-Tainted Blood-

  -Drowning on Land: Ch4-

  “Evil cannot create, it can only copy and destroy. Since the dawn of mankind, there have been evil men and women who have plagued our civilization. They rot societies from the inside out, and take glee in the suffering of others. Even after causing the destruction of the old world in the great war, these parasites endure! Even after the Federation united the world, and brought humanity back from the brink, these people have sprouted up again and again, like weeds.

  “The mass riots of ‘84 in commonwealths 12 and 13. The Washington succession war of commonwealth 1. The outer colony independence war. Our Federation has proudly fought against these terrorists and rebels since its founding! They are why our police must be so well armed, and why our surveillance network must be so comprehensive.

  “But today… today these vile regressives struck again!”

  The woman on the podium, a stern, sharp chinned member of the Ministry of Information and Truth, stood straight in her gray officer uniform. She raised her fist high in front of a crowd of several hundred students packed in the wide central quad of the university. The orange glow of the evening sun hung low behind her, illuminated her like a halo of fire.

  “We became aware of the possibility of an attack several days ago, but we didn’t announce it because we didn't want to scare away the rats. Instead we covertly evacuated the area, and laid a trap, which I am proud to say was largely successful. Of the four terrorist scum, three were apprehended before their bombs could be planted, and the only casualties of the attack were a student co-conspirator who manually detonated his bomb instead of facing justice, and the brave operative who cornered him.”

  There were whispers at that. A student helping terrorists smuggle bobs into the university? Who had it been?

  Obviously it had been a C-Class, since that was their dorm. And more specifically, if it was someone willing to cooperate with terrorists then they were clearly a horrible citizen.

  A horrible citizen meant D-Class, and if they were here, that meant a C03 student.

  Towards the back of the crowd, Chloe ducked her head in shame.

  “On one of the terrorists we confiscated a manifesto railing against the class system, and so-called ‘oppression’ by the Federation. And yet, where did they strike? The C-Class dormitory. Not the A-Class dorms, or the B-Class dorms, or the staff building, or the security offices. The C-Class dormitory. Think about that, the so-called “freedom fighters” chose to target the place with the most people to kill, and the most blood to spill. Why would they do that?”

  The crowd erupted in angry screams, two hundred different answers from twice as many people, all overlapping into furious noise.

  “Because they are enemies of progress!” The woman roared, answering for them. “Because they are terrorists, because they are liars, because they are rebel scum, because they are bloodthirsty monsters who want to eat your pets and kidnap your children!

  “They are agents of tyranny, facsimiles of fascism, consorts of communism, and regressives through and through! We will not rest until they have all been brought to justice! If you have any information or evidence that you believe could help us find these criminals, then don’t hesitate to do your Civic Duty to inform us of what you know. Thank you.”

  The woman snapped a sharp salute, before turning crisply on her heel and marching off the stage. Already dozens of students were pushing to form lines in front of the truth enforcement spooks, to tell them everything they could possibly remember since getting to campus, even if almost all of it would be completely useless.

  The headmaster of the university replaced the woman on the podium, looking like he had somehow lost several weeks worth of sleep in the time since Chloe had been in his office. He gently tapped the microphone with his coffee mug to make sure it was still on, before speaking.

  “We have been cooperating with the authorities with everything we can, since they first brought the matter to our attention. They have done several sweeps of the campus and, combined with our thorough background checks, have assured me that our school is completely safe now. The only reason this attack was possible was because of the loosened restrictions for the festival, and the help of a radicalized student with no previous history of crime or violence on record. We have-”

  The headmaster continued to talk, but it was all background white noise to Chloe. Chloe was zoned out, staring down at her arms, and at her leg.

  Her arms, which had been bruised and cut open. Her leg, which had been crushed to a bloody pulp.

  Her arms and leg, which were completely fine.

  Again, for the hundredth time in the last hours she stuck her leg out a bit in front of her and turned it back and forth, looking for, well, anything!

  But she only came up with the same thing that the medics had when they looked her over and sent her on her way with a pat on the back: nothing.

  There was nothing wrong with her, but that in itself was wrong! Legs don’t just grow back, people weren’t like lizards, and she sure as Hell hadn’t been able to do that any of the times she’d gotten injured in the past.

  “-with the number of rooms compromised, we’ll have to rapidly reorganize dorm living arrangements. If you are separated from someone that you requested to bunk with, please have patience with us, and be understanding about the extreme circumstances.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Chloe scratched her arm, her nails digging hard enough into the skin, to draw blood, where that crazy chick had injected her with something.

  She needed answers.

  -Tainted Blood-

  The benefit to all of her belongings being able to fit in a single bag, meant that Chloe wasn’t one of the students who had to spend hours re-packing and lugging multiple trunks around. She went to the new dorm building she was assigned, showed her ID, dropped her backpack on the desk, and left.

  While the University was still sorting itself out, Chloe walked out of the subway, and stepped back into the city.

  The rain came down in a downpour, hitting the sides of the countless skyscrapers, and running off in thick streams. The continental weather manipulation systems must have held the storm off from the big cities for the festivals, but now that it was hitting it was hitting hard.

  Thunder boomed in the distance, and the deluge of cold raindrops came down on her head, soaking her with a crisp chill.

  Chloe leaned her head back and let the water roll down her face. Maybe it was because the sky here lacked the same pollutants that soaked the rain when she was growing up, but this felt almost rejuvenating.

  But despite the rain’s intensity, it wasn't flooding. The D-District would be up to her knees in water right now, but here the streets could barely even be considered slick.

  She watched the water flow down the slight incline of the sidewalk, down the indention along the edge of the road, and pour down one of the many storm drains.

  The sound of muffled water rushing under her feet, was easily heard over the fall of rain, as it was all funneled by the drainage system into the sewers- and then to the water purification center.

  The infrastructure worked brilliantly, to the point that not a single lick of traffic had formed, and quite a few people were still out and about even in this weather.

  Two children ran by splashing in puddles. A young couple laughed as they clung to each other in the rain. An elderly married pair were seated outside an Italian restaurant, eating under a large umbrella.

  But the person she was looking for was not.

  She'd been wandering around for almost an hour, and hadn't seen a single goth chick, let alone the specific crazy one who had stabbed her. The club had no long black hair with white highlights, and the roads had no big stompy boots with the tall heels.

  In other words: this was turning into a major waste of time.

  Chloe scowled and kicked a loose rock as she stomped down a backlane between a gun store and jewelry shop.

  But even here, in an alleyway away from prying eyes, the city was still alien to her. Even here, there was no graffiti or drug peddlers, only some litter, a holographic street light, a dumpster, and a modicum of shelter from the rain.

  Chloe’s back hit the wall, and she slid to the cold ground.

  She just sat there for a long while, alone in the rain, still processing what had happened.

  Her only lead was long gone, and without that, I mean… where was she even supposed to begin to start?

  She raised her hands out in front of her, staring at them like they might explode into snakes and snap out at her at any moment.

  She just couldn’t get that memory out of her head. That picture of her leg ripping itself apart and putting itself back together.

  What happened to her? What was she? Was she even still human?

  “No, I still have to be mostly the same, they did that blood test.” Chloe tried to convince herself, as she gripped her knees to her chest. “I can’t be some sort of monster, they said I was perfectly healthy and in peak shape. It’s a blood test, people can’t cheat on those.”

  But she wasn’t exactly a normal person was she? A dark part of her mind whispered to her.

  “But I didn’t do anything! I didn’t interfere in any way, I just let her take my blood!”

  Except… that wasn’t entirely true… was it?

  “I was telling myself to think healthy.” She whispered to herself in horror. “A-And the result came back saying I was healthier than anyone else…”

  Chloe’s world narrowed around her, and if she wasn’t already sitting down then she might have fallen over as an extreme sense of nausea welled up in her stomach.

  But it could still be a coincidence! She had to test it, prove that she was wrong, and was just overthinking everything.

  “...I want to be taller.” She said softly. “I was disappointed I stopped at 5’10 when some of the other kids hit six feet. Taller. I want to be taller.”

  Chloe tried to picture it as clear as she could. Being able to see over everyone’s head, never getting lost in a crowd again, never having to strain her neck because she was sat behind a tall person, never-

  She gasped as her entire body jerked, and began to spasm.

  It wasn’t just her legs, every other part of her body had to grow to meet the proportions of an increased size. Chloe doubled over, clutching her chest as she felt her bones crack and pop out of place inside her, as her entire skeleton grew at different speeds. She felt her clothes tighten, and her skin stretch painfully as her interior volume expanded faster than her outer shell.

  Less than four seconds in and she backpedaled in panic, gasping for breath as she shrunk back to her original size.

  It hadn’t hurt much at all, but it was almost worse. She could feel everything twisting and writhing inside of her. Normal people didn’t have that kind of sense of touch inside their bodies for a very good reason, and only a few seconds of it had her fighting down what was left in her stomach as it tried to come up.

  “Okay, o-okay, less extreme.” She gulped. “Longer nails. How about just longer nails?”

  She raised her hands and watched in a mixture of horror and amazement as her fingernails sharpened and extended into boney claws, just like one of her favorite comic book characters, Wolf-Marine!

  The thought of comic books and manga gave her a brief pause, before she jumped on it like a liferaft, and clung to it like a rope that was dangling off a cliff.

  “It’s a superpower!” She exclaimed, almost hysterically. “I-I have a superpower! HAHA! Superpowers are good to have! They are a good thing, even if I can feel my own skin slither off my body, I’m not some sort of monstrous freak! AHAHA! HAHA!”

  Chloe clenched her fists so tightly that her new claws dug deep into her palms, but the pain was distant and muted- like it had been for days now.

  She brought her clenched fists to her temples, leaned her head back in the rain, and screamed into the storm.

  -Arc End-

  Blame Deadspace for making me realize how horrifying shapeshifting powers would be to actually have. Forget the magic *poof* in the cartoons, that’s some grade A body horror shit.