Travis sighed. He’d been given a simple enough assignment, to take some pictures of the local zoo’s new tortoise for a piece his news organization was writing. But he’d been here for about four hours now, and the damn animal hadn’t even come out from hiding for him to take a single shot! 

Travis was more than a little frustrated at this point. All of the zoo attendants had ignored his requests to go backstage to coax their tortoise out of hiding. What the hell were they thinking, denying him the chance to bring them some much-needed publicity?! Surely they all couldn’t be too busy to help him. He had hardly seen a patron during his entire stay, at least none near the reptile exhibit. 

He didn’t give a damn about the tortoise herself. She was supposedly a rare species, one of the last of her kind, and the zoo had been trying desperately to find her a male to breed with. Whatever. Travis simply needed a few shots of the animal, preferably doing something interesting, although, with a tortoise, that was highly unlikely. Would watching her eat lettuce count? Why didn’t his boss want him to take pictures of tigers of wolves or something? At least those animals would give him usable shots! 

Travis was about to give up and go home when something caught the corner of his eye. The door to the habitat, marked “employees ‘only’ was slightly ajar. How had he not noticed it this entire time? He berated himself for missing the perfect opportunity. Surely, if all the zoo employees were too busy to help him, they’d be too busy to stop him should he sneak in to take a photo. He mulled over the prospect for a few minutes before surveying the area. Seeing his coast was clear with not an attendant in sight, he quickly moved towards the door. 

He opened the door slowly, nervous it would make a sound and attract some unwanted attention. He slipped inside quickly, careful to close the door behind him lest anyone get wise to his presence. It was easy to see where the entrance to the tortoise habitat was, clearly marked from the other cages within the reptile habitat. He was surprised to find that the entrance simply had a latch to open the back of the enclosure. He couldn’t believe his luck! Such a place would normally require a key only issued to employees to enter the habitats. 

Travis entered the feeding area, the heavy scent of the habitat washing over him as he closed the second door behind him. He took a moment to view his surroundings, trying to determine where the animal had been hiding. The massive log in the center of the habitat seemed the most likely location. He’d seen one side of it from the outside, but it contained a hole on the other that could easily house an animal of that size. 

Sure enough, he could see the shape of the massive animal’s shell inside. He sighed. The angle here wasn’t much better for his shots. At least his subject would be in the frame! 

He walked over as close as he dared, careful not to be seen from the outside lest his presence attracted unwanted attention. He then gently knocked on the surface of the log, hoping to wake the animal. There was no point in photographing a sleeping animal, after all. 

Eventually, his efforts were rewarded, and the tortoise lumbered out into plain view. She seemed to ignore Travis at first, slowly making her way towards the bowl of veggies that had been left out for her. This was as good an opportunity as he was going to get. Travis grabbed his equipment and began to take his shots, careful of the angle lest it became too obvious they had been taken from a restricted location.

His work finally done, Travis turned to leave the enclosure. Yet to his shock, the door before him had no handle. How had he not noticed it before? Was he locked in? No, that couldn’t be possible. There was no way the enclosure would be locked from the inside. What was the tortoise gonna do, open the door and let herself out? There had to be a way out. Otherwise, the caretakers would get locked in all the time, wouldn’t they?

Travis thoroughly felt along the edges of the door, growing more and more frustrated with each passing moment. As he did, he began to lament his decision. He’d originally set out to save himself some time and sneak in without getting caught. But stuck here as he was, he’d likely have to shout for help and get caught by the zoo staff. He and his company would be in deep shit for his foolishness!

Suddenly Travis started to feel strange, dizzy. He backed away from the door, setting his equipment down as he tried to right himself. The air in the habitat seemed different somehow, thicker, heavier. His skin felt dry, as though all the moisture had been removed from the air. He needed to sit down but couldn’t do that in the middle of an animal’s habitat. Instead, he stood there, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong. 

The irritation to his skin, whatever it was, was growing more insistent. Travis rubbed his arms with his fingers and was alarmed when they reported something rough, segmented on the skin that should have been soft and bare. He looked down in horror to see that his skin had begun to crack, to harden, and to discolor as distinct yellowish-brown patches appeared over the surface of his hands and forearms. What the hell was it? Some kind of rash? Yet it was spreading so fast!

Travis felt his skin begin to tingle all over, the dry pricking from the backs of his hands slowly crawling up his arms and down his trunk and legs. His skin was crawling with irritation as more of the scaly discoloration began spreading up his arms. The flesh continued to split into increasing familiar patterns to match his hands. They started to thicken, gaining depth as they encompassed the surface of his skin. They almost looked like scales! 

Travis stared helplessly, the coloration reminded him very much of the tortoise whose picture he’d so painstakingly taken just moments ago. There was no way it was a coincidence. Yet what could possibly be happening to him?

Numbness in his hands brought his attention away from the scales, and Travis flexed them a few times, terrified at their sudden lack of mobility. Looking down, he could see his digits had begun to shrink, merging together as his nails grew thicker. No, not his hands! He tried in vain to keep his fingers apart, but the tingling would not be denied. The thick stumps becoming of his hands and the single thick nail looked almost familiar…like the feet of a…

He shook his head in disbelief. Despite the evidence before him, Travis was certain he was hallucinating. He couldn’t be changing into a tortoise! Such things weren’t possible! Yet it was hard to deny how similar the patterns encroaching on his arms matched the simple beast in the habitat with him. 

The way he was changing, it didn’t seem to be sparing his hands. It stood to reason he’d soon be left with stumpy limbs that were of no use for grasping, only for walking and supporting his new weight. 

His skin continued to dry out, the scaly pattern running further up his arms. The bones underneath began to crack and reshape as his arms reduced in length. He moaned from the compression in his chest as he realized his arms would no longer rotate as a human’s would. 

His back began to ache, and Travis felt the skin hardening in tandem with a bizarre stretching sensation. He reached back to feel a smooth texture that was shocking to his touch. It reminded him of the surface of a tortoise shell. Was he growing one of his own ? What had he done to deserve this? 

He could feel tightness in his chest, and he rubbed himself with his shrinking fingers, the same composition greeting his limited tactile senses. His spine continued to throb as though it was contracting, reconfiguring with his hips and pelvis. It was as though his spine was flattening, groaning as it merged with the tortoiseshell becoming of his back. Travis started to realize that he’d soon be on all fours!

He tried desperately once more to find a switch or crack in the wall that would lead to escape from this nightmarish transformation. But his shrinking fingers found nothing. In desperation, he beat frantically on the door, his hoarse voice yelling at the top of his lungs. All fear of being discovered was gone. He needed someone to come and save him before he changed further! 

It hadn’t occurred to him that whoever might find him was the cause of the terrible transformation and would simply arrive in time to witness their triumph. All Travis could think of was getting out before the changes took any more of his humanity away. 

It was getting a little hard to stand as the mutation crawled mercilessly over his human body. His legs were beginning to shrink, still muscular, but not nearly large enough to support his 5’9 frame. Travis felt himself slipping slowly down the wall, his shrinking fingers further from the door that kept him from his goal. He watched as the digits withered away to nothing, their connections lost to him. The bones were shifting up into his arm at the tips thickened, becoming flat and bunched together. He couldn’t move the former fingers apart anymore with his hands a solid mass. They were useless now!

Tears rolled down his face as he realized he wasn’t going to get out of here, at least not on his own power. Yet they stopped as he felt something start sliding down his face that alarmed him. Several long strands of hair fell around him, pooling at his sneakers, which themselves were beginning to feel loose on his feet. He was going bald! 

Glancing out hopelessly towards his unreachable salvation, he saw his reflection in the glass of the habitat. His face was sickly and pale as the discoloration of his new scales slowly began to crawl up his cheeks. His eyes were turning a disturbing yellow, looking alien against the still-human features of his face. He was bald, looking like a terminal patient, though the reality was perhaps worse. His head was beginning to shrink in proportion to the rest of his body. He was truly turning into an animal! How much of Travis would be left once the changes were complete?

Travis didn’t care about privacy anymore. Even as a freak, it was his only chance to seek help. But as he moved towards the glass and his potential salvation, he tripped over something massive, falling onto what felt like a hard surface with a distinctive clack. Evidently, the tortoise had finished her meal and had moved under him, blocking his path. Travis tried to right himself again, but his legs had shrunk further than he’d realized. They were stumpy now, and the weight on his back made it harder to maneuver. He tried in vain to rear up once more, but his spine was too curved, his shell too heavy to stand like a human again. 

“Move! Please!” he yelled at the animal in frustration, but his actions only elicited a series of snorts and grunts from the female. She was intent on watching him, those vacant yellow eyes containing a hint of something, almost like anticipation. 

The changes were coming faster now. Travis doubted he could pass the tortoise before he was unrecognizable as a human. His shell grew thicker and wider, tugging at the edges of his still present shirt. His waist had diminished, and he struggled to keep his pants and jeans on as his frantic movements left him naked from the waist down. He had no fingers left to even cover himself with if he wanted. His back spasmed as his shell, his goddamn SHELL, grew thicker and harder, while his tailbone began wriggling on its own like a tiny tail. He really was turning into an animal now! And a tortoise at that! 

“Help, help me pleeeeaa-” He stopped as his voice cut short, as though he’d lost his air mid shout. He tried to yell, breathlessly, to no avail. It seemed that his vocal cords were fading away, along with his last hope at contacting the outside world. He strained to speak, a series of grunts escaping his dwindling lips. But it was nothing like the human voice he needed to call for help! Was he doomed to become a tortoise?

A movement on the other side of the glass caught his eye, and he raised his head to see a woman in a zookeeper’s uniform staring at him. He tried to move towards her but could only stumble forward on his stumpy legs. His heart sank as he realized that the employee must have been watching him for the past few minutes. If she had any intention of helping him, of alerting others to his situation, she would have done so. Instead, she watched him as though he was a specimen in the zoo, which would be accurate if the changes did not stop. 

Travis had a passing thought that she or maybe others might be the cause of his change, but it was getting harder to form coherent thoughts. His skull shrank as the changes continued working over his body, robbing him of his human form. Travis was unable to right himself, his quadrupedal stance becoming much more comfortable as his belly hardened, and his waist sank inside his forming shell. A pool of his former human body hair lay under his four stumpy feet, reminding him of what he had lost. 

His neck had stretched out relatively longer than it had been on his human body, and he found he could move it with ease. He could even look back to see his still-forming shell! A flap of loose skin hung heavy underneath it, its weight making Travis disgusted. He couldn’t believe he might spend the rest of his life as a fucking animal!

The female had been watching him with rapt attention, her eyes almost hauntingly human as he continued to metamorphose before her. He could see a watchful intelligence that he was sure had not been there before, or in the eyes of any reptile he’d ever seen. The female almost seemed to smile as she slowly turned around, her hindquarters in full view of the shifting human. 

A strange scent entered his nostrils, one that made a part of his backside stir in ways that were both alien and familiar. The most peculiar part was that the sensations seemed near the base of his wriggling tail as it continued to lengthen out of his spine. Despite himself, Travis felt himself growing hard, his cock sliding forward under his shell. What the hell was wrong with him? Yet he couldn’t deny the effect of her visible need, how he wanted to mount and-NO! 

Travis fought with all his will, but his member would not soften. He couldn’t help but feel his changed cock tip extending, leaking as the arousal of a needy female overrode his senses. Travis grunted in a reptilian tone, the strange sounds from the female echoed in his own voice. He realized, in disgust, the cock he was sporting was far longer than the one he’d brought in as a human male. It would need to be that long to mate as a tortoise.

It was getting more and more difficult to think, to reason in human terms. Travis’s head was shrinking, his skull growing smaller as his changes completed. His brain was no longer large enough to process human thoughts as it once did. He shook his head a few times, to try and lift the fog of animal instinct that had descended upon his psyche. But it was too late. It had already become so much harder to resist the female’s offering before him. 

Travis found himself crawling forward against his will, his back legs strong enough to propel him as he crawled up her shell to rest on her back. His mind screamed no, but his body was controlled by the animal he’d become. His loins were so needy, the area inside his opening swollen with arousal and seed. He felt a tinge of pleasure as his seeking cock tip found the edge of the female’s cloaca and began to push forward towards its target. 

His changes were nearly complete at his point. His toes had withered away as had his fingers, immovable stumps with thick nails that only served to support his weight. His shirt still hung uselessly off his carapace as his shell fully formed. His pants, undies, and shoes were left in a pile with his mammalian hair. His tail wagged as the cock underneath it grew longer and longer, buried deep in his mate as his hips began to slowly work back and forth, building up his stimulation. 

He tried once more in vain to dismount, to run away, but the tortoise he had become had won. He was too embedded in the mating act, and the human Travis felt himself floating away, the pleasure of the carnal act too much. If it felt this good to be an animal, to mate and breed, he could no longer fight. Travis no longer wished to. 

His last human thoughts were awash in the orgasmic release, satisfied knowing he’d successfully mated. His mate would lay their eggs, and he would live out his days nearby, to tend to her needs and experience orgasmic release whenever she was in need. 

Slowly the new male dismounted, the female’s cloaca leaking his seed as he scented food nearby. Spent, both new mates slowly lumbered, side by side, to quell that other appetite now that the sexual needs were satisfied. Neither was aware of the small crowd that had gathered to witness their mating, a successful event the zoo would later reveal to the public. 

*************************************************************************************************************

The zookeeper sighed as she watched the zoo’s new male tortoise dismount his new mate. The female herself was once a homeless man, given new life by the zoo, far better than anything a shelter or rehabilitation program could have provided. 

She’d have preferred to take a lower profile target to become the male, of course. The cities’ homeless population was always rife with individuals who would be better off as animals in her establishment. It seemed that the man was a bit too high profile for her tastes, with a badge and camera left at the feet of the now sexually satisfied tortoise in the zoo’s collection. But she could make this work. This photographer was a fool, willingly walking into a place where anyone unprotected by its magic would surely transform to meet the zoo’s needs. 

The zookeeper grinned, entering the habitat to retrieve and burn the clothes that stupid man had left behind. Without them, it was nearly impossible for anyone to trace his whereabouts within the zoo. No one would suspect the new male tortoise was once the man they were seeking. And if they did, there were always other spots in the reptile house waiting to be filled. She smiled at that, the thoughts of new victims writhing as they transformed into better lives and served to bring more revenue into her establishment.