Darkened Stars | Shklance apocalypse AU

Ch 4: Seeing the change

It honestly felt like an eternity with how long I was trapped in that room. Luckily there was a small storage area with some canned food. That's right, we didn't scrounge this far into the complex. The bloater was too close and the spores would have gotten to the others. It's been a confusing couple of days, I remember everything of being turned. I had pale skin, and most of my body had sickly yellow and green patches. But over time, something I didn't think was possible happened.

My arm started healing.

The bubbling went down after about two months, and disappeared entirely a week ago. Now it's just ugly scarring of where the bubbles were along with the teeth marks forever present on my now pale skin. There was a pink and red glow to the area now, rather than yellow, green, and foaming white. My veins went back to their original color, and my skin's starting to slowly gain some of my normal color back. Granted I might not be as tan as before because I've been stuck in the dark for so long. But I'm sure a few days in the sun will bring me back to a healthy glow.

Spores from me being infected have filled the room enough to make a fog, and I'm surprised it hasn't turned me back yet. It's all I've been breathing in. If anyone else breaths it in it has the same effect as being bitten by an infected. But I'm not turning and it's keeping me on edge. What if I'm still infected and just calm with the fact there have been people moving around me for so long that I can't reach? What if as soon as someone opens the door I'll go bat shit crazy? I don't real know. But a few days ago I was cleared to have conversations with the others, as long as it was through the door. The team has to break the window boarding first to get the spores outside before opening the door so the building won't fill with the poisonous air. Well, poisonous to them.

I remember everything from being infected. I remember the day everything finally clicked and I fully turned, slamming my fists into the door. That went on for about sixty or so days. But I had a consciousness, in a way. So that question is answered. It's just not the consciousness of the person the infected used to be. It's a broken mind, I could think in my usual languages, I heard what the others were saying through the door, but I couldn't respond. My vocal cords changed to sound like that of a clicker, before it started to come back. And the bloater hiding on this side of the complex, I could talk to it.We had full conversations that I understood when I shouldn't have been able to. Our language was a variety of clicks and groans, and somehow I made words with them. One day a few weeks ago he sounded angry, like, really angry, and the voices I later recognized as the team were attacking.

He's been quiet since then. I almost miss him.

Now, I sat against the door, picking at my nails that have finally grown back. It's boring in here. Shocker, right? The only highlights of being in here is I can hear the lions walking through the grass by the window, occasionally huffing and rubbing against the wood. It was probably Blue, his voice was always a little higher pitched than the others, and he's the most chatty. When I was just starting to feel like I was getting better, I could hear scratches on the wood of the boarded up window, and I later found out it was Black trying to get in. I know because he made a sizable hole in the wood. Big enough that I could reach my hand out and run it along hid fur and mane. I knew I missed contact, but I didn't know how much I missed it until I finally got to touch another living, sane being.

Through that hole, the spores have been filtering out, starting to let fresh air flow in. I heard the team talking about it yesterday, debating whether to board it up or not in case I'm not in complete control. They came and talked to me about it, actually. I finally had an opinion to put in about myself.

Multiple footsteps were heard, maybe three people? Four? I wasn't positive. They were approaching the door and I stepped closer, fidgeting excitedly. I know they weren't opening the door yet, not if they were just downstairs contemplating boarding the hole in my window up again. But the fact that they were talking to me was always a break from being lost in myself. They talk to me a lot now. More often than just a question at night, and I slowly gained back memories of each person, and remembered names. Answering that one stupid question about stars actually helped a lot in mental recovery, believe it or not. Remembering that one thing was like opening a floodgate of other memories that started trickling back into my mind. A few days ago when Keith said "I love you" was when a whole river of memories flooded my brain. I was ecstatic, and responded instantly.