The Erruilion Plague: Book 1, From Roots of Evil

Chapter 3 - A New Walk of Life

I awoke sometime that night, every inch of my skin feeling like it was lit asunder. I arched my back and suppressed a scream as my eyes widened at the pain. It felt like trillions of needles were stabbing outward through my skin at once. A nurse walked in and her jaw hit the floor stunned briefly by my condition, but only for a moment. She started frantically chattering into a walkie talkie trying to summon a doctor. My eyes had glazed over in pain, and slowly, fur began sprouting from my skin. It grew at a steady pace until it was at a moderate length for a canine one might find in the woods or kept as a pet. It looked stunningly alike to that of one of those weird desert foxes-- Fennec foxes I think that they were called. It was a sandy brown in most places, but on the inside of my arms, thighs, and on my stomach and torso it faded to a white color.

By now my ears had already reached the top of my head and had elongated into a more canine shape. They were now around seven inches tall off my head, and I found I could move them about like a cat or dog can. I now felt also a new appendage sprouting from where my tailbone normally was. It as about as long as my leg, plus a foot or two. I suppose that at this point I looked like some strange fox-man and it'd be a wonder the nurse didn't scream when she eventually looked back in instead of stare out the door searching for the doctor. Then I heard screams from the other side of the curtain, enough to shatter the water class on my side table. Without seeing knew that the poor soul on the other side must be going through what I just did. Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes for the both of us.

The doctor from earlier burst in past the nurse and just stopped, jaw halfway to the floor in shock. She obviously hadn't expected to see some sort of weird fox-man hybrid sitting where an ailing teen had been hours before, and who could blame her? She snapped out of it and raced to the other side of the room to the source of the screaming and you could hear her talking to the other patient calmly "Tracy listen to me, it's going to be okay. Your vitals are fine and it seems you're sprouting fur. You're not going to die, it's fine, everything will be ok." With her words the screaming quieted a bit. It slowly came to silence as I realized that the other patient who was progressing as fast as me was her. My heart started pounding harder than it was as I tried to think of what I would say, what I would do even.

The nurse from earlier had came to unhook all the monitors and the IV, and continued as she was intending to, with extreme apprehension granted. Soon as I was free she passed me a glass of water, seeming afraid to get close, and told me "Drink up, you'll need it.",  sauntering off across the curtain with an identical glass. I sat up worriedly and took a small sip from the cup, taking a good look at the room for the first time. It was mainly white and there was a TV in the corner, on subtitle mode tuned to the local news. I stopped and watched for a moment and read.

Yesterday in Plantation, Florida, tragedy struck. In the middle of the library there, a man had detonated himself with a collection of glass vials of unknown contents. It is known that everyone struck by the glass were hospitalized, and there have even been unconfirmed reports of their bodies mutating. We have heard rumors that there is a pair of teens about to finish whatever transformation this is and will be available for comment later today. You'll see it here first, live, on the Plantation Report.

I spoke aloud to no one in particular, "Crap... Those news hounds aren't going to let me get a second of peace once I'm out of here..." I heard Tracy sigh on the other side of the curtain, replying "No kidding, I don't know about you but being some white fox-people-things kinda catches the eye of the news" To that I cocked my ear to the side and raised an eyebrow, replying "White? I'm not white..." Then I heard her say something to the nurse and the curtain was removed between us, and he could now see her sitting on her hospital bed. She was like me, but she had thicker, bleach white fur and shorter ears, them only standing up around half that of mine. She retained her figure other than what turned all fox on her from that insidious virus... And I had to grudgingly admit that she kinda looked even better now.

Both of us sat stunned for a while, having half hoped the people we used to know would be on the other side of the curtain. She stared at me as I did her, with utter disbelief in our eyes. She seemed to come to her senses faster than I, getting up and inching over to me. She slowly extended one of her paw-hands and poked mine, and with a recoil she exclaimed "Holy crap I'm not hallucinating... It really did happen to you too..." Snapping back to myself, I shook my head and replied "Yeah... Its still me under all this fur though. I can't believe this... This monstrosity could do this so fast."

She seemed to be shocked as I was, and said "I- I'm going to go take a walk. You're welcome to join me if you want..." With this she walked out of the room and I followed her. It seemed like we were kept near all the others who were victims of the bomb, because everyone had hands starting to change to have paw-pads and panicked when they saw us. We headed outside the building, and sat on some steps relatively out of sight. She sighed and put her ears slightly back, and asked "Ben, what are we even going to do?" I took this moment to make my first move, and I put my arm around her and replied "I don't know... But whatever it is we still have each-other"

She looked at me and smiled, looking like she might be blushing under her fur saying "Ben... I-I have something I should tell you... I like you... A lot. P-please don't thi--" I smiled back and cut her off "I do to Tracy. Really. I had been trying to get up the nerve to tell you for a while..." I stopped and I leaned in to kiss her, brain alight with fear that she would be repulsed. My fear was short lived though, as soon I felt her lips meet mine and we held it for a moment. She pulled back then, blushing enough for it to be visible through her fur and in a teasing voice said "So Ben... Are you my first boyfriend now?" I admit I let my surprise at being her first boyfriend show a bit more than I thought, but I tried to keep my cool and replied "If you'll be my first date I'd love to be" I had a bit of a twinkle in my eye as I looked into hers. She seemed to have a hard time not exploding upon my reply and said "Of course Ben...". We both grinned and I said "Now how about me and you head back inside before a news guy catches on to us being here eh? I saw the report and it looks like we're going to be a big juicy fish in a barrel for them for quite a while." She giggled a bit and we got up, her holding my hand and leaning into me a bit as we walked back towards the room we were set up in to get our things and check out.