The Change, part 1
Something I've been working on for a little while, now. It's set in Lithuania because... Well, because. Assume the characters to be speaking Russian, and this is just kind of translated for us.
The city was quiet, but for the odd shout from here or there. Even in the face of all this, the utter quiet of Visaginas seemed strangest to him. He'd grown up here, and never once before two weeks ago had it ever had such stillness.
Victor broke himself from reflection and shouldered the heavy pack of cans once more. He'd been pleasantly surprised to find the grocery stores mostly untouched, the canned and packaged food still on the shelves, like the stores were just closed. The others preferred fresher fare, it seemed.
He was mindful to follow the twisting, indirect route back to the apartment he'd worked out with Artyom, so as to confuse a less-determined pursuit. It seemed to have worked, so far. He kept his eyes moving and his grip on the lead pipe he carried firm.
After about thirty minutes, he came to the door of the apartment. He checked all around once more, and walked up.
The door was opened quickly by a figure in a hooded sweater, the hood drawn up to largely leave his face in shadow. Artyom. Victor hurried inside and Artyom closed and locked it as soon as he was clear.
They stood in the hallway regarding each other a moment. Changing gears, from the defensive back to themselves. Victor lay down the pipe and they embraced warmly, though Artyom held his head up and high, so his chin could not rest on Victor's shoulder. They disentangled, though Victor tried to take hold of Artyom's hand. Artyom drew it back, into the pocket of his sweater.
"You don't need to do that," Victor said, in a tone which conveyed most of the concern he felt, but not all. His voice had often failed him this way.
Artyom stood silent, not wanting to speak for a moment.
"I know," he said at last. He spoke sharply, muttering the words out as fast as possible. His voice was a little different, now, than it used to be.
Victor reached out to Artyom slowly, gently. The other shied away, at first, but presently stopped his retreat and allowed the hand closer. It gently took the edge of the hood and pushed it back off the head it concealed.
What stood now in the hallway was a result of what they'd taken to calling the Change, for lack of any specifics to pin to it. The Event had come at midnight two weeks prior, a dazzlingly-bright aurora borealis, all in blue. People had stood in the street in awe, Artyom and Victor included. Like watching fireworks.
Then, at once, everything was different. To the mind of each person present there, it was as though every solid thing, every set boundary of the universe had for a moment become fluid, shaped by a whim and thought. And perhaps it had.
Artyom had been a young, lithe man with a taste for other young men, and an alter-ego fantasy that took the form of a swift arctic fox.
What stood now before Victor was a humanoid, vulpine creature with blue-tinged fur and piercing yellow eyes. Artyom trembled for a moment, and swiftly turned away, bringing a hand (covered, too, in sky blue fur and each finger tipped in an obsidian-black claw) up to try to hide his face. Victor moved forward, trying to hug Artyom again, to comfort him, but Artyom pushed him away.
"I don't care!" Victor exclaimed. "I don't care what you look like, Art, I really don't."
"I'm a fucking monster!" Artyom cried, his arms brought up to hide his face. His frame shook with sobs, and he slid down against the wall, his arms falling and wrapping around his legs, as he curled into a shaking ball. Even the long, exceptionally-bushy animal tail which poked up from the back of his jeans wrapped around him, a largely unconscious movement.
Victor carefully moved to him and got down on the floor with him, gently putting his arms around him. Artyom flinched once, but then simply resumed crying, all strength to resist seeming to have gone out of him.
"It's not important," Victor said softly into one tall, triangular ear.
The Change's effects had varied massively. It transformed Artyom into an approximation of his fantasy self. Others had changed subtly, growing taller or shorter, changing dimensions of stomach or face or shoulders. Some twisted into things totally unrecognizable and died on the spot. Some became strange things, varying in form from squat, ugly goblins, to human-shaped things made of steel, to anthropomorphic beings similar to Artyom. Many of them seemed intrinsically, basically harmed by the transformation, though, and set about killing and destroying anything before them.
Victor, confused, frightened, but not frozen, had grabbed Artyom by the arm and run for the nearest door. They'd barricaded the door, locked themselves in the bathroom, and listened as their fair city tore itself apart.
Things calmed once the sun rose. The mad ones seemed threatened by the daylight, or calmed by it, perhaps. They always dispersed and went into hiding during the day, apart from a few who aimlessly wandered the streets. Each night was a renewed circus of insanity, shrieks and roars and screams filling the air as they made sport of fighting and mutilating each other, and any sane ones, like Victor and Artyom, they could find.
Since then, Artyom had been in a highly delicate state. A part of himself he'd once described as an image of his baser, wilder, less-civilized natures had now become his sole physical reality, and his reaction was a war between wonderment and horror.
Victor, too, had changed, though he was one of those whose changes had been most subtle. His formerly blond hair had gone white, he was about three inches taller, and his eyes were an unnatural, arcane blue. The color blue seemed to mark them all, in the eyes, the skin, the hair, wherever it could.
As Artyom attempted to cope and adapt, Victor had largely been the runner of risks, such as collecting food or supplies. It was ironic, given their relationship before the Change. Then, Artyom had always been the daring one, the one to suggest an impromptu thirty mile drive to an underground dance club he'd heard about, the one to shove Victor against the wall in a back ally and kiss him passionately, just for the thrill that they might be caught. It pained Victor to see him like this, so lacking in confidence.
It was the morning after he'd come back from the food run. The night had been bad, its normal level of horror and fear agitated by Artyom's increased vulnerability. He was still sleeping, though Victor guessed it to be around ten.
Victor used a can of Sterno to prepare the closest thing to a hot breakfast available; baked beans and some ham. The smell was vaguely off-putting, even as his stomach growled and groaned; Artyom and he had been very lean eaters, back when salad and and tofu had been readily available. Still, a hot meal would do them both some good, he thought. He laid the frying pan directly on the hole in the can to snuff the flame, separated the food into a pair of bowls with spoons, and carried them quietly into his and Artyom's bedroom.
He found Artyom sitting up in bed, his tail wrapped around so he could hold the end of it. He was touching it and moving it about experimentally. It sometimes moved out of his grasp at random, but largely it held its place in front of him. He looked up at the smell of the food.
"Good morning," Victor greeted, handing him a bowl.
"Good morning," Artyom replied, setting into his food quickly. After the previous night, Victor thought, he must have been drained.
Victor sat down next to him and started eating.
"You cooked," Artyom observed, between bites. He hadn't gotten well enough used to the new shape of his mouth to eat and talk without getting food everywhere. "I thought we were going to ration those Sterno cans out."
Artyom ate a few more spoonfuls before realizing he might have sounded ungrateful.
"Thanks, though," he said, looking Victor in the eye. "This is pretty good."
"This seemed like a deserving occasion," Victor replied, meeting Artyom's eyes. "You were pretty bad, last night."
Artyom took another bite and chewed it slowly, as if lost in thought.
"Sometimes I just can't help but think," he said, "How you must feel, seeing me..."
Victor put a hand over Artyom's.
"What I feel when I look at you is no different from what I felt before all of this," he said, confidently, firmly holding Artyom's gaze. "I love you, Artyom. Even the whole world losing its mind can't change that."
"Besides," he continued, taking his hand away to continue to eat. "The way you look really isn't bad. You told me that the part of you you saw this way was your most adventurous. The spontaneous side of you. Maybe it still can be."
"But, Victor," he replied, his eyes becoming a little wet. "This was never supposed to be all of me. I looked to this when I needed confidence. It was a little thing to turn to when I needed it and occasionally play with when I didn't. This-" he held up a furred, clawed hand. "Wasn't supposed to be real."
Victor wrapped his own hand around Artyom's upraised one. Artyom kept trying to flinch away when Victor touched his hands, as if they would repulse him, and Victor wanted to show as often as he could that they didn't. What it physically felt like was all but meaningless to him; it was Artyom's hand, and that was all that mattered.
"I know it wasn't," Victor said. "But now it is. And that doesn't have to be a bad thing. We're all going to have to rethink ourselves a little, now."
Artyom stared into Victor's eyes. He saw no repulsion there, no offense at what they beheld. He set down his empty bowl and brought his other hand forward. Victor intuitively took it as well. They laced their fingers together, turning to face each other fully. Artyom was nervous, terrified, but he bit back on the fear and tried to find a little of the confidence this face he now wore had once given him.
He leaned forward, letting his eyes fall shut as he went. Victor copied the action. Their lips, Victor's full and human and Artyom's thin and vulpine, met gently in the middle, though a little earlier than they were used to. Kissing was a different experience given the dimensions of Artyom's new face, but they felt, then, that they could get used to it.