Geck’d

Part 1

“Goddam,” you say, reaching your hand underneath your helmet to wipe away the sweat.

The heat is nothing new to you, but that didn’t make it any less draining. For whatever reason you have made the western deserts of what was once called the United States of America your sole area of operations.

Sure, jobs and places to scavenge are plentiful. However, all of that means little to you after marching on in the sweltering heat for hours with little rest. For this particular journey you are in a very secluded section of the Mojave. The Mojave, which might just take the cake as the hottest place on Earth as far as you’re concerned. On the bright side, at least you’ve packed yourself plenty of water for this trip.

You’re about a three day walk from New Vegas herself but have nothing to show for it yet. You haven’t found any decent animals to hunt, no bandits or gang members to ‘relieve’ of their gear, or anything of value for that matter. You thought going off the beaten path might yield you something new or exotic instead of just more empty fucking desert.

You have enough food and water to last you a few days more, and even if you do run out you could always rely on your survival skills, sharpened from your many excursions. Your hopes are still high that you’ll come across something, and you think you just found what you’ve been looking for.

You’ve managed to hike your way atop a nice plateau rising high above the desert that surrounds you. The perfect vantage point for miles. You take a knee and pull out your binoculars. If you can’t find anything now, it could be days before you find another spot this good.

Scanning the horizon from left to right, you see: dirt, a rusted slab of sheet metal, more dirt, some tumbleweeds, and even more dirt. You keep surveying, hoping that you missed something the first time, only to find the same old shit as before.

Just as you are about to give up the search, you spot something new. A small colony of geckos, 5 of them, hanging around some vegetation in front of a cliff.

Now, you’ve probably seen thousands of geckos at this point from your travels throughout the Mojave and New California. And judging from their striped blue skin, they are just common geckos at that. However, their hide can go for an okay number of caps, and they don’t put up much of a fight. Perfect for someone looking to recuperate some of their loses after wasting two whole days wandering the wasteland. Someone just like you.

You climb down from your vantage point and run towards the geckos. You pull out your trusty 10 mm pistol. It isn’t a particularly strong gun, but anything more powerful would be a waste of resources and result in you trying to salvage bits of flesh and bone.

Once you get close to them, the geckos all mindlessly charge at you. A couple of shots from your gun stopped any of them before they could even reach you. Taking out your combat knife, you get to work collecting their skins.

Half-an-hour later, and you have yourself a handful of caps worth of gecko hide. Putting the skins in your backpack, you spot something out of the corner of your eye.

Of course there was the cliff side encased in vegetation. But behind the faded greens and yellows of the cacti and tall grass, there is the outline of something that just did not fit in. You can’t make out what it is from where you’re standing, but it’s slightly darker than its surroundings and does not sway in the wind like the rest of the flora. Wiping the gecko blood off your hands and onto your canvas pants, you strap into your backpack once again and head over to investigate.

Almost completely overwhelmed by the cacti, tall grass and various plants was an old, rickety wooden door built right onto the side of the crag. A big grin grows on your face. If this is what you think it is, you might have just hit the jackpot.

The door feels like it's about to fall apart from your touch alone, but it somehow manages to stay intact as you push it open. It reveals a dark tunnel that is dimly lit through cracks in the wooden door. However, there is a bit of a surprise at your feet.

Lying just inside is the corpse of some poor chap. He is only wearing some very basic clothing. Brahmin skin overalls, a patchwork cotton shirt, and old brown boots. He’s covered in cuts and animal bite marks, and from the condition of his body looks only recently deceased. Just a few days old, maybe a week. The only thing he had on him was a rolling pin. Not even a single cap, much to your disappointment. You quickly move on from the body. Desperate idiots are not a new sight for you.

Wandering through the tunnel, you reach the end before you know it. Your grin from earlier grows into a toothy smile. At the end of the tunnel is a big metal cog with the number 26 on the front. The clear markings of a vault.

You check your location on your Pip-Boy. There is no indication of a Vault 26 anywhere on the map, let alone existing. As far as it’s concerned, you’re standing in the middle of nowhere. You’re probably the first person to have seen this vault since the Great War. Well, the second person if you’re taking into consideration the cadaver at the start of the cave.

An untouched vault could be a gold mine for weapons, pre-war novelties, and miscellaneous tech junk that you can sell. And, depending on the experiment within the vault, it could literally be a gold mine. This could be the vault where they made everything out of gold. Or, maybe, they gave all of the inhabitants a handful of diamonds? You are close salivating at the ideas of what could be in this vault.

You waste no time in finding the entrance’s control panel. It takes a couple of seconds for the hydraulics to start up, but they eventually do along with a loud buzzing and grinding sound that shakes the tunnel. As the cog-like door is rolled to the side, a large gush of air flows out, just like opening up a 200 year old can of Cram. You pull out a gun just in case some crazed vault dwellers or rampant mutants are awaiting you inside. Your riot shotgun should clean up any threats quickly

As the vault door comes to a stop along with the grinding and buzzing noises, you look inside. If the tunnel was dim, then the vault is pitch-black. You turn on your Pip-Boy’s flashlight. The green glow isn’t much, but it’s good enough for now.

You slowly enter the vault with your weapon drawn. It’s like the entrance of any other vault you have seen. A moderately large room with a ramp from the entrance leading to a slightly higher section. Still moving slowly and cautiously, you make your way up the ramp.

The room is as silent as it is dark. There is nothing that indicates anything currently alive or hostile in this room or vault as far as you can tell. You find the light switch and relax your stance.

You take a look around the now illuminated entrance and turn off your flashlight. Just a standard, cookie-cutter vault entrance. There’s a thick layer of dust on everything. An obvious sign of inactivity within the vault. To your chagrin, none of the fixtures appeared to be made of gold. You knew that they most likely would not have been, but it’s still a little disappointing.

There are tables along the sides of the room, and atop of them there are some cardboard boxes. Looking inside, you see square slabs of plastic bags. Their inside content hidden by the heavy grime caked on. Brushing the dust off, you are greeted with the familiar blue and yellow hue of a vault suit. A bold and yellow number 26 was printed on the back of each one. A small fortune.

Now, vault suits don’t mean a whole lot to most people, especially not you. However, if you recall, there’s a girl at the Vault 21 casino on the Strip that pays a good amount for them. You could probably get her to pay at least double for untouched suits from an unheard of vault. Their lightweight and low volume nature makes them perfect for stashing away in your backpack.

Before you leave the entrance room, you close and lock the vault’s door. The last thing you need is something breaking into the vault and catching you with your pants down.

You start going from room to room in the vault. From hallways to bedrooms to the cafeteria, you collect all the Vault 26 jumpsuits you can get your hands on as well as the occasional stimpak, bottle of purified water, and various keycards scattered about in order to access even more of the vault.

All the rooms have the same thing in common: all of their lights had been turned off, there was heavy dust throughout each one, and there were absolutely no signs of life. Sure, there were some signs of living. Used vault suits strewn over a bed, dishes and utensils throughout the cafeteria, food left out in the open, et cetera. But there weren’t any signs of actual life in the present, apart from you of course.

There also wasn’t anything overtly off or sinister about the vault. You were familiar with the fact that most vaults were designed with some kind of experiment in mind. But it seemed like this vault was normal. It didn’t look like they crammed a bunch of schizos in an underground cellar to see what would happen or forced all of the inhabitants to drink nothing but alcohol. The only thing that suggested something funny happened here was just the sheer lack of people in it.

However, just as you are about to chalk this vault up as being another control test, you stumble across a room. The room. Tucked away in the corner in a secluded corner of the vault was a locked and unlabeled door. Thanks to your collection of various keycards, you manage to open it.

Inside is a medium-sized room with various lab equipment strewn about. Large, bulky machines that did not resemble anything you are familiar with or had even seen before were tucked away in the back and along the walls. There are two additional doors in the room, one on both the left and right sides.

As well as the door, the right side also has a desk, a terminal, some control panels, and a large horizontal window that peered into what looked like a standard vault bedroom. These things you are more familiar with.

Heading over to the terminal, you decide to look through the logs for some more information. All of the entries are very dated. The latest one is from 180 years ago. Looking through them, you try to piece together what the goal of all this was.

Apparently, this room and its equipment were used for experiments looking at the possible effects on humans of extreme radiation exposure for various amounts of time. The logs detail each test, their test subject, and the results. The scientists here would drug the subject during the night and take them to the bedroom seen through the mirror. There, the tests could proceed while they were sleeping or as soon as they would awake.

It seems like most tests resulted in death, radiation poisoning, or no apparent problems. The logs also mention some unusual side effects, such as ‘adipose redistribution’, ‘chromosomal alteration and destruction’ and the likes.

You’re going to be honest to yourself. You just kind of briefly skimmed through the logs. Most of it was pretty boring science babble and academic references. The last log mentions something about how they were looking into starting tests that involve both a human and an animal, but it seems like the entries stopped before anything came of it.

Moving from the terminal to the control panels, you look at all the settings they have. It appears that the two main focuses of these panels are radiation strength and duration. Makes sense from what you read on the terminal. The power of the radiation goes from a low as nothing to as high as 1000 MSv, whatever that means. The duration, on the other hand, goes from as high as 24 hours to as low as 5 milliseconds. You play with the dials, switches, and buttons for a bit, but you get no response. It seems like this shit died well over a century ago.

After fiddling about, you decide to enter the adjacent bedroom, the one visible through the window, to search around for more information about these tests or at least some more vault suits to stash.

As you enter the room, it looks as normal as all of the other bedrooms in the vault. A single double bed lies in the middle of the room, its back against a wall. Two end tables border that bed, a lamp on one end and a clock on the other. A dresser and a chair sit in the other corner of the room. Everything in the room is painted blue, yellow, or has its metal sheen untouched. There’s a door at the back of the room, presumably holding the washroom. The window by the control panels that was peering into the room was completely indistinguishable from the wall. A very clever one-way view. If you were one of those unlucky subjects that got drugged up and thrown in here, you probably wouldn’t have suspected a thing.

All-in-all, ignoring the perverse reason for the room, it just looks like a normal, boring, metal cocoon of a room just like all the other Vault 26 bedrooms.

You head over to the door in the back and open it. Just as you had suspected, it was a gateway into a normal bathroom. A simple shower, toilet, sink, and medicine cabinet-mirror hybrid are most of what lies within. As you step inside the washroom, you hear the door to the lab slam shut.

Part 2

“Fuck…” you frustratedly mutter to yourself as you run back to the entrance.

You try to open the door, but it’s locked. Just then, you start hearing a faint humming noise around you. This isn’t good. Quickly getting your keycards out of your pockets, you try to look for the lock, but there’s none. This is a one-way door system.

The humming noise is getting louder now.

You start kicking and charging at the door as hard as you can, but it doesn’t budge.

The humming noise is almost deafening now, and the walls are starting to vibrate.

You start unholstering your shotgun, hoping that you’d be able to shoot open the door. But just then, a bright blue flash envelops your vision as you hear a loud CRACK and POP from your Pip-Boy. The flash lasts only for a split second, barely enough time for your eyes to even register it, but you’re still dazed for a couple of seconds afterwards. The humming has stopped.

You check your hands. They seem fine. You check your legs as well. They look fine too. Your pants are oddly clean of the blood from when you wiped your hands on them, however. Maybe there wasn’t as much blood on them as you thought there was. You then move onto your Pip-Boy.

A black screen stares back at you. You try turning it off and then back on again, but you get no response from it whatsoever. It’s fucking dead. You look at its built-in Geiger counter. The needle hangs limply. This is a really fucking bad sign.

You quickly fling off your backpack and search it for a RadAway. As you’re scrounging your bag, an intense wave of heat engulfs every part of your body. It feels like you’re burning alive inside and out. You rip off your helmet in a desperate effort to cool you down as sweat pours down your face like a raging river. You’ve had radiation poisoning plenty of times before, but it’s always left a lethargic feeling in you. Never once did you have a reaction this extreme.

You continue to dig through your backpack, rapidly throwing out all of its contents throughout the room. You eventually find the familiar IV bag at the bottom of your sack after what seems like an eternity. You try to wipe away the stream of sweat flowing down your forehead and into your eyes, only for a clump of your hair to fall out.

You’re panicking now. Are you turning into a fucking ghoul?

You shakily pick up the RadAway bag as your hands begin to cramp. Hands which have developed a grey-blue hue to them. As you’re getting ready to administer the RadAway dose, it awkwardly falls out of your grip. You desperately try to pick the bag up, but for whatever reason your hands are stiffening up too much. You bring them up to your face to see what’s wrong with them.

Your fingers are straining and flexing painfully. The palm side is now a sickly looking grey-ish white whereas the back is a pale blue with 3 dark blue horizontal stripes. You try to use your hands to massage the cramps out of each other. The texture of their skin has changed as well. They feel scaly, yet at the same time smooth and near frictionless. You continue massaging, but the caressing only seems to make the situation worse as your fingernails grow long and black. Each one sharpened into a fine point.

You then suddenly get a vice-like compression feeling in your left right index finger. It feels like someone is pushing your fingertips into itself. To your horror, you see the finger start shrinking and receding into your hand. Stopping only when it is about half in length. The feeling soon spreads to your middle finger, your ring finger, your pinkie finger, and your thumb. All of them slowly yet surely shrink down. The feeling finally moves to your palm, and it starts to shrink down until it's just shy of matching your new fingers in proportion. After the ordeal, you are left with a small and very unfamiliar right hand.

The same sensation has moved to your left hand now, and you quickly slip off your Pip-Boy to avoid damaging it anymore. Admittingly, it takes a lot less effort to do so than what you remember. Looking at both of your stubby, blue hands, you can’t help but notice their striking similarities to those that belong to a very familiar looking reptile.

What the fuck is happening to you?

You decide to leave the RadAway on the ground. You’re so fucked now that no amount of it can help you. Hell, the best auto-doc in the world probably couldn’t do a damn thing to save you.

You run into the bathroom to see if you can get a better view of what’s happening, leaving clumps of hair in your path. You look in the mirror to see beads of sweat roll down your almost completely naked head. Only isolated strands of thin hair remain on top and on your face. The blue-grey hue has moved from your hands and is spreading throughout your entire body, and it only exacerbates your sickly appearance.

You suddenly feel a build-up of pressure in your chest, stomach, legs, and tailbone. It's as if someone is gently pinching your flesh and fat in those areas. It’s not unpleasant either. You quickly take off all of your clothes to try and relieve some of this feeling.

Standing fully naked, dick hanging out, you feel the pressure only start to build up more. The sensation is particularly concentrated in your tailbone this time. It’s like someone has attached a rope to your coccyx and is slowly trying to pull it out. Reaching behind, you find the culprit. A fleshy loaf extends from your backside. It’s hard to tell just how big it is, thanks to your stubby hands, but it seems to jut out a couple of inches. Maybe half a foot. It’s round and tapers off into a point. You try to look over your shoulder at it but can’t quite get the proper angle. Regardless, it is clear as day. You are growing a tail.

It’s undeniable now. Your hands, scaly blue skin, your tail. You’re turning into a fucking gecko. A common one at that.

Just then, you are struck with the feeling as if someone has clipped a strong clamp to both of your ears, trying to squish them flat. Looking in the mirror, they have grown to about twice as large and seem intent on growing some more. Reaching up to touch them, they feel thinner and have an almost membranous sensation to them. They’re turning into goddam fins.

Back to your face in the mirror. It still resembles you. Sort of. But that’s rapidly changing. All of your hair now lies at your feet or in the sink. Your light blue skin makes you look diseased. The mass of mutating flesh that was once your ears are spreading out as they finish their metamorphosis into head fins. Your face looks swollen, as if you were just in a fist fight. You force out an awkward smile, revealing razor sharp and jagged teeth. You run your finger over them and draw some blood.

You look down at the progress of the rest of your body. You couldn’t see your tail earlier, but now that’s completely changed. Your tail is about a foot-and-a-half long, maybe two feet. It can wrap around from your back to your stomach. It’s big and it’s beefy in your small hands, and although it’s connected to you and you can feel every touch, movement, and sensation of it, it’s like it has a mind of its own. It moves and sways in the air without any mental input. You try to freeze it, but how? You can feel your tail muscles flex and relax with every swing, but you can’t seem to find the strength to use them.

The pressure in your chest is starting to get more and more intense with every breath, like if someone has connected a bicycle pump to each of your pectorals. One that is powered by every inhale of air you take. You look down at it. Your chest has the same off-white colour as your palms, with the exception of your nipples which are a dark blue. Almost indigo in colour. Everything looks puffy, as if you are having an allergic reaction.

Your small hands go to touch around the area. You normally have a fairly solid chest. Muscles that have been built up from years of traveling the wasteland. But now it has a bit of a flabby feeling. They aren’t fat, per say, but softer than you remember.

Your hand briefly runs across one of your nipples and the sensation tingles to your spine. You certainly don’t remember that. You rub your nipples a little harder this time, and your knees buckle slightly as your dick starts to wake up to the stimuli.

Since when has touching your nipples felt this good?

You close your eyes and continue to play with them. Sticking your finger within and drawing circles around them. You get lost in the pleasure and rhythm and not notice the more you play with them, the larger your chest becomes. Each contact, tingle, and moan powers those invisible bicycle pumps some more. You continue to rub and rub, oblivious to their changes and completely enveloped in increasing bliss.

“Oh god…” you moan, lost in thought.

You open your eyes in this little moment of yours and look down. Two much bigger mounds now rest on your chest. This shock causes you to stop experimenting with the new sensations. You look in the mirror at what you just did to yourself.

You no longer have tight pecs, but sizable tits. They weren’t particularly large tits. B-cups. Maybe C-cups. But they seemed massive to someone who didn’t have them a few moments ago. Doubly so from just how much smaller your new hands are. You swing them left to right, up and down, and your breasts follow like fatty pendulums.

What an odd sight you are now. Blue and grey skin all over your body. Your eyes have turned amber in colour along with gaining vertical reptilian pupils. Gecko fins in place of your ears. Dagger-like teeth fill your mouth on your flat human face. Stubby child-like hands with black claws. Blue tits on your chest. A hefty lizard tail above your ass along with a human dick between your relatively normal legs. You look like an abomination.

Just as you finish that thought up, you feel a quick downward tug in your spine and legs.

What the fuck is happening now?

You look around. Nothing seems any different.

You feel another short tug, this time accompanied by some added pressure in your thighs, ass, belly, and… tits. You feel yourself all around, but nothing has changed as far as you can tell.

Another tug, this time slightly more intense. You’re still looking around at yourself to find anything different. Your eyes go back to yourself in the mirror.

Wait… Was the mirror always this high?

Another, stronger tug hits you, and you find yourself taking up a bit less of the mirror.

Holy fuck! You’re shrinking.

You try and hold yourself up using the sink, as if this could slow down or stop your spine and legs from compressing.

Another tug, more powerful than the last. This time you really feel it in your thighs, belly, and tits. You feel around your abdomen. The hard, toughened muscle you had built up there was hiding under a very light layer of fat.

Another tug. Scratch that. It’s a light layer of fat now. Shit! Your body must be shifting mass from your height and into other parts of your body. You look back into the mirror. Your head was once at the very top of the mirror, but it’s now only at its midpoint.

Another tug hits you. You only take up about a quarter of the mirror now. The shrinking is picking up pace. You feel your stomach again. The layer of fat has grown into an average amount now. The kind of gut any Joe Schlub hanging out in the bars of New Vegas has.

Another tug. It now feels as if a super mutant is trying to push you down as hard as possible. This spurt leads to you being shorter than the mirror now. The lip of the sink catches your tits and throws them into your face. You have been so distracted with your belly and height, you haven’t been paying attention to these things. If they weren’t big before, they most certainly are now. Your breasts easily take up your entire vision in your current position, and you freeze as your eyes linger on them.

Another tug. Due to your position on the sink, this surge leads you airborne with your feet off the ground. You fall on your backside, but the impact isn’t as painful as you thought. In fact, it didn’t even hurt at all. Your hands move back there to see what’s going on. Instead of finding the ass that you knew of, you find two massive fucking cushions in their place. Holy shit. It feels like you are sitting on a cloud, but your poking and prodding just goes to confirm that this is a part of you now. Your own portable couch.

You sit there for a few moments. A part of you waiting for yet another shrink spurt, and the other part just perplexed at what you can even do. Some minutes pass and it becomes evident that your shrinking has ceased.

You start to get up. Well, at least try to get up. Your legs, now stubby and caked in a healthy layer of fat, makes it a struggle. You do eventually manage to roll over and push yourself up. You waddle over to the sink to begin to evaluate the damages.

The mirror is now above your sight. Hell, even the sink is beyond your reach, being just as high as you are tall. Maybe even an inch or two taller. You feel like a busty midget.

You examine your body with your hands. You look down at your chest. It eclipses your feet from your vision. You feel and caress your massive tits with your hands. These might be the largest mammaries you have ever seen. You blush. It’s a little embarrassing that those tits are on a gecko. Infinitely more embarrassing since that gecko is you.

Your hands move lower to your crotch, and you are greeted by a familiar friend. It’s a little relieving that there’s still something on your body that isn't completely different. However, as you hand lingers on your dick, you feel it react and stiffen from the touch. The nerves in your dick weren’t yet used to the new texture of your hands. You never realized someone’s touch could feel this soft. It feels like whatever is feeling you up down there belongs to a silky goddess.

A little rubbing couldn’t hurt, right?

Your heart rate spikes as you start slowly moving your grip up and down your shaft. It is the most perfect sensation you could ever have imagined. The ideal blend of ticklishly cold and lovingly warm. Your hand starts to pick up pace.

Holy fuck, this is good.

You bite your lip in ecstasy. Your dick has never been even remotely this hard before. You start pumping faster. Your other hand starts to subconsciously massage your breasts, enhancing the pleasure tenfold.

Your legs start to buckle from all the sensations, and so you decide to take a seat on your cushions right then and there in the bathroom. Your hand feels like it’s moving at supersonic speeds on your dick.

Your entire body feels like a vessel of pure pleasure. From your fins to your feet, you are filled with erotic joy. You can feel extra pressure building up in your face as it starts to gradually stretch out into a gecko snout. It feels as if someone was stretching it out as if it were made of a block of wet clay. Your nose and mouth start taking up more and more of your vision, but you ignore this as well, being too focused on pleasing yourself to be bothered.

Despite their absence from your view, you can tell that changes are happening to your feet as well. You can feel them, shrink, flatten, and spread out into a reptilian form. Your toes become pointed as your toenails morph into sharp black claws. However, you’re too lost in pleasure to care as your hands continue to work your dick and tits. Every time you think you’re pumping as fast as possible, you still manage to surpass your speed, somehow multiplying the pleasure. Your balls are vigorously straining at keeping back a load. It feels like you’re holding back the entirety of Mead Lake from shooting out of your dick. You keep pumping faster and faster until you are just about to-

“Oh, fuck!” you cry out, involuntary. You’re running on pure instincts right now.

Off-white ropes of cum blasts out from your dick like a cannon. Aiming your cock at your upper torso, they coat your head and tits like paint. Some of it even lands in your mouth, which you have open in anticipation for whatever reason. Despite this, your cock is still as hard as ever, and your hand is still pumping as fast as ever. Every time when you think it’s over, that you can’t possibly have any more to give, more semen somehow manages to shoot out of your dick.

However, every time you ejaculate, your hand seemingly has less and less area to pump. After 15 eruptions, you find yourself using almost solely using wrist movement to cover stroke from shaft to head.

“Holy shit!” you continue to call out. This time, instead of your usual male voice, a softer one emerges. One that could only be described as androgynous. It’s a hair more breathy and drier as well. But you're still too busy jerking off and rubbing your tits to care.

20 ejaculations in, and each one still feels stronger than the last. Your dick has shrunk so much that you’re down to only using your thumb, index, and middle finger to stroke it. You’ve gone from cumming all over your upper body to just coating your belly now. Each pump seems to make your moans higher pitched and more feminine.

23 now, and you’re still lost in the pleasure. You feel like at any moment your mind is going to leak out of your ears. Well, technically it would be your fins now. You’re down to just using your thumb and index to knead and massage what remains of your dick. Your testicles couldn’t be much larger than gumdrops now.

25 orgasms in, and you feel brain dead. Your testicles have completely receded into your body now, and just the head of your cock remains exposed. Your index finger is still vigorously rubbing it, however. You feel another climax coming on.

“Oh my god…” a voice from your mouth calls out as you reach your 26th ejaculation. It is impossible to identify any similarities with this voice and your old one. It is undeniably feminine with a noticeable roughness to it. Nothing hideous or off putting like a ghoul’s voice, but enough to add a level of exoticism to the speaker.

Instead of the mighty, powerful spurts of cum you had 25 orgasms ago, the head of your penis can only muster enough strength for a dribble of a clear fluid before being absorbed by your body with a loud and wet SCHLURP sound. In its place lies a perfect and puffy slit.

This experience still doesn’t snap you from your trance, as your hand enters you to try and find something else to play with. However, the mere act of searching is more than enough pleasure for you.

You continue playing with your tits and pussy. One hand gently pinching and pulling at your nipples, the other hand working on your folds. You start with a simple caressing of your new lips. Your whole body shivers from the feeling. It’s as if you’re being killed and revived with each and every moment you perform. Before you know it, your fingers were plunging into the unfamiliar with as much vigor and speed you had for your dick. Your hand glides frictionlessly into and out of it, lubed up by a mixture of semen and a new liquid flowing from you. An entirely new sensation matching, if not exceeding, the farewell your cock gave you.

An indeterminate amount of time passes, and you slow your pace before finally running out of steam and stopping. You just lay there for a moment, naked and on the bathroom floor, trying to catch your breath. You bring your hand that was inside of you before your eyes, playing with the clear syrupy strings of juices that stretches between the space of your fingers. You lick your lips, savouring the flavour of the experience you just had.

Just then, you hear the sounds of a quick and light metallic grind. The exit door must have finally opened.

The noise is also enough to snap you out of your trance, and you start to comprehend the nature of your situation. Hit with the sudden knowledge of reality, you stand up as fast as your compressed body can.

You find yourself in a sticky situation. Quite literally, as a viscous fluid gently drips off of you. A feeling of immense disgust washes over you and is implanted directly onto your face. A small part of you is glad that you lack hair now. You try to scrape off your semen from your body using your hands, completely ignoring the nearby shower and towel in your haste. This works moderately well until you’re suddenly immobilized from a salty taste in your mouth.

You gag and try to expel the contents into the sink, but at your new height the best you can do is awkwardly shovel running water in your maw as you spit it on the ground. The sad part of this to you was that the taste isn’t all that bad. There was a mild sweetness to it. But it was the idea of cum being in your mouth that was eliciting this reaction

A few moments of doing this and you’re struck with a cold feeling. Scratch that, a freezing feeling. It might be the coldest you’ve ever felt before in your life. Surely the air conditioning mixed with all of the fluids covering your body has led to this feeling, by why was it so intense? Shivering, you spot the shower behind you and quickly head inside, being sure to make the water as hot as possible.

Part 3

After a long and hot shower, you dry yourself off with the nearby towel before wrapping it around your waist, mistakenly leaving your tits out in the open. Since no further changes have happened to you for a while, your transformation seems to be over. You begin thinking about your next plans and decide to compile them into a list of three things you need to figure out:

1. What happened to you.
2. How to get back to normal.
3. How to get back to civilization.

For the first task, you already had a good idea of what you were. Both outside and in. Your blue striped hide, head fins, and claws made it clear that you were now some kind of common gecko. Judging from your new equipment, some kind of female common gecko. But in all of your years of exploring the wasteland, you had never seen or even heard of a gecko with such a humanoid stance, let alone the huge tits and ass you now have.

You also are almost certain that this fucked up radiation testing room is what made you the way you are. However, the ‘why’ and ‘how’ still eludes you.

Maybe you missed some vital information back in the lab room? You step around the puddle of fluids in the bathroom, rummage through your old pants lying on the floor for all of the vault’s keycards, and finally head out of the test chamber.

Stepping into the now much more spacious room, the first thing you do is check the control panel from earlier. Standing on your clawed tippy toes, you try to decipher the acronyms given to all of the knobs, switches, and buttons.

No such luck. In fact, you might even be more confused since last time. You can’t recall what you fiddled with or left untouched, and you certainly can’t find a ‘gecko’ or ‘transmogrify’ option. All you can make out is that radiation involved was 1000 MSv for a duration of 5 milliseconds. It wasn’t much info, but it was at least some sort of basis.

Moving back to the terminal from what feels like ages ago, you climb into the desk chair and awkwardly stretch your body upwards to get a proper view of the monitor. The standard sized office chair is more akin to a high chair for you now, and probably just as uncomfortable. Your legs hang helplessly in front. The armrests dig into your towel-wrapped thighs and ass, trying desperately to contain them. Your tail certainly isn’t making things easier, forcing you to have an awkwardly lopsided posture or risk crushing it. The wheels of the chair squeak and squeal in pain, not improving your mood.

This time on the terminal you plan to carefully go through each and every entry. You turn on the monitor and… nothing.

What the fuck?

You climb down from the chair, unplug and replug the terminal, climb back up, and… no response.

You repeat the process one more time, and all you get in return is the same black screen.

This shit is completely fried. Some radiation must have leaked out of the bedroom and fucked with the 200 year old electronic. Just your luck today.

There is still one more possible source of information. You waddle over to the mysterious door on the other side of the room. It’s locked and unpickable. You scan every keycard you’ve collected. It doesn’t even flinch.

You let out a big sigh, it’s feminine nature momentarily catching you off guard. This just put an end to your first two tasks, at least for now. You know that the radiation is probably what caused you to be this way. But the only thing you can think of possibly having any effect at reversing this is blasting yourself with the same settings, and there’s no way in hell you’re doing that again. You just don’t have enough faith that it would in any way lead to a good outcome. You guess you’re stuck this way for the time being.

This automatically means you’re onto your third mission; heading back into civilization.

But first…

You haven’t seen yourself since you shrank below the mirror in the bathroom, and the thought of what you now look like is driving you crazy. Sure, you have a pretty good idea at the moment just from looking down, but a mirror would finally settle your mind. You wander into the vault’s hallway and start your search.

It takes a decent amount of time, but you do eventually find a full-body one in the infirmary of the vault. Stepping in front of it, you see the full extent of the damage for the first time.

Within the mirror, there is a wide-eyed midget-proportioned gecko wearing a towel around her waist. Her large breasts dangling freely in the open. You blush slightly when you realize your fashion mistake, but you leave the towel untouched for now. The word that keeps flashing through your mind is ‘shortstack’.

Although you were more than prepared to face your new self, it’s still jarring. You feel up your head fins as you stare into your giant amber reptilian eyes. They display actual intelligence behind them, differing from the mindless glare normal geckos give. After getting a good enough feel of your fins, your hands make their way to your snout. You lift up your lip to reveal an array of long and sharp teeth glistening in the light fluorescent light. You attempt to give your best smile, and although it doesn’t look perfect, you have to admit it is a little cute. You stick out your tongue. It’s long, thin, and comes to a fine point.

Wanting to get the full view of your new body, you drop your towel to the floor. You thought your boobs were huge before, but now that you’ve gotten a proper view of your ass, you can confidently say that it is the epitome of massive. You give it a mild massage with your fingers. It’s the perfect blend of soft fat and toned muscles.

Looking back at yourself in the mirror. You’re definitely wider than what you were before. From your tits to your belly to your ass and legs, you’ve gained a substantial amount of blubber all over. But it wasn’t a disgusting or slob-like kind of fat. More of a pleasant plush than anything else. The kind that would be nice to hold and snuggle against like a big pillow.

Your eyes catch a glimpse of your tail swaying back and forth behind you. You reach around and grab the end to bring it to your front. You don’t think your tail has grown since your initial examination of it, but since there’s so much less of you now, vertically at least, it seems to make up a much larger portion of yourself. You let go of it and it goes right back to swaying in the air. You still have no goddam control over it.

Back to the mirror. Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with this body, you decide that it is a good time to start striking some emotive poses. Acting tough, cute, shy, confused, goofy, angry, and any other emotion you can think of. You never knew just how expressive a lizard could be.

After about a dozen or so fun poses, an actual grin starts to develop onto your face. Seeing this face of genuine happiness on this reptile, you can’t help but notice just how cute and sexy she is. Just how cute and sexy you are.

You start to feel a wetness between your legs. Your face becomes red hot as you stare at the ground and step back from the mirror. You think it’s time to move onto something else. Something like your new voice.

“H-hello…?” a shaky and quiet call comes from your maw. The sound is unmistakably from a female. There’s a very odd and dissociative sensation you get when you talk. Expecting to hear yourself, and instead someone completely different fulfills your words. Looking in the mirror, your mouth is mildly agape in surprise.

“S-s-s-s-so this is my voice now?” you say louder this time, wanting to analyze it some more. You have some trouble with the first ‘s’ sound, your new tongue handles and moves around your mouth differently. It’s quicker and much more agile than before, but also longer and slightly more cumbersome. Your current voice has some gravel to it, but not distractingly so. Just enough to add a beautiful allure to the speaker that draws listeners in. There’s also some extra experience behind your words without being too mature. The sound of someone who has spent some long nights out in the wasteland but still has plenty more in front of her.

You spend the next couple of minutes continuing to test out and familiarize yourself with your new voice and tongue. Mouthing off to the world random disjointed phrases and words. Greetings, sayings, expletives, and casual conversation material. You’re embarrassed to admit it, but after a while your voice starts to get you in a mood. Some dirty words and more flirtatious inflections start to invade your vocal practice.

“Hello miss,” your words drip with sex appeal. You’re not even trying to hide it now.

“Have you ever been felt up by a gecko’s tongue?” you say, followed up with a short laugh. It’s nice to know that this whole experience hasn’t improved your pickup lines.

“Hey stud, mind if I-” you quickly move your hand to your mouth in embarrassment at the realization of what you were saying.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

Just a couple of hours ago you were placed in a different body, as a different species, and as different gender, but you can’t stop thinking about sex. And not just with a woman either, for some reason. You should be in shock, not questioning your sexuality.

You must be way too pent up from spending one to many nights out alone. When you get back to New Vegas, or at least Freeside, the first thing you are going to do is hire a prostitute.

Well, at least one of the first things. It would be nice to get back to normal before you have sex. New Vegas might not even be ready for a busty, horny, gecko chick. Or, the thought scares you, maybe they’d be too ready.

Moving on from the mirror and your voice, you spot a stadiometer nearby. Now’s a better time than any to see just how short you’ve gotten. Stepping onto the baseplate and lowering the arm to your head, you read the measurement.

You stand a mere four feet tall. Maybe a bit closer to 3'10’’, but ‘four feet’ just rolls off the tongue better. It also allows for you to keep just a hair more dignity after losing about two feet of your height. According to a nearby pediatric chart, this is about the average height of a seven year old child. Pretty embarrassing, but at least with your new assets nobody in their right mind would ever mistake you as a kid.

There wasn’t really anything more you could check or measure in the infirmary. Sure, you could see how much you weigh now, but you didn’t really keep a good track of that beforehand. Besides, with how ‘well-endowed’ you’ve become, you doubt your weight’s changed all that much.

This means you’re finally onto your third task here: trying to find a way back to town. Staring down at your naked body, the first thing you should look for is some clothing that’ll fit. You pick up your towel from in front of the mirror and wrap it around yourself, this time making sure to cover your chest as well and head off back to the testing room where this all started.

Returning to the bedroom, you stare down at the clothes and armour you were wearing when you first arrived. They look like they belong to a super mutant. You pick up your pants and hold them to your hips. Correction. They look like they belong to a thin super mutant.

You bend down to put them on, only to receive a face full of tits. You’re forced to sit on the ground to get them on your legs. After some intense struggling you manage to hike the pants up to a presentable height. Your tail, among other assets, prevents you from pulling them up any further. You try to zip them up, but your thighs put up a bigger fight.

You pick up your leather duster from off the ground and slip it on effortlessly compared to your pants. After the whole ordeal, you end up looking as ridiculous as you feel. Your sleeves overshoot your wrist by over a foot. Your jacket touches the floor, and its open nature leaves your breasts and belly out for the world to see. Your strained pants engulf your feet in a sea of canvas as your tail threatens to pull them down even further. You feel like a little kid playing dress up, but if you replace the kid part with a busty lizard woman.

You roll up your sleeves so that your hands are usable and button up the duster. It works, albeit a bit tight in the chest region. It’s time for some alterations to be made. You head to your backpack for your combat knife. As soon as you grab it, you’re immediately thrown off by its unfamiliarity. It’s more like a combat shortsword at your current size. It’s heavier than you're used to, and its hilt goes a decent way beyond your grip. Regardless, you’re still ready to make some changes to your outfit.

However, as soon as you bring the knife to your pant legs, you find yourself hesitating. This is still a perfectly good set of armour. They’ve gotten you through a whole hell of a lot and they have no signs of slowing down. Besides, they cost you a hell of a lot of caps. Sure, they may be unusable in your current state, but what about when, if ever, you manage to turn back?

After a minute or two of pondering, you finally make up your mind. You put down the knife and take off your clothes. Folding them neatly before placing them on the bed.

Well, now you’re back to where you’d started, completely naked. You start pacing around the room, thinking about what else you can wear.

One of the vault suits you picked up here would probably fit you well enough, considering their one-size-fits-all design. However, you were planning on selling those for a good profit. Considering all the new shit you probably have to buy now as well as any medical examinations required to figure out what the fuck even happened to you, maximizing the number of caps you can make from this vault should be another priority.

You continue to pace. But you can’t go out into the wasteland naked or wearing just a towel, could you?

Wait, what about…? Suddenly, you remember something from earlier. You grab your combat knife and run to the front of the vault.

Getting to the entrance, your heart sinks. The vault door is open by about a foot. Quickly bring your knife up in a combative stance, you sneak around the entrance and finally to the opening. You’re hoping that your nude body is enough to distract any would be assailants.

Following an examination, there are absolutely no signs of intrusion, ignoring yours from earlier. No footprints, no agitation of the nearby dust, and no sounds breaking the gentle humming of the vault. You breathe a sigh of relief as you drop your guard. What a goddam security risk that was, especially knowing just how vulnerable you were. You could’ve sworn you made sure to shut and lock the thread when you entered. Piece of shit vault must be falling apart in front of your eyes.

Exiting the vault and into the tunnel, you spot what you were looking for. That poor, dead bastard from earlier who just so happens to still be wearing some perfectly usable and disposable clothes. You strip the guy of his brahmin overalls, cotton shirt, leather boots, and burlap sack leaving him solely in his underwear. It probably wouldn’t fit you anyways.

You have a much easier time putting these clothes on due to their bagginess. All it takes is a strong tightening of the coverall straps and two simple cuts to shorten the legs and the outfit’s presentable. However, it’s still far from a perfect fit. Much too loose in some areas and much too snug in others.

Your tail is being uncomfortably pushed against your back. You use your knife to cut a hole into your trousers and pull it through. The sleeves of the t-shirt are more robe-like than anything, slackly handing down to the middle of your forearm. Your milk machines and portable couch are being squished mildly, but a lot better than before. The boots are like leather boats. They were originally designed to reach halfway up the wearer’s calf, but to you they come almost to your knees. They threaten to fall off with every step. You take them off momentarily and stuff them with scraps of clothing you cut off. Uncomfortable, but now usable.

Congratulations, you’ve gone from looking like you were playing dress up to being featured on the cover of a bad pulp comic book called ‘Redneck Reptile Women from Mars’. Whatever. All you needed was something to cover up your tits and ass, and it does that job fine.

You head back to the testing chamber, but before you make sure to fully close and lock the vault door behind you. It was time for you to pick up your shit and get the hell out of here.

Back in the room, you pick up your Pip-Boy on the ground. It’s still showing absolutely no response. These things were built to work even in the most extreme of environments, so it only goes to show just how much radiation you got blasted with.

“Piece of shit,” you say, tossing the hunk of scrap to the ground. A new one is going to cost you a decent chunk of change, but you are at least confident in your survival skills to know that you don’t rely on one.

You spot your helmet you threw off earlier. You try it back on, but you encounter the same issue as you did with your clothes. It just doesn’t fit anymore. The metal dome was not shaped with the sloping cranium of a gecko in mind, and so it just loosely sits over your head the same way a bucket would. You cast it off.

Getting over your losses, you eye your backpack with most of its content scattered all around. It doesn’t take long for you to sloppily shove everything back in. You can organize it all later.

Looking at your pack, you see another problem. It’s ‘grown’ from a moderately large, multi-day hiking bag to a survivalist’s wet dream. It’s sitting on the ground and the damn thing reaches above your waist now.

Putting your arms through the straps, you adjust them before putting all of your strength into getting it off the ground. It works. At least for a few seconds before it pulls you right back down.

You grit your new teeth as your face gets hot in anger. All you want to do is leave the damn vault, but it seems like everything you owned prior to your transformation is trying their hardest to stop you. The fastest way out is downsizing now. You unstrap yourself, pull out the sack you collected from earlier, and get to sorting.

Most of your equipment is oversized for you now. Rifles, shotguns, and any two-handed weapon feel like huge artillery pieces to you now. They're too big to handle and not powerful enough to justify the extra weight and space. It seems like you’re going to be running with pistols for the time being.

You pick up your trusty 10 mm pistol. It’s big and beefy to you. You need both hands to hold it properly, and your stubby fingers can just barely reach the trigger now. It’s far from ideal, but it should still do you well like so many times previously.

You throw some other stuff into the sack as well. Mostly items to ensure your survival. Some stimpaks, bottles of water and Sunset Sarsaparilla, ammo, a couple of vault 26 jumpsuits, chems, etc. However, you do not pack any food. You are familiar enough with the wasteland that you know what you can or cannot eat in the wild, and so this was purposefully done to avoid weighing yourself down more than necessary.

Also… You look down at your big belly and ass. You could probably stand to lose some weight as well.

You strap the sack to your back. It’s more than manageable now, albeit a bit heavier than what you would have expected it to be. All of the stuff that wasn’t packed is quickly shoveled under the bed. Not the best hiding spot, but if you were the first person to touch this vault in 200 years, chances are nobody else is going to lay a finger on your stuff while you’re gone.

You march to the entrance of the vault. It’s still closed and locked, much to your relief. You open the door, walk through the tunnel, past the dead naked guy, and finally back out into the wasteland.

…

The trip back takes about six days, twice as long as it took you to get there. You have your new stubby legs to thank for that.

It didn’t take long for your boots to start bothering you. You tried adding more padding, but it still didn’t stop you from stumbling over every small hill or prevent your feet from chafing. Gecko feet are just not built for boots. Especially not for boots 8 sizes too large. No more than an hour into your trip, you decided to just toss them for the ravens to peck at.

Your tits were another issue. You’ve finally learned the importance of bras, and all it took was walking for six days straight with unsupported basketball sized breasts. Your shoulders and back are subjected to agony with every step to the point where you’ve been forced to use a bottle of hydra to manage the pain. You also had to tape up your nipples partway through the journey to stop them from rubbing against your shirt.

Despite all the pain, the trip actually wasn’t that bad. In fact, it was better than what you thought it would be.

Sure, it was still long, unpleasant and there wasn’t a whole lot of food to eat, but the trip also gave you some quiet time. Something you sorely needed after what was one of the most intense moments of your life.

Furthermore, you encountered zero to no creatures on the expedition. Just a couple of small botflies tried to stop your journey short. Too small to collect any meat off of. Oddly enough, you didn’t encounter any geckos on your trip back. A bit unusual knowing just how common they were in these parts.

The weather was, dare you say, perfect. It was hot, but a pleasant kind of hot. Not one that you’d expect from a desert wasteland. You didn’t even break a sweat during the trip. Mind you, you’re not even sure if your new form can sweat.

The bright lights of New Vegas light up the surrounding night darkness in addition to stinging your eyes as you finish descending the last hill that separates you from Freeside.

You decide to enter from a more secluded entrance. You haven’t encountered anybody in your new form yet, and you’re dreading to discover their reactions. You just have to slowly ease them into the idea of an intelligent, human-like gecko is walking amongst them and you’ll be fine.

You open the scrapy gate and enter a large but quiet roadway. Both sides littered with standing and fallen pre-war buildings and sheet metal shanty towns. Being Freeside, there’s about a half-dozen or so junkies mindlessly doing their thing. All of them probably too whacked out on jet or psycho or whatever to notice you as long as you keep your head down and stay in the shadows.

Now that you’re back in civilization, there’s a lot you want to get done. On your travels you had plenty of time to think about who you should go to in order to find out about what the fuck happened to you. The Followers of The Apocalypse were probably the best bet. They were the ones who are the least likely to have some kind of ulterior motive for helping you out, and they have a pretty large headquarters within the city.

But first, the emptiness in your stomach was desperately calling for attention. You overestimated just how much food you could find on your voyage. The occasional xander root and prickly pear fruit did little to sustain you on your way back, and now you are starving.

Scanning the local shops that scatter the street, you eventually find a little hole-in-the-wall grill and casino that didn’t look completely like a thug hideout. You take a couple deep breaths outside to build up enough courage before entering it.

There’re about two-dozen patrons within. All of them are too busy gambling their caps away in the back to pay attention to the entrance. Even the single guard working here seems more content sleeping next to the door than actually doing his job.

You spot the concession’s countertop and quickly climb onto one of the stools. Your feet dangle helplessly as they try to find someplace to perch on, your ass is spilling out all around the seat, and the counter is awkwardly at chest level.

The bartender, sensing someone’s presence, walks out from what you presume is the kitchen. It was a man in his 40’s. Probably the owner of the whole establishment. His worn face was a clear indicator of the sheer amount of shit he’s had to put up with over the years. He was wearing an old suit in an attempt to add some class to this dive.

As he exits the kitchen at a brisk pace, his eyes immediately lock onto your unusual sight, and he slows to a cautious walk as he heads over to you. The fact that he hasn’t tried to shoot you yet is a good sign.

“Hello miss,” you can’t help but cringe as he addresses you as a woman. “What can I help you with?” he asks you with a mildly inquisitive and confused inflection. He’s acting like a real professional by not breaking his usual protocol in such an odd situation.

“I-I’m looking for something to eat and drink,” you reply. “What do you have?” His gaze on you is unbreaking. It’s like he’s not sure whether you’re some kind of a hallucination or the real deal.

“As for food it depends on what you’re looking for,” he goes right into listing the menu, wasting no time. “We have grilled mantis, radscorpion casserole, brahmin burgers, gecko stea-” he stops himself short on the last item as his eyes go wide before they briefly look down, breaking his stare with you for the first time. He pauses for a moment before looking you back in your eyes saying, “Sorry about that, ma’am.” You cringe a little more from his behavior, but you don’t blame him. You’d probably do the same in his position.

“N-n-no worries. I wasn’t always like this,” you try to correct him, but it seems to glance right off. His reaction doesn’t change one bit. His mind’s probably too busy being elsewhere to have truly understood what you just said.

You’re a bit disheartened by this, but you decide to tell him your order just to get done with this awkward encounter. “I-I’ll have a brahmin burger. Can I also get a Nuka-Cola along with it?”

He nods his head. “I just want to confirm that you’re aware of the mild rads content in both of the items you’ve ordered,” he adds. He’s treating you like a fucking alien now. This is the Mojave wasteland. Of course there’s radiation in the food. There’s radiation in almost everything here. You simply just nod your head in response. You can’t wait to get out of here.

“Alright, miss. Your order comes to 13 caps.”

13 caps? That’s odd. You could have sworn that an order like that would’ve cost at least 20. Not that you’re complaining or anything. You hand over the caps and he heads back into the kitchen.

While awaiting your meal, you go back to scanning the place. It seems like you’re starting to draw some attention now. You’ve attracted the sights of a couple of the gamblers. The guard has awakened, and he seems fully intent on staring at you, his hands firmly grasping his rifle. It also seems like he’s interested in looking at two big, round parts of you too. His glare is too low to be looking at your head.

You just sit there with your head down, hoping for your food to come as soon as possible.

A couple of minutes go by before the owner finally comes back with your burger and cola. He sets it down in front of you without saying a word before he quickly heads back into the kitchen.

You pick up the sandwich. It’s massive in your hands. Larger food portions is at least one benefit of being smaller.

You take a bite out of it, your new teeth cutting through the bun and patty effortlessly. As soon as the burger touches your tongue, your eyes go wide and the food comes close to slipping out of your undersized hands.

This might be the best tasting thing you’ve ever had. Scratch that, this is the best tasting thing you’ve ever had. You can’t tell if it’s because it’s just a very good burger or if it’s because you haven’t had proper food in a while, but it doesn’t matter. All your mind is focused on right now is savouring the juices.

On your second bite, you get reacquainted with a familiar pressure in your ass. It’s very mild, but you’re too lost in flavourtown to pay it any attention. Instead, you take a swig of Nuka-Cola, which only seems to make the feeling more intense.

Each bite of food and drink of cola seems to make the pressure grow more and more, spreading out to your thighs. But the flavour matches the pressure, improving just enough with every bite to keep you occupied. When you’re just a single mouthful away from finishing the burger, suddenly you hear it.

The sound of ripping fabric echoes around you from behind. It’s immediately followed by the sensation of a cool draft on your bare ass. You freeze in place. The sounds of banter, slot machines, and chips jangling together has ceased, creating an awkward silence. If the entire place wasn’t staring at you earlier, they sure are now. You can feel each and every gaze pointed directly right at your fat ass. Your face burns red hot in embarrassment, to the point where it feels like you can breathe fire. Those fucking rads must have gone straight to your thighs.

You just sit on your stool for all of those around you to gawk, your tail swaying in the breeze. You don’t even know how you can recover from this, but it feels like an incredibly small part of you tucked deep within your mind is telling you to embrace it.

After a few moments of what feel like eternity, your eyes go back to your burger. Your mouth starts watering again. It would be a shame to let this delicious meal go to waste.

One more bite couldn’t hurt, right?