If ever you feel like asking questions or starting a conversation here, go ahead! I'll answer as best as I can. Here's the second chapter in the series. Enjoy!
(update, _blablabla_ = thoughts)

Honourbound

"Raph, got the report from..." Nick, voice dropped at what he saw.
_Empty. It’s been a week! How am I supposed to do my job if he doesn’t give me his reports?_ Infuriated, he stomps off to his office, grumbling. He checks his e-mails and his voice box. _Nothing. Mister decided to take a little vacation without telling anyone! When he gets back, I sure hope he gets fired!_

After yet another unproductive day at work, Nicholas decided to go home early, frustrated. As he stomped out of his office, everyone moved out of his way. Despite his small height, or rather because of it, he had a reputation for having a bad temper. A colleague made a joke about him leaving early, and was rewarded with a punch to the stomach. After that, they all rather carefully avoided him. “Nick Fury”, as he was called, left the office with a very bad mood.

He slammed the door as he entered his bungalow. _Damn cops! 25 $ just for being parked wrong!_ he thought, slamming the ticket on the table. Nick stomped off to the basement, getting ready for a long pounding on the punching bag.


_Ouch! I shouldn’t have pounded on it for so long!_ He would usually train from 6 to 8, but that night, having come home early and frustrated, he worked out for four hours. Today, he was feeling it rather painfully. He shifted his shoulders under his vest, testing his sore muscles as he walked to his office. As he entered, the door read “Nicholas Furrow”. 5"6, rather small, he was know for his brutally efficient working. He didn’t like working with others, and he particularly didn’t like being unable to work because of others. As such, he was suitably angry at the absence of Raph’s reports on his desk.
"Dammit! When he comes back, Raph’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do!" Nick said angrily.
He stormed through the halls until he reached Raphael’s (empty) cubicle. No letters no e-mails, no messages on the voice box. He went to the secretary and bullied her into giving him Raph’s address. _If he’s at home, he’s gonna have a big surprise!_ he thought with an evil grin.

He didn’t bother asking or knocking. He walked up to the door and started pounding at it. BANG BANG BANG!
“Open up! What the hell you think you’re doing running away like that!?! I swear I’ll break down the door if you don’t...” He banged at the door for a while and shook the doorknob, expecting it to be locked. To his surprise, the door opened without any resistance. Baffled and felling a little guilty at breaking into someone else’s house, Nick walked in nonetheless. The first thing he noticed was that the apartment seemed... empty. There were no signs of someone having lived there recently. The reflection of the sun caught his eye, and he noticed the half-opened windows and the water puddles beneath them, water from Tuesday’s rain. It was Thursday. Nick walked in, stepping over the few discarded clothes on the floor. More than a little scared now, Nicholas slowly took out his cell-phone and dialled three numbers.

"So where did you say you worked again?" the man asked, sounding bored.
_I didn’t say where I worked!_ Nick didn’t like the policeman. From the moment he met him in the hallway twenty minutes ago, Nick developed an almost instant dislike for the tall man. His natural mistrust of the authorities didn’t help either. _Thank God it’s almost over now. Why does he always ask the same dumb questions three times? Does he think it’s my fault or what?_ While Nick answered the long, repetitive questions, a squad of technicians had moved in and were busy gathering evidence. By the time the officer (Mark Wetherby, he was called) was satisfied with the information he dragged out of him, it was nearly five in the afternoon. He left frustrated, nervous, worried, and, strangely, more than a little sore in the shoulders. _It must be the stress. I got tensed and now my muscles are all bunched up. A good workout should get rid of that._ The workout lasted three hours.


The next morning, he woke up in a worse condition than he had in weeks. _Oh, my arms! I feel like someone tried to rip them out of their sockets and threw me across the room._ Just at the thought of a long and boring day at work, he already felt tired. It seemed to him that he grew more and more sore and uncomfortable all throughout the day. It was like his brain was on strike and he had to struggle with the simplest of problems. The numerous calls he received from the police didn’t help his mood either. He had to give out long and complicated answers, which, more often than not, came out unclear and didn’t quite answer the question. He was aware of that, and it just made him that much more frustrated. All in all, it was a terrible day. He left late, got stuck in the traffic, and almost crashed in his garage door. He felt so stiff and sore it hurt to remove his shoes. He took aspirins and went straight to bed.


He felt a little better on Saturday, and so Nick decided to work out all the kinks and sores. He spent the better part of the day stretching in his basement, and only came out around four. Hungry, he had to go buy food at the local market due to the low supplies at home. When he came back, he had this feeling nagging at his ming that he had something important to do. Then his eyes fell on the clock. “6:25! Shit, I’ll be late!” Quick shower, clean shave, suit and tie, eau de Cologne, ten minutes later he was in the car. At 32, he was still a bachelor, but he was working actively on that.

His current date, Jessica, was a young and pretty girl, although she was a little picky. Especially when he got late. Surprisingly, Nick made it on time, though he had to speed a few red lights. He picked her up and brought her to a restaurant he knew of, the Plaza Ritz. Fancy enough for her, cheap enough for his wallet. They drank wine waiting for their entrées, talked about this and that, they had a good time. She ordered a Marinara Seafood Platter, he winced at the price. Nick, on the other hand, was suddenly hungry for read meat and ordered their 7-ounce first-grade beef sirloin. The conversation got a bit more serious, but it dropped dead just as soon as the food arrived.

Jessica ate delicately, one bite at a time, wishing to pursue the conversation. At the smell of roast beef and at the sight of the juicy, tender meat, however, all thoughts left Nick. He was ravenously hungry, and he wolfed down his meat in great bites. Only the fact that he wanted to impress Jessica prevented him from grabbing the steak with both hands and tearing at it with his teeth. Jessica was impressed all right, not by his reserves, but by his savagery and lack of manners. She stopped eating and just stared a him, his slurping and chewing, the gravy stains he’d made on his tuxedo. To Nick, nothing else mattered. He was no longer hungry for meat, it was a need, a necessity. He HAD to eat. When he finished, he sighed in profound contentment. Not noticing his dirty suit or Jessica’s horrified expression, he picked up the conversations where they’d left it. At first, she’d answer only by yes or no, but soon she started talking, although cautiously. After a while, Nick squirmed uncomfortably on his chair. All of a sudden, he cramped up. With a muffled cry he doubled over, clutching at his stomach.
“Are you all right?” Jessica asked, genuine concern showing in her voice.
“Urf, no, I........ Gah! Gotta go!” He jumped out of his chair and ran out of the restaurant, still bent over. Jessica remained where she was, calmly watching his car speed out of the parking, just barely missing the sidewalk. She picked up her cell and dialled a number.
“Hello, Interpol Biosec, how may I help you?" the woman on the other end answered. Jessica answered hesitantly, fidgeting with the tablecloth.
"Uh, is this the right place, I mean with the TV add and all...."
"Yes, that’s us, what is it?" The woman seemed eager to lay her hands on any information she could get.
"Well, I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing, but my date..."
She cut in, sensing the worry in Jessica's voice. "You’ve done the right thing, miss. Please, who are you, and what is it with your date? "
Half-calmed by the woman's sooting tone, Jessica answered in a hesitant voice. "Well, he’s acting strange, just like it said in the add, uh, Nicholas Furrow, I’m Jessica Farrar..."

***

The next day, ten or so white non-descript vans parked in front of Jessica’s house near 8:30 pm and left soon after. Farrar was declared missing.

***

_What’s happening? Aahhh, it hurts! I can’t drive!_ Nick thought as he struggled with the pain in his chest, trying to focus his blurry vision on the street to get home. After nearly causing three accidents, he arrived more or less intact. The pain got worse. His head throbbed, he was sweating, his chest felt like all his ribs were broken. The air was so thick he felt like he was underwater. His breathing was shallow, the edges of his vision darkened. He fumbled with the keys and somehow managed to unlock the door. He stumbled in, locked the door behind him, and lurched into the livingroom. He felt like throwing up, his hands were shaking, his mind was foggy. He tripped on his shoelaces and fell half on the couch, half on the floor. He twisted this way and that, but it didn’t lessen the pain in the slightest. The pain was coming from inside him. He felt the pressure inside increase, and he twisted and turned and moaned even more, gasping for breath. He rolled off the couch and flopped on the floor, wondering : _Is this the end? Am I going to die?_ Still the pressure within him increased, building up, reaching almost intolerable heights.

Amidst the pain, the pressure, slowly coming through the fog that engulfed his brain, there came the feeling of something, not salvation, but more that just the end of pain. It was the feeling of something happening, that pain was just the first step of it, and that there was no turning back. And so he tossed and turned feverishly, waiting for it to end. The pressure kept building and he knew he had to let it out, he just didn’t know how. The pressure was so high he knew it would soon come out. And the pressure rose. And rose. And rose. And suddenly it came out.

You see, there was one dominant fact in Nicholas Furrow’s life. He just didn’t know it. For most of his life, Nicholas has always been close to Raphael. Not near as in friendship, near as in the general vicinity. First of all, he ended up in the same orphanage as Raph. They slept in the same dormitory and ate in the same cafeteria. From time to time, when he had nothing better to do, he even bullied Raph a bit. They went to different high schools, but had almost all their courses in common at university. As if that wasn’t enough, they were hired to work in the same floor as bureaucrats for the government, and Nick worked hard enough he managed to be Raph’s direct superior. Now you might understand Nicholas Furrow’s situation a little better.

It was like he exploded. It felt like he suddenly expanded, went out of himself. The pressure pushed out somehow, and he didn’t feel it anymore. He flopped on his back and simply lay there, slowly catching his breath. At first he was too tired even to think, but soon enough, he started worrying. _What in the name of hell just happened? I mean, should I be dead or something? What happened to me? It’s not normal, people don’t blow up like this. Blow up... Did I blow up? I didn’t explode, I’m still alive._ Scared, his eyes still closed, Nick breathed slowly, sorting out his senses. He was lying on his back, head slowly twisted. His right knee hurt a little, and his left was bent. He could feel his shoes through his socks, he knew he was still wearing his suit, but something felt strangely... wrong.

His right arm was spread out, but oddly enough, it felt as though he was holding something in his hand, or something was holding his hand. The more he focussed on it, the stranger it felt. It was like his right hand was holding his right hand. Soon he realized he felt the cold hardwood floor under his bare arms, but his arms weren’t bare! He was wearing a suit and a vest underneath. More than a little creeped now, he opened his eyes and took a good look at himself. “AAAAHHHHHH!!! Oh my GOD!!! What the Hell!!!” he screamed, scrambling backwards. But it was no use. The things followed him. As a matter of fact, the things were attached to him. There, sprouting just below his arms, a second pair was slowly developing.

Nicholas Furrow could only stare, shocked out of his mind, at the second pair of arms coming out of his torso. With each breath, they would rise and fall. With each heartbeat, they would throb. He could feel the cold floor under his four palms, he could feel his upper arms pressing down on his lower ones, he could feel the filmy slime covering them, he could feel the blood passing through them, pulsing, beating, throbbing, living. He stood up uneasily, using his top arms to push back against the wall. Nick looked around, trying his best to ignore his new “assets”. When his arms had come out, they had sprayed some sort of goo or fluid on the floor, and by scrambling away he’d only spread it. Looking down, he saw the two holes in his suit where his arms had pushed through. Just like the floor, his suit, pants and shoes were also splattered with the weird slime. Since he probably wouldn’t need them anymore, being a freak and all, he simply decided to throw it away, pants and all, in the garbage, clean the mess, and clean himself.

The shower was a novel experience. The wet fluid washed away easily under the hot water, but Nick would settle for nothing less than a complete scrubbing. While he was soaping himself, his newer arms would dangle uselessly and get in his way. Finally, almost reluctantly, he washed his arms. He had the oddest sensations as he held them up, since they were surprisingly sensitive, despite their weakness. He would pull them up, but at the same time, he’d feel them getting pulled up. It was like he was pulling and being pulled at the same time, and the more he pulled, the more he felt he was pulled. Turning off the water, he pushed the curtain and stepped out. He reached for the towel, but it fell before he reached it. Quickly, he caught it before it fell. He didn’t see it, but felt all four hands twitch at the same time as he grabbed the towel. Nick shuddered. After he was done, he quickly cleaned the mess he’d made in the house and went to bed.


Waking up, the first thing he saw was his four arms tightly hugging the covers against him. As soon as he noticed, his lower arms went limp. Grumbling, he got out of bed and made himself some coffee. Sitting at the table, he bumped his lower left against the chair. _Ow,_ he thought, wincing, _they’re getting more sensitive!_ After his third cup, his situation began dawning on him. He lowered his head in his arms. “God, I can’t believe this is happening to me! I’m turning into a freakin’ monster, and all I can worry about is “They’re getting more sensitive!”... Come on man, you’re pathetic. Wake up! You’re getting all stressed up here. Great, now you’re hyperventilating.” Nick still had his head in his (2) hands, but somewhere in there, a small alarm bell was ringing. Irritated, he pushed it away, but it kept coming back at him, growing stronger, nagging him, requiring his attention. Almost angry, he whipped his right hand in front of his face to chase the annoying thought. Immediately, his lower right, which had hung down limply on the side of the chair, thumped painfully hard on the underside of the table. Startled by the pain, he snapped out of his bout of self-pitying.

The alarm now rang full tilt in his mind, and Nick finally realized what was happening to him. He jumped out of his chair, tipping it over, and stood there, stopped short by the wave of dizziness that swept over him. He turned and leaned against the wall, hands extended over his head. First, he felt his lower arms struggling to reach the wall. He saw them, weak, the muscles faintly tensed under his skin, getting stronger, the veins popping out, beating in time with his heartbeats. It was like a door opened in his mind, flooding him with the feelings of his arms pulsing, throbbing, beating. It seemed like his arms were pumping his blood, leeching his life from him. At that moment, he hated them like he had never hated before. Light-headed, shaking at the knees and elbows, he collapsed on himself, breathing hard. A cold sweat covered him, his whole body was shaking, he thought he was dying. He could feel his blood sucked out of his veins, his body getting colder, weaker. His lower arms, by contrast, were getting stronger, hotter, filled wit the blood pooling into them. Although they were strong, his oxygen-starved brain simply couldn’t order them to move. Nick was slowly slipping into oblivion, and there was nothing he could do about it. Just before the darkness engulfed him completely, at the very edge of his consciousness, if felt like a water balloon had popped, and the hot liquid poured over him. Then he fainted.


Nicholas awoke slowly. It felt like he was clawing his way up to the surface through a sea of cement. He knew the surface was so close, and he struggled so much more to reach it. Suddenly, he burst out. Nick bolted upright with a scream, gasping and coughing. He put his head in his hands and sat, waiting for his breathing to get steadier and his heartbeats slower. After a few moments, he staggered up to the table and leaned heavily against it, dizzy and disoriented. Trying to recall his last clear memory, his eyes absently followed the pattern of his fingers on the table and the shadow they cast. With a frown, he slowly realized something was wrong. It took him another minute to figure out what was out of place, and when he did, it felt like a cold shower on his back. He hadn’t realised earlier because everything felt so normal. Before, Nick could feel them hang limply from his sides, useless. Now, they behaved normally. His four arms had moved together and rested evenly spaced on the table, his four palms pressing on the edge. He slowly raised his hands to his face. The top arms, which had rested between the two lower ones, raised and turned to place themselves on the outside, his lower hands palms up between them. They had moved in perfect synchrony, neither bumping into nor hindering each other.

Nick slowly flexed his fingers and watched as all 16 of them folded. He closed his left hand, but both upper and lower hands balled into fists. Opening them, he studied his hands. Were he to move a hand in any way, the lower would copy. When hie tried to move the lowers only, the uppers would copy. He reached for a pencil on the table, and while his upper left grabbed it without any problems, the lower painfully cracked it’s fingers on the table. The surprise made him snatch his hands back, sending the pen flying across the room. Nick turned to another pen, and tried to grab it with his lowers only, trying to lock the upper in place to prevent it from moving. His muscles bunched up and fought against each other, and as a result neither arm moved. He tried to lift his arms harder, but he would only be straining more against himself. He tried holding his upper left with his right hands. It gave him the oddest feelings, as two arms (which felt and acted like one) restrained his top left, leaving his fourth (feeling like a third arm) free to move. On his first try, his lower picked the pen up gently enough, but it nearly stabbed him in the eye with it. Surprised, he flinched, and his top right held back the lower left. Nick tried to move them separately, but they immediately resumed moving in pairs. After five tries, Nick managed to successfully pick up the pen with his lower left, although he still had to restrain his upper.

He also discovered that, having four arms, it was twice as easy to lift things. Bending down in a push-up position to find the pencil he’d accidentally thrown under the couch, it felt as though he weighted nothing. Not seeing the pen, he tried to move the couch. After securing his grip on the couch, he pulled it, lifted it clear off the floor, staggered under the sudden and unexpected weight, and almost dropped it on top of himself. Stunned, he walked to the now-visible pen, picked it up and negligently threw it on the table. Unnoticed to him was the fact only his lower had moved. He grabbed the couch and pulled it in it’s previous location, not trusting himself enough to lift it.

Nick walked to the table, picked up the fallen chair, and slumped in it. Head in his hands, he was torn between awe and fright. He was awed at what was happening to him, but on the other side, he was rather scared. "Why is this happening to me? How is this happening to me? I’m a four-armed freak, what’s going to happen to me?" There was a pause, then, "And why am I not more scared than this? I should be freaking out, not wondering what I can do!" His eyes snapped open. "You see! I’m here, massaging my head with my upper arms and with my lowers crossed on the table. I should be panicking! I’ve got four freakin’ arms and all I can think of is how, “How did I get them to move separately?” Idiot! What am I gonna do to keep living? I can’t go to work like this! I can’t even go out of my house without scaring half the city. Hell, what am I gonna do?” He got up and walked around the table. It usually cleared his head, but not so much this time. “Damn, I can’t stay here. Someone’s bound to come and find me.” He stopped and snapped his fingers (lower left). “There! I knew that cottage would come in handy sometime. It’s just for a few weeks so things can settle down a bit, then I’ll come back” he promised himself.

He pulled out his old suitcase and filled it with a few spare clothes, not needing much since everything was already at the cottage. The more active he got, the better Nick learned to use his arms, and the hour-long packing session took only thirty minutes. By the time he was done, he managed to pick and fold two things at once. The real problem was trying to camouflage his new assets during the long three-hours drive to his chalet. Nick had walked bare-chested for the whole day (well, the whole day minus the time he passed out, anyways) and hadn’t put a shirt on since his arms had came out. If he’d put a T-shirt, the bulges in the sides would be extremely obvious, notwithstanding his hands sticking out the bottom. It could look natural if he would tuck his hands in his pants and tuck his shirt over them, but he’d have to be careful not to make any weird bulges. A coat would be too hot in the summertime and would look suspicious, but his baggiest sweatshirt should do just fine.

He was surprised, however, at how tight the sweatshirt felt across his upper shoulders. He took it off and examined himself in the mirror. The first obvious difference was the second pair of pectorals under his first, complete with a nipple each. He poked at where his solar plexus used to be, somewhere between his newer pecs, and was surprised to find a new bone there, the ribs having grown longer to help his rib cage support the added weight. His second surprise came when he realized his lower pair was slightly sunk into his thorax and his uppers had grown farther apart. Turning his back to the mirror, Nick saw four shoulder blades, each smaller than the originals, the lower ones starting where his original ones ended. He hoped that was the full extent of the changes he’d have to face.

Considering his new stature, few of his original clothes still fit him. Nick managed to fetch out an old sweatshirt and matching pants. Putting the shirt on, he had to refrain from pushing all four arms into the sleeves. Once his uppers were in the sleeves and the lowers tucked under into his pants, he checked himself carefully. Surprisingly, it felt awkward patting himself with only two arms. He even accidentally picked up his suitcase with his lower left. By the time, he’d re-checked himself and drove away, it was 6 pm. Just as he turned the corner, he caught a flash of white in his rear mirror. As he drove away, a half-dozen vans drove in...

Most of the way, it was boring. Nick was seated comfortably, uppers on the wheel, lower right on the gears, lower left on the door’s arm-rest. The only noticeable accident was when, in a surprisingly happy mood, he’d saluted a trucker passing him. The man’s eyes bugged out, his jaw dropped, his face went pale. It took him a few seconds to realize he’d just saluted with his lower left, while his two uppers were plainly visible driving the car! The trucker rubbed his eyes, shook his head and took a second look. All he saw was Nick silently wording “Are you ok?” from his car, with only two arms. The trucker nodded, slowed and hurriedly took the next exit. “Shit that was close”, Nick said. He nervously wiped the sweat off his brow and was careful to maintain his arms out of sight for the rest of the trip.

He didn’t pay any attention to the first one. After all, a two hour’s drive can cause a little twitching in sore muscles. After five or six, though, Nick started worrying. His right leg suddenly jerked, flooring the accelerator. Had it been five minutes ago, he would’ve caused a major accident on the highway. Braking in sudden jerks caused by his tremors, he finally managed to grind to a halt on the shoulder of the country road. Turning off the engine to prevent himself from accidentally sending the car screeching in the woods, Nick dragged himself out. Using his four arms, he found his second set compensated for his unresponsive legs. Gone almost all the way around, his shaking grew worse. Just when he was sprawled on the hood with little to no grips, his legs kicked out from under him. His arms were more than capable of handling his leg’s weight, but their kicking and jumping and twitching was another story. Thrown off balance and unable to grab a good grip, Nick slid off the car and landed flat on his back. Even though he was gasping for air, his legs kept kicking, seeming almost possessed with a life of their own. With a jerk, both of them pushed hard on the tire. Nick slid off the road, rolling down the slope into the forest.

At first, he couldn’t understand what was going on. Once he’d banged himself on a couple of trees, he tried to grab branches, trees, rocks, anything that could stop his fall. He soon stopped and curled into a ball when he realized he was going too fast to stop and how disastrous it would be to break an arm. He didn’t control his legs though, and he winced every time they kicked something hard. It seemed his fall had lasted an eternity. A tree smashed into his legs, and pain whipped up to his brain. His fall came to a halt after a short fall and a solid smack. Dizzy and disoriented, Nick looked around. From what he could tell, he’d fallen down a steep ravine onto a boulder. He wasn’t sure if he had a broken shin, but the dry snap he’d felt in the landing and the loss of sensations clearly told him he’d broken his spine. He couldn’t feel the pain from his bruised and maybe broken legs, but instead, there was an intense prickling all around his hips. Using his arms, he managed to pull himself up. Although dizzy and dazed from his fall, Nick was still able to make out his surroundings.

Apparently, he was in a ravine a dried-up river had dug. To his left, the sand had been washed away until it reached the rock bed, five or six metres below. To his right, the sand had remained, the boulder he’d fallen on preventing the water from flushing it down. Nick, for an irrational moment, considered himself lucky in his bad luck. Had he fallen more to the left, he’d have died. More to the right, and he wouldn’t have broken his spine. Then he realized just how stupid that was. “If I were lucky, I wouldn’t have fallen in the first place. Hell, I wouldn’t be a four-armed freak!” After the fall, his mind had grown gradually foggier as a aftershock to his fall. A small zap of pain ran up his spine. Shaken out of his stupor, Nick used his four arms to try and get out of the ravine. Before even trying, he knew he couldn’t go up the sides, as the crumbling soil wouldn’t offer any support. He resolutely turned upstream. He’d have to drag himself out of this.

Zap. The pain came back, stronger this time. Nick groaned and kept going, his useless legs trailing along behind him. Zap. Zap. The jolts were coming more often now, not exactly pain but more like a huge static running up his nerves. Four arms made it easy for him to drag himself, but it was slow going. Zap! The shocks were getting stronger. His knee hit a rock. The buzzing in his hips had spread up, all of his abs and lower back were felling prickly now.... It took him a few minutes to realize it was impossible. His spine was broken, he couldn’t feel anything below his navel. Yet he had clearly felt, just for a second, his right knee bumping against a rock. Groping blindly in the darkness, Nick guessed the shape of a tree that had fallen across the ravine, blocking his way but also providing him with a chance to climb out. Grabbing the largest branch he could find, Nick started to climb. The prickling sensation was turning to numbness, his legs felt like lead, dragging him down with all their weight. Lead, connected to his nerves and being repeatedly struck by lightning, burning him, searing into his brain. His hands missed their grip, he fell. He tried again. And he fell. And he fell again. He kept trying and trying, clinging to his only escape like a drowning man to his safety line. And then he could climb no more. His arms bruised, his hands scraped and splintered, Nick simply lay there. Looking at the tree with unseeing eyes, groping at the cold night air, every moment was a torture. Each breath would burn down his throat. His blood chilled him to the bone. The buzzing around his torso increased. This time, Nick felt his lower spinal cord replace itself, bone grating against bone, nerves being twisted, stretched. A ring of fire around his chest, he was burning alive. He clenched his teeth as hard as he could, somehow managing not to scream.

The nerves reconnected, the burning stopped, and Nick felt his legs. With agonizing precision, Nick could feel the changes happening in his legs. His thighs were burning, his knees were changing, the muscles and tendons shifting, his calves shortening and hardening. Worst of all, however, were his feet. The changes there were so radical most of the bones were either broken or crushed. He hadn’t felt it when he was dragging himself up the gully, and so hadn’t removed his shoes. Now, half-way through, the changes in his feet caused an unbearable amount of pressure. His heel had just been dislocated, and, pushed by the growing feet bone, they bent inwards and his feet popped out of their shoes. He screamed out in pain. His knees locked, preventing his legs from twitching. The bones lengthened, the ball of the foot tore through the soles, growing larger, stronger. His big toes melted and were absorbed, the heels snapped backwards and welded into place. Finally overloaded by so much pain, Nick’s brain decided to do a major shutdown.


That morning, unlike when he woke up with his new arms, his mind wasn’t fogged and unfocussed. It was sharp, crystal clear, and oversensitive. He could feel every square inch of his skin, and for a moment he was completely lost. There was so much more! New joints, new bones, new muscles and tendons, he didn’t have the faintest idea of how to move. He wondered how strange it was that his own body felt alien to him. Nick opened his eyes and looked around. Curled in a ball under the fallen tree, he couldn’t see much, but he soon regained control of his arms, in pairs first then individually. He carefully pushed himself to a sitting position and looked around. Nick was sitting in a shallow gully shadowed by nearby trees and the one who had fallen over it, the stars in the sky being slowly covered by a dark grey blanket. At that spot, the bottom curved up gently until it was no more than a few metres deep. At the same time, he tried to single out the feelings and sensations coming from his body. His head felt all right, and he felt lucky he hadn’t banged it too much during his fall. His shoulders and arms were bruised, his back was covered in cuts and scratches where the sweatshirt had uncovered it. On his lower back, he knew there should be a huge bruise, a broken hip, something, but there was nothing. He knew he’d broken his spine, yet everything had been restored. “Restored and revised would come closer, actually.” Revised, because he knew something had happened to his legs. Even without looking, he could feel the unnatural bends, the weird position, the changes in his joints. Finally, he decided to take a good look at the new him.

Nick carefully looked down, expecting a shock. He wasn’t deceived. Through his scraped, dirty and torn sweatpants, he could clearly see his legs were no longer human. His knees had an odd shape, his thighs looked more endurant, and his calves were shorter and pulled his heel back. The most drastic changes, however, had completely redesigned his feet. The heel now formed a straight line with the sole, with the heel sticking backwards under the pant sleeves. His soles were flatter, the bones inside longer. During the change, his heels had pulled out, but the ball of the foot, too wide already, had busted the seams between the fabric and the rubber. The ball of his feet were fuller, wider, and harder, and at first glance he knew there was absolutely no way he’d wear shoes again, since his old ones lay in ruin around his feet. Walking bare-foot (if he ever could walk again) didn’t really bother him too much, since the ground was mostly sandy with birch and maple trees growing out of it. What did bother him was the fact that he was sitting on the bottom of the gully and that a rather sharp rock was stinging him in a sensitive area of his anatomy. What was really disturbing him, however, was the fact that he wasn’t supposed to have anatomy in that area. Nick could feel the rock poking his skin and he knew the pain was coming from somewhere behind him, somewhere he shouldn’t have been able to feel.

He didn’t need to turn around, since he could feel it perfectly, but he looked nonetheless. At that point, Nick felt his sanity being stretched at the seams. A second set of arms, OK. It’s weird, but still, they’re mine, I just have more of them. Weird legs, well, I guess I can live with it. I mean, a lot of people have handicapped legs. But a tail! No way! I’m no animal! I don’t have a tail! What kind of animal freak am I? What the hell! For quite a while, Nick sat there, despairing. His life was over. He transformed into some sort of freakish monster. He couldn’t go back, he didn’t want to stay. He could go to his cottage, but what for? What would come after? He was as good as dead. Just to make his day, it started raining.


The next morning, the sky was dark grey and still poured water. Nick has slept under the tree, gaining what small comfort he could. The wind had blown in during the night and had slashed rain at him, despite the tree’s protection. The rainwater had also rushed into the gully, soaking him to the bone and covering him in mud. He woke up from his cold and wet half-doze and waded in the water, trying to climb out of his hole. His new legs caused him a few problems, but after he go used to walk on his toes and had to use his tail to compensate his forward-leaning stance, he got better at it. Even with branches, the muddy slopes were too slippery to climb. With a sight and a mournful resignation, he passed under the tree and waddled upriver. His toes were numb with cold, his sweatshirt offered little protection to the four frozen arms tucked under it, and he could feel the sting of the slashing rain on his exposed neck, tail and feet. He stumbled a lot and fell once before managing to get out.

Every time he’d recall those memories, it was like a nightmare. It was raining, a cold, stinging rain driven by the wind, chilling him to the bone, but that wasn’t the worst. The storm in his mind was much worse, raging on and on. His thoughts spun around and around, going nowhere. His brain was racing full throttle, his mind spinning out of control. He didn’t know how long he walked under the rain, mindlessly searching for something. He had forgotten why or what he was searching, but deep down he knew that searching was the only thing that preventing him from falling into madness. The wind blew restlessly under the trees, echoing the storm that raged in his head. The rain whipped him, froze him. The wind was blowing his mind away, a memory at a time. He remembered how he enjoyed the beach, the cold water, the hot sun on his skin. He could form a clear image of the happy moments in his mind, until the memory of his changes intruded. The image exploded into tiny shards, blown away by the wind. The only thing left was the changed him. Soon, there was almost nothing left to him. A thick tree near a huge boulder. “Shelter”. He slept a dreamless night.


The nightmare began when he woke up, if we can really say he was awake. He would come through in a kind of haze, as though everything was in a dream. His world was limited to a few lucid moments interspaced with emptiness. Had his life depended on it, he couldn’t have given an account of what had happened during that time, nor how long his wandering had lasted.

*

A jab of pain. He looked down. He’d just kicked a rock. He lifted his foot. The ball was reddened and blistered. Blood was dripping from the fresh cut. It felt like he had a broken toe. His foot returned to the ground. His eyes lost their spark. His consciousness faded.


*

It stung all over his body. All four hands in front of his face, he grimly pushed on. It was still raining. He’d lost his sweatshirt. His head, arms, torso, and tail all stung. He passed through the brushes. Water poured on him. He shivered. He went under.

*

He turned and spat out a tooth. His face was different, he could feel it. His smell was incredible. His sight was better. He could see his own mouth. His teeth felt different in his jaw. He smelled the trail of some wild animal. “Prey. Food.” His other side took over again.

*

He was breathing hard. His lungs were burning. He was kneeling over the still form of a deer. His lower hands were tightly clenched around the animal’s throat. His uppers held a rock high above his head. The other one was exultant. It had lowered it’s vigilance. He dropped the rock. The other one pushed him aside. It took control.

*

This time, it was more like he’d been awakened to a nightmare with a pail of cold water. His fingers, his toes, his knees, elbows, spine! It all hurt! The other one had fled deep in his subconscious, howling like a wounded animal, and had thrust him, unprotected and unprepared, into unbearably painful consciousness. He thrashed about in his muddy den, rattling the bones of the animals his other side had killed and eaten. The air was thick and humid with the overpowering stench of long-dead meat. Going on all six, he haltingly made his way out of the tunnel. He stumbled out of his hole and rolled down the hill. It was night, bright spots danced before his eyes. It was cold, his skin was burning. Nothing else mattered. He lifted his hands to his face. Thunder and lightning in his head. The bones pierced and grew. First his top left, then the right foot. The talons broke through his heels, knees and elbows. In a drum-roll of pain, his spine, from the back of his neck to the tip of his tail, erupted and sprouted spines. All his extremities hurt. He was grateful when the night extinguished the light-show behind his eyelids.

*

A faint itch. A rash. He scratched. A patch of skin detached and stayed in his hand. A faint greenish taint below.

*

This time, something was rousing him from his sleep. The other one couldn’t understand. He was standing under firs, yet their needles didn’t sting him, their rough bark didn’t scrape his skin. At his feet, there was a small clearing. In the clearing, a weird flat-shaped rock. “House.”


*

He had to negotiate the strange piled stones up front, lifting his legs higher than usual. “Stairs.” he paused, confused, in front of the... “Door.” He reached out with his lower left to touch it, and his hand turned the knob by reflex. The door opened. He entered.

He walked in like he was in a museum, keeping his tail to himself, careful not to touch anything. He felt like a box inside him was being destroyed and its contents were trying to come out. Every sight stirred something deep within him, making it fight all the harder. Surprisingly, everything was like a blow to his animal side, and the stronger the thing inside him became, the weaker the animal grew weak. A picture caught his eye. He picked it from the low table with his uppers, careful not to scratch the frame with his claws. The picture showed a man and a woman on the beach, holding hands under the bright sun. It tried to give him a message, tell him something, but it was still too deep down.

CD cases, souvenirs, everything seemed a little familiar. He walked into the other rooms, careful not to scrape the walls and floor with his claws/talons/spines. The door to the master bedroom was open and he walked in. He was greeted by a view on the moonlight-bathed woods through the wide window and by the other lizard in the room. Tall, muscular, four arms, a row of spines down his back and tail, a formidable opponent. He turned and adopted an aggressive stance, ready to defend himself. So did the other. He lowered his stance, ready for an attack. So did the other. He smelled the air, but there was nothing, except an unpleasant disinfected and sterile odour. He waved a hand. So did the other. “Mirror.” He stepped closer and touched his reflection. His eyes fell on the picture he was still holding in his upper right. Something within stirred again, more pressing, more urgent. He looked closely at the picture. The man’s face was smiling, but his eyes wanted to say something. Frowning, he focussed even more. He looked at the picture, then at his reflection. He turned the picture and looked at its reflection. It had a message, but what was it?

His mind wasn’t flooded with memories, there was no flashbacks, no stunning revelations. His identity simply resurfaced. He remembered he was Nick. He was standing in his room in his cottage. He was Nicholas. He was holding a picture of his ex, Jen. He was Nicholas Furrow. He knew a car was coming.

Nick could hear the car engines, the sound of many tires on the gravel road, rolling a little faster than what would be safe. Had Nick not recovered his memories, maybe he would have taken a peek at the intruders. Instead, he chose to run. He could grieve his ancient life, he didn’t want to do it in some lab as a test subject. Nick dropped the picture and jumped out the window. There was a great bang, people shouted at each other. Nick ran to the forest, ran to the rising sun, ran like his life depended on it. Someone fired a gun. The tree to his left was hit with a hypodermic needle. He kept on running. Nick knew he couldn’t go back. He was safe in the woods. He could survive in the woods. He had to live in the woods. Nobody would find him there.

The agents at the cottage saw their prime specimen running away at an unnatural speed, and there was nothing they could do about it. The lizard never once turned.







....nicipality has issued a warning about a savage beast, who has eaten many animals in the nearby farms. So far, a few dozen chicken were slain and 17 sheep are dead. The police has not yet issued any opinions as to what kind of animal has done this, only that it is dangerous enough to attack humans. Do not remain outside after sunset. If the beast is seen, immediately enter a nearby building or car and call the police. There has been no evidence yet, There has been no evidence yet, but it has been hinted the animal is big enough to attack larger prey such as cows and horses. This concludes our 7 o’clock report, you are listen.......