FA+
Shop
1823
Views
Views
8
Favorites
Favorites
Category
Story / Transformation
Species Werewolf / Lycanthrope
Size 120 x 93
File Size 662.2 kB
Report this content
More from Hermorrhage
Listed in Folders
This passage is taken from volume 1 "The Shift" of the Hermorrhage series.
ATTENTION: if you want to read the novel, the following is a SPOIL (this is one of the chapters)
Original version in French: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44692005/
- “Maggie, wall Thierry,” Christophe said without raising his voice, as if she were next to us.
He took me in his arms when my knees gave way. I felt like being a feather to him. He crossed the path, walked past Maggie who hung up the phone and followed on his heels.
- “What are my chances to be infected?”
- “One hundred per cent,” Christophe guaranteed.
- “I was asking to be sure… I preferred your previous declarations on the subject.”
- “Your body may still reject the virus…”
- “How many chances?” I asked.
- “Very slim… Saliva is a very powerful transmission vector of the LSV.”
- “I hope I won’t lose my sense of humor at least?!” He gave me a pale smile.
Two minutes later, he dropped me off on one of the infirmary’s beds grimly.
- “If you want to have better chances, you have to keep calm and accept what you’re going to become. You’ll also have to control the beast that’s going to be born inside you. Nothing’s easy in what lies ahead of you.”
Maggie was looking at me, deathly pale, with tears in her regretful eyes.
- “I’m not dead. Don’t get in such a state!”
She left.
- “Did I say something wrong?”
Christophe shook his head. Then he cut my clothes with scissors in order to treat my wounds.
- “You were talking about a beast?”
- “Yes. The Lupus Satanis Virus transforms the carrier’s personality. It highlights the primal, animal drives. Most often, the LSV will develop our taste for violence, our yearning for hunting, dominating, killing… Some develop an uncontrollable rage, others die of grief. I know werewolves who started to take great delight in the terror they inspired. You may not even notice these changes, as if they’d always been part of you. Either you can control yourself, either you sink into madness.”
This time, I was in deep shit. I had a one in two chance of kicking the bucket and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have the choice, I wasn’t a master of my fate, and that was what I hated most. I had only four days left, four fucking days before the end of my internship. I had – nearly – toed the line, minimizing the risks, though they were numerous, for several weeks. And I found myself in this situation because of a girls’ spat.
The doctor came in as I was lying on the bed, deep in my thoughts. Christophe had drawn a chair and was sitting next to me. Magic mastered the world again.
- “If you’ve called me once more for…” His voice faded away. What happened to him?
- “Bitten,” Christophe answered in an unusual neutral tone.
- “What about his arm?”
- “Bitten.”
- “Who?”
- “Mada and Caroline. In that order, three seconds apart.”
- “What came over them?!” The doctor questioned with his eyes wide open.
He quickly pulled himself together but his movements were still nervous. He took off my bandages. My wounds were already healing. He swore and took a blood sample. He mumbled away with the red liquid.
I focused back on Christophe. He showed a regretful look.
- “It’s not your fault,” I comforted him.
He looked at me in the eyes as his expression suddenly turned stern.
- “Well it’s not as if my duty was to protect you,” he said sarcastically.
- “I’d have died long before if you hadn’t been there.”
- “So, because I did a good job before, I can get away with this mistake,” he teased me bitterly.
- “You can get away with this mistake because I ask you to. Feeling guilty won't get us anywhere. I hadn’t considered that option, because in my life I prefer to take the fewest possible risks. I treasure my life, even if it has been quite dull until now. I see all this as an experience, though perhaps the last one.”
- “This is what you say now, but what will you say once the nightmare starts? See Maggie: if she had the choice, she’d rather be human. And Tiphanie, you could see what her resentment brought her!”
- “I’m not Maggie, nor Tiphanie. I may not even survive. I just don’t want you to bother too much about it, whatever may happen.”
He didn’t answer.
- “Please, promise me you won’t, I went on.”
He left the infirmary.
Thierry reappeared.
- “You’re strongly infected. Your case should soon be settled.”
I’ll have to find another doctor, this one’s absolutely tactless.
- “Which means?”
- “The virus is going to develop throughout your body. Once it’s done, the metamorphosis will start. Then three options: you die, you go insane, or you’re a wolf or tiger metamorph.”
- “I tick option three, wolf or tiger will suit me.”
- “Ah… young people…. If only it were so simple…”
Ah… old people…
***
At noon, Maggie brought two great food trays: XXL meat. We had lunch together. This time, I stuffed down half a kilo of meat and some pasta.
- “Maggie, could I make a call?”
- “Of course!”
She brought me the phone. I dialed my home’s number.
- “Hi sis.”
- “Hi bro.”
I took a serious tone.
- “I’m calling you to tell you I won’t be home for a few days.” I took a delighted voice. “The metamorphs are giving me holidays to thank me!! I’m going to Provence!”
- “Why the South of France? Couldn’t you have chosen Italy? Or Corsica?”
- “They gave me a limited budget,” I lied. “And since I fancied the sun, I went for the Mediterranean Sea.”
- “Pfft, lucky guy. I’ve helped you, am I not entitled to anything?” She asked with jealousy.
- “I’ll ask.” Or not.
- “Yep. I count on you! I’ll pass the news onto Fabrice. When do you think you’ll be back?”
- “It depends on how fast I spend the nest egg,” I said vaguely.
- “And when are you leaving?”
I took on a slightly excited voice:
- “Tonight!”
- “What? So hastily?! Pfff … Enjoy yourself and send us a postcard.”
- “I don’ t know if I’ll have the time, so much bathing planned, the hot sand, the sun, the aperitifs…”
She hung up. At least she didn’t change.
I held out the phone to Maggie.
- “If it ever goes wrong… Call my home two days later, ask if they’ve heard from me, say you’re worried because I didn’t call you though I had to. I’ll let you find a reason for my death. If possible, give them back my body, it makes the mourning easier.”
- “You’ll get through it! Maggie insisted,” more to convince herself.
- “I hope so. That’s just in case.”
Someone knocked at the door. The doctor came in.
- “I’m here for another examination.”
He checked my wounds. They were scorching but completely closed up. Some nice pink skin replaced the fangs’ marks. He took some blood, and went to analyze it in a nearby room.
- “Maggie?”
- “Yes?”
- “I’d like to ask you a question, but you’re not obliged to answer. Christophe thinks you’re not happy. Are you?”
- “I’m not having the time of my life, but I’ve been through harder times.”
- “Is it because you’re a metamorph?”
She thought about it.
I didn’t speak. I would have liked her to go on but I didn't force her.
- “Most of the time, the shapeshifters’ hierarchy is based on dominant/dominated. As you could notice, I’m rather at the bottom of the ladder. It’s not always easy. I’ve had good times with my first pack, but it didn’t last. My following experiences were awful. It all depends on the alpha and on the rules he sets. Each pack can have its own rules, and many packs in Paris are led by brute force, with no true equity. Since my last experience, and thanks to my job at the embassy, I haven’t had to join a pack again until now. But being alone is as difficult.”
Thierry came back in. He came closer to me and examined my eyes. He looked worried. Maggie noticed it and followed him outside the embassy. She stayed in the door frame. They whispered. Maggie’ face crumpled, then she came toward me.
- “What’s going on?”
She said nothing.
- “Ouch! Is it that bad?” I laughed.
She gathered her courage.
- “The virus has greatly developed. It is very aggressive…”
And…
- “Your transformation should have started.”
- “Is it serious?”
- “I don’t know, but the doc is worried.”
She stayed with me until she went back to work. When she left, my condition had not evolved at all.
***
Around the middle of the afternoon, some pain rose in my left foot. At first, I didn’t notice anything abnormal, yet the ordeal went quickly worse. I couldn’t help but moan. It was as if the tip of my foot had been fastened to a truck that was unrelentingly pulling it.
The doc came in. He quickly saw that my foot was now several centimeters longer. Another peak in the pain made me scream. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
Short-winded, I spoke haltingly and managed to utter:
- “Painkillers?”
- “I’m sorry, they would be useless,” Thierry answered.
- “Please,” I begged.
He shook his head, looking sincerely sorry.
Again, the truck pulled my foot.
- “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
I grabbed my oddly long foot, trying to prevent it from getting longer. There was no point. I felt another fit of torture. Some strong and throbbing pain kept on pounding my foot, running up to my knee. It squealed, I started to hit the mattress with all my strength. My toes joined the game. I screamed as several of my sinews broke because of the stretching. Then the transformations ended, leaving me with a leg that was too short, a knee on the other side with an apparent bone, a long foot and long toes. The whole of it looked like nothing human, nor animal. The pain went down to the limit of what was bearable. My bed was soaked, my face bathed with tears. I was suffering.
The respite only lasted for a few minutes. My right shoulder prickled, my skin was replaced by some orange and black fur. It got longer and longer, so long that I felt like I had a long wig on my shoulder. The virus then decided to change some of my internal organs. I vomited twice. I felt like being hit by a bat from the inside. Completely exhausted, my screaming turned into whining. I passed out in the early evening, as my right hand started to change and a wolf ear formed at the top of my skull.
I was awakened by a presence. My body was all pain and suffering. I was on the floor. I caught a glimpse of Christophe. It was really hard for me to talk, since my lower jaw was now a few centimeters forward. Despite my very poor condition, my groggy mind and my blurred vision, I grabbed at the opportunity to talk to him.
- “Hay you’re horry,” I tried to articulate.
He understood I was awake. He came closer to the bars of the cage. Damn, I’m in a cage…. Some quite odd medical treatment…
- “Hay you’re horry,” I repeated slowly.
It took him some time to understand or to say:
- “I’m sorry, I should have protected you.”
Another torment, as if I was being thrusted an ice pick in my skull. My face twitched, tears wanted to drip , but nothing came out. I had to wait for a while before I could catch my breath.
- “I horgive you!”
He had to overcome that ordeal, whatever the outcome. Even if it took some time, these three words would help him. My head was all suffering again. I fainted again. Yet I thought I heard Christophe order me to stay alive.
***
Voices were screaming next to me. I surfaced, blinded by the daylight.
- “It’s over!” Thierry concluded.
What is over?
- “But he’s kept on transforming all night long,” Christophe begged.
- “He’s been transforming for too long now, there’s nothing more we can do for him.” I knew that voice but couldn’t get the name.
I couldn’t feel my body anymore, just a heap of pain. I could only see through one eye and all the colors seemed washed-out.
- “The virus is ten times more concentrated than the maximum limit! He won’t be back,” the doctor regretted.
Noone seemed to have noticed I had woken. Metamorphs’ senses were not what they used to be…
- “We’d better put an end to his suffering and not wait until he loses his mind,” Thierry spoke quietly.
Christophe didn’t answer.
They are gonna kill me!
I managed to turn my head by a few degrees and saw the extent of the damage in a mirror stuck on a cupboard door. I was lying at the back of the cage, half hunched up. My face was still mainly human. However, my lower jaw was too wide and forward, covered with grey fluff. My ears had vanished, making way for two wolf ears, one well upright at the top of my head, the other one, hairless, was at the very place of my human ear. One of my eyes was swollen as if I had been punched. My body was even weirder. Tufts of fur had appeared here and there, grey, black, orange, even blended. My right arm had turned into a wolf paw while my shoulder – orange and black – was massive and disproportionate. My left arm was human, but for my hand, that was clawed and out of shape. My backbone had stretched, showing a tiny wolf tail. My right leg was now almost a tiger paw. The other one too, except that it ended in a hairy human foot. No proportions were respected, I had turned into a freak.
I closed my healthy eye. I was given no choice, I was just about to die. I wanted to protest. Some groaning came out of my mouth. A conflict was raging inside me: the dominant wolf didn’t want to give in to another one. As to the tiger, he was enjoying the wolf’s excitement, pushing him over the edge again and again. I was watching the scene helplessly. If I stepped in, one or the other would kill me easily. I had chosen to die. Here was what my human part had chosen: death for fear of danger, for a mere probability theory.
No way! I headed to the tiger, and placed myself right in front of him. He stopped bothering the wolf. This latter’s aura took the opportunity to invade space, leaving us in a little nook. He screamed his victory and domination on my body. Exactly the metamorphs’ feature that disgusted me most: their need for uncontrollable superiority. But this victory was not enough. His domination was going farther: he wanted it to be complete in my blood. A feeling of utmost disgust exploded inside me for the first time, escaping a prison whose bars had just opened. I held myself back from vomiting. I had to move away or to eliminate this animal with sickening penchants. The cell, infinite black, took shape next to the wolf. He tried to move away, but the feeling that had been released, like a magical flow, pushed Wolf inside the cell that closed behind him.
Tiger leaped with joy. I had helped him win. His aura spread out, longing for games, more subtle, but as bloody. Each creature that could move would be entertaining, until he gets rid of it and breaks it. He would take great delight in others’ suffering, like an insane king. Tiger jumped on me. He would not let me live, but he wouldn’t have fun with me. Flashes from my brother reached me. Since my parents’ death, he’d been both our father and our mother. I admired him for that. He didn’t have anyone to lean on. A metal gate grated. As to my sister, I feared her recklessness because it could lead to her death. She was a bundle of confidence, she would always go ahead. The gate burst open. I discovered the comforting and warm admiration that we can feel for our beloved ones, as well as the trust that bound us together. Before Tiger could break my neck, he found himself in a second prison, yowling with rage and defeat.
Still lying on the ground, I opened my eyes out of my oneiric fight. Christophe, Thierry and Arnaud –the Pack’s alpha and the voice I hadn’t recognized – were facing me, behind a row of huge bars.
- “Are you going to kill me?” I asked feebly.
- “I don’t think so. Doc?” Arnaud answered.
Thierry seemed perplexed:
- “I don’t know. I’ll do some tests and keep him in quarantine to see.”
- “How do you feel?” The alpha asked me, with a neutral face.
- “It hurts everywhere and I’m hungry.”
- “We’ll bring you something. Have a rest.”
Then they all went out. I could hear Christophe running away, while the alpha was giving his last orders.
“If there’s any change, keep me informed immediately. He’s staying in the cage as long as the situation is not clear.”
Then he walked away.
Half an hour later, I had managed to sit up. All my muscles were stiff, as if I had just swam a hundred kilometers. I heard two people coming closer, long before they came through the infirmary’s door.
Maggie and Christophe came in, with their hands full. With them came a wonderful smell of grilled meat, which had me drooling in advance. They proposed meat, meat and more meat. A truly balanced meal.
Maggir hugged me through the bars with misty eyes.
- “I thought we’d lost you.”
- “Let him eat,” Christophe smiled.
No need to ask me twice. A meal and a blood test later, I tried to find out what had happened, to separate reality and nightmare.
- “Is it over?”
- “Yes,” Christophe assured me, “You transformed yourself and you came back.”
The doc came in :
- “No, this is not over. Your analyses are abnormal. Show me your arm, I have to check again.”
- “How abnormal?” I worried.
He didn’t answer and vanished away. Everyone kept silent, no one dared to speak. Thierry came back with a serious look:
- “I’m sorry but you’re staying in the cage.”
- “Why?” Maggie was indignant.
- “The rate of the virus in his blood is still ten times higher than the maximum. He may sink into madness in an instant.”
Maggie was shaken by the news.
- “I feel fine. No voices in my head. No blood thirst. Though I wouldn’t say no to a steak.”
My joke was a flop.
***
The following day, Christophe and Thierry were there as the sun hardly rose. They greeted me, then the doc asked me to transform myself.
- “Do you have user instructions?”
- “Think of a wolf,” Christophe tried.
I took a deep breath, getting ready for the pain. It didn’t come. My body changed slowly. First my bones stretched, my muscles rolled under my skin. Fur appeared throughout my body, in different tones of grey and a little bit of black. Then I ended up on four legs as the transformation was completed. I had just shifted from human to wolf in around ten seconds, without terrible pain and rather easily. I felt my senses were even more developed. As a human, it was already hard for me to treat all these new data due to my new condition, as a wolf it completely stupefied me.
Thierry took me some blood as I was in that shape, then asked me to shift again. He took blood again. He’s going to open a blood bank just with me if it goes on.
Deep in his thoughts, the doc looked at me for a long time, with two small bottles of blood in his hands.
Something was nagging him. His voice hesitated.
- “Now to a tiger.”
This is what I did. The transformation took as much time. My face was the first to change completely. Orange and black fur covered my body as a tail grew. My hands and then my arms were replaced by paws. Then the rest of my body shifted at the same time. I was much taller as a tiger as when I was a wolf. My perception was different from what I felt as a wolf, but as disturbing.
- “Come closer.”
Again?! But he is starting a collection, isn’t he?!
- “You can get back to your human form once I’ve finished,” he warned me.
I obeyed. He took some blood again and left me weak and starving.
- “I’m hungry,” I complained, as Thierry vanished into his lab.
Christophe started to laugh. He grabbed a white coat and threw it to me.
- “Get dressed, I’ll get you something.”
He reappeared a little later with a whole cured ham and a knife. He started to cut large slices.
- “Does transforming always make you so hungry?”
- “Yes, above all when you do a series, as you’ve just done.”
- “So that’s why the doc has hesitated?”
- “No… what he asked you was inconceivable until now.”
I looked completely lost.
- “Metamorphs can shift into one animal, not two! Even kids whose parents have different animals inherit only one,” he explained.
I probably still looked weird, because he added:
- “You’ve just turned into a wolf, then into a tiger. That’s unprecedented!”
- “How did he know I could?”
- “This morning, as you were still halfway through your transformation and were starting to lose your mind, we saw you turn into a wolf, then from wolf to tiger, before you were human again. Either this observation set him thinking, or he saw it in your blood results.”
- “And it’s serious?”
- “I don’t know. As far as I know, you’re the first one.”
Thierry showed up and the results were given: still ten times too much virus in my blood, whatever my shape…
Volume 1 is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B08LLFYTTN/
ATTENTION: if you want to read the novel, the following is a SPOIL (this is one of the chapters)
Original version in French: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44692005/
- “Maggie, wall Thierry,” Christophe said without raising his voice, as if she were next to us.
He took me in his arms when my knees gave way. I felt like being a feather to him. He crossed the path, walked past Maggie who hung up the phone and followed on his heels.
- “What are my chances to be infected?”
- “One hundred per cent,” Christophe guaranteed.
- “I was asking to be sure… I preferred your previous declarations on the subject.”
- “Your body may still reject the virus…”
- “How many chances?” I asked.
- “Very slim… Saliva is a very powerful transmission vector of the LSV.”
- “I hope I won’t lose my sense of humor at least?!” He gave me a pale smile.
Two minutes later, he dropped me off on one of the infirmary’s beds grimly.
- “If you want to have better chances, you have to keep calm and accept what you’re going to become. You’ll also have to control the beast that’s going to be born inside you. Nothing’s easy in what lies ahead of you.”
Maggie was looking at me, deathly pale, with tears in her regretful eyes.
- “I’m not dead. Don’t get in such a state!”
She left.
- “Did I say something wrong?”
Christophe shook his head. Then he cut my clothes with scissors in order to treat my wounds.
- “You were talking about a beast?”
- “Yes. The Lupus Satanis Virus transforms the carrier’s personality. It highlights the primal, animal drives. Most often, the LSV will develop our taste for violence, our yearning for hunting, dominating, killing… Some develop an uncontrollable rage, others die of grief. I know werewolves who started to take great delight in the terror they inspired. You may not even notice these changes, as if they’d always been part of you. Either you can control yourself, either you sink into madness.”
This time, I was in deep shit. I had a one in two chance of kicking the bucket and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t have the choice, I wasn’t a master of my fate, and that was what I hated most. I had only four days left, four fucking days before the end of my internship. I had – nearly – toed the line, minimizing the risks, though they were numerous, for several weeks. And I found myself in this situation because of a girls’ spat.
The doctor came in as I was lying on the bed, deep in my thoughts. Christophe had drawn a chair and was sitting next to me. Magic mastered the world again.
- “If you’ve called me once more for…” His voice faded away. What happened to him?
- “Bitten,” Christophe answered in an unusual neutral tone.
- “What about his arm?”
- “Bitten.”
- “Who?”
- “Mada and Caroline. In that order, three seconds apart.”
- “What came over them?!” The doctor questioned with his eyes wide open.
He quickly pulled himself together but his movements were still nervous. He took off my bandages. My wounds were already healing. He swore and took a blood sample. He mumbled away with the red liquid.
I focused back on Christophe. He showed a regretful look.
- “It’s not your fault,” I comforted him.
He looked at me in the eyes as his expression suddenly turned stern.
- “Well it’s not as if my duty was to protect you,” he said sarcastically.
- “I’d have died long before if you hadn’t been there.”
- “So, because I did a good job before, I can get away with this mistake,” he teased me bitterly.
- “You can get away with this mistake because I ask you to. Feeling guilty won't get us anywhere. I hadn’t considered that option, because in my life I prefer to take the fewest possible risks. I treasure my life, even if it has been quite dull until now. I see all this as an experience, though perhaps the last one.”
- “This is what you say now, but what will you say once the nightmare starts? See Maggie: if she had the choice, she’d rather be human. And Tiphanie, you could see what her resentment brought her!”
- “I’m not Maggie, nor Tiphanie. I may not even survive. I just don’t want you to bother too much about it, whatever may happen.”
He didn’t answer.
- “Please, promise me you won’t, I went on.”
He left the infirmary.
Thierry reappeared.
- “You’re strongly infected. Your case should soon be settled.”
I’ll have to find another doctor, this one’s absolutely tactless.
- “Which means?”
- “The virus is going to develop throughout your body. Once it’s done, the metamorphosis will start. Then three options: you die, you go insane, or you’re a wolf or tiger metamorph.”
- “I tick option three, wolf or tiger will suit me.”
- “Ah… young people…. If only it were so simple…”
Ah… old people…
***
At noon, Maggie brought two great food trays: XXL meat. We had lunch together. This time, I stuffed down half a kilo of meat and some pasta.
- “Maggie, could I make a call?”
- “Of course!”
She brought me the phone. I dialed my home’s number.
- “Hi sis.”
- “Hi bro.”
I took a serious tone.
- “I’m calling you to tell you I won’t be home for a few days.” I took a delighted voice. “The metamorphs are giving me holidays to thank me!! I’m going to Provence!”
- “Why the South of France? Couldn’t you have chosen Italy? Or Corsica?”
- “They gave me a limited budget,” I lied. “And since I fancied the sun, I went for the Mediterranean Sea.”
- “Pfft, lucky guy. I’ve helped you, am I not entitled to anything?” She asked with jealousy.
- “I’ll ask.” Or not.
- “Yep. I count on you! I’ll pass the news onto Fabrice. When do you think you’ll be back?”
- “It depends on how fast I spend the nest egg,” I said vaguely.
- “And when are you leaving?”
I took on a slightly excited voice:
- “Tonight!”
- “What? So hastily?! Pfff … Enjoy yourself and send us a postcard.”
- “I don’ t know if I’ll have the time, so much bathing planned, the hot sand, the sun, the aperitifs…”
She hung up. At least she didn’t change.
I held out the phone to Maggie.
- “If it ever goes wrong… Call my home two days later, ask if they’ve heard from me, say you’re worried because I didn’t call you though I had to. I’ll let you find a reason for my death. If possible, give them back my body, it makes the mourning easier.”
- “You’ll get through it! Maggie insisted,” more to convince herself.
- “I hope so. That’s just in case.”
Someone knocked at the door. The doctor came in.
- “I’m here for another examination.”
He checked my wounds. They were scorching but completely closed up. Some nice pink skin replaced the fangs’ marks. He took some blood, and went to analyze it in a nearby room.
- “Maggie?”
- “Yes?”
- “I’d like to ask you a question, but you’re not obliged to answer. Christophe thinks you’re not happy. Are you?”
- “I’m not having the time of my life, but I’ve been through harder times.”
- “Is it because you’re a metamorph?”
She thought about it.
I didn’t speak. I would have liked her to go on but I didn't force her.
- “Most of the time, the shapeshifters’ hierarchy is based on dominant/dominated. As you could notice, I’m rather at the bottom of the ladder. It’s not always easy. I’ve had good times with my first pack, but it didn’t last. My following experiences were awful. It all depends on the alpha and on the rules he sets. Each pack can have its own rules, and many packs in Paris are led by brute force, with no true equity. Since my last experience, and thanks to my job at the embassy, I haven’t had to join a pack again until now. But being alone is as difficult.”
Thierry came back in. He came closer to me and examined my eyes. He looked worried. Maggie noticed it and followed him outside the embassy. She stayed in the door frame. They whispered. Maggie’ face crumpled, then she came toward me.
- “What’s going on?”
She said nothing.
- “Ouch! Is it that bad?” I laughed.
She gathered her courage.
- “The virus has greatly developed. It is very aggressive…”
And…
- “Your transformation should have started.”
- “Is it serious?”
- “I don’t know, but the doc is worried.”
She stayed with me until she went back to work. When she left, my condition had not evolved at all.
***
Around the middle of the afternoon, some pain rose in my left foot. At first, I didn’t notice anything abnormal, yet the ordeal went quickly worse. I couldn’t help but moan. It was as if the tip of my foot had been fastened to a truck that was unrelentingly pulling it.
The doc came in. He quickly saw that my foot was now several centimeters longer. Another peak in the pain made me scream. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
Short-winded, I spoke haltingly and managed to utter:
- “Painkillers?”
- “I’m sorry, they would be useless,” Thierry answered.
- “Please,” I begged.
He shook his head, looking sincerely sorry.
Again, the truck pulled my foot.
- “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
I grabbed my oddly long foot, trying to prevent it from getting longer. There was no point. I felt another fit of torture. Some strong and throbbing pain kept on pounding my foot, running up to my knee. It squealed, I started to hit the mattress with all my strength. My toes joined the game. I screamed as several of my sinews broke because of the stretching. Then the transformations ended, leaving me with a leg that was too short, a knee on the other side with an apparent bone, a long foot and long toes. The whole of it looked like nothing human, nor animal. The pain went down to the limit of what was bearable. My bed was soaked, my face bathed with tears. I was suffering.
The respite only lasted for a few minutes. My right shoulder prickled, my skin was replaced by some orange and black fur. It got longer and longer, so long that I felt like I had a long wig on my shoulder. The virus then decided to change some of my internal organs. I vomited twice. I felt like being hit by a bat from the inside. Completely exhausted, my screaming turned into whining. I passed out in the early evening, as my right hand started to change and a wolf ear formed at the top of my skull.
I was awakened by a presence. My body was all pain and suffering. I was on the floor. I caught a glimpse of Christophe. It was really hard for me to talk, since my lower jaw was now a few centimeters forward. Despite my very poor condition, my groggy mind and my blurred vision, I grabbed at the opportunity to talk to him.
- “Hay you’re horry,” I tried to articulate.
He understood I was awake. He came closer to the bars of the cage. Damn, I’m in a cage…. Some quite odd medical treatment…
- “Hay you’re horry,” I repeated slowly.
It took him some time to understand or to say:
- “I’m sorry, I should have protected you.”
Another torment, as if I was being thrusted an ice pick in my skull. My face twitched, tears wanted to drip , but nothing came out. I had to wait for a while before I could catch my breath.
- “I horgive you!”
He had to overcome that ordeal, whatever the outcome. Even if it took some time, these three words would help him. My head was all suffering again. I fainted again. Yet I thought I heard Christophe order me to stay alive.
***
Voices were screaming next to me. I surfaced, blinded by the daylight.
- “It’s over!” Thierry concluded.
What is over?
- “But he’s kept on transforming all night long,” Christophe begged.
- “He’s been transforming for too long now, there’s nothing more we can do for him.” I knew that voice but couldn’t get the name.
I couldn’t feel my body anymore, just a heap of pain. I could only see through one eye and all the colors seemed washed-out.
- “The virus is ten times more concentrated than the maximum limit! He won’t be back,” the doctor regretted.
Noone seemed to have noticed I had woken. Metamorphs’ senses were not what they used to be…
- “We’d better put an end to his suffering and not wait until he loses his mind,” Thierry spoke quietly.
Christophe didn’t answer.
They are gonna kill me!
I managed to turn my head by a few degrees and saw the extent of the damage in a mirror stuck on a cupboard door. I was lying at the back of the cage, half hunched up. My face was still mainly human. However, my lower jaw was too wide and forward, covered with grey fluff. My ears had vanished, making way for two wolf ears, one well upright at the top of my head, the other one, hairless, was at the very place of my human ear. One of my eyes was swollen as if I had been punched. My body was even weirder. Tufts of fur had appeared here and there, grey, black, orange, even blended. My right arm had turned into a wolf paw while my shoulder – orange and black – was massive and disproportionate. My left arm was human, but for my hand, that was clawed and out of shape. My backbone had stretched, showing a tiny wolf tail. My right leg was now almost a tiger paw. The other one too, except that it ended in a hairy human foot. No proportions were respected, I had turned into a freak.
I closed my healthy eye. I was given no choice, I was just about to die. I wanted to protest. Some groaning came out of my mouth. A conflict was raging inside me: the dominant wolf didn’t want to give in to another one. As to the tiger, he was enjoying the wolf’s excitement, pushing him over the edge again and again. I was watching the scene helplessly. If I stepped in, one or the other would kill me easily. I had chosen to die. Here was what my human part had chosen: death for fear of danger, for a mere probability theory.
No way! I headed to the tiger, and placed myself right in front of him. He stopped bothering the wolf. This latter’s aura took the opportunity to invade space, leaving us in a little nook. He screamed his victory and domination on my body. Exactly the metamorphs’ feature that disgusted me most: their need for uncontrollable superiority. But this victory was not enough. His domination was going farther: he wanted it to be complete in my blood. A feeling of utmost disgust exploded inside me for the first time, escaping a prison whose bars had just opened. I held myself back from vomiting. I had to move away or to eliminate this animal with sickening penchants. The cell, infinite black, took shape next to the wolf. He tried to move away, but the feeling that had been released, like a magical flow, pushed Wolf inside the cell that closed behind him.
Tiger leaped with joy. I had helped him win. His aura spread out, longing for games, more subtle, but as bloody. Each creature that could move would be entertaining, until he gets rid of it and breaks it. He would take great delight in others’ suffering, like an insane king. Tiger jumped on me. He would not let me live, but he wouldn’t have fun with me. Flashes from my brother reached me. Since my parents’ death, he’d been both our father and our mother. I admired him for that. He didn’t have anyone to lean on. A metal gate grated. As to my sister, I feared her recklessness because it could lead to her death. She was a bundle of confidence, she would always go ahead. The gate burst open. I discovered the comforting and warm admiration that we can feel for our beloved ones, as well as the trust that bound us together. Before Tiger could break my neck, he found himself in a second prison, yowling with rage and defeat.
Still lying on the ground, I opened my eyes out of my oneiric fight. Christophe, Thierry and Arnaud –the Pack’s alpha and the voice I hadn’t recognized – were facing me, behind a row of huge bars.
- “Are you going to kill me?” I asked feebly.
- “I don’t think so. Doc?” Arnaud answered.
Thierry seemed perplexed:
- “I don’t know. I’ll do some tests and keep him in quarantine to see.”
- “How do you feel?” The alpha asked me, with a neutral face.
- “It hurts everywhere and I’m hungry.”
- “We’ll bring you something. Have a rest.”
Then they all went out. I could hear Christophe running away, while the alpha was giving his last orders.
“If there’s any change, keep me informed immediately. He’s staying in the cage as long as the situation is not clear.”
Then he walked away.
Half an hour later, I had managed to sit up. All my muscles were stiff, as if I had just swam a hundred kilometers. I heard two people coming closer, long before they came through the infirmary’s door.
Maggie and Christophe came in, with their hands full. With them came a wonderful smell of grilled meat, which had me drooling in advance. They proposed meat, meat and more meat. A truly balanced meal.
Maggir hugged me through the bars with misty eyes.
- “I thought we’d lost you.”
- “Let him eat,” Christophe smiled.
No need to ask me twice. A meal and a blood test later, I tried to find out what had happened, to separate reality and nightmare.
- “Is it over?”
- “Yes,” Christophe assured me, “You transformed yourself and you came back.”
The doc came in :
- “No, this is not over. Your analyses are abnormal. Show me your arm, I have to check again.”
- “How abnormal?” I worried.
He didn’t answer and vanished away. Everyone kept silent, no one dared to speak. Thierry came back with a serious look:
- “I’m sorry but you’re staying in the cage.”
- “Why?” Maggie was indignant.
- “The rate of the virus in his blood is still ten times higher than the maximum. He may sink into madness in an instant.”
Maggie was shaken by the news.
- “I feel fine. No voices in my head. No blood thirst. Though I wouldn’t say no to a steak.”
My joke was a flop.
***
The following day, Christophe and Thierry were there as the sun hardly rose. They greeted me, then the doc asked me to transform myself.
- “Do you have user instructions?”
- “Think of a wolf,” Christophe tried.
I took a deep breath, getting ready for the pain. It didn’t come. My body changed slowly. First my bones stretched, my muscles rolled under my skin. Fur appeared throughout my body, in different tones of grey and a little bit of black. Then I ended up on four legs as the transformation was completed. I had just shifted from human to wolf in around ten seconds, without terrible pain and rather easily. I felt my senses were even more developed. As a human, it was already hard for me to treat all these new data due to my new condition, as a wolf it completely stupefied me.
Thierry took me some blood as I was in that shape, then asked me to shift again. He took blood again. He’s going to open a blood bank just with me if it goes on.
Deep in his thoughts, the doc looked at me for a long time, with two small bottles of blood in his hands.
Something was nagging him. His voice hesitated.
- “Now to a tiger.”
This is what I did. The transformation took as much time. My face was the first to change completely. Orange and black fur covered my body as a tail grew. My hands and then my arms were replaced by paws. Then the rest of my body shifted at the same time. I was much taller as a tiger as when I was a wolf. My perception was different from what I felt as a wolf, but as disturbing.
- “Come closer.”
Again?! But he is starting a collection, isn’t he?!
- “You can get back to your human form once I’ve finished,” he warned me.
I obeyed. He took some blood again and left me weak and starving.
- “I’m hungry,” I complained, as Thierry vanished into his lab.
Christophe started to laugh. He grabbed a white coat and threw it to me.
- “Get dressed, I’ll get you something.”
He reappeared a little later with a whole cured ham and a knife. He started to cut large slices.
- “Does transforming always make you so hungry?”
- “Yes, above all when you do a series, as you’ve just done.”
- “So that’s why the doc has hesitated?”
- “No… what he asked you was inconceivable until now.”
I looked completely lost.
- “Metamorphs can shift into one animal, not two! Even kids whose parents have different animals inherit only one,” he explained.
I probably still looked weird, because he added:
- “You’ve just turned into a wolf, then into a tiger. That’s unprecedented!”
- “How did he know I could?”
- “This morning, as you were still halfway through your transformation and were starting to lose your mind, we saw you turn into a wolf, then from wolf to tiger, before you were human again. Either this observation set him thinking, or he saw it in your blood results.”
- “And it’s serious?”
- “I don’t know. As far as I know, you’re the first one.”
Thierry showed up and the results were given: still ten times too much virus in my blood, whatever my shape…
Volume 1 is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/B08LLFYTTN/
Category Story / Transformation
Species Werewolf / Lycanthrope
Size 120 x 93px
File Size 662.2 kB
Comments