Chapter 4: The Awakening 01

"John! John! Get up! Time for school. It's past 6:45." Mr Goldbloom shook the sleeping John awake.

"Huh! … I'm up..." John sat up on the bed, rubbing his eyes.

"I'm heading off to work now." Mr Goldbloom walked to the door. "There's an egg sandwich on the table for you."

"Yeah… see you later." John sleepily waved his father goodbye.

"Don't be late for orientation." Mr Goldbloom shouted as he left the house.

As soon as John heard his dad close the front door, he went back to sleep.

"Something… doesn't feel right." John felt uneasy, tossing and turning in his sleep.

Grabbing for his phone, he looked at the time with sleepy eyes.

"7:33? … 7:33!" 

John bounced himself out of the bed, nearly colliding with the floor due to his legs still wrapped in the covers.

"Why didn't Dad wake me up?!" 

John kissed his teeth. In his hurry, drifting through the hallway to the bathroom, he knocked into chairs. He stripped his clothes off him like they were on fire, burning his slim body. Getting in the bath, he scrubbed the night sweat off his body. Stampeding to his room, wet and naked, he barely dried himself before dragging on his clothes. Dashing through the door, he grabbed the egg sandwich, flung his backpack on and locked the door. John soon flew down the apartment's stairs.

"Please, I can't miss the normal bus!" John hoped. "I hate the damn "weirdo bus"." 

John sprinted his way to the bus stop, egg sandwich in his mouth. Looking at the time, it was 7:44. It was close, but if he could make it within the next 16 minutes, he'd barely make it in time. 

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Thank God!" John panted heavily, standing by the bus stop. 

His entire body felt sore and exhausted from the full-tilt dash. It was 7:55, with 5 minutes to spare. If this was before his mysterious body change, he'd have never reached.

"Uh, I'm never doing that again!" John thought to himself, "I almost choked myself to death with that egg sandwich!"

Standing at the bus stop, John felt the cold morning air, heard the blaring loud sounds of the busy and hectic road, the smell of hundreds of car exhaust and felt the grey atmosphere of the people around him. Almost everyone was engrossed in their phones with scanty regard for those around them. John, being a follower of such practices, pulled out his Bluetooth headset, listening to music and scrolling through Instagram while waiting for the next bus.

At that moment, a lady screaming into her phone while with her daughter and dog walked up next to John at the bus stop.

"Bob! I'm sick and tired of the same old excuses!" She yelled into the phone.

Her hair was unkempt, with long pink nails and dressed in pyjama pants, slippers and a large t-shirt, which clearly outlined her bra-less breasts. 

The small girl, standing close to her mother, wore a cute pink and white hearts dress and carried a small, pink princess school lunch kit. She had the brightest smile playing with her poodle puppy, unbothered by her mother's loud commotion. It seemed as if she was used to the quarrelling… sadly.

John averted his eyes from her voluptuous chest, trying not to be rude.

"I gave up EVERYTHING to be with you! And you promised me a better life here!" 

Everyone at the bus stop was annoyed by her loud and unnecessary shouts, some kissed their teeth and rolled their eyes.

"Excuse me! You're leaving me and your daughter for some random STRIPPER SLUT!" She dropped the dog's lease, focusing heavily on the caller. "Are you retarded, you dimwitted waste of sperm?!"

The poodle puppy, recognising its unexpected freedom, dashed into incoming traffic barking.

"Mr Poopybutt! Come back!" 

The little girl, clutching her lunch kit, ran after her precious dog into oncoming traffic. Hearing the barking, the mother noticed the dog and her daughter off in the middle of the road.

"Gabby! Come back!" An onslaught of fright clenched her heart, and everyone else who saw. 

She was too far in the middle of the road and surrounded by speeding cars. At that point, no one could've reached Gabby without the risk of being flung through the air by a vehicle going breakneck speed.

"Ahh!" Gabby tripped, falling flat on the road. "Ouch! … My knee hurts."

"Purp! Purp!! Doom! Doom!"

As if all too perfectly timed, a large dump truck, less than 30 metres away, sped towards Gabby. She was too small for the driver to even notice her, the little girl flat on the ground with a bruised knee. John dashed off towards the helpless little girl, dropping his phone and headset while dodging speeding cars for his dare life.

"John, you dumbass! Are you crazy?!" He thought to himself.

Without enough time to think straight, his feet moved him. He was risking his life for some girl he knew nothing about. 

"Please make it!" John felt a sudden rush of adrenaline pumping through his body.

Gabby, getting to her feet, turned around to see the death sentence of a truck, a mere metre away from her. There wasn't enough time for her to feel the fear of death.  

"Vroom! Vroooom!" The truck zoomed by.

"Are you hurt?" John clutched the girl in his arms. 

In that split second, John dived, grabbing hold of Gabby and rolled with her out of the way. The truck had missed them by less than an inch. A close call, to say the least. Gabby just looked at John with a confused look. She had yet to process what nearly happened to her.

"Watch out!" Someone yelled out, catching John's attention.

As if orchestrated by the devil himself, after barely dodging the truck, a car was bolting towards them. John, being unable to dodge the car, felt his life flash before his eyes. Ultimately, a feeling of disappointment came over him. 

"Was my sacrifice to save this girl… all in vain?" John thought to himself. "I should've just stayed home."

As a useless last-ditch effort, he stretched out his arm, shielding himself and the girl with his eyes closed tight. But… just then… he felt a wave of electricity flash through his body, going to his stretched out arm.

"SCREECH!" "CRASH!" "CRUNCH!"

The distinct sound of brakes slammed, a car colliding into something and broken glass echoed on the road. 

"AHHH!" Some random woman screamed.

"Gabby! Gabby!" The mother fell to her knees, dropping her phone and crying profusely with her hands over her mouth.

"No way, they're alive?! The f*ck is that?" Several bystanders questioned what they saw, still in shock. 

Many of the cars came to a halt and voices continued to murmur. John slowly opened his eyes, expecting to see God in the afterlife. 

"I'm… alive?" John slowly realized.

"Wai! Wai! Mummy!" Gabby left John's arms and ran to her mother weeping.

"Gabby…. You… you're alive!" 

Gabby's mother, in disbelief and overjoyed to see her unharmed daughter run into her arms, hugged her tightly. Both their tears rubbing against each other.

"I'm sorry, Gabby! I'll be a better Mom, I swear! Please don't leave me, I… I… I can't lose you!"

"Ha!" John let out a sigh of relief, "She's… safe." 

John felt his stretched out arm stuck in something hard. Looking to the arm, he saw something unexplainable. 

"The hell is that!?" John panicking, trying to pull his arm out of it.

What John panicked over was a huge black slime hand. It was the size of a car and stretched from his arm, stopping the vehicle from earlier. In fear of what was covering his arm, John turned to the crowd.

"Somebody, Help! I'm stuck!"

No one moved. Instead, people stood aside watching, some videoing and some calling the police. John kept trying to pull his arm out of the black slime until finally, it came out. But… that was not the end. His arm kept spewing out this liquid. He tried to wipe it off but it would just spew out even more. Parts of his clothes were soaked with the slime.

"Help! Please! Someone help me!" 

John, having been overcome with panic, moved towards the crowd but people quickly stepped away from him.

"Back the f*ck off!" 

"Get the hell away from me!" 

"Yow! Don't even step this side bro! I'll beat the sh*t outta you!" A guy threatened with his hand balled into a fist.

John was confused why people were terrified of him. He almost got ran over by a car. Shouldn't they be trying to help him?

"No! Don't run away! Please, I need help! Make it stop!" John begged, tears beginning to creep up in the corner of his eyes. 

People were looking at him as if he was some kind of monster. Mothers grabbed their kids close to them and others ran away from him in fear.

"Back off, monster… or-r-r I'm calling the cops!" Someone threatened the still approaching John. 

"Monster? What are you talking–"

John caught a glance of his reflection on a car's windshield. He saw what they saw, a monster. His scleras were obsidian black like the monster in that nightmare. Black veins spread from around his eyes, stretching across his face and his tears were murky black. The black slime gushed down his left arm, dripping onto the road. He looked like a demon spawned from hell.

"AHHHHH!" 

John's face became distorted with terror as he immediately freaked out. He dropped to the ground screaming his lungs out. The thought to get home was the only thing in his brain other than fear of the demon he saw. John scrambled to his feet and started desperately dashing home. Soon after, he was running up the apartment stairs. On the way, Madam Sarah was walking down the stairs and called to John, but he zoomed past without realising her presence.

"Haa! Haa! Haa! Haa!" 

John breathed hard as he slowly slid down the door until he was flat on his ass. He looked to his left arm and saw traces of the black slime still there, but it wasn't spewing out as before. 

"F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! F*CK!!!" John shouted aloud.

His other hand pulled against his hair, crying with snot coming out his nose and kicking his feet aimlessly. After some time had passed, John calmed down. His forehead pressed against his bent knees. 

"What did I do to deserve this?!"

John finally got up to his feet and walked to the bathroom. He took a hot shower, washing away whatever bits of the black slime that was left on him. Before leaving the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were red and slightly puffy from the crying but the obsidian blackness from before had vanished as well as the black veins on his face.

"Is this because I suddenly got skinny and taller?" John questioned himself, stretching out his jaw and examining his mouth and face. "But nothing seems out of the ordinary."

Stepping into the hallway, he glanced at the small pool of black slime at the door. Hesitating at first, John didn't want to remove the slime, but if he didn't it would just cause more problems. He cleared away the slime in silence and disgust.

"Haa!" John sighed as he plopped himself on the bed, "Should I go to the hospital? … hmm, maybe not… they'd take me to a lab and cut me open for experiments."

John felt for his phone but soon remembered that it fell from him back at the bus stop.

"Damnit! Can this day get any worse?!"

John tried to sleep the day away but the vivid memories of the crash plagued his thoughts, keeping him awake.

"Argh! I can't take it anymore." John got off his bed and sat in front of his desktop. "Ah, f*ck it! I'll just beat my meat."

Just as John opened his browser, there was an article with a disturbing image that caught his eyes. 

The title read, "Black Blood Disease!!! The Most Mysterious and Possibly Deadliest Sickness No One Knows About." The image attached to the article was of someone on a hospital bed with black sclera and black liquid oozing out their eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The expression of the person was that of pain and fear, but dead.

Sweat began forming on John's forehead. He was hesitant about what he might see. What if it only further increased his anxiety and worries? But, his curiosity was too overpowering and he clicked on the article.