Welcome to Gaia! ::

Eventually the fever had gotten the better of Jamal and he fell into another restless sleep, lying as comfortably as one can on the lumpy beach in the midst of some sort of bizzare sickness. Again his sleep was filled with a strange mix of color and shapes, but now something slowly became distinguishable in it this time.

Jamal found himself on a dark street, void of streetlights except for one that shone dimly above his head as though it were on the verge of flickering out. The air was cold and heavy, stiff with the scents of alleyway garbage and sewer. This was home...it smelt so distinctly of home, anyway... He started to walk down the sidewalk, eyes searching the brick walls beside him for a sign of something familiar.

"Mangy animal," came a bitter snarl from the shadowed doorway of a closed store front a few paces away. "Lettin' people like you out herr at night. Get back to yo' place, ya damn nig!" Glints of metal reflected off the figure near the chest and at the hip, yet the shadows easily hid the form of the person there that confided in the shadows.

The black man paused, a hand instinctively going to his hip where he once had always carried a pistol, memory of being stuck on a deserted island far from his mind as the flat of his palm actually hit the cool metal of the weapon. It was drawn silently as Jamal's eyes narrowed.

"Gonna show yo' ********' face o' you just gunna talk?" he snarled back in challenge, clicking the chamber of the weapon open to check for rounds, which he found. The bullets looked odd from what he could see from the back, but he thought nothing of it. Bullets were bullets, right? If he had taken one out, they would have looked like syringes...familiar syringes of light blue that he had seen once before in his life.

The stranger in the shadows moved forward and the reflections of metal soon lit up the badges and pins that lay on the breast pocket of the individual there as well as the snaps and buckles on the belt. It was a cop. He smiled wickedly at Jamal and drew his own weapon, but held it lazily unlike the larger black man, who held it delicately with a finger over the trigger. "Oh come now, Jamal. You knew it was coming. You knew I was waiting for you after what you ******** you. I didn't do nuthin'," Jamal shot back, waving the gun warningly.

The cop smiled a condescending smile and shook his head like an indulgent parent might. "Always refusing to admit...but Jamal, you know you screwed up. You told me so."

Jamal snorted, growing somewhat leary. He never told a cop about anything....

"You don't know s**t," said the black man brashly, weapon lowering a tad.

"I know too much, Jamal. Perhaps you thought we forgot about you? Tsk tsk tsk..."

'We?' Jamal suddenly felt a prickle at the back of his neck.

From the shadows, an eruption of clicks came...the sound of a chamber being put in the barrel of a gun. It was a sound Jamal had heard enough to know exactly what it was. As Jamal's wary eyes started to circle his surroundings, he was met with the shadowed forms of several other individuals...yet these forms were not the same as the cop before him. Some looked furry...others scaley. Some were taller and some shorter...and he swore up and down he saw features that were nothing like he'd seen before on a human. All held guns that were leveled square at him.

"Don't worry...this won't hurt much," the cop said genially, stepping forward fully. Jamal was treated with a gaze of deep green and from beneath the hat were sprigs of red...there was something about this man that Jamal found strangely familiar. As he moved forward, the circle of people around him did also.

Jamal snapped his head around, looking for a way out of the circle but found nothing. The circle closed in too rapidly.

"Get da ******** back o' I'll ********' shoot!" he shouted suddenly as he whirled around again with the gun lifted, yet realized how futile of an effort that would be. Nearly forty bodies pressed in around him, closer and closer, an intense smell of something musty and...almost animalistic swallowed him.

Once more he turned and found the cool barrel of a gun pressed to the very center of his forehead abruptly. Jamal went to slam the butt of his own weapon into the individual's face but stopped sort as he was greeted with violet eyes, bright blue hair, and a solemn face that was all too familiar. Awen?

The girl said nothing...just stared at him as she held the gun to his head...he didn't even think to see how she could so easily reach his head when she was so damn short. Jamal went to touch her shoulder but the woman easily evaded the touch without moving the gun.

"What da ********, Awen?" he ventured slowly. "Put da ********' gun down."

The woman didn't acknowledge his words.

Jamal again tried to touch her but again it seemed that he could not touch her. She gave him a very ghost-like smile.

"You thought you were untouchable, Jamal," she said in a oddly sweet, solemn way that made Jamal grow even more nervous. "I should have known better...but it's okay. You'll be like me soon enough."

The black man's gaze darted around the circle, falling now on familiar faces: Ambrose...Greer...Amaya...Chubbs... All of them held guns that were leveled calmly at his chest, each giving him no inkling of emotion. Jamal knew that one move and he was done, but deep inside he knew it was over. He saw it in Awen's eyes.

"I..I didn't do nuthin'," he insisted again, but did so to those assembled around him. Oddly enough, the cop had disappeared. Jamal was surrounded by his peers now. The 'islanders' all gave him emotionless stares, save Awen, who looked almost sympathetic.

"They all know...they know about everything. But it's okay. You'll be like us and see that you are not invincible. That you hurt ********, Awen," he hissed, dropping his gun to the sidewalk. "I thought I meant somethin' to ya..."

Awen shook her head ever so slightly. "Something...you -did- mean something, but times change."

Jamal went to move forward, to try and sway Awen. If he could get her, maybe everyone else would drop their weapon. He knew he was outnumbered.

As he moved, pain of the upmost intensity suddenly scored his body. The air around him erupted with coils of smoke...coils of discharged and spent gunpowder. He turned to look in shock as the gun in front of his forehead also gave a coil of smoke and behind it was Awen's face, completely void of emotion like the others. He felt something cold dripping down his forehead and pooling around the sides of his nose.

He screamed suddenly as his skin felt like it was set on fire and his hands reached out to grab at Awen's arms to hold him steady, but the woman's skin felt so slippery...like wet rubber. His hands could find no purchase as he fell backwards among the forest of clawed and padded feet that surrounded his body. It was over...he was going to die.

Jamal's dream scream was not just emitted in his head; he suddenly jerked violently as he lie there on the sand and gave the same scream into the chilled beach air.

The headache was definately the last of his problems.

He cried out again as the feeling of burning raced from his fingertips, over his wrists, and quickly up his arms and shoulders, the pain of the physical change completely overshadowing the visual effect of his skin paling. Jamal was easily hefted into a kneeling position and clenched to Antony's form, completely at the mercy of the transformation that spread like a cloak of flame down across his shoulders, down his back, and started to pool at his tailbone.

The pressure of Antony's arms around his side made the sensitive bleached skin jump and spasm and he blindly reached out to push her away, another moan of agony escaping his mouth. As the palm of one hand touched her shoulder, the disgusting sight of fingernails being pushed free of the tender nailbeds greeted them both, the spent 'bodyparts' falling into the sand before dribbles of blood started to seep from his naked fingertips out of no where. Shards of white bone started to protrude from these tips, stained with the blood that flowed freely from both hands now, one placed on Antony's shoulder and the other tucked to his chest. His hands gnarled into fists, the fresh claws that were forming slowly piercing both the flesh of his own palm and that of Antony's shoulder. He didn't realize what he was doing, of course, but he couldn't stop the urge to clench the mutating digits in a futile effort to ease the pain.

"Make...make it..." he struggled aloud in a piteous whine, the terror on his face easily outdoing any other time he might have been afraid. He struggled to look at Antony's face, pleading with her as though she had control over this. "Antony do somethin'....I can't..can't...this...." It was uncertain if he understood what was really happening or if he was in some sort of denial.

A similar transformation had happened with his feet, but most of the pain was occuring at the top of his body, so it almost went completely ignored. The blood crusted unpleasantly with the sand that surrounded his feet, for now effectively hiding the lengthened foot bones and new claws from view. A new frustration rose with the fright he was feeling as he instinctively tried to retract his new claws but found them unmoving and the attempt only brought fresh pain as the muscles continued to rearrange themselves for later use.

Jamal suddenly tried to tear himself away as he realized that he was bleeding, eyes focusing on the red blotch on Antony's shoulder; the blood at his finger tips had now started to ebb at this point with the formation of his new claws and the muscles made his digits feel less nimble and delicate as they used to be.

Then he realized what was happening. This wasn't a continuation of his dream.

"NO," he shouted suddenly, the word garbled somewhat as his mouth started to change to give room to the enlarging canines that started to peek through his drawn, thin lips. "********' NO."

He roughly pushed himself away from Antony, struggling against her arms until he could finally get free, newly clawed hands raised in disbelief in front of his face as he spun away clumsily to fall to a knee in the sand more than an arms length away. He caught himself from falling face first into the sand...one small saving grace.

The whiter tips of his hands contrasted eerily with the dried blood and sand that covered each nail...yet...the scent of blood caught something strange within him suddenly as he crouched there, chest heaving. He lifted a sand-covered hand up towards his nose, which had flattened height-wise and spread into a more typical feline nose. He almost looked in awe of the blood there for a moment...like he was going to lick his hands, but then spooked suddenly as whiskers erupted from the fleshy portion above his lips and brushed against his vaguely aching hands. His ears were not noticed, thanks to the development of a new pain that drifted over his face towards the center.

A strangled hissy scream left his mouth as the pain trickled upwards to his eyes and he jammed his lids shut as hard as he could, head drooping down towards the hand as he felt his remaining energy starting to sap away. He couldn't tell that he was getting the distinct black 'skin' patches at the bottom and top of his eyes that amplified his feline-esque changes since he had no reflection nearby. His eyelids parted slowly when the pain started to leave, giving Antony the 'pleasure' of watching the last bits of deep brown iris of each eye be swallowed by the icey blue that he was now stuck with.

Most of the drastic changes had finished but everything hurt. EVERYTHING. His new eyes easily cut the shadows in the jungle that spanned the distance behind Antony and with it came the musty scent of comforting wood and dirt. He had felt this feeling before, but it was so much stronger now. Jamal moved slowly to stand, grimacing as the remaining ache in his muscles flared, eyes flitting from the jungle to Antony. He...smelt her. At least, he thought it was her...and he smelt a vague sort of fear about her. It almost made him laugh, but mostly it made him angry. Lips parted to show his new fangs, the normal warmth that was easily found in his once dark eyes now replaced with a chilling, almost calculating air.

Then it hit him again. What had really happened.

His chest heaved painfully and his newly clawed hands pressed to his bare chest that was now littered with faint dark stripes. He couldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it...he WOULDN'T.

He gave Antony another look of terror and confusion but he didn't know what to say.

It's...It's over...

Jamal's face suddenly contorted into a fierce snarl as Antony's words sank into a reverbing echo in his addled brain, lips parting clumsily over his lengthened canines. His mouth was not accustomed to making such gestures to work around his new mouthful of teeth so it was no surprise that he cut the tender flesh of his lips accidently. Weak spiderwebs of blood fell into the creases of his dried lips, a side effect from his previous dehydration.

"Ova? OVA?" he erupted, a hand lashing out as though he was going to catch her in the chest or abdomen with his new weaponry. Thankfully he was too far away to reach her; if he was in the right mind, he'd have never tried to gut her anyway, so surely once this was all over he'd be grateful for this...

But the fact she was out of reach only seemed to spark a new flame of intense anger that flashed in his cool, steely eyes and bristled his newly formed whiskers. He inhaled sharply and turned, the small tail nub snapping painfully with the motion as it peeked over the back of his tattered jeans.

"How ********'? You think this is OVA? How kin' you ********' SAY dat? HOW CAN YOU." He screamed the last line to the ocean as he tripped over his oddly formed feet, hitting the sand hard on his knees. Thankfully this area of his body had the least change so the impact just stung a little. However, his lack of grace only made him more angry and he pounded the dirt with his thickened hands until the pain was so bad that he had to stop because he thought his hands were going to split open again.

No, this wasn't over. This was the beginning of the end. He was so close...so close to being free. He had them ALL beat...everyone else was changing and he had made it so far...for this? FOR ********, ********, ********, ********, ******** <******** was distinctly aware of the jungle now. There was safety and protection in the jungle...the beach was not safe.

Jamal's expression lacked any sympathy for anything he might have said that come off poorly. He didn't care.

"Look at dis. LOOK," he practically keened, lifting his clawed hands to shove them in the air towards Antony whilst practically vibrating with rage and disgust, staring at the shiny new claws against the paler flesh with revolt coiling in his stomach. He was turning white. WHITE, WTF. He was NOT Michael Jackson...this was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong.

He clasped his hands together with a loud slap then after speaking, starting to systematically tear at the foreign skin so welts started to rise, followed by bloody scratches. His rougher palms started to smear the ruddy fluid across the very palest portions of skin in a crazed ploy to cover the change...as though the blood would bring back the medium brown hue if he had enough of it. It obviously was not going to work and with each pass of claws on skin, his nostrils flared and his whiskers bristled.

"This ain't me. No. No no no no," he challenged, eyes darting from hand to hand as he wiped and tore, caring little for the strange striping that retained his normal skin hue.

This was too overwhelming for him. He couldn't handle this. Tears started to spring at the corners of his eyes as panic and pain rose in unison. He was a freak. He was one of -them- and now there was nothing about him that he could use to distinguish him from people like Ambrose. Like -AMBROSE-.

He gave a tortured cry and crumpled forward in a heap, bloody arms reaching over his head to clench at the back of his neck, claws digging into the frazzled and torn edges of his cornrows. Racking sobs mixed with gutteral yowling noises took over the odd silence that had fallen once he had stopped shouting.

He couldn't bring himself to look at her directly at this point. He was so disgusted and ashamed of himself. The air reeked of blood and sweat now and it was so distracting; he couldn't concentrate on what was going on amidst the strengthened instincts and the new sensory skills.

Jamal stared at her hand in a sort of muddled stupor, not really hearing a word she was staying. She had normal hands...human hands. The sight of it made the anger in his chest tighten in envy. The entire feeling of just being generally pissed off had taken up almost the entirety of his emotional capacity.

She could probably feel him physically start to tense as he started despise her normalcy. She could say all this but she had no ******** idea. Now he understood all the other islanders when they spoke of transformation and how they felt. It all made sense.

"What if I be like dat?" he practically spat into the silence, drawing his whiskers in towards the flat of his cheeks, purposefully trying to start an argument for some reason or another that he couldn't quite figure out. Jamal just wanted to go off...he just needed the trigger pulled... "Maybe I'm jus' a good ********' liar."

The light touch on his abs was not entirely unpleasant but given his current emotional status, it also brought another wave of resentment. He understood that she was worried and didn't want him to hurt himself but he had this inclination that he just wanted to be left alone. That her mere presence only spiked his irritation.

"You ain't gonna have ta take nuthin'," he said slowly as he stood up, trying his damnest to keep his anger at the situtation in check and not go ballistic on her. "Cause this ain't yo' fault. I ain't takin' it out on you...don't make me do it..." Jamal raised a hand to point at her, canines again pointing through between his lips. The timbre of his voice was clearly that of someone having an internal struggle...trying to remain calm yet obviously the situtation at hand would not allow it.

He felt like he needed to go away somewhere. The beach was not comforting, the words coming from Antony's mouth weren't comforting....nothing was. The drying blood on his hands and arms were now giving a pungent smell of into the air that prickled at something in his brain. It fascinated him but also scared him at the same time. It was all too much.

Jamal's gaze fell from Antony's form as she spoke, taking in the sight of the striping on his limbs and the nasty claws tipping both toes and fingers. He hadn't seen his face yet and couldn't bear to right then. Was he really still Jamal? How could he be? This was not Jamal. She didn't understand.

The black man looked almost hopeless as he stood there on the beach, staring at the rough palms of his hands, ears twitching as the sensitive hair on the rims caught the breezy ocean air. For a moment, he stood completely still, then he gave a gutteral yowling shout, throwing his hands from his face, and stalked for the jungle. Everything inside him was blowing up faster and faster until he lost sight of exactly what was going on.

The jungle was where he'd find comfort. The tiger inside him knew. He needed to be alone.

Stewart hadn't realy exprected to find anyone anytime soon. But he caught the end of the argument. He didn't move as he watched the large cat-like man storm off into the jungle. But there was another figure standing there... Was that Antony? No, he would not be tempted by her again. He would not fall to Satan't temptation. With a new determination he walked foward, still trying to figure out what had happened.