John stood cramped and sweating on the downtown bus heading to work. The slightly baggy, crinkled white shirt clung to his slightly pudgy torso as the summer heat turned the driverless tin can into a hellish affair. His dark brown hair brushed the roof as it was clearly not designed with his 6”4 frame in mind. A rivulet of sweat ran past his emerald green eyes and down into his 3-day old stubble before being brushed away by the back of a large, calloused hand. As they approached their destination the cab broke off from the train of other automated capsules and headed towards the stop.

The automatic doors opened with a soft swish and all of the passengers rushed out trying to desperately search for cooler air. John started walking towards the large office building where he had been working the past few weeks, previously he had gotten by doing various manual labour jobs but the agency he was with got a new suite of specially designed robots and let him go. Now he was stuck doing various odd jobs around an office that was either too old-fashioned or too cheap to pay for a bot to fill that role but he was sure it wouldn’t be long until this job was taken from him too.

He so envied those who had been given the chance to educate themselves, those that could afford to spend that time not working but he never did. After finishing high school Johnathon had immediately found work, his mother was desperately ill and they needed the money to try to pay for her treatments. He didn’t regret it mind you, returning home every day and speaking to his smiling mother reminded him why he was doing it, he just knew it would be far easier for someone like them.

The day dragged on as it always did, he clocked in at precisely 9 and clocked out at 5. On his way home he picked up some groceries, had a coffee as the work rush died down, picked up his mother’s prescription and hopped back onto a much less stifling bus on his way home.

After unlocking the door with one hand while carrying a bag of various foodstuffs from the reduced to clear section of the store in the other, he shimmied through the doorway.

“Mooom, I’m home!” He shouted into the quiet apartment on the 3rd floor of one of the many high rise buildings in this city. Setting his bag down on the kitchen counter he ventured into his mother’s room.

“Hey honey, how was your day?” Croaked a small voice from a pale and sickly body sat in the wheelchair reading a book. The empty bag of an IV in the corner of the room. Giving her a kiss on the forehead Johnathon started telling her about his day, despite it, truthfully, being quite dull he started embellishing, regaling her with gossip and stories from around the office. He pushed her into the living room connected to the kitchen and continued his flow of bullshit as he made dinner.

He would often do this, pretend he was happy and thriving in his work so that his mother wouldn’t feel bad for the situation she had put him in. He had actually gotten good at putting up this face all the time, so much so that if he were to actually act how he felt he was sure his mother would not recognise him but for the shape of his face and the sound of his voice.

As it began to get dark he helped his mother get ready for bed, got ready himself, even shaving as his patchy stubble was starting to get itchy and headed to bed himself.

No sooner had his head hit the pillow when a blue message appeared before his eyes.

System Initialising Please wait as system initialises System Initialising Initialisation complete Warning Population in excess of galactic standards, as this is the initialisation of the system excess population will suffer racial change. Warning Due to a lack of monsters present on this world, 50% of racial changes will result in a monstrous race, monsters will also spawn in random locations.

Pain. A white-hot inferno of pain overtook Johnathon’s consciousness. A pain so intense he couldn’t hear the popping and snapping of his bones and they shifted into his body. His eyes screwed shut so tightly he could not see the way his skin rippled and shifted. Another series of blue messages crashed into his rapidly fading mind

Notice

Due to overpopulation Race change is underway.

race:[Human] is being changed to race:[doppelgänger]

Warning Warning you are [ravenous] due to extensive biological changes your body is in need of sustenance, HP and MP regeneration reduced by 100% until hunger satiated Warning Due to your monstrous nature, your hunger has driven you wild, conscious thought will be suppressed until hunger is satiated

Then everything went black.