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 Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:25 pm
Tommy gives a nervous smile, wondering if the guy was having a heart attack. ...but...the labs would know about that with the chip...wouldn't they? I mean...they've got to be monitoring our health from those chips...right? Also...Baghdad...gotta remember to ask him about that. He keeps an eye on Richard a moment before looking back to Gaius. He looks down a moment before trying once again to meet his gaze.
"Yeah...it's me...I uh...they got to me again...heh," he chuckles, a bit uncomfortably, "'course...seems like they're getting to us all."
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:40 pm
Tommy wasn't the only one worrying about Richard. Gaius watched him out of the corner of his vision as he bent down to take another chunk out of the ground. Hopefully some rest would have the guy back in good condition.
His heart wasn't really in it, though. With a sigh, Gaius stuck the shovel in the ground and leaned on it, looking back up at Tommy. It was hard to keep his eyes from darting over the strange new features, especially the fingers, those painful-looking digits. A dry chuckle escaped him. "Yeah, they are... apparantly, according to some, I didn't come off so bad... but I wouldn't call it 'lucky'. Still..." he gave a sad smile, "I'm sorry, that looks like it has to be hard... but at least it's not an octopus, right?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 7:52 pm
Richard was on fire. His pulse was thundering through him, he could feel it in the back of his eyeballs. Every muscle in his body suddenly tensed. The plastic cup was crushed in his hand, the water forced out in a geyser that sprayed over Gaius's face and neck. The grin contoured into to a crazy smile of pain as something in his back began to tunnel out towards his sides.
This is it. Richard couldn't feel it, his heart could take this strain. It was going to seize. He could feel it skip a beat, then another.
He was going to die. Thank God.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:05 pm
"Heh...yeah...there's always that optio..." he trails off when he sees Richard out of the corner of his eyes. His eyes go wide and he quickly makes his way over toward the old man, "Jesus, Richard! Gaius, come quick! I think he's having a heart attack!" Tommy looks around at the unseen cameras and yells out while attempting to help support Richard with his gangly hands, "You ******** at the lab better get a goddamn defibrillator and an EMT down here!" He doesn't seem to have noticed the strange protrusions trying to push out of Richard's shirt as of yet.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:14 pm
"Holy sh-" Gaius's curse was cut short by the face-full of water as he and Tommy rushed to the red-faced man's sides. He shook the stuff out of his face to try and see again and scowled. "Damnit, I knew I shouldn't have let him work! Quick, get his legs raised above his chest level!"
However, Gaius was no expert at emergency care in cases like this. That fear he'd harbored the first time he'd met the old man resurfaced now for real - how was he to care for a man undergoing a heart attack or stroke or WORSE? His panicked eyes looked over Richard, lingering on the crazed grin.
"Damnit, where are the labs? Shouldn't they be able to take care of things like this?!"
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:36 pm
As Gaius and Tommy rushed to help Richard manage to whisper protestations. "No. No. Its fine."
Then his heart stopped. The pounding of his pulse was silenced. His muscles gave out and for one, two, three eternal seconds Richard could feel himself slipping into sweet blackness. He stopped breathing, everything just... stopped.
Richard fell into Gaius and Tommy's hands as they reached him.
Unfortunately for Richard and his deathwish, his heart had not died. It was merely regrouping. The marks of decades of abuse were being undone, cells that had stopped dividing decades ago split themselves in twain. They moved into the black scar, forming new healthly tissue.
Then with a massive spasm powerful enough to throw back both Gaius and Tommy, Richard's body roared back in the land of the living.
Richard's lungs took in air and let out a blood curdling scream of pain that carried through the village and beyond. Two fleshy growths burst from his sides, jerking wildly as their nerves race to keep up with the stretching bones.
And it wasn't done yet.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:41 pm
Tommy is speechless for the first time in a long time as Richard just falls foreward into their arms. He looks over to Gaius, eyes wide with shock. "I...Oh God..." is all he can manage out before Richard's powerful spasm knocks him back. His unwieldy feet of course don't cooperate and he's left sitting, staring at Richard as extra limbs that just shouldn't be there begin to grow out.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 8:48 pm
Gaius fell back painfully on his tail as Richard spasmed and howled. What he'd feared just then was quickly replaced by a new fear that made his blood run cold. Richard wasn't dying, he was changing.
As if to affirm his thoughts, two bizarre growths tore through Richard's clothing. Gaius could only gawk and stare. It was... bizarre. Sid had been terrifying with the teeth and jaw, but this... Gaius felt as if he was watching himself, almost. Two new limbs that looked so mis-placed there on his body. Gaius shook his head. "He's... he's... gotten. Too."
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:13 pm
Consious thought returned to Richard. The pain subsided for the moment. He spat, a bloodly loogi hit the dirt and two teeth bounced out of it, their ancient sliver fillings caught the sunlight and twinkled in the afternoon sun.
Richard only though was getting up. He was not going to lay in the dirt and whimper from this assult. He had no idea what was happening but he would face it on his feet GOD DAMN IT!!!!
With a gutteral growl he pushed himself upright, just in time for the second wave to hit. His back arched, two blade had been driven into his, that hurt but the most painfully part was when they began to turn. They weren't turning in his flesh they were gathering it. Like fork turning in a plate spagatii, his back muscle spiral towards two points in his back, just below the shoulder blades.
The pain caused him to stumble onto his hands. There was no time to scream this time, the pain was too great for even that. Tommy and Gaius can see as two... somethings begin to worm around underneath his shirt. They are lengthing, thickening and straining againist Richard's shirt. Then, a riiiiippping sound as two massive, black tenticles break free of their confinement. They fail at the air, seeking something.
For the moment, Richard just breathes.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:17 pm
Tommy can only stare as the changes continue to ripple through Richard. It was strange...this was the second change he has seen from an outside party's perspective and it was so much different from Seth's. The Australian's change had mostly just affected preexisting features. Richard's change on the other hand...just new things grew where nothing like that should ever have been before. Jesus...is he turning into a ******** squid!?
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:30 pm
Gaius was about to move in to help Richard when he fell forward again. A yelp of surprise escaped him before he hurried forward again. "H-hey, just hang in there, it'll be o-"
His words died on his lips as he stared wide-eyed at the lumps pushing below the surface of the shirt. His heart almost skipped a beat. Were they wings? Like his? But what pushed out... two terrible, twisting growths, made his stomach churn. These were nothing like his small limbs. His mind flashed back to Billy, to the purple arms that wrapped around his own desperately. Gaius shuddered uncontrollably. "Those are tentacles..."
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:44 pm
Richard's brain was trying to take in a torrent of new sensory information and failing. He felt the air moving over.... something. The pushing and pulling of the muscles in his back. He felt everything but it was all seperate, his braind had not compiled the sensations into cohesive limbs yet.
Ingoring them for the moment, he straightened. The tenacles lash out at the air behind him. He looks down the two little... arms that seemed to be dancing to a jerky rythme that nobody can hear.
"My god....." A whisper. Richard had prepped himself for this moment, he knew it would happen. But this was nothing like he could have imagined.
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:49 pm
"Richard...Jesus Christ...listen man...just...just relax, alright? It seems to be over...but...but just relax," Tommy says with a shaky voice as he positions himself to crouch near the former human. "There's not much we can say here to make it any better, man...but...Jesus..." he says while keeping an eye on the tentacles, "you're still alive...alright? Just focus on breathing, try to focus on the new sensations one at a time. Put anything else on the backburner...one at a time, alright...? You with me?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 9:56 pm
Gaius shuddered again and shook his head. No, no he couldn't let this get to him! Snap out of it! What kind of man was he anyways? Yet part of him screamed to run, to get out of there. Thankfully, it was only a small voice inside him. Gaius thrust it aside and refocussed on the old man crouched in front of him. It was a sad sight, really.
"Richard?" he leaned over, trying to see his face. "You holding in, there? Listen, I'll grab some pain killers if you want..."
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Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:07 pm
Richard looked up at Tommy, his eyes unfocused.
"Tommy?"
As soon as he uttered the word the tentacles came seeking the object of Richard's attention. One swung around hitting him on the side of the face, the other coming down on his shoulder. Their impacts, while not lightm were more like a heavy pat than a strike. Once they touched Tommy's skin they adhered there, their suckers not letting go.
Richard's eyes widened in horror.... He would taste Tommy's sweat.
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