The hunger pains had left him, but they'd been replaced with new pains. A hundred different little pains all over his body, and a few larger ones as well.
In the darkness of the night Thomas could hear his captors nightly fun. It reminded him of his own parents, who'd been trying unsuccessfully to keep the secret of their happy love life from him for as long as he could remember. It didn't help, also, that they had an old, squeaky bed.
Although the sound was a comforting one, of bed springs squeaking, Thomas longed to be at home. In the night, where no one could see him, a single tear ran down his cheek. Not from the pain. He hadn't cried from the pain. But from loneliness. What if they didn't want him anymore? What if they did, but they never found him?
That single tear was soon followed by quite a few others.
"Yes, I do want him to be safe," Peter said. He looked down at Nicole. Then he heaved a long sigh.
There was a long pause as the others waited for him to speak.
"All right, I'll do it," he said with another sigh. The others cheered, and Micky once again jumped up and down in joy.
"Peter, that's terrific," Nicole said, giving him a huge kiss. Which as far as he was concerned was reason enough.
"When do we do this?" he asked Mike.
"Tonight," Mike replied quickly, without a thought. "We need to get him out of there as soon as possible."
"But Mike, it's already nighttime," Davy pointed out. "We won't 'ave much time."
Mike looked at the clock. "It's only eight," he observed. "I think Peter can do it tonight, right Pete?"
Peter looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yeah," he replied. "I want to. Don't want to wait any longer than I have to."
For an inexplicable reason, a light blue glow surrounded his body. Peter looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and smiled at the light surrounding him. He still hadn't figured out why it did that. But it did, and he was stuck with it.
The first sign that he was changing was the hairs on his arm. They grew longer. And darker. Where before they'd been light, they now grew darker and thicker, though still a blond color.
Peter felt a familiar tug at his stomach muscles, and he bent over. Slowly, his legs grew a little shorter, with the hair all over him lengthening and thickening as he changed.
The nails on his fingertips and toes grew longer and sharper. His thumbs were merged with the rest of his hand, and the hair now growing over him covered them. His feet grew smaller and rounder, and the hair covered them as well.
From the end of his spinal cord, there was a stretching and a pulling, and a long tail emerged, thin and hairless. It, too, was promptly covered with the thick blond locks that now covered the rest of his only semi-human body.
Then his face, the only thing left to change, began. His ears were first. The top of his ears grew longer, and covered with the blond hairs. It grew until it was a flap that covered over his sensitive hearing organs. His face stretched and pulled, lengthening, and his nose grew smaller and darker.
When the bathroom door swung open once again, Peter emerged not as a human, but as a blond, long-haired, shaggy dog.
