How Dracano Came To Be Part 3


  I woke up, it was morning, I had slept deeply all night. Metallica was playing through the computer, so I clicked the pause button. I just then realized it, how much the change had progressed. In my mouth, I felt hard objects, like jawbreakers, but lumpy. I spit them out into the trash can. They were teeth. I felt my current teeth with my tongue, just now realizing my tongue had become forked.
  My teeth were now bestial in shape, sharp incisors, massive canines, and bicuspids like saw blades. I turned on the webcam, and looked at my face, it was now covered in scales, and much longer. It looked a lot like a velociraptor.
  I took off my shirt, my whole torso was now scaled, as well as the majority of my left arm. On my right arm, the pinky had partially fused with the ring finger, and on my back, the two protrusions were now much larger, and starting to take on a shape like two huge hands with really long fingers.
  The scales met the top of my pants all the way around, so I took them off. The first thing I noticed, no visible genitalia, those apparently had become reptilian as well, and resided under the rectangular flexible plates that now covered a portion of my belly and chest.
  I had also sprouted a tail, about a foot long, with a slight bulge at the end, covered in scales. I felt hungry, so after taking more pictures, I put my pants back on, I could barely remove my shirt, I didn't think I could put that back on very easily, so I left it off.
  Both of my parents were asleep right now, so I headed to the kitchen quietly, and sifted through the fridge, no leftovers left. I looked in the freezer, Pizza! I started preheating the mini oven and sat down on the couch. I expected the animals to freak out, but Daredevil, a Pit-bull Retriever mix, he just jumped up on my lap as usual, the over sized hulk that he was, and started demanding attention. The cat kept his distance, and the Chihuahua, she didn't even notice my presence, as usual.
  I shoved the dog off my lap as the oven beeped to tell me it was ready. I put the pizza in, tyoed in the time to cook, then sat down and turned on the big screen TV, looking for something good to watch on a Tuesday morning.
  I noticed something, as I sat there, new smells. Both of my parents were smokers, and we lived in an apartment, so, I figured my sense of smell was fried years ago, but, I could suddenly smell everything, even triangulate objects with it. This was amazing!
  I knew from looking in the mirror that my eyes hadn't changed yet, so I didn't bother with that, but I did spend a short period of time experimenting with picking up on even faint smells, and I also leaned that, with my new forked tongue, I could actually taste the air, just like a snake. Maybe the tradeoffs of this unexplained change would be worth it.
  After a few more minutes, the pizza was ready, I pulled it out, sliced it, and piled the pieces on my plate, it was a medium pizza, so I could eat the whole thing by myself.
  I finally found America's Funniest Home Videos, and began watching that as I ate the pizza. After a minute or two, Daredevil was resting his head on my leg, begging for food again. My mom was already home and in bed, so I knew they had eaten already, she always fed them when she got home from working the night shift.
  I ate all but the last slice, Daredevil not leaving me alone for one moment. He seemed to be the one person I knew who didn't give a damn what I was changing into, it was like he looked through the scales, at who was underneath. I took the last slice of pizza, deviding it into three pieces, I gave the largest to Dare, the second to the Chihuahua, and the third to the cat.
  I put my plate in the sink, turned off the big screen and headed back to my room, meeting my dad in the hallway. He didn't say anything, just eyed me curiously, then went past. He ALWAYS has a snarky comment, ALWAYS has something to say, this was way out of character for him, I could tell he was bottling up what he felt about all this.
  I sat down in my chair, in front of the computer. It was Tuesday, the last time I was online was Sunday, People would begin to wonder where I was. I didn't really care, though, this defiantly qualified as an extreme circumstance. More pictures, more daydreaming. It felt like I was just riding out the clock, waiting for this all to finish. My cell phone rang, so I answered it, it was the doctor "hello, is this Daniel."
"Yes." I said, realizing a very, very subtle roll on the S.
"well, we finished the lab work. Nothing came up as anything bacterial, as far as the results say, you should be perfectly healthy…I have absolutely no idea what's causing the growths, because it's non-contagious, I can't order you to come in for further study, but I can ask you, for your own good, to let us run some more tests."
"And become some experiment in a test tube, forget it."
"Alright, suit yourself. I'm just giving you my advice, as a doctor, you may be needing professional help."
"Don't worry, except for it progressing, I feel perfectly fine, it seems…almost natural."
"so, no cramps, no swelling, no fever?"
"no, none."
"I see, that's good, tell me, how much has it progressed?"
"A lot, it's not just scales now, it's actually restructured my face, and I'm growing new limbs." I mentally facepalmed, I should have just told him it went into recession.
"I see…would it make any difference if I asked you to caom in again."
"No, I can't be seen in public like this."
"I could have an ambulance sent over."
"I live in an apartment building, a giant red and white van with an overhauled engine would draw a lot of attention."
"…well, what if I made a house call?"
  This guy was determined.
"Okay, fine, you know my address from my file, and I'm not going anywhere for a while, but I want it to be just you, I don't want an audience, I'm trying to hide this from my neighbors if I can."
"Don't worry, patient doctor confidentiality, I wouldn't dream of bringing anyone else with me…well, I guess I'll see you in a little while."
"Yeah, a little while, whatever."
  I hung up on him and stared at the ceiling. Two seconds after he saw me, This was going to be a federal case, and I knew it, people don't turn into mythological beasts every day, in fact, there was every possibility I was the first. But, I didn't know how, or why, it just started happening, with no reason.
  I hadn't taken any drugs or new medications, nothing had bitten me, I hadn't tinkered with magic or anything like that, it was just a normal day, then, poof, chaos.
  Much later in the day, the mid evening, there was a knock at the door, I could smell latex from my room, it was the doctor, and damn my nose had gotten better.
  He walked into my room and saw me, in the several hours that had passed, I now had four fingers on my right hand, my left was beginning to do the same thing, scales now covered my whole body, the tail had grown to around two feet, and the wings were growing membranes. I was only wearing jeans, as I couldn't wear a shirt anymore, and had lost a significant amount of body fat, the miniature beer gut I used to have had now receded into a narrow, athletic waist.
  The doctor was flabbergasted, he had never once seen anything like this. He got out his supplies, I sat down on a stool, and he began the examination, meticulously recording everything, the whole time being watched by the webcam.
  He finished, then gave me one last looks, before asking "so, you feel no discomfort, none at all?"
"no, like I said, no cramps, no pain, nothing…just the occasional itch, and that's it."
"I see…well…I won't pretent to know what this is, because I have no idea, but I think we both know what it looks like."
"A dragon."
"Exactly…whatever this condition is, it has NEVER happened before…I won't force you into anything, and as far as I can tell, there isn't any public danger, so it's really up to you to deal with this…however, I will begin working on compiling all of the data, this condition, whatever it is, has to have a name, and, as the victim, you hold that right."
"So, what, I get to name it?"
"yes, like Lou Garrets disease, you got it, you get to name it."
"…Dracano Sapius."
"what?"
"oh, c'mon, doc, you know latin, you know what it means."
"yeah, but I figured you'd want to name it after yourself."
"so that my name is permanently associated with it? Fat chance…just call it "the dracaenas disease" Or something."
"Okay, I won't argue it, but I should be going now, you appear to be healthy, I took some samples for further study, but, I noticed that you've been recording our sessions since this began."
"Yes, I'll give you a copy of all of my data, once this is finished doing whatever it's going to do to me, I don't really think this is lethal, whatever it is, so I should be able to give you a copy after this is all over."
  After that, he left. It was now the late evening on a Tuesday, only last Friday, I was human, and now, I was very obviously becoming a dragon. A lesser person would likely have panicked, but, I guess in the back of my mind, this is what I always wanted, besides, one of my oldest philosophies is "Don't scream, that just tells the monster where you're at." And it applied to this situation, panic would get me nowhere, the enemy here was my own body, there was no fighting it, and no escaping it, all I could do was lay back and wait for it to finish.