An Average Day at Laminax

Chapter 5

"Oh my God, when is Mr. Abel going to come back for this stupid bucket?" I thought to myself, laying down on a leather couch in the same hallway where the meetings were held, and the last meeting for today had ended over forty minutes ago. The sun was setting, and the building was slowly thinning out. The only other people in the hallway with me were two Administrators, one from the Austin branch and the other from the Gulfport branch who were conversating with each other with heavy Southern accents, and a man in a janitors uniform with tan skin and a thick black moustache who was merrily singing to himself in Turkish as he cleaned the windows. After the meeting I talked with Tangaroa a bit more about our work and personal lives before he left to go upstairs with Adam, where a group of scientists and executives from varying countries discussed Laminax-related matters with each other. Before they left, Adam told me about a possible plan for Laminax to possibly extend not only into Austria, but also Hungary with a couple of laboratories and power stations outside the cities of Budapest and Debrecen.

All the other people who arrived here with me from Houston with me had already left to their hotel, but I was still here, waiting for Mr. Abel to come back, because I wasn't going to walk around Denver looking for a taxi while carrying an orange bucket in my hands. After the Administrators had left with the janitor leaving the hallway as well, I decided to call him. I went onto my phone and onto my contacts. It was easy to find him, as my other contacts were my Bulgarian landlord, my dad, my brother, and my mother.

I dialled the number and waited for him to pick up. Instead, it went straight to his voicemail, saying "You have reached George Francis Abel. At the tone, state your name, number, and the reason for your call." A beep followed, and I said "Listen, Mr. Abel, I don't know what you are doing right now, but you just left me here, lugging around an orange bucket! The people who saw me with it in the building think I'm insane. Come back as soon as possible." I hung up and sighed heavily, putting my phone into my messenger bag.

Leaving my seat, I walked down the hallway and down the stairs. After I had gone down a few flights, I found myself in another empty hallway. Pot plants decorated the sides of the hall. Wooden doors with signs were dotted across the sides of the hallway. At the very end of it was an elevator. It was quiet and peaceful down here, apart from the distinct conversations coming from upstairs and the traffic outside. My identification card that I was given earlier today was still attached to my blazer. I stopped walking and with one hand, I attempted to pull it out, only for me to prick myself with the sharp pin that attached the card to whatever piece of clothing you were wearing. The card fell down and landed into the bucket.

Wiping my pricked finger on my pants, leaving a small streak of blood behind, I looked inside the bucket. The bucket couldn't infect you from the outside, but what if you put your hand into it and it infected you that way? Not wanting to take a risk, I slowly turned the bucket upside down, and waited. The card must've been stuck to the bottom because it wasn't budging. I shook harder, and harder. What I didn't notice, was a small piece of orange-yellow goop climbing down from the inside of the bucket and dripping out of it. The orange-yellowish goo dropped onto my arm. I froze in place and looked down. It felt cold, yet warm, like a heat pad and an ice cube on my arm at the same time. "Oh, please don't infect me, please don't be infected..." I whispered with a note of terror in my voice. Suddenly, my skin underneath the goo began to burn like fire. I immediately dropped onto the ground, the bucket falling next to my head. I looked down at my arm as the fire-like feelings spread, as was the goo. The goo spread up my arm, reaching my shoulder.

Yellow, animal-like fur began to grow on me. This is when I began to cry hysterically, both because of the pain and knowing what was going to happen to me. The goo reached my fingers, and I watched in horror as they grew shorter and stubbier, resembling a cat's paw. Short, sharp little claws grew from where my fingernails were, and sheathed themselves back in. My suit felt tighter, and tighter as the infection spread across my torso, and to my other arm. Fur began to sprout out of the suit, and it felt like I was wearing an overly small swimsuit as more and more fur grew. The infection didn't stop. It slowly ate away my skin. Looking up, I could see a sign next to a door, saying that it was a 'Janitors Closet.' Slowly and painfully reaching for the bucket, I held it in my arms as I used my feet to I slowly shuffled myself towards the door, my messenger bag being dragged across the carpet. I reached one of my newly formed paws up and opened the door. I dragged myself inside, getting up and closing the door, then I collapsed to the floor. The infection spread up my neck, and tufts of fur grew at a rapid rate around it. My necktie snapped off, landing onto the floor.

The infection covered my mouth, nose, eyes and eventually my entire head. I could feel it hardening around me, and I panicked. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, and matters got worse as I could feel my face changing shape, into what I assumed was a domestic cats muzzle, my teeth sharpening and shifting, shrinking and growing in size into that of a cats. The cracking and snapping noises of my face were horrible to listen to, and I felt my nose flattening and dampening in the process. I felt as my ears then slowly began to shift themselves to the top of my head, and I could feel them morphing and curling inwards, with tufts of fur growing inside of it. 

Once the transformation of my ears were finished, they immediately flattened against my head due to how terrified I felt at that moment, blind and my physical appearance rapidly changing against my will. I felt a sharp pain coming from the lower area of my back as I could feel it expand. Then, there was a loud tearing sound coming from my pants, that tearing amplified in my new sensitive feline ears. I felt as what felt like a tail extended from my backbone, growing in size as it emerged outwards. I could feel my spine shifting, nerves growing and veins expanding to accommodate my new bodily feature. After the tail had finished growing, I could feel it involuntarily swishing around, brushing the shelves that surrounded me. The sensation felt foreign and unfamiliar. As the transformation reached my legs, and the snapping and cracking noises began again, I felt faint. Eventually. My body couldn't take the overwhelming transformation anymore, and it gave up on me, drifting me off into unconsciousness.