The Dweller in the Pool (Patreon)

They’d been hiking through the jungle for a week since the plane dropped them off.  Nick wasn’t complaining, he loved hiking these tropical jungles more than anything, but he was starting to doubt whether they’d find what the professor was looking for.  “You sure you know what we’re doing out here, doc?”  

“Of course not,” the older man laughed.  “Do I ever?”  

Nick just shook his head and kept trudging through the humid undergrowth.  All he had on was a pair of cargo shorts and his boots and he still felt over dressed.  He was impressed that the professor, almost twice his age, seemed less tired than he did.  “I’m not arguing with you, I just don’t know how…”

“You know the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan, right?”  

“Yeah, but that’s a few hundred miles north.”  

“Doesn’t matter.  You think that’s the only meteor to land around here?  If I’m right, what we’re about to find will not only rewrite history, it will shake the scientific community to its core.  We’re talking about the literal fountain of youth, here.”  

“You don’t honestly believe we’re going to find a magical pool of water?”  

“No, but every year we discover new cures and compounds in these jungles.  Is it so far fetched to believe that someone else found one first?”  

Nick didn’t see any point in arguing.  “You’re the expert,” he shrugged.  He’d worked with the professor, Vince after all the time they’d spent together, for the past several years and knew how the man got when he thought he was on to something.  This wasn’t the first time they’d traveled the globe hunting after one thing or another.  Most were wild goose chases, but that feeling they got when they actually found one made all the geese worth it.  But after a week of futile searching, this one looked to be the biggest goose of them all.  

The professor had come across mention of an old book, which led to an even older book, which led to some manuscripts, which led them to the middle of untouched Amazonian rainforest.  While Nick didn’t believe that they’d find the fountain of youth, he was starting to accept that they were in a part of the jungle most people didn’t come to.  If they came at all.  Their landing in the small plane had been precarious enough, but within two days they were in denser jungle than he’d ever seen.  It was thick with primordial growth and more wildlife than he could imagine.  What’s more, the wildlife didn’t seem bothered by them in the least, as if they’d never encountered humans before.  Over the course of the past day, however, both the jungle and the wildlife had begun to thin.  The professor kept checking his old map with greater frequency and Nick could almost feel the other man’s anticipation growing.  

They hiked through most of the day, only stopping for brief periods when it was absolutely necessary.  The jungle around them continued to thin, and more and more the two men thought the lumps of jungle growth began to resemble man-made shapes.  “There!  That’s it!”  

The professor’s sudden shout startled Nick.  “There’s what?”  He followed the professor’s pointing finger.  At first he thought he was looking at a boulder, but then he realized it was an obelisk.  A carven obelisk.  It took a minute for that to sink in.  They were in a part of the jungle that was supposed to be uninhabited, looking at an ancient structure that was carved by human hands.  “Holy shit…” Nick stammered as they ran over to inspect their discovery.  His surprise only grew when they saw the writing.  “Is that…”

“Mayan,” the professor said, his voice heavy with disbelief.  

“But the Mayan’s didn’t come this far south.”  

“Clearly they did.”  

Nick’s heart started racing at the implications.  “Vince…if this is legit…”

Vince let out a triumphant laugh.  “I knew it!  I knew it!”  He threw an arm around his younger colleague.  “What’d I tell you!”  

The older man’s excitement was infectious.  “Okay, okay,” Nick laughed, “ but we still haven’t found the rest.”  

Vince studied the map and looked around before taking off to the north.  Nick ran behind, struggling to keep up.  “Over here!”  

Nick stopped next to Vince on the edge of a steep drop.  Below them, with vines and overgrowth draping in, was a large pool of water.  The river they’d been following dropped off in a small waterfall away from the pool, leaving the clear water as still as glass.  The two men just looked at each other, then their find, in silence.  They were too excited to notice the utter stillness of the jungle around them.  “We need to make camp,” Nick finally said, breaking the spell.  The light filtering down through the canopy was quickly dimming.  

“You’re right,” Vince said when he was able to pry his eyes away from the pool.  “It’ll be here in the morning.”  

They followed the waterfall down one of the steep sides of the cliff and found a convenient clearing between the river and the pool.  They traveled light, so setting up camp was a quick process.  They shared a single tent, just big enough for the two of them, which Nick set up while Vince built a fire.  Beyond the standard camping gear, they had Vince’s portable lab and diving equipment.  Given how heavy these last two items were, they couldn’t bring much else.  But they were seasoned outdoorsmen, so between the two of them they didn’t need much.  

Nick stretched his sore muscles and looked at his dirt and sweat stained body.  “That has never looked more appealing,” he sighed, pointing towards the waterfall.  

“I hear you,” Vince grimaced and stood, showing his age for the first time that day.  

Nick gave the river a quick once over before kicking his shoes off and stripping out of his clothes.  “It’s not too cold, either,” the blonde man said as he waded out beneath the cascading water.  He was far from an exhibitionist, but Nick loved the freedom of feeling the jungle air on his exposed body.  Not that he had anything to be concerned about.  At twenty five he was still in his prime, and it showed.  When he wasn’t hiking through jungles with the professor he was playing rugby or wrestling, leaving his 6’2” frame covered in solid, defined muscles.  Coupled with his boyish features and mop of blonde hair, he was the target of constant advances from guys and girls alike.  

“I thought you said it wasn’t cold,” Vince shivered as joined Nick under the waterfall.  The older man was an equally impressive sight.  He wasn’t as built as the younger blonde man, but at 20 years his senior he was still close.  Where Nick bulged with muscle, Vince’s 6’0” frame was lean and defined, though it was hard to see some of that definition under the dark, wiry hairs that covered his body.  Where Nick was smooth and blonde, Vince’s raven scalp seemed to descend down over his entire frame, leaving his olive complexion covered.  “This is freezing!”  

“I guess that explains that,” Nick laughed, pointing to Vince’s crotch.  The younger man loved to point out the size difference between their equipment, especially since his was the larger.  

“Don’t make me give you an F.”  

Nick just laughed.  There was no awkwardness between them.  They’d been in so many jungles and deserts and mountainsides that they were just as familiar with each other as they were with themselves at this point.  When they were done scrubbing themselves they did the same to their clothes and hung them on nearby branches to dry.  

“You know, I just noticed,” Nick said as he pulled on a pair of tiny running shorts while Vince did the same, “it’s crazy quiet.”  He held his bare arms out, “not even any bugs.”  

“I noticed that too.”  If Vince was bothered by it, it didn’t show.  

“It’s not the same kind of quiet when there’s a predator.  It’s like the animals just don’t want to come here.”  

This time Vince looked bothered.  “Don’t let your imagination get the best of you.  There are countless explanations for a lack of wildlife, you know that.”  

Nick was less than convinced.   

After dinner Nick left Vince by the fire to pore over his manuscripts while he called it a night.  If the older man wanted to stay up studying, he could do it on his own.  He was exhausted.  The perpetual silence was beginning to unnerve him, but Nick quickly fell into a fitful sleep.  

**********

The following morning work began in earnest.  Nick wasn’t even sure the professor had gone to bed.  When the young man woke he found Vince already preparing equipment even though the sun was just barely at the horizon.  The older man was dressed in a pair of skin tight diving trunks and had his small flippers and mask ready to go.  

“Did you even sleep?”  

“A little.  Too excited,” Vince said distractedly as he checked over their diving gear.  

Nick pulled out a protein bar and watched the professor work.  He knew better than to try and talk to him now.  The oppressive silence from the night before was still present, made all the worse by the fog that hung heavy in the humid morning air.  Even the sound of the nearby waterfall seemed muted.  Nick eyed the lagoon with a growing uneasiness.  He didn’t think of himself as a superstitious man, nor was he particularly religious, but the idea of diving in that silent water was less than appealing.  

“It’s brine.”  

“Oh.”  Nick’s still groggy brain processed that for a minute.  “Wait, what?  How?  We’re nowhere near the coast!”  

“I know.  It’s not uncommon for these cenotes to travel for miles underground out to sea, but the scale of this one means…” Vince trailed off.  “It must meet up with a freshwater spring somewhere down there.  Go feel it.”  

Nick stooped down at the edge and stuck a hand into the glassy water.  “Warm.  Hot spring?”  

“That’s what we’re going to find out!  You ready?”  

The older man’s infectious excitement overpowered his unease.  This WAS the reason they’d come all the way out here, after all.  Nick pulled off his small shorts and swapped them out for a tiny red speedo.  The warm water meant they wouldn’t need to break out the wetsuits yet.  They strapped their diving gear on and checked each other’s tanks.  They’d done countless similar dives in underwater cave systems, but still Nick hesitated at the water’s edge.  “If this really is the fountain of youth, should we just be diving in like this?”  

“You’re not going superstitious on me, are you?” Vince laughed and clapped Nick on his broad back.  “I ran some comp tests this morning.  All they came up with was brackish water.”  

Nick took a deep breath and waded out the few steps before the pit opened up.  “Here we go…”

The water seemed thick as the two men worked their way steadily downwards.  The main shaft of the pit was hazily lit by the sun that filtered through the jungle canopy.  They wouldn’t be reading any books down there, but once their eyes adjusted they could at least make out most of their surroundings, and they had flashlights for the rest.  

“You copy?”  

Nick started at the static filled voice in his mask.  “You’re coming through.  Reception’ s a bit off.”  

“Probably the rock.”  

Nick didn’t mention the countless other caves they’d dived in with perfect reception.  “How deep is this?”  The water faded into growing darkness below them.  Nick had to wrestle with the primal part of his subconscious that filled the darkness with all sorts of monsters.  

“Sounding line measured just over 110.”  

The already hazy light meant the darkness grew quickly, leaving them almost totally enveloped when they reached the bottom.  Nick could just make out the perimeter of the walls that seemed to have smoothed out during their descent.  He swam over to one with his light.  “Uh…Vince?  You…you should come see this.”  Nick’s light was illuminating a series of carvings.  They looked like hieroglyphics, but none that he’d ever seen.  He snapped a few pictures then swept his light along the wall.  The rough, natural rock from above had indeed given way to smooth, polished walls covered with engravings.  “Doc!” Nick turned and saw the professor equally engrossed with a discovery.  “What’d you…” he trailed off.  They were floating in front of a large, carven arch way.  

“Incredible…” Vince gasped, “absolutely incredible.”  He finally turned away and beamed at the younger man.  

“Do you recognize any of it?”  Nick forgot his uneasiness in the thrill of discovery.

“Parts of it look familiar.  Almost Mayan…”

Nick busied himself photographing as much of it as he could.  “But we already established last night that the Mayans didn’t come this far south.”  

“Clearly someone related to them did.”  Vince studied the writing on the archway until Nick was done photographing.  At the top of the arch was a detailed rendering of a creature that looked like a mix between an iguana and a crawfish.  It was long and shaped like a lizard, with with the claws, antennae, and multiple legs of a crawfish.  It wasn’t uncommon to find depictions of dragons and other mythical creatures in these carvings, but Vince had never seen one like this.  “Got it all?”  

Nick sank back down and stared into the darkness beyond the arch.  The opening was about 10 feet high and almost as wide.  They couldn’t tell how big the space beyond was.  “Yeah, I think so…whoa!”  When doing a final sweep with his light, Nick hit on a spot next to the bottom of the arch that he’d missed, revealing a neat pile of skulls.  

“Interesting…” Vince murmured, examining the pile of bones.  They were in a surprising state of preservation.  “You okay?  We’ve seen bones in these before.”  

“Yeah, yeah,” Nick laughed, embarrassed.  “I know they used these things for sacrifices.  Just startled me.  This one’s…different…to say the least.”  

“Let’s find out just how different.”  

Nick wished he was nearly as confident as they swam into the darkness beyond the arch.  His uneasiness was returning.  The rock wall beyond the arch was disappointingly rough, absent of any carvings or masonry work.  Nick tried not to think about the implications of a pit that was inescapable from the bottom.  Clearly this pit had been carved before it flooded, but from what he had seen on the way down there was no way to climb up the walls.  “There must be another exit,” he told himself.  “Or they used ladders.”  He was having a hard time convincing himself.  The growing warmth of the water didn’t help, nor did the increasing frequency and variety of bones occasionally illuminated by his meager flashlight.  

“Impossible…”

Nick bumped into Vince when the older man stopped swimming.  “What?”  

“Turn your light off,” the older man said, turning his light off.  

Nick reluctantly did the same.  “Why are we…” he trailed off as his eyes slowly adjusted.  There was a light further down the tunnel.  “Another opening topside?”  

“I don’t think so.  It looks like it’s…” Vince swam forward until the tunnel opened abruptly on a massive underwater cavern. Thick, crystalline stalagmites formed like columns, each of them throbbing with a faint luminescence.  The crystalline towers were formed in what looked like a large circle, with another, more brightly glowing object in their center.  

“What…what am I looking at?”  Nick’s voice was a mixture of awe and disbelief.  He was too surprised to be scared.  

“I…have no idea.  I’ve never seen…” The cavern was so large Vince couldn’t see the far side.  

Nick swam towards the wall and found it as rough as the tunnel had been.  It was only then that he realized how far above the bottom he and Vince were floating.  There were no stairs or hand holds down to the bottom, and it was far too high for a person to have jumped and climbed.  He swam towards the bottom, immediately regretting his decision.  “Uh…doc?  Doc!”  

The fear in Nick’s voice jarred Vince’s mind away from the implications of what he was seeing and back to the reality.  “What?  Is everything…oh, oh my.”  He swam down towards the other man and saw the floor of the cave.  Or, more exactly, he saw the thick layer of bones that covered the entirety of the floor.  He snapped pictures on autopilot, unsure why the sight unsettled him as much as it did.  

“We’ve…we’ve gotta get topside.”

“We’ve still got…no, you’re right.”  Vince didn’t argue. They needed to get back to camp and examine their find.  It was too much to process all at once.  He was reluctant to leave, but the pit wasn’t going anywhere.  

Nick had to bite down on the feeling of pursuit as they swam, using every bit of his willpower not to look over his shoulder.  If he did, even briefly, he’d give himself over to fear entirely.  Only his extensive dive experience kept him from panicking until they climbed back onto dry land.  “That was…that was…” Nick panted as he shrugged off his tanks, “…what the hell was that?!”  

His answer came in the form of a giant hug from the older man.  “THAT was the discovery of a lifetime!”  Vince was practically howling with excitement.  “Do you realize what we’ve just found?!  A civilization no one knows about.  Remnants and merging of cultures that shouldn’t be here!  This could change everything we know about history!”  

Nick was significantly less excited.  “I dunno, doc.  I’m starting to feel like maybe this is one of those things that doesn’t need to be found.”  The older man didn’t hear him.  He’d already started digging out the computers to upload their photos.  Nick was content to let him work.  He went over to the waterfall, all too eager to rinse the warm, briny water off him.  It took repeated scrubbing to rid the sensation of a film clinging to his skin.  The cool, clear water of the stream only accentuated the alien feeling of the water in the pit.  Nick stripped out of the speedo and back into his shorts while the professor was glued to the computer.  “Hey, doc, you should really go wash that stuff off, man.”  After an hour the older man hadn’t moved from the computer.  “Doc!”  

Vince jumped at Nick’s strong hand on his shoulder.  “Sorry, you startled me.  These pictures are fascinating!  This is a form of Mayan, I’m sure of it!  I think I can actually translate…” he trailed off, losing himself in the pictures again.  

It was a losing cause to try and pry him away now, and Nick knew it.  He spent the rest of the afternoon exploring some of the structures surrounding the camp site and looking for possible food sources.  Surprisingly, there were no fruit trees or any other edible plants until he was beyond the range of the vine covered piles.  The discovery was less than comforting.  From what he could tell, the vine covered obelisks were covered in the same writing they’d discovered in the pit.  He photographed each of them in turn, noticing a disturbing pattern to their spacing.  They seemed to form a carefully measured circle around the pit.  

When Nick had almost completed the circle, he was shocked to discover a small wooden shack.  In the midst of the alien desolation it was like a splash of cold water to the face.  The remains of the building were rotting and covered in vegetation, but not nearly as much as the obelisks, which suggested it was built later, but clearly not recently.  A bit off in the distance was a wrecked pile of rusted metal that turned out to be an old jeep, only adding to the mystery.  “What the hell…?”  he murmured, venturing inside.  There wasn’t so much as a snake or spider in sight, odd for an overgrown jungle shack.  When he saw what was left on the rotting table he wished it was a snake instead.  

He bolted back to camp. “Doc!”  Nick’s heart started racing when he got back to camp and found the computer unattended.  “Hey, doc!”  He feared the worse when he didn’t see the professor’s tanks, either.  He raced to the edge of the pit, nearly falling in at the sudden hand on his shoulder.  “Gah!”  

“Whoa, hey, what’s wrong?”  Vince had never seen his young friend so pale.  “I was putting the tanks away.  What’s…”  

“We’ve got a problem.”  

**********

The two men sat around the fire, still staring in disbelief at Nick’s discovery.  A large, rusted metal box sat next to them, the swastika on its side barely visible in the dim light.  The moldy papers and photos inside had been carefully laid out, though much of the writing was illegible.  The professor knew a passable amount of German, but the damp paper had distorted the ink.  What they were able to translate was far from comforting, as were the pictures, which spoke loudly enough for themselves.  

“What the hell did we find out here, doc?”  Nick just kept shaking his head.  “You never mentioned any fucking Nazis.”  

“Unexplored, remember?”  Vince was trying not to let his own anxiety show.  This was not something he’d anticipated.  “Take a deep breath, Nick.”  

Nick hopped up, pacing.  “Look at those pictures!  Look at them!  What the fuck is that?!  Is that what those bones on the table were?”  

“Nick!”  Vince rarely raised his voice towards Nick.  He usually never had to.  So when he did, it worked.  

The blonde man sighed and sat back down.  “Sorry…but seriously, what are we looking at?”  

“Experiments, it looks like.”  The pictures were impossibly unsettling in that what they showed didn’t seem possible.  There were several subjects, all German soldiers.  The early photos showed each standing naked in front of a wall with height and weight measurements written on the backs.  There seemed to be a purposeful variety of body types present.  One of the men was what you’d generally consider to be average height and build.  Not too tall or short, and not over or under developed.  Another was built like a tank, standing six and a half feet tall with a barrel chest and massive arms and legs.  There was an older heavyset man of average height but pudgy build, and finally a young man of short stature but covered in lean, toned muscle.  The horror came after those initial pictures.  

They were each followed by pictures of the men writhing on gurneys with tortured looks on their faces while their bodies changed in impossible ways.  The Nazis were known for their brutal experiments, but this was like nothing anyone had heard of.  The first man, average to start, was anything but by the end.  Picture after picture showed his proportions and features twisting.  His boyish face twisted as his brow sloped and protruded, crooking his nose and offsetting his eyes and ears.  His chin flattened and widened under a now-lopsided mouth.  His shoulders hunched and pulled in different directions as his arms changed.  One seemed to withdraw upwards, growing shorter but impossibly thick as all its mass squished into a smaller space while the other remained roughly the same.  His torso was reduced in overall length, but most of that was from his stomach as his chest appeared to stay the same size.  Both of his legs became shorter and rounder, and his average package shrank to the point of nearly disappearing.  

“What…what the fuck…” Nick felt nauseous when he looked at the pictures.  The next set showed the largest of the men undergoing an entirely different transformation.  In each successive picture his ample muscles seemed to shift and move.  His arms became thin and soft looking while his pecs ballooned out impossibly and his neck became so thick it almost disappeared.  He appeared top heavy as his solid stomach withered, dropping its mass to his lower half.  His already large legs inflated further, but the most horrifying was the balls that grew to the size of baseballs and a cock that expanded outwards until it was so thick it stood straight out from the man’s twisted body.  

They were both speechless as they flipped through the final two sets.  At first it seemed like the older, heavier set man may have been the only one to benefit as his first few pictures showed him looking younger and younger.  By the third picture his age appeared to halve, leaving him in what looked to be his early 20s.  His weight had also dropped, but while he stopped getting younger, he didn’t stop getting thinner.  The fit, twenty something quickly thinned and softened until a lithe, feminine looking young man stood in the place of the former stocky old man.  He had thin, shapeless shoulders, soft arms, and a flat chest above a supple belly that melted down into his round thighs.  If it weren’t for the solid cock sticking out from the rolling thighs, it would’ve been hard to tell the gender of the person they were looking at.  What was worse, though, was the empty, hungry look in the now-youthful eyes.  The last young man underwent a similar reduction in muscle.  His already short frame shrunk rapidly, shedding the lean definition, until he had a pudgy, cherubic body only a few feet tall.  What made his alterations the most horrifying, though, was the still-adult head on the shrunken body.  

The two men sat in stunned silence.  Nick kept looking at the pictures and then down at his hands.  “Is…is that what’s going to happen to us?”  

Vince was studying the faded notes as best he could.  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, not sounding nearly as confident as he’d intended.  “My German’s a little rusty…and these aren’t the easiest to read, but…” he squinted at the paper under a flashlight, “…from what I can make out they used a host of…chemicals to pull off what we see here.”  

“But the water was one of them?”  

“If I inject you full of water and testosterone your body will change, but which one do you think is responsible?  I can’t tell what some of these chemicals are, but I can assure you they used plenty of things in addition to that water.  It looks like they were trying to come up with some kind of biologic agent to use in the war that didn’t pan out.”  Vince put the papers down and rubbed his tired eyes.  “Look, Nick, the Nazis were huge on this occult stuff because they knew it freaked people out.  And they were idiots.  They probably dug up the same legends we did and came out here.  That doesn’t mean this is anything other than set dressing.  Imagine how much more frightening and monstrous they’d seem if they could claim a supernatural source behind some new chemical weapon.  Clearly they didn’t get what they were after since they ditched it.”  Vince sighed and clapped Nick on the thigh.  “This is definitely…unsettling…and unexpected, but don’t let your imagination run wild on you.  You know where that leads.  I need you to keep your head in the game.”  

Nick took a deep breath and shook his head.  “No, you’re right, I know. This is just huge.  All of this.  Everything we found down in that cave, plus this….fucking nazis?!  Are you kidding?  This is like Indiana Jones only terrifying.”  

“Welcome to science!  You never know what you’re going to find.  That’s why we do it.”  Vince stood and stretched in the firelight.  “Why don’t you turn in?  I’m too wired to sleep, but you look about ready to drop.  I’m going to stay up a bit longer and see if I can’t translate that writing we found down there.”  The older man was glad when his young colleague zipped the tent shut. He let his hands start the shaking he’d been holding back.  He hadn’t been entirely truthful when telling Nick what was written in German.  Yes, other chemicals had been used, but none of the items listed could produce anything close to what they saw in the pictures.  He tried to push the images from his mind while he continued to examine the pictures from the cave with renewed urgency. 

**********

“Hey…hey…”

“Wha?!” Nick started awake at the gentle nudging, his heart racing.  

“You were having a nightmare,” Vince said sleepily.  

“I was?” Nick thought.  He couldn’t remember anything.  What had he been so scared about?  Vince’s large bed was soft underneath him, and the older man’s naked body next to him was as reassuring as always.  “Sorry if I woke you,” Nick yawned.  

Vince just grinned and rolled over on top of the younger man, their naked bodies pressing together.  “Well, since I’m awake…”

Nick groaned softly as Vince began kissing his neck and working his way steadily down his muscular chest and stomach.  The feeling of the older man’s solid, hairy body on top of him drove him wild, and his long, thick cock was throbbing well before Vince wrapped his lips around it.  “OOOOHhhh…” Nick squirmed at the sensation of Vince’s stubble covered cheeks on the insides of his powerful thighs.  The older man got him off better than anyone else ever had.  Vince knew just what he liked and could work his tongue in ways that still baffled Nick’s mind.  He ran his hands through the older man’s salt and pepper hair in a blissful haze.  It wasn’t long before he sprayed a rushing torrent of fluid, the intensity of the release forcing his eyes open to look at the inside of their tent.  

“Wha…what just…” Nick was disoriented until he realized he’d been dreaming.  He was then more confused when he realized he was tangled against Vince, both of them naked, and both of them with rapidly softening cocks.  He felt a stickiness on his stomach and chest that could only be one thing.  

“Wha’s…” Vince slowly groaned awake, his eyes jolting open when his brain caught up with the situation.  “Oh!” He blushed and disentangled himself from the other man.  

“Well, this is weird,” Nick laughed, blushing just as hard.  

Vince forced himself to look away from Nick’s naked body and saw their shorts in a pile at their feet.  “Must’ve gotten hot last night.”  

“Yeah…must have…” Neither of them said anything about the stickiness they felt.  Nick unzipped the tent and stretched in the dim morning sunlight, hoping distance from Vince would clear his head.  He had no idea where that dream had come from.  

The young man had no way of knowing that Vince had a similar dream.  The older man was equally confused when he thought back on the vivid sensations of his cock buried between the large, muscular globes of Nick’s ass; an ass that he was surprisingly still captivated with even though they were awake.  Vince was more than a little concerned.  Not because of any objection to same sex attraction, he didn’t have a homophobic bone in his body, but because of similar behavioral changes he’d read about in the German notes.  Each of the four subjects had displayed an entirely different and intense pheromone response to men in general, but especially towards each other.  Vince’s fears were deepened when he joined Nick in the nearby stream and was unable to keep his eyes off the younger man.  Based on the awkward silence and the number of times he caught Nick looking in his direction, Vince knew the other man was having a similar experience.  

“That’s pretty impressive for a man your age,” Nick said, finally breaking the silence.  

“What’re you…” Vince blushed when he looked down and saw his solid cock.  He’d been so busy staring at Nick he hadn’t noticed.  The sight must have prompted a similar response in the young man, because as Vince watched, Nick’s long, thick hose steadily grew.  

“This is whatever’s in that water, isn’t it,” Nick said, his eyes glued to Vince’s rod.  

“I think so…” Vince was too distracted.  All he could think of was his dream.  “We can’t be sure that…”

“Bull!” Nick yelled.  “What else would it be?  Look at us!  No offense, doc, you’re not exactly my type, but the only thing I can think about it…” he trailed off, his face bright red.  It was taking every ounce of his willpower not to throw himself at the other man.  

“This could be nothing but a simple aphrodisiac effect to something around us, or…” Vince trailed off when Nick suddenly started laughing.  “What?  Is something…”

“I just…it was so weird.  All of a sudden I thought ‘he’s so cute when he’s flustered.’  Not something I’m used to…” This time it was the young man who was cut off when Vince suddenly stepped forward and pressed their lips together.  Nick didn’t resist.  He ran his hands through the wiry hair on the older man’s strong chest, marveling at how foreign and how good it all felt.  

“Oh…god…Nick, I’m sorry, I…” Vince panted, trying, and failing, to stop himself.  The young man’s muscular body in his arms felt better than he ever could’ve imagined.  

“No…don’t…don’t stop,” Nick panted back.  And they didn’t.  They lost a chunk of the morning hungrily exploring every inch of each other’s body.  Nothing was off limits and nothing was out of bounds.  Vince played out his dream, riding the young man’s tight behind before eagerly swapping places.  They were both surprised at how pleasurable another man’s body could be, and how different each of their throbbing rods felt.  Vince couldn’t get enough of Nick’s huge club, while the younger man was clearly aware that he was benefiting from Vince’s years of experience with his smaller rod.  They came on, and in, each other countless times before finally trudging over to the edge of the stream and collapsing in a panting heap.  

“…Wow…” was all Vince could manage.  

Nick laughed at the usually verbose professor’s lack of words.  “We should’ve found this sooner…all these times out in the woods together would’ve been way more fun.”  

“I don’t think we’d have gotten as much work done, though.”  

“Ha!  Good point.”  There was a silence while they tried to process what happened.  “So…what do we do now?”  

“Clothes would be a good start.”  Vince hopped to his feet and reached down to help Nick up.  “You okay?”  The young man had a pained expression on his face.  

“I’m not sure, I feel kind of fuuaaaagghh!” The blonde man’s body suddenly spasmed.  “Do…doc…what’s haaaagghhh!” He was cut off when another wave of pain washed over his body.  It felt like every muscle was cramping and every bone was breaking at the same time.  Memories of the men in the photos pushed terror up through the pain. “Doc…doc…don’t let hhhuuuhhh….” Nick’s voice cut out in a harsh gasp of pain as he clutched at the older man.  He heard his friend’s reassuring voice from a distance as the world went dark around him.  

**********

The first thing Nick felt when he woke up was relief that the pain was gone.  His foggy brain was unclear on why he should’ve been in pain, but his relief was almost primal.  He opened his eyes on the familiar sight of the tent and the professor sitting next to him.  

“Doc?  What…” Nick cleared his throat, thinking his voice sounded funny.  “What happened?  The last thing I remember…” he stopped short.  His voice definitely sounded different, and he was starting to remember why.  “Oh god!  What’s…!”  He started to sit up, but Vince stopped him.  

“Easy, easy,” the older man said gently.  Nick’s heart was racing under his hand.  

Nick could tell by the look on Vince’s face that whatever happened was significant.  The fact that the other man was holding him down so easily with just one hand was also telling.  He braced himself.  If he couldn’t sit up, he could at least look over.  He immediately wished he hadn’t.  Instead of the long, muscled arm he was used to, he saw something short and bulky.  He jerked his head to the other side and saw he had a matched set.  “Doc…” he was wide eyed and hyperventilating, “…doc…tell me…what…”

“Nick,” he said firmly, “I know this is asking a lot, but I need you to not go into shock on me.  We’re a long way from help.  We need to…hey, look at me,” Vince manually turned Nick’s head to meet his gaze, “we need to figure this out, and quickly.  I’m going to let you up…but go slow…”

Nick only half heard what Vince said.  He struggled upright and almost fell back again at what he saw.  His formerly athletic legs were just as squat and bulky as his arms.  His torso had also shrunk, but not the extent of his arms and legs.  His formerly trim six pack now bulged like a roid gut and his round pecs were jagged peaks of muscle.  What hadn’t changed was his package, which looked absolutely massive on his new frame.  The long, thick hose hung almost to his knees, while his balls stood out prominently.  “Oh…oh god…” he gasped.  He couldn’t tell if it was just his stubby new fingers, but as he poked at his face his features seemed to have changed.  “I…I…” He collapsed against Vince in a mass of tears and hysteria.  The other man held him in silence until the heaving sobs stopped.  

“Are you still in pain?”  He finally asked.  

“No…a little sore, but not bad.”  Nick was gradually coming to his senses.  The overwhelming lust he was feeling being cradled in Vince’s arms was helping.  “So what happened?”  

“You seem to have come down with sudden onset achondroplasia, which should be impossible since people don’t just ‘come down’ with dwarfism.”  

Nick tried to wrap his head around that.  “Is that what this is?”

“As near as I can tell.  The proportions, the…facial features…the overall size…”

“Oh god…how tall am I?  Did you measure me while I was out?”  

“Just under four feet,” Vince said as gently as he could.  Nick just moaned and buried his face against Vince’s chest.  “But look, the good news is that, despite appearances, you’re okay.  You’re shorter, but there’s a huge chunk of the population living perfectly normal lives who look just like you.”  Vince stroked Nick’s back while he spoke.  “And you’re still solid as a rock.”  

The professor’s words didn’t do much to improve Nick’s mood, but the feeling of the hand on his back did.  For some reason, the size difference was turning on Nick even more.  He was always used to being the larger one.  He literally couldn’t remember the last time he was small enough for someone to hold him like this.  He sighed and raised a stubby hand to Vince’s chest, finding it less hairy than previously.  “Wait a second…” Nick looked up and it finally hit him.  In his own panic he hadn’t noticed how much younger the professor looked.  

“Part of the reason I need you to not freak out,” Vince said flatly.  “I took a sample of your blood right after you started changing.  I was able to isolate an enzyme just as my changes started.  It was a gamble, but a mixture of anti-venom and antihistamine is slowing it down.  Not stopping, but slowing it down.  I figure I’ve got a few hours at most before the changes overwhelm the drugs, and we’re all out.”  

“Oh man,” Nick muttered, taking a few deep breaths.  His friend already looked considerably younger, maybe early 30s at the most.  He still had his toned, athletic build, but it was smoother overall and less rough around the edges.  “What aren’t you telling me?”  

Vince was silent for a moment before speaking.  “The changes aren’t just physical.  I’m getting younger, but I’m….losing things.”  He reached over and picked up a pile of papers covered in the strange writing.  “Yesterday I could read these.  As of this morning?  Gibberish.  And it’s not just that.  My brain feels like it’s been coated in molasses.”  

Nick wasn’t sure which of their transformations was worse, but his was suddenly seeming less and less terrible.  “What do we need to do?”  

“Luckily I translated most of the writing, and I have the cipher so you can do more if you need to.  I need to…to…”

“Doc?”  Nick waited until he was sure Vince hadn’t just lost his train of thought.  

“Huh?  Damnit!  That’s what I’m talking about.”  

“Okay, okay,” Nick crawled off Nick’s lap and stood on wobbly legs.  He took a few stumbling steps until he was semi-adjusted to his new gait.  “I’ll freak out later.  First things first: pictures.  I need to see what I look like.”  Nick turned in circles while Vince snapped pictures of him standing upright.  It took all of his willpower not to breakdown as he stared at the small, stocky stranger on the screen.  Vince hadn’t been kidding when he said he was still solid as a rock.  His athletic build had been replaced by one resembling a power lifter, leaving him nearly as wide as he was tall.  His composure cracked a little when he saw his face.  Despite everyone else’s opinion, he’d never considered himself good looking, or put much stock in being “handsome”, but his altered features were rough to swallow.  He was still recognizable, and he was far from ugly, but his face seemed less round and more square.  It seemed to have widened and flattened, causing his brow to jut out further than before, and his formerly button nose was now a large lump.  

“Hey,” Vince said gently, pulling Nick’s gaze away from the picture of himself.  Before the other man could speak, he planted a long, deep kiss.  “Whatever you’re thinking right now, forget it.”  

Nick just blushed.  “That’ll take some getting used to,” he laughed awkwardly and pointed down to his solid cock.  “Did that get bigger, or is it just me?”  He reached down and couldn’t even close a shrunken hand all the way around it.  

“Seems a little bigger to me,” Vince said casually as he wrapped a hand around it.  Nick moaned and came almost immediately.  “You did that twice while you were out of it too.  I imagine it’s just your body adjusting hormone levels.”  Vince forced himself away from the shrunken man.  They didn’t have time to do what they both desperately wanted to.  

Nick tried in vain to pull on his small shorts, but they didn’t fit his squat new frame.  Instead he was forced to resort to his speedo, which was still stretched to capacity over his ample behind and inflated package.  “Let’s…let’s just focus on what we need to.”  

Vince’s admiration for his young protégé grew.  He knew the other man was in shock, but he was holding it together better than anyone could expect.  More so than his own impending changes, he hated himself for dragging Nick into this.  “This is what I was able to get down on paper last night before…”

Nick fumbled at the pages with his stubby new fingers.  Everything felt and looked different from his new perspective.  He focused on the notes to keep from losing it.  “So they knew what they had down there?  Or if they didn’t know, they at least knew what it did?”  

“Looks that way.  My guess is the flooding came later.  I don’t know if they still tried to use it after, but whatever’s down there permeated the water.  My best guess is the reason we didn’t end up like the Germans is because we got close enough to the source and didn’t dilute it with anything.  Looking at their notes, it doesn't look like they actually submerged themselves in it, just injected the liquid. Us, on the other hand….”  Vince pointed to one of the pictures.  The glyphs seemed to show a line of people entering the tunnel and stopping in the main chamber.  

“Oh my god…” Nick was stunned when he saw the next series showing the people exiting the tunnel looking the way he found himself now.  

“I think it’s what they did with their slaves or prisoners.  I’ve found references to them as workers.”  

“Then what does that make you?”  

“Good question.  I started having trouble before I got there.  I think it’s…it’s…” Vince wobbled on his feet, wracked by a sudden pain.  “I think the…drugs are wearing…off…”

Nick tried his best to steady Vince’s much larger frame and ease it to the ground.  Like himself, the other man was mercifully blacked out.  Finding his tiny frame surprisingly strong, Nick pulled Vince over into the tent.  He made his friend as comfortable as he could, but Vince still moaned in pain.  Nick picked up where Vince had left off with the translating.  He was nowhere near the expert the older man was, but desperation was helping his focus.  The changes steadily creeping over his friend’s body also helped narrow things down.  At first it didn’t seem like anything was happening, but as Nick watched he saw his friend’s body slowly losing its rough edge.  The wiry hairs on his torso gradually thinned out and disappeared as Vince started to lose bulk. He kept his definition, but there was no denying that the muscles were growing smaller.  It took everything in his power not to stare and to focus on the translation.  Vince had been right; Nick’s transformation is what they did to their captives.  It turned them into “workers” who were easier to manage than a bunch of full size prisoners.  But he couldn’t find anything about what the professor was turning into.  Nick looked older than his friend now.  Vince’s rugged, stubble-covered face was soft and delicate.  His whole body was.  The lean definition he’d had was mostly gone, replaced by smooth, soft skin with a complexion that had changed from dark and olive to a pale porcelain.  Even Vince’s hair had softened to a wispy mop to match the rest of him.  The weathered older man was gone as if he’d never existed, replaced by someone lithe and petite.  Nick couldn’t help but stare regretfully at the thin, tiny cock and small balls nestled between Vince’s softened thighs.  

“Damnit!”  He slammed his stubby fist into the ground after running into another dead end.  His friend was changing before his eyes and he was helpless to do anything about it.  He was about to give in to desperation entirely when a previously unnoticed symbol caught his eye.  It was the lead he needed.  He scrambled over the disjointed notes and photos again until the terrible reality of their situation was clear.  “Oh...oh god…” Nick actually recoiled from the notes.  He’d been turned into a worker, but Vince had been turned into a “bride”.  It was a punishment reserved for the strongest warriors or rulers of opposing tribes.  Somehow, whatever was down there knew that Vince had been in charge and Nick was the sidekick.  It had read them and acted accordingly, hence his dwarfish new body and the professor’s androgynous looks.  

The changes were terrible enough, but the true horror was in what came next.  The “bride” would be used and paraded around until the new moon, at which point they were given over to the thing that lurked in the caves.  He thought back to the carvings he’d seen of the creature that looked like a mix between a lizard and a crawfish and shuddered.  Nick checked the date; the new moon was that night.  

He scrambled out of the tent and felt his stomach drop at how low the sun was on the horizon.  If they could still be changed by the water, he was all too willing to believe that something could still be lurking down there.  He thought back to the wrecked jeep and the abandoned shack.  Had the nazis left, or had something come for them?  While he hoped they got what they deserved, he didn’t look forward to finding out for himself.  

He scampered back into the tent just as Vince was stirring.  

“Nick...what happened?”  The formerly deep, gravelly voice was as light and fragile as his looks suggested.  He held up his elfin hands and stared at them, unblinking.  

“Hey,” Nick said gently, but urgently, kneeling next to the professor.  “How do you feel?  Are you in any pain?”  

Vince shook his head and struggled upright, gasping at his shapeless arms and thin torso.  His pale skin took on a ruddy hue as he blushed at the sight of his diminished body.  “Is this...is this me now?”  

Nick had to resist the urge to wrap his shortened arms around the other man.  Even now, more than anything he wanted to throw himself at him.  To Nick, Vince was still just as cute when flustered as he’d been in his older, rugged body.  “What do you remember?  Do you know who you are?  Where you are?”  

Vince nodded, his brow furrowing.  “It’s hard...I remember bits and pieces but it’s all fuzzy.”  

Nick wasn’t surprised. If the punishment was to strip a warrior of their body, it would make sense that their minds would be affected as well.  “I know this is asking a lot, but we really, really need to get out of here, okay?”  

“Why?  What’s going on?”  Vince asked while Nick helped him slide into a pair of now-baggy shorts.  They both had to resist the urge when Nick’s squat new hands bit into his Vince’s now supple behind.  

“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think we want to be here when it gets dark.  Which is just about now.”  He knew that running off into the jungle wouldn’t be much better, but at least there they had a chance.  Whatever was in the pool was more than they could handle.  

He dragged Vince to his feet and pulled him out of the tent just in time to hear a bubbling from the pool.  It was unmistakeable.  The normally placid surface was boiling like a submarine was surfacing.  “Oh shit...oh shit…” Nick stammered, frozen in place.  The bubbling was joined by a loud hiss as a single, probing antennae rose from beneath the waves.  “Fuck!  Come on!  Run!”  The sight was enough to break his fear-induced paralysis.  He held onto Vince’s delicate fingers and ran as fast as his shrunken, stumbling legs would allow.  He didn’t look back.  He couldn’t.  Whatever it was had risen from the pool and he could hear the water running down it like a waterfall.  It had to be massive.  All he wanted to do was make it outside the circumference of the obelisks.  If they could do that, they might have a chance.  

Nick could see one of the vine-covered columns in the twilight haze and made for it as the jungle seemed to explode around them.  There was a roaring sound, huge gusts of wind, and blinding lights.  Nick felt himself being lifted off the ground, and then darkness.  

**********

“Hey babe, I’m home,” Nick called as he walked in the door.  He kicked off his short, wide shoes and loosened his tie as he heard bare feet come thumping down the hall.  

“I missed you,” Vince said, wrapping his thin arms around Nick’s stout, wide little body.  All he had on was a tiny blue thong, the pouch of which ground into Nick’s chin.  His new height meant the top of his head just barely reached the middle of Vince’s soft stomach.  The taller man never wore much anymore, as if his pixie-like body needed to be exposed.  “Did you have a good day?”  

Nick shrugged and reached up to squeeze Vince’s soft, round cheeks.  “The usual.  I don’t remember being such a jerk when I was a freshman, though.”  Nick gnawed on the small lump through the pouch of the briefs to change the subject.  He didn’t like to talk about teaching because he didn’t want to upset Vince.  But if the other man was upset, the high pitched giggle didn’t show it.  “Want to help me out of these clothes,” he asked, grinning up at the other man.  

Nick was used to looking up at just about everyone now.  When it had all gone down, the last thing he’d expected was to wake up in a hospital.  His initial hope that it had all just been a horrible nightmare was dashed when he lifted his head and saw his new, misshapen body.  He’d been relieved to see Vince slumbering in a bed next to his, even if the professor was still stuck in the skinny, delicate frame.  

It turned out that the jungle exploding around them had been literal.  The pilot that dropped them off had apparently broken the law by taking them out there, and they ran headlong into a military search party.  The country’s government was well aware of what lurked out there and did everything they could to cover it up.  Fortunately for the two men, they’d been found just in time.  Unfortunately, they’d been caught on the perimeter of a blast meant to drive back whatever it was that was chasing them.  Nick didn’t ask what it was.  He didn’t want to know.  What he did want to know was why they didn’t just bomb the entire area for good, but when he asked the general, the older man just shook his head and said he wished he could, and left it at that.  

It took some getting used to when they returned home.  They made a splash in the medical journals as doctor after doctor tried to explain what happened, but it was eventually chalked up to an unknown compound out in the jungle.  Once it became clear there was no money to be made from it, the two were left alone.  

Despite the dramatic change to his appearance, Nick’s life was the less impacted of the two.  His alterations were more or less purely physical, so he was able to pick back up and finish school as planned.  It was initially difficult to face people he knew in his altered appearance, but he surprised himself by how quickly he adapted.  Having an ass-eye view of the world was an adjustment, but he could still do just about all of his previous activities.  He didn’t have men and women hitting on him like he used to, but he wouldn’t have wanted them to anyway.  The only person he was interested in was the pale, angel-faced man he lived with.  

Vince himself had an easy time when they got back; it was Nick who struggled with the other man’s changes.  The thin man was now a “former professor” since even basic reading was difficult, and to say he even had an attention span at all anymore would be generous.  But Vince didn’t seem to mind.  He was in a perpetual good mood, living from moment to moment, many of which involved his body writhing under Nick’s.  He spent his days flitting eagerly about the house, and they were both glad to learn that though it was smaller than ever, Vince still knew how to use every one of the few inches between his legs.  

Nick hated watching his formerly smart, accomplished friend spend his days in a stupor, but he also knew the last thing Vince would want is pity, so he did his best to take care of both of them.  An early retirement from the university for Vince along with some hush money from the country’s government helped things along, and eventually Nick found a teaching position at another school after graduation.  Now he spent his days in the classroom while Vince stayed at home, both of them barely able to contain themselves while they were apart.  

Back in the present, Vince’s nimble fingers were undoing the buttons of Nick’s shirt.  When he’d bent down low enough the little man leaned in and planted a long, rough kiss.  In those moments all the horror of their experience faded until it was just the two of them in each other’s arms.  It wasn’t the scientific breakthrough they’d been searching for, but it was enough.  Only later, when they were finally spent and Nick would lay in bed stroking Vince’s soft hair, would he  wonder about what they went through.  He knew they were lucky to be alive, even altered as they were.  But it wasn’t the close call that rattled him.  What kept him up at night was the inescapable question: if this ancient horror still lurked out there, what else lurked with it?