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Chapter 8: August

Kristen Green was certainly somewhat annoyed by how little progress they had made on the Jahorii case. Two months had already gone by since they had taken the man into custody and they have yet to manage to get a single word out of him. Or rather they’ve been completely unable to get him to say anything that makes sense. Some days he’ll be so quiet that it is like he’s mute and doesn’t even know how to speak and even doesn’t respond to words and then others he’ll just go on and on about seemingly illogical and insane things that have no correlation with reality. She frowns a moment at a particularly unsightly advertisement along the walls of one of a billboard nearby entering the police station.

She did not actually take part in any of the interrogations, those had been taken over by the federal agencies. Though she did have a good friend in the FBI that was involved she was never informed of what was going on beyond the most generic aspects. Her job in all of this was to go out and interview various people that supposedly had been seen interacting with Mr. Kraen but either they didn’t seem to even acknowledge they knew him at all or nothing they said gave them anything to go on, which had always led Kristen to believe that either Jahorii was so determined to be below the radar that he never shared anything with anyone or what was more likely was the possibility that several of the ones she had been sent to interview not only knew him but worked with him and were simply as good at manipulating speech as he was.

Even still they kept records on all of his conversations if they can be called that. Each record has been gone over countless times but so far nothing significant has been determined. When she gets to her desk she sees that some sort of stone has been placed over a piece of paper. Thinking maybe someone had found something she picks up the stone and looks at it, finding it to be a chess piece made of something like obsidian. Recognizing it as something similar to objects found on each of the other three Incidents she quickly snatches up the paper, very much wanting to find out if it was a prank or if another Incident had happened while Jahorii was still in custody.

To Kristen:

Your dedication to the task at hand is admirable though misguided. For this we have decided that you will fulfill the role of the Knight. Blinded by your duty you have been unable to do any just action. Hone ones righteous instincts into the right manner and all may be revealed. You desire closure don’t you. So intent are you at proving It is a shame. If you were only less concerned about what you have you may have had a clue. Take these written mounds bowed away as a hint for all things yet to come.

Kristen stares at the note for a moment, trying to piece together what it all meant.

“It’s addressed to me?” she exclaims to herself, “But how? Jahorii’s still locked up with no way to get around. And the way it’s written is so very similar in style to the ones that he was giving to everyone.”

She quickly goes over to one of her fellow officers who had a desk next to hers and tended to stay there for most of the day when not being sent to do other things.

“Bob, has anyone been near my desk lately?” she demands quickly.

“Not that I know of, why?”

“Because I think someone has tried to pull a practical joke on me. I found a note in the same style as the ones found on the Incidents written to me but there’d not be any way that Mr. Kraen would be able to get it to deliver it himself.”

“Well I’ve been here all day and I didn’t see anyone stop at your desk long enough to leave something there. I wasn’t really paying attention so it might have been there all day and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Well thanks anyway,” she shrugs and turns around and blinks a few times at what she sees in front of her.

Standing on the other side of the room seem to be a couple of animals just staring at her. In particular it seems to be a sort of yellowish bird perched on top of the head of what looks to be a kangaroo, both doing nothing more than stare at her. What’s almost stranger about the scene is that none of the other officers in the room seem to be able to even see the two of them or at least don’t act like they’re there. Kristen rubs her eyes a bit with a hand as a wave of dizziness hits her. When she opens her eyes up again the two are gone.

Feeling rather nauseous Kristen quickly moves away and heads over to the bathroom. Her entire body is starting to itch and ache but the majority of it seems to be centered on her stomach. Feeling she may have eaten something foul that is causing the hallucinations and discomfort she rushes over to the sink once inside, gripping the sides for a second or two before turning the water on and splashing some of it onto her face.

Though the act did calm her a bit it did not ease the growing nausea. She moves one of her hands over to her stomach without giving it a single thought and the touch brings her fully around. Instead of the normal shape of her stomach there are a couple of bumps growing right before her hands, growing larger and larger by the second.

“No! It can’t be! Why does it have to be me that has to deal with this? Why couldn’t it have been someone else?” She pleads to no one in particular, hoping that someone would take away what she’s pretty sure is happening. “All I ever wanted to do is be like all of the other good cops. The other victims of the Incidents all deserved what they got. Was there something I was lacking that I couldn’t be like all of the rest of them that are so much better than I am?”

Not wanting others to see the shame of having to witness of her caliber being affected in such a manner Kristen rushes over to and locks the door to the restroom, propping one of the trash bins against the handle to be doubly sure. Once done she goes back to wishing she was someone other than she is right now, someone who didn’t have to deal with this. One thing that struck her odd, though, is the location that her body is aching. Her feet are starting to feel very cramped and her legs are sore and her stomach still is growing but nothing above her chest is feeling much of anything. From accounts of the other Incidents everything seemed to always change all at the same time, though there was some variation in the rate things changed.

Following suit with what reports of all the other three Incidents Kristen decides that with a changing body it’d be in her best interests to strip down as much as she comfortably can, so as to make it not restrict her body and confine it painfully.

“And if I am wrong, the door’s locked and no one can get in. If someone asks I’ll just say I was having a nervous breakdown,” she justifies the act to herself.

As she takes her shoes off she takes the time to delay and stare at her feet, trying to find some clue as to what form she may be becoming. Once her socks have also been removed and she can see what they now look at she almost cries out in despair. Her feet were certainly longer than before, proving that she was another victim of the Incidents. On top of that her toes seem to be getting more and more crunched together and her nails have grown much longer and thicker than normal.

“Why does this have to happen to me? Why couldn’t I be like all of the others? Why couldn’t the worst that I have to deal with is that bug that’s been going around. Please, God! Please make me more like everyone else so that I don’t have to deal with this!”

But alas there was no response to her vocalizations, only the lower part of her body becoming more and more animalistic by the second. Within moments the two little lumps growing out of her stomach have gained enough form that she can move them. She grabs one of them and moves it around with her hand, feeling it. The dual sensation of gaining new feeling in something that didn’t exist before and the extreme pain coursing through only the lower half of her body causes Kristen to curl up into a fetal position and chant a mantra, hoping that if she wished to be someone else hard enough it would happen and she wouldn’t keep transforming.

Her body, however predictably enough, was not responding the slightest bit as it continues on its own pace into something else. In fact Kristen is forced out of her fetal position by her back beginning to grow and expand to a length that makes it nearly impossible to lie in that position. When this snaps her out of this sort of wishful denial she looks to see the new state of her body. Her feet are very horse like and her legs have become considerable thicker over this time. She resolves herself, still somewhat in denial that if she can get to Jahorii, perhaps she can force him to turn her back, to make her like everyone else. When she tries to stand up, she finds that her legs don’t work quite right. Instead her legs seem to be unable to go past a position that would allow for four limbed travel. Thankfully the new appendages seem to be positioned just so that she doesn’t fall completely forward. Her whole spine seems to have developed a bit of a kink to it just above where all of this pain has been coming from.

As she hears a knock on the door she tries to move again, though with the new appendages still underdeveloped compared to the rest of her body it makes for very awkward and slow work.

“Go away!” She pleads to the other side of the door, not wanting anyone to find her like this. A new wave of fear begins to come over her as parts of the so far untouched upper part of her body begins to tingle.

“Let me in, Kristen!” a feminine voice on the other side shouts back. “I saw the note. I can help you through this.”

“No one can help me now!” she states though does go about removing the bin from the door and unlocking it. “I’m so sorry, Rachel. If only I was better like everyone else here.”

Rachel comes in and quickly raises a hand over to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Kristen responds by trying to shuffle away, to hide herself from this disgrace. Rachel eventually manages to get herself back under control and moves over to try and comfort her friend still in the midst of her painful transition into something inhuman.

“Where is all this mass coming from?” she asks idly while trying to be as supportive as possible.

“How should I know? God I wish this didn’t have to happen to me.”

“It’ll be all right. I’m sure they’ll eventually find a cure for all of this and then you’ll be back to your old self in no time.”

Kristen looks down and sees that for the most part her transformation does seem to be slowing down, though that’s more a result of it being almost finished. From the waist down she looks like a complete horse. She forces herself to look into a mirror as best she can and her upper half is still mostly human. Her face has extended out somewhat into a proto-muzzle and her ears are definitely longer. On top of that her fingers feel almost like moving somewhat large clubs around considering how much thicker and less dexterous they are from her normal ones. After a moment a very strange sensation comes over her. Particularly she can now feel a second heart now beating inside of her, this new one significantly stronger than her normal one and seems to be taking care of her entire lower half, letting some energy flow back into her as her dizziness washes away a bit. A second after that she feels a chill as several little thin slits open up along the chest area of her lower body and she can feel that lower body begin to breathe as well. She can feel a sort of building energy begin to well up inside her and knowing what it is pushes Rachel away before crying out, a green blast of light shooting out from her in all directions.