longer hear, only able to feel vibrations relocated through those new antennae. To her absolute disgust, they could also detect the presence of fly pheromones in the air from all of her buzzing brethren, causing a bead of fluid to ooze from her ovipositor. Was that all she would be good for, now?

Using that last of her humanity, tears fell from her cheeks while she carried the ability to produce tear ducts. She hadn’t known what she was doing! She didn’t deserve a fate reserved for pathetic humans! 

Too late, she began to realize that she had misunderstood the Goddess’s intentions from the teachings she had read. She must have to have earned the Goddess’s ire directly. How could she have been such a fool? She wanted to yell out, to beg to be allowed to change back. She would study the scriptures much more closely, learn where she had gone astray! Yet her mouth would not move, and even if it could, her vocal cords were long gone by now. No matter how much she repented, the changes still marched slowly onwards as her body shrank down towards that of a helpless insect. 

A tingling in her mouth prompted her to look down, disgusted to see that her tongue was sticking out from her face, drooling profusely against her will. Several protrusions stuck out from the sides of her tongue, the beginnings of her soon-to-be proboscis. Her lips, her teeth, all of that melted away into the simple mouthparts she would wear the rest of her days. She would no longer eat, not exactly, except to salivate over her food and suck up the dissolving nutrients like a straw. 

Finally, her eyes began to grow, taking with them her vision. Tara was grateful for that in some respects. She no longer wanted to see her disgusting body anymore, not with human senses. Her eyes began to grow across the sides of her face, getting bigger and bigger as the lens began to split her vision into a dozen separate images, then hundreds, thousands. Strange bumps opened up where her forehead once was, and in shock, she realized they were eyes of their own, although they didn’t have much use other than for detecting light and movement. Her mind couldn’t get around the series of images her fly eyes were detecting but her other senses made up for that. She could scent garbage, waste, and other flies, things that her changing body found tantalizing. 

Slowly, she felt something creeping into her mind, something that terrified her even more than the transformation. It was a sudden urge to feed, a pang of overpowering hunger. Her senses were overjoyed at detecting the garbage bin near where she hovered. She wanted to throw up at the thought of eating garbage and waste but her body no longer had that ability. 

The tiny fly hovered over the remnants of human clothes, piled around the ground like those from every victim she’d changed that day. She wanted to dive into them, to hide, or perhaps try and find her Goddess and plead for forgiveness. But her fly instincts were in total control now and she could not stop the need to feed, landing in a puddle of grease and spitting her saliva onto it, dissolving it enough for her long proboscis to suck up the liquid food like a straw. She was revolted by the act, yet could not move her body to stop herself as she was joined by dozens of other flies, lighting onto the grease to begin feeding themselves.

A male landed near her, buzzing around in a form of courtship dance that Tara would have found disgusting if she still had the ability to control her body. Instead, she felt her wings lift off, and she danced around with him, responding in kind. He could clearly tell she was receptive and in need. She landed on the side of the dumpster, the van der Waals forces allowing her to remain stationary as the male landed behind her and mounted her. 

Reflexively, she extended her ovipositor, reaching back towards the male’s sperm that was graciously deposited and taken within her. The whole act took only seconds from start to finish. Tara could not deny the deep sense of satisfaction from the mating act; she knew she would not have to mate again, that this male’s seed was enough to keep her fertilized for life. She flew away, looking for a place to lay her first batch of eggs for the next generation in the short window of the life time she had left.

******

Hecate had other plans for her former charge, however. She hated to see one of her own changed in such a fashion, but the young witch had deserved it. Maybe a few years as a fly would teach the girl some humility. Assuming she survived. Hecate’s spell would grant her a lifespan beyond that of a housefly’s, but no further protection. It would be a test of the girl’s will, to see if she would try to live to prove her worth as one of Hecate’s followers. 

Her work done, Hecate left the mortal realm, removing all of the clothing that had been so casually left from Tara’s victims, the last thing to tie them to her misguided subject. There would be no evidence to the truth that the young woman was now a fly, looking to lay her first batch of writhing maggots!