As always, I dozed off at the side, glancing at the windows of the room and time passed impossibly slow.
Today, it proved itself to be different from the others. Recent news of the changing of humans spread like wildfire, even now, in class, gossiping ensued as everyone excitedly talked about the changing. Even in our small class, many students sported colored hair, silver, red, dark blue. Despite it being strange colors, it surprisingly looked normal, perhaps because of its dull, dark tone, it served no purpose other than looking good, or so we thought.
As for myself, it stayed in its boring black color, not that I minded.
Suddenly, a foreign fluid appeared from my nose.
Snot? I thought absentmindedly as my hand reached to rub it away.
Looking down at my hands to rub the liquid away with a tissue paper, what appeared on my hand was a black red substance, its color a few tones deeper than blood, instead of a transparent fluid. Only when my vision started to blacken did I notice what was happening.
Standing up, I called out to the teacher hurriedly before I blacked out, "Teach, toil-"
"Ah." I muttered as my vision disappeared and my legs have way.
Before I knew it, I had hit the ground.
In sensory hell without any signs of time passing, I finally showed signs of waking up, drugged and tired.
"She's waking up." A feminine voice called out.
My mind still dull, I slowly sat up from the bed, blinking my sleepiness away as I did so. Looking around, it became apparent that I was in a hospital, while the feminine voice I had heard as I was awaking, belonged to a nurse who was informing the male doctor next to her.
After taking a moment to reorganise my thoughts, I asked, "What happened?" Though it was obvious, I had fainted, I was still quite confused.
Checking the papers in his hand, the doctor spoke without looking up, "You're still quite drugged, please refrain from any strenuous movements. As your parents are busied with their work, I will have to explain to you the circumstances of your fainting."
As the nurse helped me adjust the bed in an appropriate angle whereas I could sit comfortably as the doctor flipped a few more pages on his clipboard, he finally started explaining, "We've applied Intravenous Regional Anaesthesia into your new formed appendages, as such, do not worry if you cannot feel them. It is to prevent any incidents whereas the patient's control go wild in shock and their new features causes harm."
Eh?
"A-Are you kidding me?" I muttered as I turned to by back. Perhaps because of the anaesthesia applied, the wings that was flattened between the bed and my back felt like nothing, as well as my tail.
"You have been formally recognised as a type 4 Chimera, your documents have been updated with necessary information."
I-impossible...
"You have been unconscious for four days, and as for today, after some check-ups and other programs, you will be able to return home." He explained.
"Four days?"
"Indeed, in the time during your unconsciousness, more changes have appeared amongst many humans, their biological makeup is altered in bizarre and extreme methods."
"The-Then what about the research concerning the said changes?"
"As I mentioned earlier, you are a type 4 chimera, before you, there are three more categories and within those are sub categories, it is near impossible for the research to conclude a satisfactory explanation within this short time frame, please understand." He said, annoyance lacing his tone as if he had gone through such explanations countless times.
"Then, what is the ratio of the changed to normal humans?" I asked hesitantly. Before my blackout, there were many humans who hadn't changed in appearance, and before me, the doctor and his nurse were completely humans.
''40 to 1." He answered before continuing, "I must leave now, please rest for a moment and digest the information you have just received, rest well and if you feel any abnormalities, please press this button." And after speaking, he promptly left.
After his departure, a nauseating feeling washed over me as my mouth opened in an attempt to empty my stomach, yet nothing came out, and with my hand placed above my chest, I tried to contain my discomfort.
After what felt like hours of gagging, I finally calmed my beating heart as I noticed a wristband on my arm, its size a little too big, with every action of my arm causing it to tilt backwards and forwards. Flashing a bright red light non stop, I stared at it with confusion.
What was this?
Fiddling with it for a while, it became apparent that there wasn't a method to take it off, and its metallic base refused to budge when I attempted to push it out through my hand.
Giving up on removing the wristband which color had returned to a still green light, I looked around to find my phone siting on the small table next to my bed. Reaching over, I powered it on as a familiar logo flashed before my lockscreen appeared.
To my surprise, reflected on the black screen was an unfamiliar girl with white hair. Because of having a black background photo, my face clearly reflected itself to show how my face had changed. There were still the old features remaining, like my small nose or my thin eyebrows, but in those old features were small changes that flowed together to create an unusually beautiful face.
I wasn't ugly to begin with, it just so happened that the small tweaks made my features harmonise together, creating a face that could rival models.
Without much care, I unlocked my phone, ignoring the facial changes. In comparison to my new wings and tail, getting a new face was not that unsettling.
[No messages.]
As my heart drooped, I went onto searching the web with terms like [Changed], [Chimera], [Human changing]. Results were all over the place, ranging from self collated information of netizens to forums requesting for quarantine in fear of the changed humans.
Choosing the top result which was information collected by a freelance researcher, I was presented a wealth of information. But whatever information it gave, it didn't do much. Talking mostly about the physical capabilities of the evolved humans, it was merely a netizen's excited rambling as he praised the mysterious force causing these changes. The only useful fact was that families usually go through the same changes, or at least similar ones.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Despite wanting to search deeper, I eventually lost interest, not knowing what information I needed exactly to satisfy my knowledge craving self.
Standing up from the bed, I glanced at the clock. It had been two hours since I woke up, it was 2pm now.
Grabbing the stand that held the drip bag, or whatever it was called, still connected to my arm, I left my spacious room my parents probably paid a fortune for.
Undoubtedly, this was not cheap, having a single room of a prestigious hospital for myself, decorated so carefully to calm the patient within with soft colors and beautiful paintings.
Currently, I was at the top floor, where the best and most expensive rooms were, while the rest of the floors were for the less privileged. Despite how this hospital was advertised as prestigious, it's CEO had been quite charitable with his work, assisting the needy in terms of insufficient funds, their treatments lowered to cater to the poor, resulting in its high popularity.
Despite that, my parents had went the extra mile to provide myself with the best treatment regardless of whether price.
Walking unsteadily due to the extra weigh placed on my back, I walked down the busy hallway with occasional glances sent my way, unsure visitors whispering to each other as the familiar sound effect of photo taking was heard.
Taking the lift with an unusually large space around me, I looked down on my phone absentmindedly as tails drooped between legs came to my sight. Looking up in curiosity, the said tail belonged to a middle aged woman, her ears shaped extremely weirdly with small amounts of brown fur, perhaps in attempt to hide the strange ears she had, her brown hair was untied and made to fall onto her shoulders, providing the smallest of covers for her ears.
Next to her was a little girl with similar hair color and features grabbing onto her hand.
Observing them silently, I was quickly interrupted as the 'ting' that sounded whenever a lift had reached a floor came to my ears, inciting the changed pair to walk out.
However, the moment I walked out, a scream came to my ears
"Run!" it was a man's frantic scream as he ran towards us, a rampant beast chasing behind him, it's size a bit larger than the average car.
With red eyes and black fur dyed in blood, its humongous, bloodied paws reached to the man, behind it a trail of destruction with humans laying on the ground in pieces along with the destroyed furniture.
The man himself had red hair, his age probably within the early twenties, and as he ran his eyes started to glow the same red color the beast had.
Amongst those who had just got off the lift, no one moved, perhaps in fear or shock, all of us stood rooted to the ground as our brains desperately tried to interpret the sight before us. The tangible smell of blood hung in the air, doing nothing to quell our fear.
Fortunately, the man was running from our right to our left and the beast was too occupied with chasing to notice our presence.
But before we could react, the man started to sprout red fur as his body started to grow, especially his arms which quickly rivalled his legs in length, and switching to a four legged, the 'man' who had grown into a beast similar to a wolf a size larger than the beast chasing it turned to its attacker and attacked it, itself growling in anger.
As its paw mashed against the face of the panther like beast, it roared and pushed it down, only to be pushed back with similar vigour. Roars and angried cries sounded as the two beasts tried to beat the other with unrelenting violence, immersed in their fight, we were completely ignored.
Watching this in silent fear, a heavy panting appeared at the my side as the small animal eared girl collapsed onto the floor, tears in her eyes as she grasped at the hem of her mother's skirt as she attempted to squeeze out words.
Unfortunately, we were all too occupied with fear, watching as the red beast attempt to topple the other, its jaws snapping near its neck only to rip it apart in the next second.
In less than a minute, the black beast drew its final breath as the red one continued to tear into it, only to be disrupted by the hyperventilating of the girl.
Turning its red eyes into our direction, a bloodied, wolfy grin appeared on its face as it started to run its way here.
"OH MY FUCKING GOD!" A man screamed as he started running, the wolf beast's interest in us snapping him back into reality.
The mother of the child worriedly squatted to pick her child up as the rest of us, myself included dispersed.
Plucking off the tube connected to my arm without any bit of pain felt, perhaps because of the adrenaline in my body, dropping the stand I was pulling around, I ran faster than before as I jumped over the countless corspes, my limbs sore from the lack of movement for the past few days.
"Don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around." I muttered, and yet, I did.
Slowing down after covering a significant distance, I turned to notice that in place of the woman and daughter pair, it was now a cat the size of a tiger and its child, the brown animal hissing as the red one circled it in excitement, its jaws snapping at the duo from time to time.
A woman that had been running alongside with me, her hair blue, was now on the floor, rocking with her hands covering her ears as she muttered prayings to whatever god she believed in, before her the severed lower body of a human she had tripped over.
Perhaps because of the carnage before me, hope dimmed as all I could feel was despair, it was as if the world had just fallen apart, and this was only the beginning.
And yet, everything still felt strangely fake and dull, perhaps because of the drugs still circling in my blood.
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[Author's note]
Hello~ this is a story I've kept in the archives of my mind for a long time now, and I suddenly got the urge to write it.
Usually when I write, I type anything that comes into my mind, and if I were to read it later, it would feel as if it was another person's work, that being said, it's probably the reason why I always leave mistakes lying around, because I'm typing at the spur of the moment, so if you spot any, please tell me.
Lastly, though I said I had the plot mapped out, it's crude and lacking, so please leave suggestions like types of monsters etc, since I'm bad at those.