꒰👁️꒱ 𝕸𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖑𝖆 𝕮𝖆𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊

Researcher

Reupload from new book

I never had expected it to be me. I had never expected to be one of the infected. I was always so careful and cautious. Where did I go wrong? I inhaled sharply. It hurts to breathe. My cat Madeline, who sat on my desk, meowed at me. She could sense my distress. Not only was I worried for myself, but I was also worried for her. The poor thing hasn't been acting the same since lockdown. Madeline seemed sad. She probably missed her morning walks.
A sudden stinging pain ripped through my arm, moving to my wrist and making me drop my pen on to my notebook. I'm Allen Kennedy; a scientist—well, more of a college student studying the field. I've been researching this strange, alien virus that struck our planet back in 1282. It's a strange thing. It infects and eats, terrorizes, and repeats. It seems to have no purpose. At least, that's what I thought.
After reading through some ancient scripts I learned that a curse was upon us. It was waiting patiently until 1920. It first wiped out thousands of people all over the world, but as time passed the numbers started to dwindle. I was determined to find a cure for this horrible infection and I guess that's where I went wrong.
My stomach growled loudly, causing Madeline to rub her head against my palm where a small nick lay. She had bit me yesterday and I'm guessing that she felt bad about it now. Although I tried to occupy myself by petting Madeline, I could feel everything inside me moving around. I could feel my blood pumping through my veins and to my head. I ran my fingers through my ruffled, messed up hair before pulling back. A sizable amount of my brown hair followed my hand, falling out and fluttering down onto the table beneath. Sharp breath in.
I abruptly pushed my office chair away from my desk and stood up before going to my file cabinet. I opened one of the drawers with a key and took out a thick, beat up notebook. This was my research notebook—extremely different from my Diary. I then returned to my desk. With the pen i dropped earlier I wrote at the top of the page:

"Mandela Symptoms"

- hair loss
- craving for food, meat
- heightened senses
- pain through arms and legs
* possibly starting to elongate??
- head ache
* might be removing any humane traits and adding animalistic ones.
- lung pain
* possible lung expansion or reduction

I glanced down at my arm, the veins beneath my skin popping out, red mixed with black. I winced, forcing myself to tear my eyes away from the sight. I wonder how this happened. I wasn't exposed to anyone or anything. There were no spores around me, no infected, not anything! Sharp breath in.

Oh shit..

My eyes flicked up to my cat who was already looking at me. Her pupils were widened, almost completely blacking out her eye whites. I felt the familiar urge to write something new that I found out down in the research book, but there was no time. "Madeline?" I called out quietly, hiding my nervousness. This wasn't my cat. Where was my cat? The cat only smiled. It looked demonic, something that shouldn't be. The cat-alternate's neck grew along with its legs and jaw. "Your research had to be stopped," it spoke it a raspy voice. "You shouldn't have been so nosy."
I stood up from my desk once again and grabbed my research and diary, holding it close to my chest. After all the years of hard work, I couldn't let it get taken away from me. "Now let me have it," It demanded, holding a paw out which quickly twisted with sickening cracks and snaps into a human hand. I shook my head, "no." The room went silent and tension rose. The creature just stared at me as its smile slowly flattened.
I took a step back and one closer to the door. I knew that these things were smart and I had to be smarter if I wanted to get out of here alive, or at least get my research out for someone else to find and possibly continue off of. I bolted for the door and swung it open, quick foot steps following behind me. I ran down the stairs and into my bedroom, slamming the door shut behind me and shoving a dresser in front of it.
I knelt down and looked under my bed, feeling around. The cold texture of my sage met my touch and I pulled then focused on feeling for the buttons. I pushed the five digit code in and heard the safe pop open along with angry grunts and slams against my bedroom door. I shoved my notes in the casing and slammed the small door shut. The safe was extremely strong, and I tested it out. I had it for a situation like this; if my notes were in danger and I wasn't able to protect them.
With a final heave from the other side of the door, the dresser flew directly at me, narrowly missing me. I moved away from my bed and into a corner near my closet as my eyes flicked to the door. There stood my cat, or who I thought was my cat. Only this time there were about eight feet tall and had to crouch to get into my room. "Where is it?" I stayed silent, biting my lip. The creature grabbed me by my neck and pulled me close to its face. "Speak," it spat angrily, baring its teeth. No response. "You're shifting," it spike bitterly. "You have nothing left for you."
I knew that, and I was okay with that. I had done what I could to save the troubled counties. Some rest was much needed. The creature seemed to realize that I wasn't disturbed by the idea of turning. Although it would cause some issues and harm to others, I didn't seem to mind. It dropped me to the ground and stared at me before slowly trudging out of the room. I sat there in silence, deep in thought. A soft crackling sound came from down stairs and I already knew what was going on. The familiar smell of burning wood filled my nose, accompanied by the foreign smell of other flammable materials burning.