James sat up straight on his bed and tried for a moment to figure out what was going on. There was no logical explanation he could think of for what was happening to him, but he felt certain there must be an answer within the realms of science. He picked up his phone and began googling his symptoms as efficiently as he could with his now webbed hands. There was nothing of much use that he could find, mostly just general information about frogs and toads. He put his phone down in frustration when he noticed something even more disturbing - the skin on the back of his hands were now a greenish brown hue. He pushed up one of his arm sleeves to see that the unwelcome new pigmentation had spread further than just his hands.
With a sense of urgency he tore off his clothes and stood in front of the tall mirror at the end of the room. What he saw shocked him. The unwelcome shade of green on his hands was also covering his arms, legs and feet where, he simultaneously noticed, there was now webbing between his toes. The rest of his body seemed unaffected at this stage, but it was clear there was no medical explanation for what was happening here. For the first time he had to consider that the girl at the carnival really had done something unnatural to him.
In a panic, James quickly reclothed himself, also slipping on a pair of gloves to cover his hands despite the moderately warm weather. He rushed downstairs, avoiding eye contact with the girl at reception who was sure now viewed him as an oddball and jumped in the nearest taxi he could find. Before long, he was back at the carnival.
James rushed up to the uninterested young woman who was manning the ticket stall and tried to appear as calm and unphased as he could reasonably manage under the circumstances.
"Hi I'm - gribbit - looking for Kayla. Do you know where I could find her?"
The girl looked at James with a vacant expression on her face "Kayla who?" she felt obliged to ask.
"The magician she was - griiibit - working in the tent next to the coconut shy I think - griibit!"
"There are no magicians here, and there aren't any tents next to the coconut shy. And why do you keep croaking at me?" the truculent teen was rude enough to ask, much to James' embarrassment. Not wanting to extend this conversation any further, he pulled out his ticket from earlier walked briskly past the girl to find Kayla himself. To his horror, there was no longer anything to see where the tent had been standing not much more than an hour ago. He instinctively ran up to the man on the coconut shy, pushing past a queue of bemused onlookers.
"Where did the girl in the - griibit- tent go, griibit!" his croaking seemed to be getting worse as he lost his cool, but he didn't care if he seemed crazy to this stranger now "the one that was - griibit, grriiiibit - right next to you earlier?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about" the man replied as if James were crazy, a reaction he was beginning to get used to.
James walked away from him and stood alone trying to collect his thoughts for a moment, almost beginning to doubt his own sanity. What was happening to him today?