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Chapter 4: April

Father Mikael sighed as he moved through his parish, hearing the whispers of some of the people nearby. It had been more than a long month for him. As an effort to soothe the people near his Orange County church he had come up with a way to put their minds at ease. It was a simple trinket that people could buy from his church to calm themselves, which was always his intent. He had marketed them in one of his sermons as something that could help remove the worry and ill feelings caused as a result of the incident. Unfortunately it didn't take long before it made the news that not only that he was doing this but that he was making a profit on something that ultimately did nothing. Father Mikael would have protested more vehemently but it was for the most part true. Half of the cost of those trinkets was just to cover the materials. A quarter of the rest went straight to the church itself. The rest he pocketed with the thought that there would be no harm done from such an act.

He notices a strange man that he hadn't seen before walk up to him from inside of the church, heading over to him. There wasn't too much strange about him in particular, mainly just his outfit struck Mikael as strange. The man was wearing a white lab coat over a fairly non-descript suit underneath. The man pushes up his glasses before addressing the Father.

"It is very much in your best interests to not go into your church for the rest of the day," he states.

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"I cannot elaborate any more at this time. If you'll excuse me," the man states again before leaving and almost seeming to have completely forgotten where he was or that he had even said anything.

Mikael turns around and quickly heads back into the church to see what might have been changed. His first impulse was that that strange man must have done something to his church, be it vandalism of some form or another or in the worst case scenario some sort of time bomb or something. The only thing he finds that wasn't normally there is a piece of paper on an altar with an obsidian object placed on top of it.

He picks up the little chess piece for a moment and examines it closely, recognizing it for what it is and thinking it nothing more than some sort of practical joke being played on him for some reason or other. It takes him a moment before he notices the note that had been below it.

"To Mikael:

I have found it most fitting for you to play the role of the Bishop. Consider my offering a gift if you will. Like in chess many strategies would be severely hindered without the aid of the bishops. Though you may not appreciate it I am giving you quite a bit more than you may think by giving you this role. I know to such a man as yourself it is just another honor. On reading implied injustices I was very distraught. To think one such as yourself would be capable of such. But worry not for I have a lot of faith in you. I am sure that you give back to your community far more than you make. Their trip would bowl again and be no more if it was not for everything you put into it. But with this consider past offenses cleared for all eternity."

Mikael puts the paper down and considers the words for a minute but doesn't really have any idea of what it is about. In particular he can't tell whether there is any threat in there or if it is someone who is giving comfort to him during these troubling times. He leaves the paper and the chess piece where he found them. As he walks he finds that his hands are starting to itch but doesn't pay it any mind. But as he greets one of the parishioners the itching only seems to get worse. It gets to the point where he can't resist the urge to scratch at it. But as he watches the road outside of the church his mind barely registers a particular advertisement on one of the buildings on the other side of the road. As he continues to scratch he frowns at how he always thought that those ads did nothing but be an eyesore for the entire community.

Mikael sees something that strikes him as very strange. Across the road coming seemingly from nowhere are a couple of animals staring at him. One of them seems to be some sort of small red doglike creature, possibly a fox. The other looks like some sort of kangaroo. He stares at them for a moment before a wave of nausea comes over him. He closes his eyes and raises his hands to try and steady himself. It takes a moment for the nausea to pass though once it does he notices that his hands don't really feel right.

Mikael looks down and can't believe his eyes. Along the back of his hands an almost thick coating of black fur-like hairs seems to have formed. He reaches with one hand and grabs at it but it does feel like it's attached to his skin. What's worse is that he can tell from the sensation that it's growing thicker with each passing second. On top of that it also seems to be starting to be spreading with each passing second.

Thinking it nothing more than another hallucination he decides to try and see if maybe getting something to drink would help him clear his head. If he is still hallucinating after that point he might after to go and ask for someone to come and stand in for him so that he can head out to the hospital. It would do no one any good if he ended up passing out mid-service. But as he leans over to drink from a nearby drinking fountain he notices a slight change in how the water tastes and feels against his tongue.

He stands up and wonders about the taste of the water as he absentmindedly scratches at an itch on one of his ears.

"Unless whatever's causing these hallucinations are also affecting my sense of taste it might be that there is something wrong with the water. If so then someone else might be seeing the effects as well."

Mikael notices that a few of the other people in the church seem to be staring at him with a rather strange look on their faces. Thinking that they might be experiencing similar hallucinations he starts walking towards them, though he's starting to note that his feet seem to becoming more and more cramped in his shoes and that somehow he can start to hear things a little more clearly than he normally could. He also notices that his tongue doesn't seem to quite seem to fit in his mouth anymore, making him wonder if perhaps his tongue is swelling which might be all the more reason to go to a hospital if it doesn't subside quickly.

As he approaches them he notices them all raise their arms trying to ward him off as they also start back away, some of the others already making their way towards leaving the church as rapidly as they can without running. Mikael stops for a moment, completely confused at what's going on as small bulges start to form on the front of his shoes and the shoes start to fall apart bit by bit. It takes until he hears a single word coming from one of the people in front of him that makes it suddenly dawn on what might be happening. The Incident.

Mikael looks down at his hands once again with this new realization. Seeing that the fur growth that seems to have expanded up halfway his arm by this point hits him in a completely different way. It never had anything to do with him hallucinating. He was becoming an animal like the rumors claimed happened on the Incident three months ago. He doubles over as what seems to be a massive cramp in his abdomen hits him, his pants tearing slightly as a stub of a tail pushes out.

"It's that man," Mikael whimpers to himself as he tries to fight the pain and the change undergoing his body. "He's responsible for this. He must have put that note and chess piece there and told me not to enter to ensure I would go in and find it immediately."

Mikael clenches his hands into fists as he continues to try and fight his transformation, a sort of rage building up inside of him. His legs involuntarily kick out behind him as they continue to grow longer, having already grown well past the point where his shoes could contain them. The shoes all but dangling off his heels only seem to irritate him even more. Eventually he's left with no choice but force himself to turn over so that he can address the issue. As he does so the fact he can't really get comfortable with his short tail only frustrates him further, but he sets to the task anyway of tearing his tattered shoes off his feet.

He barely notes how his feet have already grown to twice the normal length. On top of that his toes seem to have swollen quite a bit, his big toe having moved up a bit and has grown slightly smaller as well. His attention is instead focused on trying to find some way to get back at that man in the white lab coat. His chest is starting to feel like it's on fire as well as his chest starts expanding slowly. He half growls in anger over having been played so easily. It takes him a second before realizing what he's doing and when he does he quickly closes his mouth and ends up biting his tongue.

Mikael swears out loud at the frustration of having been played so easily and for being so foolish to not know where his tongue is in relation to his teeth. As one of the nearby onlookers try to see if they can maybe help Mikael somewhat his vision starts to go somewhat fuzzy as his eyes begin to change. When he feels someone touching him he turns his straining body to see who it is and all his mind notices is that it's someone wearing a white shirt. Thinking it is the man in the white coat Mikael grabs him by the throat and charges forward, slamming him into a nearby pillar.

One of the other people nearby grabs onto Mikael's feline tail and yanks as hard as he can. This along with the difficulty in breathing due to his expanding chest cause his grip on the man wearing a white shirt to falter, though he does maintain it. He kicks back at the man yanking at his tail, barely even noticing how he now has so much sensation in it to the extent he could feel it when that man had let go of the black furred tail. After a moment he finds his strength coming back as his anger only intensifies. On top of that he almost seems to be stronger than he was previously.

Mikael picks up the man wearing the white shirt and shoves him into the pillar again. He grips the poor man by the neck as tightly as he can, the man struggling to try and find some way to free himself from his current situation before his life gets choked away from him but to almost no avail. One of the other men in the area picks up a bible and begins hitting Mikael on his back with it, trying to help his friend. Finally the blood begins to clear on Mikael's now feline eyes and he can see that the man in his hands is not the man that he hates with such a passion but that he's about to kill an innocent man. Realizing this he throws the man he was choking into the man that was beating him with that annoying object.

Seeing that his quarry is not in the building, Mikael rushes out of the church and stumbles down the stairs, not quite used to trying to move around on such altered legs. He manages to stop after falling halfway down to the bottom. His body aches from the fall though his concern is not so much on the scuffs and scrapes that the fall impacted on his body, but at his frustration of not being able to use his body to catch the one that did this to him. The building tension inside of his reaches a peak and he roars out his anger at the top of his lungs before a burst of orange light flies out of him in all directions. The result steals his consciousness from him and he passes out on the steps.