Shell Shocked

Shell Shocked - Turtle TF

The blazing hot sun scorched the yellow sandy beach, as crashing waves attempt to remove the torrid heat, but to no avail. However, waves of brightly-coloured coral reefs gleamed past the shores, a paradise to nearly a thousand different aquatic plants and animals.  This was the scene where our hero Michael was in, apart from the arid weather, it was almost the perfect place for a dive.

Stripping into his swimming trunks, Michael donned his new flippers and goggles and jumped in. He had purchased that flippers themselves quite some time ago, but due to the lack of time, he had little chance to really try them out. He managed to snag them online at a cheap price as well, considering how a normal pair costed threefold at retail stores, and having an eye for good bargains, he bought them immediately.

The flippers were a simple olive colour, each stamped with the manufacturer's symbol, namely a small turtle enclosed within a circle. It fitted him perfectly as well, although he didn't quite like the drab shade of green that the flippers were in. However, he reckoned that it was a worthy tradeoff for the amount he had saved on them.

"Well, here goes." Michael muttered to himself, to nobody in particular as the beach was deserted. After all, most people would rather stay in an air-conditioned room or immerse in a cool water bath to beat the summer heat than to go to the beach and suffer pesky conditions such as heat-strokes and sunburns. Cursing his love for the outdoors, he began warming up, with numerous forms of stretches, he slowly waddled his way towards the jetty like a penguin, with the flippers obstructing his normal movement.

It would have been quite an amusing sight if anyone was watching.

Thankfully, no one was.

When he had waded sufficiently far out, he dived in and started paddling around, delighted to find that the flippers, although ugly, were rather good, as he sped through the water, much like the aquatic life he was observing as he swam by. There, he observed large schools of fishes darting around the area, whereas the cool-looking corals swayed along the ocean current.

He continued swimming deeper towards the ocean even more species of fishes and corals appeared. The corals were brightly-lit with different hues, with every single colour of Nyan Cat's trail within his sight. The view of the coral reef was breathtaking and serene, prompting Michael to swim further out to further investigate the reef.

"Wow, this place is awesome." Michael thought to himself, before letting himself float up to the surface to catch a breather before continuing. That was when he noticed a tingling sensation  in his feet.

Dismissing it as fatigue setting in, quickly he turned round, intending to return to shore.  
However, that was when a solid bolt of pain shot up each up of his legs, making him cry out out of reflex underwater, and getting a mouthful of the sea for his troubles.

"Crap, leg cramp. Gotta make my way up quick!" His mind raced as he flailed his arms trying to propel himself upwards, his head looking up as he found himself in a life-or-death situation.

Panic crept slowly and surely into his mind as it began to dawn on him that he may not be able to make it to the surface in time. What's more, the pain in his legs was intensifying. In the midst of it, he felt something slip past his grasps. "The flippers!" The thought rang as he looked down to where it had fallen, to his surprise he found that his legs had somehow morphed to real green pigmented flippers.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. His mind took this excuse and used it to slip into a full blown panic, expunging all coherent thought. Michael then began to flail mindlessly in the water, frantically trying to reach the surface.However due to the lack of energy on his legs, he found himself sinking more than floating.

He was a dead man, and he knew it, as he felt himself begin to weaken more due to oxygen deprivation. His vision slowly darkened as oxygen slowly depleted he was unable to hold his breath any longer. It was then that he decided to exhale, a large bubble formed with a plea for help.

He watched helplessly as the bubbles floated to the surface, while his body continued to float up at a far slower rate, being robbed of the additional buoyancy that was conveyed by the now exhaled gas. Drawing on his final reserves, Michael flailed once more, making a final, valiant struggle to reach the surface.

It was then that his legs decided to work. Like a bullet, he shot through the water, and up to the surface. Meanwhile, his muscles were all burning from oxygen debt, and blackness edging into his vision as his brain began to shut down due to oxygen deprivation.

Suddenly, a warm feeling of the atmosphere greeted him,and he inhaled gratefully, filling his lungs with the much needed air...

When his laggard vision cleared, his mind came to a shock as he realised that his body had turned green. "What.. the heck?" Michael thought, his mind although feeling rather anxious, he was more calmer than usual, after escaping in a near-death situation like those.

Lifting up his hands, he watched as his fingers clumped together, merging slowly as they began form a single large finger. These fingers then subsequently began to grow, into flippers similar in shape and size to the flippers that had replaced his legs. To top it off, he felt something forming in his rear as a large green tail protruded out of it, the force which ripped apart his swimming trunks.

Michael was reduced to staring in shock, realising that he now had neither hands nor feet. It was then when a massive headache struck him, causing him to clench his eyes shut. As he was doing so, he felt his backbone extruding out in shape and running down into a tail which he felt was forming, the burning sensation soon returned with a vengeance as the bones in the body morphed, forming a large external structure which encased his entire body, leaving only his four flippers and head exposed.

Meanwhile, mottles marking of a lighter green appeared around his forehead, while his head compressed in shape as he acquired a stout beak, brightly lit with the same colour as the markings. His eyeball grew along with the dilution of his pupils as they slowly shifted towards the sides of his head.

As the changes settled in, Michael flopped around awkwardly in the water, trying to orientate himself. He was panicking now, and after a brief moment of getting a sense of which way the beach was, he frantically swam against the current in an attempt to reach land, where he could get help.

Fighting against the outgoing tide, Michael swam, half-learning how turtles swam in the process as he struggled to reach shallower waters. However, the ingenuity of his plan was ultimately revealed as he hit the beach, his somewhat oblong head poking out of the water as he gasped for air.

The dry air stung his face, eyes and exposed hide as soon as he left the water, causing him to attempt to scramble back into the water as fast as his fins could drag him, trying catch up with the receding tide as it went further out with each wave.

With a herculean effort, Michael was slowly able to drag himself into the cool, refreshing water, relieving his partially-dried hide from the harsh air above the surface. Now floating about in the water, he realised that he was in quite a fix. He couldn't get out of the water, nor simply shout at people for help anymore, and he had absolutely no idea what has just happened. Hopefully, someone would notice him missing and come looking for him, but until then, Michael figured that he would just have to hang around and wait. In fact, it probably wasn't too bad. How much harm could another hour in the water be?