Part Two: Through the Fire

The doctors were amazed at how many blood transfusions Chris needed, but they thought it was explained by his body struggling against death by blood loss. The tests that were performed offered no other explanation. As long as Chris survived it probably didn't matter. They knew the cause and how to fix it.

 

He was terrified during his first fleeting bouts of consciousness. Chris was aware of tubes in his nose, his throat, and a icy stream sliding into his arm with the easy, fluid motion of a snake. He thought the nurses in their pale uniforms were alien maidens whose job was to perform maintenance as though he were a car. The doctors with their shiny stethoscopes hung around their necks were the head honchos who did...something. Usually Chris's mind blurred in different directions by then.

 

 

Eventually they removed the plastic tube in his throat. Chris wanted to wheeze in a breath but his chest shook with spasms as he coughed and choke. As it turned out it was a good thing that happened before he opened his mouth wide. Chris thought he felt his upper canine teeth start to slide out of his gums, then shove themselves back in when he started to choke. He must have imagined it, but some time later he yawned and felt the same sensation in his mouth. He needed to see a mirror and know for sure, only the machines that measured his heartrate, his blood pressure, and his brainwaves more or less anchored him to the bed with the IV drip.

 

The machines were programmed to set off an alarm if they no longer had a pulse to measure, so Chris forced himself to wait until they took him off everything but the IV drip. In his rush to know, Chris didn't really hear the doctors, nurses, and few relatives exclaim over his quick recovery. Apparently Chris had only been there a week, which was impossible. No one could recover from near death that quickly and without a hint of scars. Chris would have left the hospital earlier if they hadn't kept him for more tests to figure out this mystery.

 

 

One by one he was unhooked from the machines. Suppressing a queasy surge, Chris pulled out the IV needle from his arm and held a corner of the bedsheet against the dab of blood that emerged. Then he swung himself out of bed and stumbled when he forgot that it was somewhat elevated above the floor. Chris grabbed onto the end of the bed to stay standing. His bare feet slipped against the linoleum as he shoved himself forward to a small mirror on the wall.

 

He felt no pain when his hands and stomach banged against the sink beneath it. Chris stared at his pale face in the mirror and for a split second deplored how dry and bushy his hair looked in this state. He looked like the next generation of bad boy rock stars. Only the hospital gown stopped the look from being complete.

 

 

Chris drew back his head and upper jaw as far as he could without losing sight of himself in the mirror. He snapped his mouth shut at the first sight of two teeth sliding out of his gums like swords being drawn from their scabbard. Such a simple thing, yet it struck terror into his body and left his veins trembling. Chris went numb from panic, but he had to know for sure. This was not something he could run away from and he knew it. He had to know!

 

 

Chris gripped the edge of the sink as he opened his mouth a second time. He moved more slowly and forced his eyes to stare at his teeth, specifically the upper canines as they slid out of his gums. He thought he could see them grow pale, more white and clean, not to mention slimmer and sharper at the tip. Unless he started stretching his lower jaw as well, his fangs came close to brushing against his second row of teeth.

 

 

No! He clamped his mouth shut and saw a flash of bright metallic red. It was his eyes, or the irises of them, forming molten pools of a shining, luscious red. Chris stumbled back from the mirror and fell to the floor. He had both hands to his eyes without thinking, and once he could think he tore them away. With the fast, quiet desperation of a runaway insect, Chris grabbed onto the sink and used it to haul himself up. He had to see his eyes again! But now they were...back to normal? Chris stared at the common brown color of his eyes, his usual eyes.

 

He didn't understand.

 

He was getting a little thirsty.