Living Hate Machine
by Kat’nuk

	“Dammit, I told you to take out the damn trash four times already!”
	“Sorry! Stuffs been making me think lately.”
	“How many times do I have to tell you, your father and I got divorced for a reason. I would rather not tell you til you’re ready.”
	“It isn’t that. I’ll tell you what it is after I take out the trash.”

	Well, this is basically my story, of how I could change so dramatically. And that’s all I am going to tell you at this point. You’ll find out later.
	But first, some background. People would think that it would be unnecessary to have to tell you that I’m a human, you’ll find out why it’s necessary to tell you that, later of course. We (as in, me, my mother, and my sister, Sam) live in a small town named Cardston. That’s right, Canada, right next to the boarder of Shit-land (A.K.A. Amerika) and Canada. We got some wealth, but since my dick father left, we lost a lot of money. 
	Speaking of Grant (my “dad”), he was (is) an extreme alcohol fueled, abusive sonofabitch who decided when my mother is out of the house, to abuse his son and daughter. My mother found this out when I went to go the swimming pool with her, my girlfriend, and some other friends most specifically, my band mates, Greg and Bill. When we were getting ready to go in the pool, in other words, in the locker room, I was taking my shirt off when I remembered that I had bruises and cuts over my back, because of my dad abusing me the day before. My friends weren’t that interested, mostly because I am a skateboarder of sorts, so we expected that. I don’t know why they seem fine, skateboarding will never give someone cuts, bruises, marks, and scars like this. The real problem was when I went out to the pool, and that was when my mother saw that. 
	At that particular point, she had asked me, “What the hell is all over your back!? Are those bruises?”
	I couldn’t lie about it anymore. My father had said if me or my sister told our mother about this, he would of whipped our asses so much harder. So, I told her what he was doing to me and my sister. She fucking flipped. My mother told me that we are going to do something about this. So, she reserved a motel room for me and my sis, and late at night we sneaked out, strategically parking my mothers car farther away from our house, as to make our getaway much easier, as it’s harder to hear it that way. Over the course of a few months, we had him reported, and got him the hell out of our house. But, my parents still weren’t divorced, for some reason.
	Later, they met somewhere, and a fight ensured. For as long as I can remember that, that’s what I think made them break up. Little did I know, that fight was not the reason. 
	The reason of the divorce happening later than one would think, was because when I came out as being bisexual. Only my sister, mother, and father know that.
	But enough of the past, it’s time to concentrate on the most important part, the day that I thought that I was getting some kind of skin disease, and little did I know that this would change my life forever. As most people would, I first tried to vigorously clean the part of my left hand, even to the point of bleeding, I tried everything short of cutting the “infected” part of the skin off, or going to the hospital.
	I couldn’t take any more of the grey colored patch on my hand, and I had told my mother about it. Amazingly, she had never noticed it, up until I told her.
	“I’m pretty sure it’s nothing” she explained to me.
	That’s what they all say, I thought, but wouldn’t say. I’m not too rude.
	“Just try to keep it off your mind, and it’ll go away with time.” continues my mother.
	“Fine. Whatever. I’m gonna go take a walk now.
	“But wait, what if it gets worse?”
	“Then I guess we go to the hospital. You should use your head sometimes.”
	That’s exactly what a son wants to hear. If you haven’t realized, that was sarcasm. Cause it’s exactly what someone like me wants to hear, at this moment. Am I right, or what?

	As I sit on my throne, drum throne to be exact, the crowd of over 100 music-hungry people are near the verge of leaving. Waiting for our bassist to get here, I receive a text saying he’ll be here in a few seconds. Right on cue, some one throws a cup half full of warm beer at our vocalist.
	Fuck, exactly what we need, a piss-drunk crowd of people that seem like they’re close to rioting. And of course, right on time, Joey, our bassist, starts off with plugging his guitar in, and diving straight in to Orion.
	Even though the lighting is terrible, the crowd calms way down. And actually starts to cheer for us. Damn. We don’t have any original songs, but they’re so drunk, it doesn’t seem to matter.
	Once we were though with our opening song, and we start going though our setlist, I look at the back of my left hand. Not for any reason really, but what I see, gives me a pretty good (bad) scare.
	The once small-ish grey colored patch, is now spreading. Once just covering a small area on my hand, from the left side of my hand on the back, to the edge of my hand, the area has grown to most of my hand and is starting to spread to my arm. In addition to that, it’s like my index finger, and my middle finger look like they are getting webbed slightly, along with my ring finger and my pinkey. Only one word was going though my mind. FUCK. I also start to feel a bit queasy, I think it might be fucking up me on the physical inside.
	“Dude, Calvin, the fuck are you doing? We’re in the middle of playing.” That brought me back, though not completely, so my drumming wasn’t at my best. The thought of something being familiar was gnawing at the back of my mind. I’ll just let that go, though.
	After the battle of the bands, and I arrive at my house, I go straight up to my mother, and conjure up one of my most mildest of any threat, “Mom, I will slit your throat.” Figuratively speaking, of course.
	My mother just simply says, “Why?”
	“Do you not see this?!” I pull up my sleeve of my hoodie.
	“Holy shit! What the hell happened?” She doesn’t seem that interested, to tell the truth.
	“You told me to let it go, and this is what fucking happens.”
	“Don’t cuss; it’s rude.” See. I was right.
	“Omygod. I don’t think it’s that time to mess around.” Well, it isn’t the best time to mess around on this matter.
	“Well, I think your not the only one that has stuff like this happening to you. I just saw on the news that there have been a few thousand cases of this happening. That’s just the documented amount, of course. There’s probably hundreds more. And it happens anywhere on the body.”
	I can’t believe I nearly laughed out loud.
	And on continues my mother, “And it’s a lot of different colors of the ‘infected’ skin. Also, the hospitals are taking DNA samples of the abnormal regions, and comparing them with the normal regions, and normal people. Other than that, they have been turning away everyone for any treatment. So, the hospital here won’t help. At all.” Explanations are always nice.
	“How will DNA tests help?”
	“I don’t know really, but when they come back from the labs, then we will know for sure, both what the hell this is, and why they took DNA tests. They said they would come back in a few days.”
	“They had better come back, fast. I wasn’t feeling too well at the battle.”, and I still don’t.
	“Why didn’t you come home then?”
	“I don’t know, and really, it wouldn’t matter much.”

	Instead of the DNA tests coming back, they say they need a few more days to confirm them. Oh. My. GOD. The “infection” decides to go into overdrive, and now, most of my forearm is covered in what ever this is. Other than that, the webbing of my fingers, is basically fusing instead. Oh, and another thing, the parts of my hand where it started, is starting to get a scaly texture, and my stomach sickness is getting worse, and I have other pains, mostly in my torso, and head.
	I wonder what my girlfriend would say if she saw this.
	Oh shit, I was so caught up in myself, I forgot about my girl. Well, a good idea is to call her and to see if she saw that stuff on the news.
	“Come on, pick up already.” Wonder if she has her phone charged; she never leaves the house without it. Maybe it’s on vibrate.
	“Hello?”, speaks a voice that I recognize anywhere, my girl Kristen.
	“Sorry about calling you, but have you seen the news lately, as in sometime this week?”
	“No, what happened? Terrorists?”
	“No, you have to look for yourself to find out what happened.”
	“Why can’t you just tell me?” Too many questions said the “voice” inside of my mind. 
	“Just look, please.”
	“Fine.” Doesn’t sound like she wants to.
	After a few minutes of silence, she speaks up “Holy shit, what the hell is happening to these people?”
	“Nobody knows yet. DNA tests are being done to see what’s happening Hope it’s not cancer, or some other disease.” Really, I do.
	“This may sound rude, but why? It sounds like your worried about something.”
	Waiting to tell Kristen, to delay, to keep it a secret. But I can’t. I have to. “I’ll send you a picture, ok?”
	“Ok.”
	And I hang up to take the picture with my phone. Something tells me I shouldn’t do this, but I will anyways; my girlfriend needs to know stuff like this in case something happens. I take the picture, scroll down my contacts, select her to send the picture to, type “This” for the text, and... hesitate to press the send button. Thoughts racing through my head at what feels like light speed, wondering what she’ll say, and within seconds, press send.
	In the time of 2 minutes, she called me back and, oddly enough, instead of the mixed reaction that I was expecting, she only says “I love you” and then hangs up. After that she doesn’t respond to any texts, and doesn’t pick her phone up.

	Just waiting at my house for the next few days, waiting for the DNA tests to come out, looking at the “infected” of my body, which has spread from my left forearm, all the way up my left arm and is on part of my torso, in addition to that, half of my arm has a scaley texture, with scales basically all on my left hand, and my left hand has turned from 4 fingers and a thumb, to 2 fingers and a thumb. And the pain won’t go away, no matter what. I can hardly move much, without some kind of pain, in my head or anywhere else for that matter. 
	Not only that, but the DNA tests were completed, but of course, were withheld, for what ever reason. I just want to know what the fuck this “infection” is, if it’s life threatening, and, among other things, how I got this. Well, the only thing I’m going to do is to find out if else anybody has something like this happening to them. 
	Fortunately, only 2 other people have this happening to them. On the bad(?) side, they’re 2 of my close friends, and they are also in my band. While I’m on the topic of music (kinda), one line from one of my favorite bands’ song comes to one of my friends’ mind: 
That's just how fast your life can change
In the blink of an eye, everything  erased
	The reason why that came to mind, is because he thought he had skin cancer, and he thought it would of killed him, within days. Well, it wouldn’t of, but instead, he had tried to take his life, but thankfully, failed to do so. Right now, he is in rehabilitation, which is probably the best.

	Waiting one more week, the so-called “infection” is on over 75% of my body, with a scaley texture on 40%, and full-on scales on 30% of my body. My left arm completely scale-ified, my torso has the texture, and somehow, my fucking face is re-shaping its self.  I’m turning into a fucking lizard-like thing. Everybody thinks that I’m contagious, so everybody stays away from me. It is just not right. Also, the DNA tests won’t come out to the public (or anybody, for that matter), so I don’t know what the hell this is, until it’s done changing me completely.
	 Luckily, I was able to find out a few things about this. One is a rumor that it was some kind of problem with some peoples DNA, prompting them to have some kind of thing happen to them, and it was this apparently. But then again, this was just a rumor. So I’m still wondering what made peoples bodies do this to them. 
	But, most of us, as far as I know, are not without support. For example, for me, I have family, a few friends (most disassociated themselves, from me when this started to happen, and my other two friends, that have the same thing happening, their only friends are me, and each other, families, and Joey, and me try to keep our girlfriends) and some online friends. They’re basically the ones’s that are keeping me from killing myself. 
	Lately, I have been unable to drum well, if at all (due to the fact that I only have 2 fingers and a thumb on each hand). So, for the last time that me and my band will be getting together, we will find people that can fill in for the drums, second guitar, and bass. Somehow, our band manager was able to get us a gig at a theater, that can hold 400 people or so. Hopefully, we can pack it to its fullest. To solve the problem of vocals, me (drummer, backup vocals), Joey (bassist), and Greg (lead vocals and second guitar) will be taking over all vocals, due to the fact that they can’t play, because of the “infection” fucking up our hands once it got to that point. But the show won’t be for another ten days, so that means that in that time frame, we would all be completely changed.

	Oh holy shit, I think my face is completely different now, at least, that’s how it felt when I woke up this morning, it seemed like a dinosaurs’ snout. And was sightly textured with scales. With purple stripes going across my body and head horizontally from the half way point of my “snout”, to the first quarter point of my tail.
	“What the... Fuck me!!” I yelled out loud at like 5:30 in the morning, in my bathroom when I was looking at my self in the mirror. A few seconds later, I throw up what ever was in my stomach, which is not that much, all over the counter.
	“Calvin, not another cu... Holy shit!” 
	Of corse, my mother would time her appearance just for what would of been comical effect, except that this is not funny in the slightest bit.
	“My face... what the hell?!”
	“I’m taking you to the fucking hospital, NOW!”
	Whatever, I’m more concentrated on what the hell I became over the course of a few weeks. I need to find out what the DNA tests show.
	On the way to the hospital, feeling sorry for my self (and feeling sick), and looking at the newspaper to cover my hideous face, I find out that on the front page, there have been a number of the “ones with an infection”, as the newspaper calls it, that have transformed into something people seem to describe as walking reptiles such as dinosaurs, lizards and crocodiles. In one caption of what looks like a complex mess of buildings, and is labeled as “The Center for Non-Human Anthromorphs”. I assume that they’re going to start legally treating people like me differently. Also, it states that any one who has changed at any stage, must go report to the nearest hospital and receive a packet of information regarding this.
	“Hey, look; it says that any body that has the TF69 DNA mutation must report to the emergency room to pick up a packet of information.”, points out my mother.
	“I don’t wanna go in there! Look at me, I’m a goddamn freak!!”
	“Don’t cuss, it’s rude. Anyways, it says you have to go in.”
	“Oh my god, why!”
	“I have no idea, but lets just get this over with, so we can go home.”
	“Fine. Whatever.”
	I had the slightest feeling that something was going to happen anytime soon.
	As I walked into the location of where we were supposed to be to do what ever the hell we’re supposed to do, I find Joey, and Greg waiting there too, so I’m not totally alone, sees how us three are the only ones like this. From this town, at least.
	As I expected, they look way different than before (I was only able to identify them because of the name tags we are supposed to wear at the moment). 
	Greg seems to be an edmontonia (if I remember my class right), with clearly defined, extremely tan, armor-like scales all along his back, and has an orangish color along his neck, stretching down to his shirt, which was provided by the hospital. Joey is an oddly colored triceratops; his skin (scale?) color looks like a teal and tan mix. One other way I can tell it’s Joey, is that his girlfriend is hovering around him, with a blankish look on her face.
	My mother tries to get my attention by saying “Hey, you there?”, and waving her hand in front of my eyes.
	I snap back to reality. “What? Sorry.”
	“Come on, we need to check in, they think they know what you are.”
	“‘They think they know who I am? A freak, most likely.”
	
	Two hours later, they have taken multiple test to find out information. Blood tests, urine tests, DNA tests, and some others. After an hour, they let us know what they have found, and frankly, I’m scared. Why? Because they told us, that we are dinosaurs.
	“What!?! Run those damn tests again! I ain’t no walkin’ fossil!”, I exclaimed, perhaps a bit too loud, as everyone in the waiting room for the emergency room was staring at me and my friends (the general public doesn’t know about the tests yet.)
	“I’m sorry sir, but these are what the tests came back as, and we ran them through multiple times.”, The nurse explains.
	“Oh my god!” As I screamed, I get a head-splitting migraine, and get dangerously close to throwing up again, so I clasp my hands (claws) on the side of my head.
	“Oh my god!!!”
	“Oh my fucking god!!!!!”, exclaimed me, Joey, and Greg at the same time. The only thing that I could think of is that there will be things that I of never dreamed of, and that this ain’t no goddamn mirage.

	They say that they need more time to “process and make sure the DNA tests are ’accurate’”. Whatever they say. Next to that, they are making anybody that had this happen to them move to a city in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, Cheyenne Wyoming. I hated that place, and why they choose my home town, I have no idea. Then again, it did grow in size, from a small town, to having a large metropolis like center, kinda like Denver, because a new construction company was started in Cheyenne, making the town grow in size, which means more houses, stores, schools, and more people. About 300,000 more. Daaammmn. And of course, not everybody would want about 25,000 anthromorphic reptiles, birds, “wild” animals, and other things in their city, so everybody is expecting the trolls (internet wise) to move there, to try to make fun of, beat up, and make us feel bad. On another note, we all are assigned certain houses, up to 7 “people” each, with no other humans. Whatever, cause I’m hoping to get with my friends. 
	After going back to my house, and taking Joey and Greg with me, I get a call on my cell, and it’s the person who got our spots in the theater, decided to change the time we were supposed to be there. The dates now about 2 days from the time all “transforms” are supposed to be in Cheyenne. Isn’t that peachy.

	Through what might make it seem like a time lapse, it was the day before the concert, and Joey and Greg stayed at my house the whole time, because their parents disapproved of them.
	“That one concerts tomorrow, did you remember?” I told my now dinosaur friends.
	“Oh shit, I nearly forgot” remembered Greg
	“Me too” added Joey.
	“Dude, Greg, you still up for lead?” I asked Greg
	“Who?” queried Greg.
	“What do you mean ‘Who?’, you’re lead.”
	“No, I mean who’s ‘Greg’?
	“Don’t be shitin’ around, you know you’re Greg” I really was not in the mood for jokes.
	“No really, who the hell is Greg? I’m Zeoad.”
	“What the fuck are you talkin’ bout?”
	“My name, dip-shit.”
	“No, you are not. Let me remind the dumb asses that, you are Greg, this is Joey, and I am Kat’nuk.”, I had “stated.”
	“Now, you are a double shit-snorter. You, as in you, this thing whatever the hell you are, is named Calvin”, Greg ‘corrected’ me. I’m pretty sure my name was always Kat’nuk.
	“Wait,” said Joey to stop us from arguing,” What if, this infection changed what we once thought our name was, and is making us think that was always our name? Cause I think my name was always D’kadein, but you guys say that my name was Joey. It might be connected to the migraines we had.”
	After a minute of silence, we both agree with Joey (or D’kadein, as he calls himself now).
	“You might be right”. I relented in my mind.
	“But why? Why in the flying hell would we change our names over night?”
	“I really, truly don’t have the foggiest clue, but we need to go get set up for the concert. I am not gonna miss the very last concert we might just ever play.”

	The day of the last concert I play. Holy Jebus, I’m nervous, cause I never played up front, I was in between the drummer and front man, when I played bass, or I was the drummer, and also, I’m what the DNA tests define, as a velociraptor, and, conforming my theroies, that Greg (Zeoad) is a edmontonia, and Joey (D’kadein) is a triceratops, and oddly colored at that. Now, we each sing/scream a song, rotating between who is lead each song. By now, the packed crowd of 425 people are itching for a show to begin. I start off the show with an intense song, Swim to the Moon. It’s a mix of singing and screaming. And it’s 17 minutes long. Ain’t this some opening song. 
	After D’kadein and Zeoad do their songs, I turn to head off the stage, I see something that nearly blows my mind.
	It’s my girlfriend.
	She had never, ever talked to me, or seen me, ever since the picture that I had taken to show her what I am, at least in the early stages. Why would she be here now, of all times? Well, that’s an easily solved question, she’s my girlfriend, and we love each other.
	But, I’m not a man just to walk up to her and say “Hi, how are you?”. I really want to find out why she did not talk or text me. But, the thing is that she doesn’t even notice me beside her.
	“Hi.” I try to get her attention, “Hello? Kristen? It’s me, your boyfriend.”
	When she turns to look at me, her expression is priceless, except that she fainted a few seconds later.
	“You!?” I turn around to see who said that, and I find her dad, staring at me, like the monster I am. Kristen’s father is always thinking I was out to hurt her, and that was never any thing that I thought about.
	 And he does something that I will never forget. He throws a huge haymaker. And I’m down for the count.

	I wake up the next day, apparently, and I have a huge splitting headache, and my stomach is in extreme pain, and I feel as though I need to purge my stomach of everything that’s in it, and ever was, involuntarily, again. I remember something that I did not notice when I saw Kristen, I think I saw her with her lips lock around another persons lips. I don’t know wether it was real, or what. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, for now.
	“It’s about damn time you woke up, we need to get to the airport before we get the army or something after us!”
	Oh shit. I check the calender on my phone, and find out, with a voicemail on it, that the date was lessened by twenty-four hours.
	“Fuck, fuck, fuck!! Why the hell did no one wake me up!”, I barked at my sister and mother.
	“We tried! We need to go now!”

	At the airport, I see Greg and Joey waiting at the entrance of a U.S. military airplane.
	“Dude, Greg, Joey, why did none of you went to go get me?” I need some more answers.
	“The force got us and brought us here, no way we could of gotten you in time. And I’m not Greg, I’m Zeoad.”
	“I don’t give a flying fuck. How much time we have before we leave?”
	“About fifteen minutes.”, answers D’kaedin as I walk away from the car.
	 I find that their girlfriends are with them, but my Kristen, is not with me, or even here at all. Now, I’m getting worried, because I think I see that she’s walking down the street with another guy, and that I remember that she said that she would stay single for a while if something happened to me, and this is pretty close to that, and she would say that to me randomly though the day, since the first day we went out.
	The more I think about it, the more I hurt inside. Not only was I abused when I was a little kid, my love of my life might of betrayed me. I think of calling her, when I remember that her father might of blocked my number. Shit, I’m confused.
	“Yo, dude Calvin, I forgot your name.” D’kaedin snaps me out of what ever I was in.
	“‘They want us to fill out a form for our ‘new lives’” D’kaedin hands me the forms.
	“Fine.” I try to hold back a tear, but failing, having it roll down my snout.
	“Dude, what’s wrong? Like really, what’s the matter?” 
	“It’s the stress of my fucking life, that’s what. I was abused by my dad for years, I got a five month break, then this, and now I think that Kristen, is lying about her staying single for a while, what the in Hell am I going to do??! Just pretend that everything in life is just perfect? My life was always far from perfect, and this... this... this bullshit.... Just dropping dead now is the best thing that would happen right now.”, I depressingly state, as a few more tears come from my eyes.
	“Please, for everyone you know, don’t commit suicide, it’ll make things fifty times worse, and I should know.” I remember that he was the one who tried to take his life when this started.
	“I’m not going to kill my self, that’s retarded.”
	“Hey, you scailies!”, shouts a U.S. solider, “Get your asses on this plane!” Fucking perfect timing. As we walk to the plane, it feels as if I’m walking in to my ride to Hell. Which is mostly true.

To be continued...