You slowly regain consciousness, your eyes adjusting to the light above you. You try to look around, but you're constricted by several layers of bandages. Judging by the cramped space and various bits of medical equipment that you *can* see, you estimate that you must be in one of the ambulances by the burned-out lab. You think you must have moved away by now, but you're sure you can still smell the smoke from outside. Your ears are still ringing, so you can't make anything out that way. You hope you haven't lost your hearing for good, that would suck. At least you can still kind of feel through your bandages and, right now, you can feel someone jump on to the truck and see them swing open the door. You try to look up at the tall paramedic who just entered the vehicle, but the pain you start to feel has you falling back into place. The young man's uniform is a bit tattered and torn and you notice that there is quite a bit of blood on it as well. His? Yours? Someone else's? You're not sure, but he probably has to be one of the first-responders at the fire, caught in the same explosion as you. Your head swims as the medic tries to talk to you, you shake your head indicating you can't hear him. He frowns and looks out the vehicle and begins to address someone else, it's not long before you are joined by another figure.
Your older brother, Cameron, stands above you, he's not as tall as the medic, but his years of training in the military have left him with an overall thickset build, not athletic but strong. He's looking at you with a mix of fear and worry. He tries to talk and you can barely make him out, your hearing clears slowly but surely, "...ucking hell, dude, I told you to stay away, man, what the fuck..." He's trying to compose himself, but he seems agitated, "Things are going to shit out there, man, I couldn't get through the crowds, but maybe if I - Fuck!" He curses, his balled fist coming down on the edge of the gurney, "I'm sorry, I tried to get here as fast as I could. If I got here sooner, you wouldn't have..." He stops himself before he can let more emotion into his voice. He was always pretty protective of you, maybe because you both lost your dad when you were little he felt he needed to take his place. You know he had to step up from an early age, you couldn't ever help feeling like a bit of a burden.
"I-it's...okay...I'm not really all that...hurt." You put on your best nonchalant-face, pretending that everything was fine and you weren't hurting as much as you actually were. Your brother doesn't seem convinced.
"Look, Darien," He calls you by your name, normally he uses pet names like 'bud' or 'guy'. He only uses your actual name when he wants to get a point across and have your full attention, "I've seen guys with injuries like this, they don't just swing back. It'll probably be months of physio before you can even move your arms and legs again. After that, the rest of the recovery is going to be every bit as painful as you can imagine. The paramedics were saying that all your burns were covered in some kind of film from the explosion, some sort of chemicals..." He looks at you, making sure you understand the gravity of what he's saying. "They sent some samples to be tested at the hospital, but with the way the streets were when I got here, I don't think we're going to hear anything from them soon." Cameron looks over at the medic who begins to speak up.
"Just so you know what's going on, we collected samples of some kind of film from all of the personnel and bystanders who were caught in the explosion at the scene. We are unsure as to what it could possibly be, but it seems that this film is actually partially responsible for why you're still with us." The medic explains, both you and your brother must have had confused looks on your faces because the medic continues, "Your burns should have been much more grievous for the proximity you were to that explosion, in short, you should have been fried. Same with our firefighters, they were practically in the blaze, but made it out with only a few broken bones from force of the blast. It appears that the film has some kind of fire-retardant qualities to it, but so little else is known that we'll have to keep you in hospital under constant supervision to make sure that the stuff wont just kill you later." He addresses Cameron, "If you want to follow us to the hospital in your car, feel free, otherwise you can head home, we'll call you with an update on your brother."
"Nah, I'm following, we're going to see this through together. Let's move out." Cameron opens the door to the back of the ambulance, immediately you can hear clamoring in the distance, like some kind of protest, as well as the dying embers of fire still in your proximity. You can also make out the howls and calls of various wild animals out in the dark, though that could just be your imagination. All of a sudden you are hit by another wave of dizziness as you look at the retreating back of the paramedic. You half notice something looks off about him, but you can't place your finger on what. Does he seem bigger than he was a moment ago? Something is odd about his arm, too... It's too...hairy? You... can't quite... make it...out.
You lose consciousness again.
......
The wind feels nice up here. Warm gusts of air push up from underneath you, letting you float like a cloud against the deep, blue sky. The sun is shining and its golden rays reflect in a pleasant hue of your crystalline scales, the membrane spanning across your wings soaking up the heat to keep you warm at this altitude. Nothing could feel more right than flying around the world, just going where ever the wind might take you. You feel powerful, erudite and majestic sailing through the currents of the sky, tail lazily directing your body in this direction or the other. You are a beast with no equal.
The winds shift suddenly, you let out a feral growl as a low pressure system takes you by surprise. Clouds start gathering heavily in the sky and it isn't long before your brilliantly scaled body is being pelted by rain. Worry starts to take over your once lackadaisical movements. All of a sudden a mountain springs forth from the earth, crumbling and reforming itself in an infinite display of shifting power, to loom over you as you try to parachute yourself with your wings. You can't slow down. You hit the side of the sheer cliffs and try to scrabble with your claws to find purchase, but you fall again and this time... You wake up--
You are jolted out of your dream and find yourself lying on the floor of the ambulance with the gurney on top of you. "how...? What the fu...Aughk!" You try to move out from under the wheeled stretcher only to be reminded of your injuries. Hell, you felt so good in your dream you completely forgot that fifty percent of you is burned pretty badly, but what happened? You look around a bit realizing that you appear to be uncomfortably sprawled out among various medical implements, the shelves have been tossed open, their contents spilled out around you. It's then that you notice something else, the reason the gurney is on top of you is because you're literally laid out on the roof of the ambulance. Realizing that the ambulance is upside-down gives you cause to worry, "What the hell is going on out there?" You grit your teeth and try to move again, doing your best to ignore the searing pain you feel across your body. You can't do much more than get out from under the gurney. That's when you start to hear it.
Some very strange noises are coming from outside, you can't make it out but they sound very animalistic, almost as if you were being circled by a pack of feral wolves... As compared to domestic wolves? You always figured that phrase was a little redundant. You can hear scratching and other worrisome noises coming from the other side of the ambulance walls, making you wonder if you've really endured all this pain just to be mauled to death by some carnivorous beast. Where are you even? Could you be in the city anymore with wild animals this close about.
*BANG* something heavy bashes at the rear door, *Bang, BANG* a couple more crushing blows take its toll on the rear portal. You can hear something scrabble against the metal and you see the handle of the door start to wiggle and move. 'This is it,' you think to yourself, 'tonight I get to be some creature's dinner... Turn me over chef, this side is cooked.' Your mind turns to bitter sarcasm trying to cope with your situation. It makes you feel only the tiniest bit better.
*Ka-BANG* Another loud sound reaches your ears, a bit different than the last couple it sounded like... *Ka-BANG* a gunshot. You can make out a loud thump as some large creature falls against the vehicle. The doors crack open a moment later and a familiar head pops in. "Darien, you still in here? Are you alright!?" Cameron comes in to view carrying a pump-shotgun in one hand. You sigh heavily in relief.
"Yeah," you manage to croak, "down here!" Cam carefully moves down into the upended ambulance. You can see the break of dawn over his shoulder just before he closes the vehicle doors again. He turns to look at you, his face has an ashen quality about it, confusion and calculation running in waves across his face... as if he is attempting to try and understand the impossible, "What's happening out there?" you ask. He looks down without a word as if making up his mind about something then turns to you. He makes his way over to your position, helping prop you back up against one of the walls.
"There's something fucked up happening out there, man." His eyes are a little strained and bloodshot, "Since we started heading to the hospital, more explosions have hit the city. The place is in full lock down. Police are barricading streets, people are out panicking, rioting, looting and the animals..." He looks at you as if he can't believe the things he is recalling are real, "Fuck, there are packs of wild animals showing up in the street! But they don't look like normal animals, though..." He shivers as if the air just got really cold all of a sudden, "I don't know for sure because it's been so dark, but the animals looked... disproportionate? Like they were almost man-sized, there were these wolves that looked straight out of a horror movie and I'm sure I saw some kind of cat-thing, too." Cameron doesn't look like he wants to keep sharing but he goes on, "Past one of the police checkpoints is when things went really crazy, the ambulance began to swerve as I followed behind it and eventually it lost control into a roadside ditch which sent it rolling." You remember your dream and all that tumbling you did, guess you're lucky you didn't break your neck. Cameron stops his summary of events there and you feel like you can fill in the blanks from that point.
"So there were some of those creatures circling the ambulance, then?" You try to suppress the shake in your voice with mixed results. Cam shrugs and shakes his head.
"It was... After the crash, what I saw was a bear-like thing climb right out of the driver's side of the ambulance. It was walking on two-legs and sniffing around the place. I couldn't move. I couldn't believe what I was seeing in my headlights. It wasn't until that thing started trying to crack open the back that I started to move again. I grabbed the gun I keep in the back of the car and got out to fire a warning shot..." Something comes over his face, his eyes take on a frightening deadpan as he recalls something, "That bear creature looked at me after the first shot, its eyes... they weren't animal. They were too expressive, it was like I was staring at a human behind a bear-mask, I saw fear and then... rage. It charged me and all I could do was pull the trigger again. It died, but it still looked at me with those eyes, the life fading, accusing. I've only ever seen that look in one other place, back when I was on my first tour. It was just like the first time I took a human life..." Cameron seems to lose himself a little in his mind, you can't blame him if you're to believe what he's trying to say. That somehow, in some way, that creature used to be human...
It's a long moment before either of you stir. You try to move yourself again, finding that the pain has become more manageable. An itch has started to develop under your bandages, so you try to adjust your wrappings a little when a glint of something catches your eye. Slowly, you part the bandages on your right arm to reveal a small string of brilliant-white, crystalline... scales? Your eyes go wide as you examine this development on your arm. You think you could have rationalized this as some kind of scabbing on your burned skin, but they're just too uniform, too developed for just a few hours of recovery... You slide your bandage back over your arm, not wanting to draw Cameron's attention to it, he already seems just about at his wits end. So you decide to ask him how you both should proceed. "Hey," You try to get his attention, "Let's focus on getting out of here and getting to somewhere safe. I don't know how far the hospital is..." Cameron looks up.
"No," He shakes his head, "The hospital is too far, we're close to my apartment though, at least, close enough that we can make it there with you on my shoulder, you aren't walking like that." Cam points at you in general. You're loath to admit it, but you will be pretty slow and in a good deal of pain should you not accept his help. As if that was an option.
"Alright," You say, pushing your personal developments to the back of your mind, "Lead the way."