Day 2, Year of the Catastrophe – Sunday, 2nd of May, 2020.

04:17 am –the Kings House: Treasury Room –

No. No. No. The heavy axe in his left just could not sink down on his right. Fear of Pain was one factor, but there was a tiny voice in his head that just whispered “What if you bleed to death” or “You will lose this hand forever” and Daniel just could not do it. More and more reasons not to do it came up one after another. As soon as he was fine with losing his hand in order to survive another reason came up. “What if the infection already spread anyway?”

He struggled for a bit longer, until a loud metallic knock came from the bunker door. The Red Claw tried to get in! Luckily the repeated attempts did little more than to annoy Daniel. It was loud. When it stopped he focused back on his hand again. He did not feel pain any longer. Odd. In fact it felt pretty good and the warm feeling was crawling up his arm. Well, now it was too late. The virus was spreading. He let go off the axe and sunk back to lean against the wall. This was it, wasn’t it? Underestimating a zombie apocalypse like every common person. All his ambitions for the future, crushed.

He would never save a cute girl that was in danger or build a tribe of survivors that held against the hordes of undead until they were all rotting. He would never build a country after surviving the apocalypse with him as it’s ruler. That would have been epic. He sighed. What a pain. The warm feeling had already reached his shoulder. Soon it would reach his brain...

No! He had to fight it! Daniel didn’t want to die a virgin! He never even had a girlfriend before. Well, online, sure. But that didn’t count. He laid back against the wall and tried to fight against the warm sensation in his arm. If he concentrated enough he might overpower it.

But when the feeling reached his chest minutes later and spread into his entire bodies within seconds, he knew: it was too late. Maybe he would get to bite a cute girl eventually once he turned? He had to laugh dryly. When he tried to catch air afterwards it was difficult. It made him remember something from a very long time ago.

Asthma. Right. Felt similar. Taking deep breaths, very slowly, he tried to calm himself down. After a while his breathing steadied. It did little to alleviate the warmth in his body. In fact, it was getting more and more intense with every passing minute. Daniel did not know how long he was able to hold out. Ten minutes? An hour? Eventually he passed out and sank forward. Darkness greeted him.

Day 3, Year of the Catastrophe – Monday, 2nd of May, 2020.

09:11 am –the Kings House: Treasury Room –

It felt like only a second had passed when Daniel woke up again. Immediately he felt intense pain all over his body, every joint, muscle and bone hurt. No more than that, they burned. His body still felt warm and dried up. All accompanied by a major feeling of one intense thing: Hunger. His teeth ached for the sensation of food. Subconsciously Daniel ripped open a roll of Pringles and gnawed at the contents. Then another. Soon his throat hurt of thirst and he opened one coca cola can after another, emptying them in one fell swoop. Exhausted he dragged himself between a few six-packs of bottled water and rested his head.

Then realization hit him. He looked down his body. No belly. All the thick layers of fat had vanished! What was going on?!? Did the virus burn his calories rapidly and his body had been able to resist because of that? No, that couldn’t be it. He had seen fat zombies on the streets before. He tried to get up. His way too wide clothes slipped right of his body. He looked down. Huh. For the first time in a while he was able to see his own dick again. Nice.

He laughed a bit. Then he spotted another body on the floor. What? Where did that one come from?

Curious but carefully, he turned it around. It looked like a thin version of himself, only naked. The body woke up and immediately Daniel was thrown in the same hell he had been in just moments before. Intense muscle and joint pain made him collapse back to the ground, but it felt unreal. Like it was not quite himself that hurt but then again… he felt it. Oddly disconnected, yet unbelievably real. Immediately he reached for more food and gave it to the other body. He felt himself lunge and the offered food and water, while feeding it at the same time.

He was able to see himself twice. One in far too wide clothes, offering food while the other was eating naked. He swallowed.

“This is so weird.” They both said. At the same time.

Oddly enough it was not as confusing as it should be. The whole thing felt kind of natural. Now that his hunger was less immediate and satiated, he was able to focus. They both had lost a lot of weight. Was this a side effect of the virus? What the hell?

Daniel tried to move around with both bodies at the same time. Aside from falling over various things that were littering the ground, he ran into a wall twice and knocked his head against one time. But after that he slowly gained more and more control and was even able to throw and catch various things with his bodies at the same time.

But what in the world triggered this mutation? The virus? Judging from his new bodies, all the energy that his fat contained, had been used to create the second one. He was slim, almost too much so. He estimated himself around 60kg, maybe even 65. Not a whole lot. But moving around he felt so light, it was almost as he was flying. The wound on his right hand had been replaced by an odd black mark. Similar to a tattoo it had formed in a weird way. Almost looked like a rune version of a “J”. But when he ran his fingers over it, he couldn’t feel it. It was below his skin. What could this mean? Puzzling, he gave up as the hunger struck again. He ate much, much more than he was normally eating. At least a weeks’ worth of food between the two of them. Especially the sugary drinks developed a rather extreme craving. He emptied sixteen liters with one body alone and still felt a little thirsty.

How was this even possible?!? Then the need for sleep made both of his bodies curl up on the ground. They soon fell into a deep slumber.

When they both finally woke up, he felt that his very slim bodies had in fact gained a bit of weight. Huh. Apparently the food went straight to his hips. Odd.

But this new additional body provided him with a new advantage: manpower. He was no longer alone. Now he maybe could take on a undead or two. Especially since his bodies felt very light now, we was confident that he could at least run from them. Well. From the normal ones. The Red Claw was another thing entirely. If it was still there, he would be in really deep shit.

Hopefully it wasn’t devious enough to camp the entry to the bunker. It had looked very intelligent before so that wasn’t entirely impossible. He let his second body grab the wooden katana and armed himself with the axe. It felt unnaturally light in his hands. Confidence surged.

“Alright! Let’s do this, Daniel the Second of my Name!” Immediately after he said it, he felt stupid. There was no one to listen to this, why did he do that? He was glad that no one had seen this embarrassing shit.

He sighed and threw a glance at his nude second body. Nice Ass. No Homo.

Then they opened the door.