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Staggering through the village and making his way into the throng of duplexes, Oz was not in good shape. His heavy panting and paler than usual complexion could be put down to his afternoon spent baracading himself behind a shield of alcohol.

If it weren't for his intermittent stops to clutch at his side.

Each time, he slumped against the nearest building or hard surface, struggling to breathe, stringy drool hanging from his mouth before he wiped it away. And each time, he just gritted his time and carried on.

Everything was on fire. He looked feverish, his skin clammy and beaded with sweat in some places. His arms were red with a terrible rash, supposedly from his fever. Oz just kept straightening himself up until he next had to rest.

Which, by cruel fate would ahve it, was just beneath a camera, its lifeless lens fixed on him and a red LED flashing. Oz's alreayd pained face twisted into a sneer.

"Oh...I bet you're...just loving this...you sick sons of a bitches..." he struggled, his choppy speech mixed with laughter.

For a brief moment, stupidity had overtaken Oz and he thought that the camera was talking back at him. And worse still - he actually replied.

"Of course its me, you dumb shits! You have...those...things in my neck...I bet you can...tell everything abou' me...righ' now...can't ya?" he yelled at the camera, standing as straight as he could but finding his intoxication, coupled with his alcoholic state, to be hard to balance.

"You wanna know...what I think...of these ********' cameras...and this whole Island...?" he smirked with menace.

Taking a strained deep breath, a gurgling sound could be heard and in a sudden movement, Oz spat at the camera, wiping his mouth in triumph and watching for a few moments as the saliva dripped down the lens. His body fighting his imminent change, he stumbled and caught himself, forcing him to turn and see Nita.

"Oh hi....N--niii...err...fluffy..." he grinned moronically.

He made efforts to stand up and keep still in the presence of a lady.

"Yeah...I'm just fiiiiiine and dandy..." he replied, his speech more relaxed and slurred, so much so that it was hard to tell if he was being serious or sarcastic.

He swayed a little as he stood, and juddered as he physically stopped himself from falling. Clasping his side once more, he winced through the fire in his rib cage.

"And you?" he asked.

Oz was surprisingly calm now. But the conversation was still surreal considering his state of mind and his state of body.

"Nah...I'm made of..strong st-stuff...y'know I might sit down," he began, changing his mind instantly as another flash of pain shot through his body, this time down his arms.

The thick veil of alcohol was starting to be penetrated by the pains of change, ringing alarm bells in his brain. Without the intense pains he associated with the change, he thought nothing of his aches and his fever. The alcohol made sure he couldn't feel them acutely. Until now.

Oz lifted his legs like they were made of lead and fixed his blurry vision on the bench she had pointed out. But he wouldn't make it.

Only a few steps into his 'journey,' he toppled under his own weight and landed with an angry grunt. A few spots of rain began to fall.

Oz hadn't fainted. But he was barely conscious of the situation, slipping in and out of his alcohol-fuelled delusions. As the rain fell a little heavier, it came as sweet relief to his burning body, vapour quite visibly rising from his frame.

He shuffled about and tried to at least prop himself up, trying to keep Nita's position in mind at all times. He didn't want to accidentally squash or smack her. The groan that wheezed from his chest was not human in the slightest, and just got more aggressive as he battled his own weight.

So caught up in making his body move was he that the blood streaming from his nose went un-noticed until he tasted metal in his mouth. With a gargantuan hand, he dabbed his nose and stared in horror at the blood on his fingers.

"Go...just go away...please...!" he pleaded with Nita, doubling his efforts to get to his feet and at least put himself at a safe distance from Nita.

Oz hadn't forgotten how he had inadvertantly broken Marshall's arm during his last change. And although he didn't know Nita as well, he could not face bringing harm to her. To anyone ever again.

"Yes you bloody can!" he yelled, his intentions in the right place, even if his suggestions were muffled with the pain he felt.

Just as he had managed to get to a position where he could support himself with his arms, they gave away with a sickening sound, almost as if they had broken at the same time. Oz landed onto the damp earth with a grunt that was soon replaced with horrifying screams. Inhuman screams. Sounds that belonged in the deepest recesses of a jungle.

It was not a pretty sight. Oz had to roll onto his back since the pressure of his own weight on his arms was excrutiating. They lengthened out, at first quite thin and skeletal, almost lacking muscle. When his arms were as long as his torso, he lurched and twitched as new muscle grafted itself to the bone. But that wasn't the last of the bone breaking.

It felt like his rib cage was ripped wide open, only to be pushed together again by some hack doctor. New muscle bloated his torso to grotesque and gargantuan proportions.

His hips were the next to go, widening just slightly enough that didn't require this bizarre internal mechanism of breaking bones and re-growing them. His legs remained unchanged, save for twitches and spasms that signalled the new muscle growth.

Then, his body just seemed to stop convulsing for a moment, like it was taking a break. Panting heavily, face smeared with blood and spit, Oz just stared at the dark sky, eyes unblinking even when hit with rain drops. He could still feel every muscle burning and aching, his chest and arms the most. Was it over?

Arms too weak to move properly at this point, he struggled to roll back over onto his stomach and then begin the laborious task of propping himself up somehow. He looked at Nita and how she cowered on the bench. He couldn't face to look at her again after that. Guilt and shame stung at the back of his head...or was that something else?

It felt like a vice had gotten hold of his head and just yanked him up to his feet, standing like some ancient colossus of a time gone by. He clutched at his neck desperately, growling and grimacing as it felt like worms crawled under his skin, the thick neck muslces that gave silverbacks their distinctive look and their powerful bite threading their way onto his skull and neck.

Something tumbled from his clenched mouth. It was teeth. Several human teeth. Larger teeth had pushed them from his raw gums as they erupted from his jaw, his bottom canine teeth quite menacing in their size.

What began as a human scream of terror turned into an aggressive roar bursting from his lungs. He'd already been too big for his now tattered and loin-cloth like jeans but to add insult to injury, Oz broke out in fur. Now it was not just his head and neck adorned with dark fur, but all down his arms to about the elbow, and downs his legs to his knees. His back was impressive, thik with fur and a silver saddle from his thighs to the middle of his back.

Oz just crumpled to the floor, first trying to catch himself on his knuckles, as instinct told him to, then laying down on his belly with long arms stretched before him. He struggled to breathe but was amazingly still awake. The amount of adrenaline in his system had just wiped out the effects of the alcohol and he could feel everything. See everything. Sense everything.

He looked to Nita pleadingly, but also apologetically. She seemed so sweet, and it seemed so cruel for her to have witnessed a change as grotesque as this.

Each breath taken was quite audible through wide nostrils and seemed to echo around the barrel that was now his chest. Almost too fatigued to feel anymore, he slowly shifted one arm so that it was outstretched on the ground toward Nita.

He wanted to hold her hand. If onyl for a brief moment, he just needed that physical reassurance that someone was there. If he had been born a gorilla, it would have been a group member to come comfort him.