Once upon a time, in his underground lair, a wizard, whose name was Zephyr, was concocting a potion that would change the lives of everybody in town. The government executives had been planning to get rid of the criminals for the past couple years, and they had asked Zephyr to create a potion to do so. They wanted a permanent solution to their crime problem. Reading the recipe on his scroll with deep attention, making sure he didn’t make even the slightest mistake, Zephyr searched the room for all the ingredients he needed.
Standing on the tips of his toes, Zephyr reached up to his top shelf, and grabbed a jar of portobello mushrooms. After wrenching the lid off the jar, he tore the top off of one, and tossed it into the steaming cauldron of boiling water. Out of a small, rectangular container, from a drawer in his desk, Zephyr removed two large crocodile molars and dumped them into the mixture. Next, from a freshly picked rose from his wife’s garden, Zephyr plucked five petals and dropped them in. At long last, Zephyr was ready for the final, most crucial ingredient of his potion. In a tall vial, positioned on the bottom shelf, just above the rim of the cauldron, the blood of a boa constrictor trembled, as he added 3 ml of it into the mixture. It was important that he add every ingredient as accurately as he could, because any mistakes, small or large, would surely impact the result in an uncertain way.
After stirring the potion for a few minutes, Zephyr realized what time it was. He was almost going to be late for his own party. Using his magic wand, Zephyr teleported up to the ground. He was able to teleport wherever he wanted, as long as he knew the exact location that he wanted to go to.
On the ground, Zephyr found his wife, Calypso, waiting for him. They enthusiastically began the preparations for their third anniversary party, draping the tablecloths over the tables, setting the plates and utensils, decorating everything beautifully. Some people would call Zephyr and Calypso a “power couple,” for it was true. Nobody was a more perfect match than them. Ten years before, Zephyr, a twenty-nine year old aspiring wizard and doctor had wed Calypso, a thirty year old, the most talented doctor in the town. Since they had been together since senior year of high school, they were both in love with each other for a very long time before Zephyr proposed.
The day they were married was the most memorable day of their lives. Everything was absolutely perfect. Gracefully, Calypso was escorted down the aisle by her proud father. She looked like a beautiful swan with her dress flowing elegantly behind her. There wasn’t one face without tears running that day, everybody joyous and thrilled about the life they would share together. In the end, Zephyr and Calypso wished they could live everyday like this, dancing, laughing, crying tears of joy. That is why they took their parties so seriously, spending hours preparing, working until they were 100 percent certain about their arrangement. Then, they waited for the guests to arrive.
Meanwhile, back in Zephyr’s lair, the vial of blood was still waiting on the bottom shelf beside the cauldron. Tyndareus, a pesky rat, who had a hateful relationship with Zephyr, entered the territory with inelegance, and clumsily stumbled across the shelf as messily as he could, trying to cause trouble. Tripping on a fragment of wood that was sticking out of the shabby old surface of the shelf, Tyndareus slid right into the vial of the boa constrictor blood, causing it to fall over directly into the cauldron. The rat scampered away afraid to get caught. He didn’t know it yet, but he had caused much more damage than he intended.
Back at the party, everyone was laughing. The whole scene was scattered with rainbow confetti, streamers and balloons. Dazzling sounds emitted from the maestro’s piano as he shifted his fingers across it. Dozens of people were seated around a grand white table, laughing and chattering. They were all eating slices of a gorgeous three-tiered cake, made by Calypso herself. Of course, the party could have been much more enjoyable, if Zephyr and Calypso had actually been there, but they were nowhere around.
At first, they were having a blast at their party, spending quality time with their family and friends. However, after about a half hour, they were interrupted by a startling sound. The prison’s emergency alarm was blaring, disturbing the party and everybody in it. They all stopped what they were doing and looked around, waiting for something to happen. Immediately, Zephyr and Calypso rushed out to see what was going on. Their town didn’t have a police force or anything fancy like that. Instead, the local government thought it was better if the most intelligent, powerful people, ran the town: Zephyr and Calypso. Because of this, they were the ones in charge of the prisons, catching all the criminals, and many other important responsibilities. There were some aspects of the community that they weren’t in charge of, though. For example, they didn’t make any rules or laws, and everything that they did was determined by the government executives, whatever they decided needed to be done. Still, they were very busy people.
Abandoning all their friends and family, Zephyr and Calypso teleported over to the town prison and, surely enough, there was an empty cell with a dent in one of its iron bars. Whoever had been in there had a very easy escape. The nameplate on the wall by the bars read, “Hansel Biles” in dark squid ink. Squid ink was unerasable. You couldn’t ever undo a nameplate or write over it after it was already written. After someone committed a crime three times, they received their own personalized squid ink nameplate. Zephyr grimaced. In order to teleport directly to a person when you didn’t know their exact location, you needed one of their belongings. So, Calypso grabbed a poster hanging on the grimy prison wall, picturing a skull with an arrow cutting through it. This was the symbol of an obscure emo band, Hansel’s band. They had the most devastatingly depressing music anybody had ever heard, with raspy, hoarse voices that made you want to cut off your ears.
With the poster, Zephyr and Calypso teleported to Hansel, who was sprinting through the mystic woods, hardly looking back. He wasn’t hard to spot though, with his bright orange prison jumpsuit. He seemed to be heading towards a shack by a puddle of murky mud. With so many trees surrounding them, if Zephyr tried casting a spell on Hansel, one of the trees might end up aflame, or even explode, so Zephyr’s wand was pretty much useless in this situation. Additionally, Hansel was a much better athlete than him, and could run much faster, whilst dodging all the trees. Luckily, Calypso was around. She sprinted at a greater speed than Zephyr or Hansel could ever run and tripped the criminal in his tracks. When he was on the ground, Zephyr froze Hansel in place with a swing of his wand. He teleported him to a brand new prison on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. This way, he could never escape. The new prison, Criminal Island had been finished only recently. It was built to ensure that the prisoners stayed locked up for good, so situations like this wouldn’t happen, because, as you know, this wasn’t the first time a criminal had escaped. The government was determined to get these prisoners away for good.
Leaving Hansel stranded on Criminal Island, Zephyr and Calypso were able to return to their party, where all of their guests were waiting for them, enjoying the time they had left with their friends and family. They ate delicious meals, danced until their feet hurt, and spoke with their guests for hours.
The party ended a little after midnight, and Zephyr and Calypso walked back to their house in the silence of the night. Even though Zephyr was able to teleport both Calypso and himself wherever he wanted, they preferred the peaceful stroll. Teleporting also took a large amount of energy, which Zephyr did not have right then. It was already extremely late, and they were exhausted from the exuberant anniversary celebration and the chase after Hansel. All they wanted was to sleep soundly. Unfortunately for them, in the life of Zephyr and Calypso, there was no such thing as a calm, relaxing slumber.
After only a few minutes of sleeping, a loud ringing sound arose, pounding through their ears. Zephyr and Calypso simultaneously jumped out of bed and ran outside to check on what was happening. The alarm of the bank was throbbing like crazy. With no hesitation, the two of them ran towards the bank. Suddenly, a shadowy blur of darkness zoomed out the door, followed by another one, each carrying bags that could only be full of money. “Those lousy twins!” Zephyr grumbled, as he shared an aggravated glance with Calypso. He was used to not getting any sleep, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. With a swing of his wand, Zephyr teleported Calypso and himself in their direction.
“Regin! Terence!” Calypso shouted. The brothers gently twisted their heads around to see who called for them. Mistake number one. Not paying attention to where they were going, even though it may have only been for a second, they crashed into a tree, toppling over on top of each other onto the ground. Mistake number two.
With a swish of his wand, Zephyr froze the twins in place, and then he transported them to Criminal Island, joining Hansel. There weren’t any cells to be locked in, but it wasn’t a problem. They could plan their escape routes as long as they lived. It wouldn’t matter, for they could never leave the island no matter how hard they tried. Not only was it in the middle of the ocean on an abandoned island where nobody would ever travel to, but they were in a place with no trees, no plants, no animals, no life besides them at all. There was no escape.
After his work was done, Zephyr and his wife returned to their house and tried to fall back to sleep. By that time, however, it was already dusk. They were only able to sleep for a few more hours before waking up again to get to work. Zephyr was almost finished with his project.
Waking up around 8:00 AM, he and Calypso dressed up, brushed their teeth, combed their hair, took their showers, and left the house. Immediately after they exited the building, they were startled by an unexpected call. QUACK! It was a sound of pain and fear coming from an evidently distressed duck. Zephyr and Calypso shared a puzzled glance at each other. QUACK! This time, the quack was followed by a long silence. Concerned and confused as they were, they waited for the duck to repeat itself, but nothing happened.
Realizing that the duck was not going to quack again, they sprinted to where the sound had come from, through the mystic forest filled with hundreds of trees and exotic, dangerous creatures all around.
They tracked the sound down to a woman drowning something in the Eldridge River, although they couldn’t be 100 percent sure what it was unless they had a closer look. Zephyr swung his wand in the air, and whatever the woman was holding disappeared from her hands and reappeared in Calypso’s. Another swing of his wand, and the woman froze in place.
Calypso examined it, and their suspicions were proved true. The woman had been drowning the duck in the water of Eldridge River. Why? Well, Eldridge River had always been known to turn objects into ice. Not just any regular type of ice. Enchanted ice. Eldridge River was so especially cold, that when anything was in its grasp, it would stay frozen forever, no matter how much sun or heat it was exposed to. Once something touched the river, it could never go back. It is, obviously, forbidden to use the river, especially on living creatures. Some people, however, decide to use it to make a profit. People from other communities pay unbelievably high prices for eternally frozen species. In this community, though, it was illegal to eat, kill, or torture animals. This law was taken very seriously there: the vegan diet was mandatory, and if anybody killed an animal, they were sent to a life of jail time, with no mercy.
Without hesitating, the woman, who called herself Celeste, was sent directly to the prison of miscreants on Criminal Island.
After all the drama had ended, Zephyr gave Calypso a kiss on the cheek and went back to the original prison building in town, the one that Hansel had previously escaped from. He visited each cell, one by one, sending every prisoner to Criminal Island until the building was empty.
Back in his underground workspace, Zephyr realized that something was different since he was last there, and it only took him seconds to figure it out. His vial of boa constrictor blood was cracked, empty, and on its side. It didn’t occur to him at all that the blood could have fallen into the cauldron, but he did know that it had to have been the work of that darn rat, for this hadn’t been the first time that pest had invaded his space. He grabbed a huge bottle of orange juice from his cupboard, and as much as he loved a fresh glass of orange juice, it wasn’t for him. He also took about 150 paper cups and put all of these items in a duffel bag, along with the potion he had in his cauldron, which he poured into a travel-size container before he left his hideaway.
He teleported back to Criminal Island to meet all the miserable prisoners he had encountered that day. By then it was lunchtime, but he wasn’t actually going to cook. That was their job. With their own kitchen, ingredients, and supplies, they could easily make their food by themselves. No, he was there to prepare the drinks just this one time. He poured the orange juice into all of his 150 cups, and added a small drop of his potion into each one. Then, making sure that each prisoner was handed a cup, he just leaned back, and watched the magic take its action, as each and every one of them took a bite of their mashed sludge, and a sip from their cups. One by one, they started to shrink, their arms and legs disappearing. Their eyes drifted to the sides of their heads, which were shrinking as well. Their bodies slimmed and grew longer until they were in a spiral. Finally, their skin turned green and scaley, and their skin disappeared.
Zephyr wasn’t 100 percent sold on the idea of turning prisoners into snakes. To him, it seemed a harsh and cruel method of ensuring safety. However, he didn’t have any power over what the government did, or chose for him to do. It wasn’t his fault. They were in charge of everything that he did, and he couldn’t do anything about this unfair arrangement. Unfortunately, that was just how life worked.
FIFTY YEARS LATER
Some teenagers are crazy and reckless. They spray graffiti on public property, vandalize billboards and posters, sneak into “R” rated movies, or pickpocket people on the street. A group of twelve of these delinquent children decided to do something that nobody had done before in around fifty years. They were going to take a trip to an island with a forbidden history. Nobody knew what this island was, even if they were alive fifty years ago. Back then, it was a secret, too. All they knew was that anybody who dared to step foot on its land, was to be punished. Some people say it was a burial ground for extremely troubled children, who were terminated. Others believe it was a garden of enchanted fruits that made people explode. A few creeps actually thought it had been a haunted island of ghosts and demons with a thirst for blood. Well, they were about to find out. They were going to be the first in fifty years to visit this “island of mystery.”
Jake, one of the teenagers on this expedition, was a master at stealing and hijacking cars, so he and the rest of his posse had easy access to driving a boat. Cars were, of course, different from boats, but Jake was easily able to figure it out. He managed to turn it on, and move it away from the dock.
After they were on the bay, they turned off the motor, set sail, and headed off towards their destination. The bay was desolate, with no other life, for it was a stormy day. Thunder boomed through the pouring rain, slamming against the water. Only the dumbest people were out on the bay on a day like this.
Because of the harsh winds, the group was barely able to stay balanced and dry. The waves were crashing against their boat, splashing them and causing the boat to tilt. Surprisingly, they were able to reach their destination, however, despite all the conditions of the weather.
Once they had docked on the island, they were disappointed. It wasn’t special at all. In fact, it was actually quite ordinary. The so called “burial ground for troubled children,” or “ghosts and demons with a taste for blood,” or “enchanted garden with fruits that explode” was fake. It was literally empty except for one building. There weren’t even any trees or plants. ZERO life. It was just a field. A rocky, muddy, empty field. Except for that one building. When they examined it though, there was no life there, either. It was just a kitchen; no bathroom, no bed, no nothing. Just a kitchen. Of course, it wasn’t actually empty, but they didn’t know that.
The snakes were there. Most average snakes live up to somewhere under 25 years. However, you must understand that these weren’t average snakes. They were hardly even snakes! They were (kind of) humans! They would probably live until the age of 130, which was about the minimum age most people lived up to in that town. However, there were only about fifty snakes left, because many of them had passed away during the time they were imprisoned on the island. Those snakes were already almost 100 when they were cursed.
What is that smell? Hansel inquired. Something smells different.
It smells like people. Normal people, Terence chimed in.
Don’t be ridiculous, boys, Celeste, the duck-freezer, hissed. We were the last humans in this place. Ever since that incident, no humans will ever come back here if they can help it.
“Hello?” one of the boys, Patrick, called out, sure that he heard something.
It IS a human, and a young one, in fact, Roscuro, a murderer, added in. What might he be doing here?
The snakes were in their underground burrows. It was nicer down there than it was above ground, especially on the stormy days.
“Patrick, I really don’t think there’s anyone here. It must just be a mythical place, you know? Maybe people just made up stories about it to scare kids into not exploring weird places so they don’t get lost,” Sam, one of the three girls on the trip, insisted.
“Yeah,” Jake agreed. “We should probably just go. There’s literally nothing here.”
Is that multiple humans I hear? Isla, an infamous burglar from the southern part of town, observed.
I think you’re right, Hansel concurred. We should get out there. This may be our ticket off the island. We might be able to wipe the grin off that pesky Zephyr’s perfect face and turn him into a snake, instead of us, give him a taste of his own medicine.
I second that idea, Isla agreed.
So, the grande posse slithered outside through a hole in the ground. As Roscuro exited the hole, he immediately realized there was a shadow lurking over him. Instinctively, he slapped his jaws around the humongous shoe of the child called Patrick, feeling a thrust of blood in his mouth as his teeth cut through the fleshy foot.
All of a sudden, something was different. Roscuro could feel it. Something had changed.
As Roscuro attempted to communicate with his partners in crime what he was feeling, words came out of Patrick’s mouth, instead of his. “I just bit a human, and now I think I might be controlling him,” he exclaimed, his voice monotone, his face stern. While the snakes were all in awe, staring at Roscuro, then Patrick, then Roscuro again, the other children were gawking at the person who just spoke.
“Excuse me?” Jake almost snorted with laughter.
“Do you usually bite people, Pat?” Sam grinned. They all thought this was hilarious. But, on the other hand, smirking with pride, the rest of the snakes didn’t hesitate in the slightest to bite the rest of the kids. It wasn’t a difficult task, of course. Being snakes, they could easily slither up to a leg and snatch it with their fangs. This discovery was life-changing for them.
That vial of blood that Tyndareus knocked over into the potion made all the difference here. With so much of that one ingredient in the potion, the snakes were able to spread it to other people when they bit them. The people they bit didn’t turn into snakes themselves, however, because it was only a small amount of extra snake blood, just one ingredient.
With their new minions, the snakes got their ticket off the island. They boarded the boat and headed to the mainland. One might wonder, what’s the point of being free if you’re still a snake? Well, if Zephyr was known for anything but his spells, it would be his antidotes. He never created a potion without making an antidote for it, just in case of an emergency. He liked being prepared. So, all they had to do was use their new minions to search around and find it. Then, they could be free, for good this time.
They left the dock and made one of the children to drive the boat to the mainland. The storm had passed at this point, so there were hardly any waves to crash into. None of the snakes actually knew how to drive boats, though, so it still took awhile.
Finally, after a long boat trip, they arrived at the mainland. Immediately, they set off to work. Since it was already dark, probably around midnight, there were no people on the streets, or around town to control, so they just started with their desperate hunt for the antidote.
The snakes all stood watching, encircling the twelve children clawing their way through the ground, searching for the antidote, a dead look in their eyes. Nothing. They found nothing. Suddenly, a deafening police siren started blaring, as flashing red and blue lights approached the area. Multiple cars pulled up with the words, “National Police Department” written on the side. At this time it was around 3 A.M. and they had been searching for hours.
A cop exited from one vehicle, his walkie talkie held up to his mouth. He seemed confused and flustered, glaring at the uncountable amount of snakes huddled around a dozen children, who were digging. They were covered with dirt and mud, but didn’t seem to care, didn’t even notice that there were so many cops around. “I’m afraid I found the missing children,” the officer announced into his walkie talkie.
“You sound upset about that,” another officer responded. “What’s wrong?”
“I think this case is way more complicated than we expected, sir. It appears that these children are holding some sort of ritual. But, it can’t be normal. They’re surrounded by possibly half a hundred snakes at least.”
“Snakes?” the officer on the other side of the walkie talkie repeated.
“Snakes. And the children are digging! They haven’t even looked up at us. They are just digging!” At this point, many police officers were crowding around the group of snakes and students, murmuring. Nothing like this had ever happened before. “I’m really concerned. The snakes aren’t moving either. They seem to be staring at the children.”
“Maybe they are angry about the children being in their territory,” the other officer suggested through the walkie talkie.
“Maybe, but then they might be attacking them, which they most definitely are not. I’m not sure. Nothing about this makes any sense right now. We need to investigate it further, surely. Maybe you should come down here with the rest of the crew.”
“Agreed.”
He placed his walkie talkie back into his pocket, and the conversation was over. The cop began walking closer to the snakes, trying to get to the children. Even as he neared the snakes, they didn’t move. Only when his foot was almost touching the tail of one snake, did it suddenly snap. At that moment, he wasn’t sure how to reach the children without being bitten by a snake. Normally this wouldn’t be too big of a deal, but these snakes could be different, extraordinarily different, possibly. It was risky to be bitten by one, considering these children were acting psychotic. If there was the slightest chance that being bitten by one of the snakes could result in illness or death, then it was unwise for him to do so without more background information of the species.
The next morning, the snakes were still circling around the twelve children, only now, they were all asleep. Crowds of people had been gawking at them for hours, as the police department tried to figure out what was wrong. Now was their chance to figure out what was wrong. So, careful not to wake the snakes, the team of cops brought two of the twelve kids into the lab to figure out what was wrong, if anything.
In the lab, the doctors and forensic scientists searched both of the young adults for a bite mark and found one on each of them. They had never seen this specific type of bite mark before, but it didn’t seem serious. With a few tests, they discovered that the snakes that had bitten them did indeed have venom, but it wasn’t something that would have caused this much mental damage to a person. Unfortunately, the town’s two best doctors, Zephyr and Calypso Addington were in Athens, Greece to celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary, so they couldn’t help with the situation for another week. The scientists did find something truly extraordinary about the poison, however. There was something almost enchanted about it. They couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but they were on their way.
Because they didn’t have too much luck with the poison from the bite marks on the ill children, the doctors and forensic scientists decided to take a different approach. The snakes were still asleep, so the scientists grabbed three of them and brought them back to the lab for testing. After thoroughly and extensively searching through their venom, saliva, and DNA, they discovered that these snakes were more abnormal than they anticipated. For one, their venom wasn’t poisonous, but it still seemed to have an impact on whatever or whoever it was injected into. Additionally, their tongue was different from any other species of snake that had ever been discovered. They were shorter, thicker, rounder, and different in color. Finally, (and this is the most unusual piece of evidence) some of their DNA was almost human. Their teeth, for example, included molars, something snakes aren’t usually found with. They had skin in some areas of their body instead of scales. Plus, their blood was warm! This meant that these snakes had to go straight into experimenting, all of them. Something wasn’t right.
Unfortunately, at this point, after so much time had passed by, the snakes were beginning to wake, as were the children they had hypnotized. Again, they were digging through the dirt, searching. The scientists working on this investigation couldn’t kill them, because of the law against killing living creatures, and they couldn’t put them in physical harm quite yet, so they needed another way to get the snakes to experimenting.
Digging through a senior official’s private office was technically illegal, but, with Zephyr gone, he was the only one who could have a solution somewhere in his hospital room, so the doctors and scientists ravaged through his desk and drawers until they found what they were searching for: tranquilizer darts.
They were packaged inside of a plastic bag, which Zephyr had placed within a wooden box, deep in the darkness of his bottom drawer. Immediately, they rushed through the hall, out the door, and to the group of unsuspecting snakes.
The first snake was shot, and one of the children seemed to be waking up from a trance. He stood up, blinked several times, and searched around, trying to figure out what was going on. Instantaneously, the most incredible event occurred. The snake transformed into an elderly woman. She was asleep, of course, because of the tranquilizer, but she was human, nonetheless. One by one, all the rest of the snakes were hit. One by one, they all turned into humans. As they were hit by the darts, the children seemed to come to a realization that they didn’t need to be digging. All of them looked confused about whatever had happened to them that they couldn’t recall.
Almost immediately, the doctors grabbed each and every one of the former snakes and stuck them in hospital rooms. They were strapped down so they couldn’t escape, because nobody knew who these people were or if they even were people at all.
For multiple days, the doctors just fed them, bathed them, and gawked at them. This was such a strange occurrence. Nothing even close to this had ever happened before.
At last, Zephyr and Calypso emerged from the airport, joyous grins across their faces. The grins didn’t last for long, though. Their eyes fell on the sleeping criminal-prisoner-snake-people when they entered the hospital for work. Zephyr knew instantaneously that he needed to do something about this. He also realized exactly what happened. This wasn’t the first time that stupid rat had ruined his plan.
There’s no way he could let the criminals free. They’re criminals. It’s not like they had changed, right? It wasn’t his original idea to imprison them on an island, as snakes, but after a few years of pondering it, he realized that it was the right thing to do. Those people had been thieves, murderers, drunk drivers, trespassers, burglars, loiterers, serial killers, and whatnot for their entire lives. It may sound cruel to punish them for so long, but if there was a person who purposely caused damage to many people, a countless amount of times, you wouldn’t just set them free, would you? That would be injustice. Luckily, Zephyr knew exactly what he needed to do.
First thing’s first, though: that rat. Zephyr knew the rat very well; in fact, it had messed up so many of Zephyr’s plans that Zephyr had been keeping a jar of its fur for many years, just in case he needed it to find it. He grabbed a lock of the greasy fur, picked up his magic wand from a box in the depth of his dusty old cabinet, and teleported the rat right on top of his hand. Then, he trapped him in a small cage, to keep him until after he finished his plan. It was hopeless. The desperate rat squeaked, “Please let me go! Have mercy on my poor soul!” but of course, Zephyr couldn’t understand him. Tyndareus was only a rat.
Zephyr went back to stirring his cauldron. He hadn’t used it in what felt like forever. This time, there were no pesky rodents to mess it up. This time, nothing could go wrong. This time, it would be perfect. Looking through his spell book, Zephyr precisely measured all of the ingredients, making sure he didn’t mess it up himself.
After he completed his task, Zephyr continued on with the rest of his plan. Along with his new caged companion, Tyndareus, Zephyr teleported to the hospital where he worked. He gave up being a wizard years before, because there was no point in making spells and potions if there was noone to cast them upon.
Since Zephyr was a doctor, it wasn’t difficult to achieve his goal. Because none of the doctors knew what to do with the new homeless patients, they had kept them in the hospital, feeding and hydrating them. So, following the guidelines of his ingenious plan, Zephyr added a drop of his new and improved potion into each patient’s water, and additionally into the rat’s water. One by one, each and every one of them, even the rat, shrunk down to the size of a pebble. All their limbs disappeared, and they grew shells. Their skin was replaced with slime, and their eyes moved onto their brand new tentacles. They became snails! Slimy, sloppy, tiny, and most importantly, harmless, snails.