He thought it could never happen to him. But here he was, standing in front the mirror, sporting two, new, fully grown horns about 3 inches in length. His teeth had been reshaped into razor points. And he didn’t even want to acknowledge what had happened to the rest of his face, even though he couldn’t bear to look away from it. His nose had been flattened. His eyes were now red. His lips were split in various places where bits of bone now protruded. He could also feel that the rest of his body had undergone similar transformations, but he wasn’t willing just yet to undress and see what else he would find.
He shuddered then, fear and anxiety seizing him in a vice-like grip. He thought he’d sheltered away from the virus. He’d hidden in his home, avoided talking to people, let alone visiting with them. Everything he needed he had delivered, and he never interacted with the packages until the delivery man had left. And even then, he sterilized everything before bringing it into his home.
And yet, somehow, the virus had gotten in anyway. It had mutated and ravaged his body while he slept. This was a nightmare scenario that he couldn’t wake up from.
He reached up and felt the tips of his new horns. They were very sharp, as when he pulled his hand away, a pinprick of blood welled up from his fingertip. He put the fingertip to his lips — and slashed it open with his teeth. He cursed, shaking his hand violently in the air as he flung blood in a wide arc across the mirror. This new form was going to take some getting used to.
He sighed then and turned away from the mirror. He might as well go outside now. The very thing he dreaded and had been hiding away from had found him anyway, so he figured it was time to see how the virus had ravaged the rest of the world. He thought that, if he hadn’t been able to avoid the virus with all his precautions, there were probably few others who had failed to contract it.
He walked up to his door but then hesitated. He’d been hiding for a long time now. It was still nerve-wracking to contemplate going outside after all this time. But the decision had already been made. He turned the doorknob and re-entered the world. Time to see what a post-virus world looks like.
