FSE

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Chapter 9: September

Lauren goes about doing her rounds for the night. After going to check on one of the patients she moves to close the blinds to the window.

"Well at least those guys must be doing well. Their ads are everywhere," she comments before turning around, her blue scrubs making her seem almost invisible in the low lights of the room.

She half wished that things would go back to the way they were before all of this Incident business started mucking things up. Bad enough it ruined the economy enough that she had to work for longer hours for less money and benefits under the excuse she at least had a job. And beyond that the entire nature of her work had become drastically different. People still certainly get injured, either from accidents or violence and some people still showed up for the odd complication but beyond that things were completely different. Their patient count had more than doubled its normal value from the previous years, and most of those complaining of the symptoms to the plague that's been going around. What was most odd, however, was that the effects of other diseases have gone down. There was almost no one in the cancer ward anymore to the extent it had been repurposed to house more beds to the plague victims. Other congenital diseases seemed to be dying out the same way. It was an odd thing to Lauren and the others nurses and doctors at the hospital. It was as if somehow the plague was curing these diseases.

After having finished making her rounds she finds one of the other nurses twirling what looks to be a black chess piece in one hand, either a king or queen from the length though she couldn't be sure without seeing it closely.

"Hey, someone left a message for you. Don't know who, just found this note and it has your name on it."

To Lauren:

We have been patient with you for far longer than we normally would. And it is due to your lack of exceeding our expectations that we have granted you the gift of the role of the Queen. And even then we are hesitant to do so. The Queen is arguably the most powerful piece on the board and you are in one of the most important positions. People come to you for help and your insatiable hunger towards trying to find the right drug is just abhorring. Head on right into insurmountable neglect if you so choose. You have squandered your potential and so will you take the dripping souls sowishly adapting to the changing circumstances that you chose to ignore."

"Hate mail it looks like," she responds before crumpling up the page and tossing it into the nearby trash bin.

As she continues down the hallway, intent on getting some coffee she feels a wave of dizziness wash over her before seeing something abnormal. Even though no one was allowed any pets in the hospital what looked to be a small red dog bolted past one of the corridors nearby. Knowing that it needed to be rounded up before it could do any harm made quite the mess of things Lauren bolted after it, turning the corner and then stopping dead in her tracks. Standing in the middle of the hallway was a horse and standing on the head of the horse looked to be a fox, both staring right at her. After a second or two of each staring at the other the fox pounces off the head of the horse and lunges at Lauren. Her response is to cry out and shield her head. But nothing happens and when she raises her arm again both are gone.

"What the hell was that?" she asks.

Not knowing the answer she turns around and starts looking around to see if maybe the two animals had simply darted around some other corner but as she looks around she can't seem to find even the slightest sign that either animal had ever even been there. Though as she continued searching briefly the nausea returns and with it this time came a rather bloated feeling. At first she tries to ignore the feeling but then decides to see if perhaps there was a chemical spill that created such a hallucination and begins to mentally cycle through the list of all of the potential causes that might make her hallucinate like that. But before she can get far into that list she looks at her hands and sees them beginning to thicken up and her stomach begins to slowly expand outward slightly.

"This can't be real, can it?" She asks to no one in particular but her entire body is beginning to feel very sore, convincing her to go about seeking treatment just in case. "If I just gave myself things that would not be at all harmful if I take them then if it's nothing then I can just pay out of my own pocket."

Having convinced herself that this is the right course of action she begins walking towards the stockroom. She sees one of the other people working this late and not wanting to cause a panic hides behind a corner for him to pass, her whole body continuing to ache and grow. Once he's done she practically races towards the stockroom.

By the time Lauren managed to make it to the stockroom, some of her fingers beginning to become thicker and less dexterous. She figured that whatever must be happening to her must be some sort of rapid spread contagion and that if she went about loading her body up on anti-biotics and all the rest of the medications that supposedly help alleviate the symptoms of the plague that she should be able to slow it down or at least halt the progression of this issue until she could find something better to cure it. If she can stop it she can go and tell everyone that there is a cure, if not she could get away with enough medication to see to it that she's safely out of the city limits before the burst that seems to happen to everyone overcomes her. And that far away they'd be more inclined to maybe think she quit than had this happen to her.

At first she was about to try and get some antibiotics from just the pills but decided that it wouldn't get into her system quickly enough so she grabbed a vial with their strongest anti-biotics and then fills up a syringe before injecting it into herself. She then grabs a general anesthetic and injects it into herself as well. The result of the injections is that she begins to feel a little better and the pain coursing through her body does diminish but she strangely doesn't feel groggy or at all sleepy. However her stomach is still growing slowly.

Fearing that perhaps she hasn't yet done enough she opens a random bottle of nearby pills, not even bothering to look at what it is and shoves a handful into her mouth. After swallowing she finds herself tipping over and falls hard onto one of her arms. She rolls over to try and see what the problem is and notices that her feet are no longer normal looking. Instead of her normal, human feet, her feet are fairly long and moderately thin, with her nails easily ten times thicker than normal and two to three times longer. Not even bother getting up she begins to cry as she reaches up again and grabs at another bottle, looking at the dosage rather than what it is. Finding it a pretty potent drug she opens the top of the bottle and pours as many pills as she can fit inside her mouth before trying to swallow. Her body's response is to begin heaving and convulsing and after a few seconds her head is forced forwards as she begins to vomit back up all of the pills. On top of that she can feel a little thin appendage pushing against the back of her clothes.

Lauren curses herself slightly at how the pills didn't work. She wipes her hand across her face to try and wipe the vomit from it and finds that her nose seems to have become significantly bigger and juts out in front of her face. This shocks her out of her reverie enough that she feels compelled to explore the changes further. She takes stock of her body to see that all of her fur has become significantly pinker than normal. On top of that she can begin to feel something starting to build up within her. Knowing how dangerous it'd be to let her transformation finish and not wanting to have to live the rest of her life as a pig she gets up and moves over to a tray that had a bunch of different utensils on it. Grabbing a scalpel she clenches and takes a few deep breaths before trying to stab it into herself. But her hand is stayed seemingly by some unknown force mere inches before the blade could pierce her skin. She tries for a few more seconds before crying out and dropping the scalpel and begins crying as her body continues to change.

A moment later Lauren clenches, trying to fight the sensation rapidly building within her. She knows enough about the Incidents to know the result of when an Incident completes. Even with fewer patients that need the machines to survive, to have the entire hospital shut down due to the EMP blast would cause a lot of problems. Knowing she won't be able to fight it too long as her teeth begin to finish their transition to pigdom she grabs a nearby syringe and checks to see what it is. Finding it not what she wants she quickly grabs another and recognizes it as a strong sedative. Hoping that perhaps that would have the desired effect she jabs the needle into her neck and injects the entire contents into her blood. At first she thinks it's starting to work as the sensation dies down but as she can feel it reach its peak she realizes her mistake that the needle just made her less able to feel and control the sensation, it had no effect on its growth and with a final cry a large blue aura bursts out from her in every direction before she loses consciousness.