Darius would later tell everyone who asked, that the only thing he remembered from his time with the sickness was the feeling of aching, cracking and splintering bones.
Of his tendons that started to feel as if someone fried them regularly and his screaming muscles, that should never move in such ways.
He felt how his body burned to ashes and then rebuilt itself from the ground up.
A cicle of death and rebirth. Eternal in its excruciating slowness.
If someone had actually seen what happened to him, then they would believe it instantly.
His once strong body was reduced to a near skelletal facsimile in the first few days.
His body seemed to shrink, while his muscles shriveled until they looked like unassuming bumps on his bones.
The once 1.9m tall young man was reduced to a 1.4m husk, with his slow heartbeat as the only visible remaining proof of his continued existence.
It seemed as if his body used up all reserves, that it had amassed over his life, to prepare for... something.
A black, tar-like substance started to leak from his pores, as if his body had to cleanse itself from some kind of damaging influence.
He began to choke, as the substance began to be excreted through his lungs.
It is only thanks to his grandfather, who recovered faster then him, that he survived this ordeal.
And then began the build up phase, his bones started to break again and again, stretching and growing until he was over 2.5m tall.
His muscles began to bulge until they formed small mountains on his frame, and they then began to wriggle around like worms, while they shrank as if they were cannibalizing themselves.
They condensed into slightly smaller hills, and his tendons now looked like small cords of metal that ran through his body.
February 27th, 2020:
Everything was shrouded in darkness, he was surrounded by an eternal nightsky without stars.
That was at least until he saw the light, and no it was not any of that 'Light at the end of the Tunnel' bullshit either.
It was as if he had some kind of heavy blanket on top of him, which was then suddenly pulled away and behind that metaphorical blanket, was the sun.
And not just the kind of sun, that warms you on a fresh spring day with its smooth heat.
Oh no, it was the sun of a merciless summer day in arizona, beating down on him from every side, with seemingly sadistic pleasure.
He could feel the heat burn his skin and hair, everything was seemingly a sea of fire, he could not make out where the sun ended and his skin started.
But Darius was never one to just surrender, he yelled his challenge into the sun, half delirious from the heat.
And the sun answered.
As if the heat from before was just a warm up, suddenly came the real deal. Heat that he never imagined to even exist started to brutalize his body, and he still hung on.
No one, not even some metaphorical sun, would stop him. He would survive this. He would survive and then fight the sickness so that he can get better and then care for his god damn grandfather!
He screamed and yelled until his voice was hoarse and he could feel his voicebox nearly rip apart, but he still hung on, challenging who ever that was to give it his all.
And then it stopped, from one moment to the next one. At least until that asshole started to throw him into a literal bath of molten metal.
'Is this how a corndog feels? God damn I miss corndogs...' ,thought Darius while his body most likely fried in the metal bath, which his benevolent host granted him.
'Fuck the benevolent though, sadistic cocksucker fits better', and he ripped his arm up, felt around a bit until he found some kind of ledge and pulled himself up from the liquid metal bath.
Nothing can really faze you anymore after you get grilled/liquified by the sun, and he was most likely already a bit crazy either way from that whole ordeal before this.
He was also pretty shure that he had no actual body anymore to pull himself up with..., but who was he to argue with his own delirious mind.
The sun seemed to stare at him a bit bewildered... "Never seen a human just piss on your challenge this way, eh? Well, tell you what buttercup, you should have thrown me in here first and then immolated me.
There is nothing worse, then feeling your eyeballs pop from overwhelming heat, and then cook in their own sauce!"
Yes, he was most defenitely crazy. It felt as if someone started laughing, while he was inside their belly. Everything shook around him, even though there was no actual matter that could shake.
And then... he woke up.
Darius sat up in a start, not realizing for a few moments where he was, or, for how much that actually mattered in that situation, who he was. And then everyhing came back to him.
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Him traveling to Germany, smelling the stale, sickly air in the house, finding his dead grandmother, him caring for his grandfather and burning her in the backyard, how the sickness...
'The sickness!', he suddenly sat up and started to look around for his grandfather, but he saw only an empty bed next to his own and the table with some food on top of it.
He immediately felt one thing that would probably never change for him, his stomach started growling.
He began to gorge himself on the food, ignoring the slightly off taste and bad smell, he was too hungry to care for things like sanitation. At least until his body had enough and he had to vomit.
Darius barely managed to crawl into the adjacent restroom, and began hugging his porcelain god.
After he managed to get everything out again, he pulled himself up on the sink and started to notice things... 'Was the mirror always so low?' he thought to himself, while he began to look around.
Everything seemed to be smaller suddenly, as if the world had shrunk around him.
At least until he realized that the world did not in fact shrink, it was rather that he grew abnormally large.
His hands, which were a bit bigger then normal at the beginning, where now as big as small boulders. His shoulders wide enough to put every professional swimmer to shame.
He lost the little pouch of fat on his belly, leaving only abs of steel. He could not believe it and started feeling them.
'What. The. Hell. Happened to me?!? Did I go crazy? I am going crazy arent I? The virus fried my brain did it not?'
His skin, which was only lightly browned before, was now resembling bronze rather then light caramel, and it seemed as if any unnecessary fat reserves got burned away.
He crouched down to see his face and was a bit disappointed. He was still looking like a barbarian. Why could the damn virus not fix his face too?
It was all only hard ridges and edges, with small scars littering his features. A hard mouth, harsh eyes with natural eye bags.
As if he never got enough sleep, and he would take that fact out on the next person that crossed him.
These eyes have always made him look at people, as if they had taken the last bite of pie from his plate, even though he was actually just having a natural passive look.
If he had to compare his whole body to something then it was a roman gladiator. Bulky, strong, and fierce. And if what his grandfather said about his ancestors, then he was most likely not that far off.
They always said that the ancestors in his mothers family were coming from the legions of ancient rome, that settled in the borders of Germania, and from the gladiator arenas in the ancient roman province of Asia.
He and his grandfather at least did look the part, with smaller scars covering his torso, thighs, arms, neck and face. His mother was rather fair, with Arthur sharing that trait with both their parents. It must have come from his grandmothers family or something.
Darius did not hear the door open, while he marveled at his new appearance, until he suddenly heard someone clear their throat, "Ehem... I never thought to see the day, where you cared for your appearance Darius."
He jumped up a few centimeters into the air and turned around fast enough to give himself a bit of whiplash. The person that stood before him did resemble himself, but was smaller and stockier. They had salt and pepper hair, with more pepper then salt though, and had a look on their face, as if they had bitten on a lemon.
Darius immediately got into a rather clumsy battle stance, as he was not too familiar with his new body and the added hight threw of his form.
"You look like a new born deer Darius, put down those arms. You are in no condition to be out of bed! What did you think you were doing eating that spoiled food?
Oh, let me answere that, You did not think. Thats always the problem with you young people, you jump from one situation to the next one without thinking!" "Gramps?" "Yes, you dumb fuck! Now go back into bed and let me make some food for you, it will not be as good as your grandmothers, but I learned a bit from her over the years."
Dariusl could not believe it, that hunk of a man was supposed to be his 70 year old grandfather? If he thought about it, it did make sense. If the virus did somehow change his own body, then there was no reason why it should not have done the same for his grandfather. But the change was just too much.
Daniel Hüber was only 1.8m tall and weighed around 150kg the last time that he actually saw him before the virus infected him, and now he stood at 2.3m and weighted at least 200kg of pure muscle.
He was forced into the bed, and his grandfather brought him a deep plate filled with scrambled aggs, bacons pieces, scallions and browned onions. "Food of the champions my boy, eat up! We have to get you on your feet as fast as possible. Something is not right, I noticed that the shard in the fontyard changed. The last time i saw it, there was no gushing blood, I think that they wont stay still for long." "Oh god, if that thing finds a way to come through!" "Yes, exactly. We will need to prepare for it, dig a trench, fill that with spikes and then make some simple defensive structures. I still have some wooden pillars, from our julefestival. I'm gonna sharpen them, while you dig the trench. We will begin our work tomorrow, it is already night time and you will need your sleep." After that they both ate as much of their food as possible and then went to bed. The last thing Darius heard was his grandfather whispering to himself "I will watch over him Eli, I will watch over him as long as he needs me..."