Chapter Four

The impulse to struggle was instinctive.

Unfortunately, he’d had control over this body for all of three seconds, meaning what wriggling he did was more chaotic than useful. He’d been intending to take things slow, get a grip on his new form’s general motor functions before doing much else.

Being in the mouth of a catfish limited such efforts.

It also introduced a new element previously unencountered in his neophyte existence as a monster manual entry. That being taking damage.

– 1 Health!

Bob felt two abrasive, bone-like plates slam into him as the fish bit down; grinding his cloth body against the copper coins currently filling it. The sensation of his fabric-like flesh beginning to tear and break at the seams was very off-putting.

It was also – as of around three seconds ago – extremely painful.

‘Let go of me you shitty fish! Let go, let go, letgoletgoletgo!’

The fish didn’t seem willing to listen to his inaudible pleas however, biting down twice more in an attempt to swallow him whole; luckily dealing no further damage. It wouldn’t occur to Bob until later that his constant struggling and writhing around was probably only exacerbating matters.

In the end, he was saved not by his attempts to free himself or even the fish realizing that he was inedible; but instead, due to him simply being too large to swallow. The coins filling him never quite arranging themselves for ease of consumption.

He was eventually spat out near a scattering of larger rocks an unknown distance from where he’d started. Not that it mattered terribly much, given that he’d been just as lost then as he was now. As his vision spun – his jeweled tassel still a victim of inertia – he could briefly see the fish’s silhouette as it swam off into the darkness; its form radiating irritation.

Not wanting to be out in the open should his attacker decide it was up for round two, Bob made a desperate rush towards the dubious safety of the nearby stones; each one boulder-like when compared to his current size. Unfortunately, due to the newness of his ambulatory abilities, the attempt ended up far more ‘desperate’ than ‘rushed’. Involving a great deal of slug-like movement as he tried to drag himself to the rocks without losing any coins. His eye mainly getting a good view of the lakebed as he tugged it along behind him.

Once he’d managed to wedge himself into a hollow between two stones without further incident, barring the accidental eviction of a few guppies, Bob tried to pull himself together. To take stock of both himself and his situation.

Unfortunately, the results of these investigations were less than positive.

Now that he could actually get a decent look at his new underwater home, Bob realized that it was far more crowded than he expected. Each passing shadow making him feel smaller and more fragile than the last. His previous attempted-devourer obviously only ranking around average in terms of local fish size.

And, upon inspection of himself, he appeared to be a white cloth bag large enough to – at best – hold two stout onions. One whose sole abilities seemed to be ineffectually biting teens’ fingers and acting as a convincing fish lure.

Neither of which felt like they were going to aid him much in any attempt at survival.

Though, as visual confirmation of his new inhuman nature fully set in, parts of Bob weren’t entirely sure survival was really something to aspire to.

As he watched cloth and string clumsily move under his command for the first time, Bob felt himself start to spiral. Mind beginning to strain and sputter as it was forced to acknowledge the totality of what had been done to him. Only managing to avoid another dissociative episode by tearing his eye away from his new body to stare back at the murky water outside his hole.

‘Hooo boy. Alright. This is fine. We’re fine. This isn’t a big problem. We’re going to look back over in a second and be perfectly okay with what’s currently going on. Because we’re going to fix it. Or this is going to be a coma dream. Or… Something. But we are not going to freak out and get ourselves eaten by another fish. That is not going to happen.’

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Bob thoughts slowly grew firmer as he continued. Mostly because he refused to allow himself a breakdown right now. Not now that he actually had some control over his own fate; however limited. And especially not over information he’d already had plenty of time to come to terms with. No matter how impossible it seemed to ‘come to terms’ with being transformed into a sack.

Admittedly, he hadn’t expected the actual sight of his… changes to hit him as hard as they did. But it wasn’t anything he couldn’t get over. His reaction was probably just the result of too much stress in too short of a time span.

Something which Bob would prove momentarily. In just a few seconds. Once he was more in the mood to turn his eye back around.

Until then, however – and while he allowed himself to take a few metaphorical ‘deep breaths’ – Bob decided he might as well do a cursory scan of his surroundings. Poking his jeweled eye slightly out of cover to try and get a better understanding of the local environment. And perhaps even a vague idea of what he should do next.