Chapter Text
Philza shut his apartment door with a sigh. His headache had gotten worse over the course of the walk home. He set his grocery bag on the floor as he hung up his coat on it’s hook and toed off his shoes. He turned on the TV for background noise as he put away the fresh bread in the cupboard and the chicken in the freezer.
The news anchor was rattling off a message from an anonymous tip as Phil came back from the bathroom with aspirin. A virus has breached containment at the lab uptown and was now spreading quickly. Random nonsense about ‘if you experience any of these symptoms please call the number on the screen’- Phil blinked at the private phone number.
That wasn’t suspicious at all .
He washed the aspirin down with a glass of water as the list of symptoms continued: “Numbing of the extremities, extreme changes in diet, difficulty speaking and understanding speech, violent reactions to light-” Phil turned off the TV. The bolt on his door already proved he was paranoid, and he didn’t need to become any more so. He just had the beginnings of a cold. It was just a cold he picked up from work. It was just a cold. Phil hung his hat on his closet door, dismissing the news anchor’s ramblings as bullshit. The headache had faded to a dull throb and it was painless enough for him to sleep. It was probably just a cold.
He woke up early the next morning sounding and feeling absolutely awful. He barely had to stumble a few words out before his work conceded that he sounded like death incarnate and he should really get some rest.
He dragged himself out of bed later that afternoon to drink some water and use the bathroom. His reflection in the bathroom mirror somehow looked worse than he felt. He scrawled a shaky note and left it on the top of the mirror to remind himself to get a haircut. He drained his cup and slunk into the living room. The sun had already begun to set past the opposite side of the complex. The fresh air of the balcony was refreshing, the cold breeze less so. Fall was in the air, and the trees that broke up the parking lot had begun to wilt. There were only a few lit windows he could see, and Phil went back inside.
He forced himself to eat a sandwich. The cheese tasted off, even though the block had been unopened. He sighed and crawled back into the welcoming arms of his bed.
He didn’t remember walking to the toilet to hurl the sandwich back up. It was darker than pitch in the bathroom and his throat stung with bile. The cheese must have been a lot more than just off.
His hands itched as Phil rested his forehead against the toilet lid. He coughed and more acid came up. The tap water nearly choked him as he drank it like he hadn’t touched a drop in months. His hands itched .
Philza went back to sleep.
The next day, if it even was the next day, was rendered little more than a blur. It may have only been a few hours since he flushed away his vomit, or a week since he’d moved at all.
He stumbled into the kitchen and threw the blinds closed. The balcony doors were covered with curtains and Phil slumped against the wall. His hands still itched, and so he scratched. He scratched as his vision blurred, not stopping until he felt warm wet seeping under his nails. He stared down at his bloodied hands. They didn’t hurt. They didn’t itch anymore either. They’d gone almost completely numb.
In a dulled haze he wandered into the bathroom and bumped into the sink. His hands moved on their own, the repetitive movement of washing them lulling him into a kind of trance. His blood was thick, and it just kept coming. The bleeding eventually slowed, and after exhausting minutes of red drip drip dripping into the sink it finally clots. Phil opened the cabinet mirror and stared down the bandages sat neatly wrapped on their shelf. They almost glowed white in the dark. His hands didn’t hurt. They weren’t bleeding anymore. He didn’t want to waste them. Phil left, staring down at his raw hands. He didn’t shut the cabinet mirror. His bed was waiting for him and he throws himself onto it gratefully.
His feet itched. His arms itched. His back itched. He didn’t get out of bed. His bed didn’t feel right anymore. It was too narrow, too soft. He banged his head against his bedside table and swears. He finally dragged himself up. He was hungry, and he should probably get something to drink. He leaned on the wall all the way down the hallway. His hands felt stiff. His skin had gone dry and he peels a flaking piece off his knuckle.
He picked up an apple and ate it slowly. His teeth hurt and the apple skin kept getting stuck between them. He managed about half of it before his stomach twisted in on itself and he threw it right back up into the rubbish bin.
He collapsed back against the cool door of the fridge, throat raw and teeth aching. He picked at the skin on his hands as he stared down at his feet. They’d gone numb. He rubbed at his arms in a fruitless attempt to stop the itch. The itch only grew stronger. Philza passed out in his kitchen, arms red from endless chicken scratches. His hands had started to lose skin of their own accord.
- - -
He woke up to cramped legs, a headache and a growling stomach. He wobbled and swears as he stood up, legs sore and his knees creaky. He must have really been getting old, Phil thought. The thought itself isn’t as funny as he had hoped it would be.
Phil drank greedily from the tap which
graciously eased the headache along with his stomach’s cries. He’d thrown up everything he’d eaten so far and Phil wasn’t keen on doing it again. He tapped his fingers on the bench and ignored how his nails clacked against it.
Exhaustion was coiled thickly around his shoulders weighing him down like a heavy quilt. All he’d done for the past few days was sleep and still his thoughts were sluggish and the world swam whenever he moved too quickly- Although that might just be a trick of the light- or lack thereof. He hadn’t flicked a light switch in at least two days.
He walked best he could on his dead legs from the kitchen, past the couch, through the hallway and closing the bathroom mirror before he forgets. He ignored the strange way his ankles rolled and how his knees almost wanted to bend backwards. He ignored the slight glow of his eyes in the mirror. He was just paranoid and starving and tired. It was just a cold. It couldn’t possibly be a cold, but it must have been a cold. It had to just be a cold.
His bed felt even worse to lie in. He grumbled, standing back upright, and paced the room cursing out whoever's sick joke this was. To take away his bed, his one place of comfort where he could escape to unconsciousness, the audacity. The bed nor God answered him. Phil dragged his hands down his face in frustration. He ignored how rough they feel, like badly cured leather or scales. He instead dragged his blankets off of his mattress to dump them on the floor. His sheets and pillows came next.
The ‘nest’ he created was more comforting than his bed had ever been. He ignored the implication of that thought and threw himself into sleep.
He was dragged out of his cozy tightly woven beautiful glorious nest by his stomach howling.
Phil stalked down the hallway moving faster than he had in days. The freezer door was ripped open and he barely gave more than a hiss at the automatic light before his eyes locked onto the chicken. The frozen meat was barely an obstacle as he crunched his way through it, wolfing down bones and flesh and ice crystals.
He dumped the shredded plastic container in the sick-filled bin and curled in on himself. He’d forgotten what it was like to not have your stomach crying out at every move you make. His eyes slid closed as he shuddered. He couldn’t feel the tears. His face had gone numb.
There was a sliver of light peeking through a gap in the balcony curtains. Phil stood staring at it glinting off the wooden floor of his living room. He hadn’t thrown up the chicken yet.
He reached out to hike the curtains shut again and froze. His hand glittered strangely in the sunlight. It was scaled like a bird's foot, nails longer then they had ever been before and claw-like. His pinky finger, however, looked strange. It looked… stretched. He brought his hand back out of the light and left the curtains to hang as they were.
He stalked back towards his room. He shut the door to the bathroom tightly and ignored the clicks of his claws on the metal door handle. He entered, the door creaking shut as he fell back into his nest. It wrapped around him like a grandmother’s hug. He stared at his feet in the dark. He flexed his too-long toes. The skin cracked and scraped and the claws dug into the soles of his feet. He didn’t realize how hard he’d been clenching them until he felt slick liquid dripping down his heel.
He didn’t get up to get bandages. They were behind the mirror and he was not looking in the mirror. He pretended to fall asleep instead, and he pretended that everything was going to be ok.
- - -
He woke up to feathers.
His arms and legs were covered in small black feathers, thick around his wrists and ankles. The feathers faded off into little spines at his elbow, but as Phil watched the quills they were still growing, stretching out from his skin and the veins beginning to form to stretch to spread out and cover his arm like he had dipped it in ink.
Phil screamed.
There was a pounding on the front door. It echoed through the walls, more a meaty slap then a knock. Phil snapped his mouth shut, clapping a scaled hand over it. His eyes were screwed shut as he desperately tried to ignore the itch of feathers growing. After another minute, the pounding stopped. He stood up shakily and clicked his way into the main room. He stared through the peephole on the door. There was nothing in the hallway.
He leant his forehead against the door with a heavy sign. His mind felt like it was racing even though he couldn’t pick out a single thought other than hunger and relief- His arms had stopped itching.
Phil kept his arms firmly by his sides as he turned on his heels- or tried to and nearly fell, given he no longer had a heel on which to turn- and walked into the kitchen. He kept his hands clenched and his eyes trained straight ahead of him.
He didn’t throw up the raw bacon either. He leaned against the kitchen counter waiting for the nausea, hoping for the nausea, but it never came. He stared wistfully at the now stained waste bin, and decided if he had nothing else better to do he might as well clean up.
The kitchen was tidied and the living room shelves were dusted. The waste bin had the sick scraped off it and Phil’s face had gone numb with what he hoped was exhaustion. He’d barely done anything and he was dead on his feet. He hoped it was a sign this was nearly over, that he can go back to normal soon, stop hallucinating. Or at the very least, stop pretending to believe he was hallucinating.
His feathers were wet with the water and suds from the sink. He dried them carefully and ignored new feathers continuing up to his shoulders, the quills wiggling through his skin like worms. He wondered just how many hours he’d spent in his bedroom this week. His nest was rewoven with high walls of sheets and extra blankets he’d dragged out from the linen cupboard, tablecloths and folded towels pillowed the floor as he curled back into it. It fit snug around him, comforting and warm as he fell back to sleep with the soft sounds of bones popping and feathers shifting into place.
- - -
He can’t open his eyes. He can’t see. Phil scrabbles and flutters, dragging himself out of the nest in a panic. He can’t open his eyes, he can’t see. The wall is cool under his hand and he leans heavily against it. There’s a rough sheet wrapped around his ankles which scrapes against his scales as he shifts. He rubs at his eyes but his face is number then numb and he can’t feel them. Little sparks of pain burst as his claws scratch up his eyebrows, his chin, his cheekbones. They are swallowed by the numb a second after. He can’t open his eyes. He can’t see. He takes a step away from the wall and trips. He squawks as he lands hard against a not wall- the closet door. He feels up the paneled wood, reaching for the handle he knows has to be there. He wrenches it open from an awkward angle, the wood creaking in protest. Phil crawls his way into the closet. Shirts and jackets fall from their hangers and shoes dig into his back and his back itches. His back itches. He can’t open his eyes. He can’t see. He feels a toe claw snag on something and he tears it off and feels familiar fabric. It’s his hat, his favorite bucket hat. He feels blindly around it, finding a large tear in the brim. Phil clutches it to his chest as he begins to shake. The feathers are thick and warm on his arms and legs, dulling the feeling of fabric. His back itches with the promise of more feathers soon to come. His body shudders with sobs. He can’t feel the tears running down his face. He can’t open his eyes. He can’t see.
- - -
He could see again. He could open his eyes and he could see. He almost wept with joy, until he went to wipe his eyes of sleep and felt feathers. He dragged rough fingers up and down his face- only half of his face was feathers. The relief he felt was sickening, twisting as it occurred to him that half a face of feathers is still a face covered in feathers. His fingers clenched in his long corn silk hair and he screeched. The sound flew from his mouth like a bird let out of a cage, free and wild and satisfying and even as his breath ran low he didn't want to stop.
The pounding at the door started again. It was slower, sluggish. Heavier.
Phil shut his mouth, hands twisting painfully in his hair as the pounding slowly tapered to a stop. He dropped his hands to his lap as he sat silently in the closet. The room should be darker than it was. His fists clenched around his dear little bucket hat. Phil took a deep breath, and stood up.
Hat secured on his head Phil stared out the peephole. The glass was fogged slightly, but no one was outside. Phil straightened, back popping, and surveyed himself briefly. The feathers covered his arms like long sweeping sleeves. The feathers around his wrist were worryingly long. He was sick of looking at his scaled, wrinkled hands so he moved on to his legs. His feet were even worse than his hands. Bending his knee or maybe his ankle, his leg bent backwards.
It was like he was detached from his body, poking and prodding at some digital recreation of what a bird-human would look like.
A Harpy
, the part of him still excited over mythology whenever his history teacher used to bring it up said. A Harpy still had a human face and sometimes torso, he reminded himself.
I might still have one
, said a scrap of hope, as if he didn’t screech at the feeling of feathers. As if he could still blink.
The hope didn’t fade away. The bathroom mirror taunted him from behind the closed door. Phil left it closed.
The refrigerator was too warm. Phil twisted the little dial and tore off another bite of raw bacon. The lack of nausea wasn’t unsettling if Phil simply ignored it. Even the feathers were fine if he just ignored them. The closet was tidied and shirts were back on their hangers and he was fine . The wince he gave whenever he caught a glimpse of his own hand could be suppressed. He could scratch at his chest and pretend that it made the itch go away.
He played with his too-long hair as he surveyed the balcony curtains. The gap was still there, sun shining through in a blade, stabbing into the living room floor. Phil, taking an action he didn’t consciously authorize but made in some subconscious desperation of normal, opened the curtains.
The light hurt . Phil hissed and jumped back, ducking back into the shadows. It took him a second to realize he was crouched like a wild animal, cornered by sunlight. It took him a second more to realize how right it felt, to be hunched low on bowed legs, claws at the ready and eyes picking up the movement of every speck of dust.
It took nearly 5 minutes for Phil to stand back up.
The view from the balcony had always been terrible. Phil lived on the 5th floor of his complex, and his complimentary balcony gave him a truly mediocre view of the car park and complex block across from him, along with maybe 2 by 3 paces of extra space.
Phil’s claws scarred the railing as he leaned forward. The nature strip in the middle was still scraggly, and the pest control van which hasn’t moved in months was still there.
The gazelles were new.
Or at least, Phil had thought they were gazelles. Then one stood up and opened its mouth so filled with teeth Phil could see the glint all the way up on the balcony. The thing bellowed, and then led it’s fellows out of the car park. The bird-bugs in the trees screeched and flapped after them, feathery backs shining like carapaces. The herd pranced past a flipped car and a knocked over dumpster and vanished past the gate.
Phil swallowed dryly. He could see movement in the apartments across from him through the balcony windows. Jerky, slithering, flapping and lumbering movement. Phil shut the doors behind him.
The lights no longer worked. He stood flicking at the switch uselessly for a minute, mind far away and ears barely registering the Click clack click of his claw against the plastic. How long had he been in his apartment for everything to go to hell? He tried to count back the days, but constant darkness due to the curtains and his habit of sleeping multiple times a day for God knows how long made the endeavor fruitless. At best it had been a week. At worst…
He stopped his train of thought there. He was fine. He was alive. He was mostly sane. This was all probably just a nightmare, a hyper-hyper realistic dream cooked up by the fever he was developing when he first passed out.
Phil laughed at how much he wanted to believe himself. Raw, lifeless chuckles as he curled into his nest which quickly turned to sobs. A final thought came to him as he dipped into unconsciousness.
He should have called the number
- - -
He should have just called the number he should have just gone and called the fucking number because now he can’t. There’s nothing but a dial tone because of course the powers out the fridge is warm the lights won’t turn on and he should have just called the number-
Phil clenched his wrists around his battered hat now pegged to his skull by a pair of quickly growing antlers (Antlers fucking antlers? They forked and pressed and pushed through his forehead and ripped through his hat and poked at his hands when he delusionally believed that he could shove, them, back, in)
Hair clouding his vision as it tumbled in tangles to his throat his chest heaving with feathers covering it in a mockery of the black turtlenecks he was once so fond of. His eyes screwed shut for there was no point in straining them trying to see past the curtain of shiny black feathers that made up his wings.
He had wings.
He had wings like a bird and they were as long as he was tall and they weighed down his arms bearly supported by his head and hat as his claws dug in painfully and his teeth clenched and he didn’t even bother to try and repress the pained screech that ripped its way out of his lungs much the same way his soul currently wanted out of his twisted aching befeathered body. His ears rang with the noise as tears welled up, fell, and were lost in more feathers there were always more feathers they just kept coming and growing and they grew back as soon and as quick as Phil could rip, them, out and-
The bangs were more like wet, meaty slaps, not that it registered as Phil stalk-marched his way to the door, furious and teary eyed. He wrenched the bolt and flicked the lock and swung it open foolishly thinking himself ready to face outside when he couldn’t even look himself in the mirror.
Philza was not ready to look out into the hallway proper. His stomach dropped to his feet as he felt color drain from what remained of his face.
To call the thing sitting in the hallway a slug would be doing it a kindness, and slugs everywhere a deadly insult. The mass of flesh blinked its four once-human not-eyes, rolling itself to show off a stomach clogged with what might have once been Phil’s neighbours. There was a thin patch of skin where a dog had tried to dig its way out of the twisting guts, it’s half dissolved face flush and showing through the thing’s translucent skin. There was a shoe with a leg attached to it, a hand, a skull and a face (that was a human face that half melted puddle was once a human face ) and it was reaching for him agonizingly slowly with what could graciously be called an arm. It had been the one pounding on his door, trying to get him to shut up and come out . Phil lurched back but the arm was far too long and the thing began to open up for it was not a slug nor a stomach it was a mouth and-
Philza slammed the door shut.
He pressed his back to it, wings flaring uselessly as the thing began to truly hammer at the door. Each slap set the wood wobbling in it’s hinges.
The couch was far, far lighter than Phil remembered. Phil carefully wrote it off as the adrenaline and set it aside to ignore for the time being. With the front door temporarily barricaded, Phil could return to his mental breakdown.
With a few very deep breaths, Phil finally opened the bathroom door.
The sight that awaited him in the mirror, while expected, was very much enough to tip him back over the edge to hysteria.
His eyes were blue, painfully head swimmingly blue, like staring into a summer sky craning your neck until you can see your blood moving where the blue becomes bluer. His eyes also glowed softly, casting his face in a ghostly light as they seemed to carefully highlight every single last feather that formed a mask around his eyes and over his nose. His mouth hang open and was filled with two perfect rows of shark like teeth. He snapped it shut.
Phil leaned back swallowing dryly. There was a heart like pattern on his chest, made up of mottled silver feathers with black filling in two slashes like eyes.
Carefully raising his arms, Phil watched in horrified awe at how the wings came with them, powerful and thick and large. They hit the back wall of the shower before they were even half way open. Phil flexed what was once his pinky finger and the feathers scraped up the wall a bit further before it became painful. Small, diamond like patterns decorated the bottom of his wings in the same silver as his chest. Twisting over his shoulder he could see how the wings transitioned seamlessly into his back and down into a tail. The tailfeathers had matching diamond patterns again. If nothing else his body was consistent.
Phil brought a hand to push at his hat, as he couldn’t run it through his hair, and watched as the antlers continued to slowly grow before his eyes. They were about 3 inches tall now and were beginning to curve backwards. Phil could already feel them start to weigh down his head.
As his eyes followed his antlers up a little yellow note caught his eye. Barely having to squint to read it, Phil quickly deciphered the shaky lettering.
Go get a haircut you shaggy old dog
Despite everything, Phil smiled. Despite himself, he began to chuckle. Hysterical giggles bubbled out of his mouth and past his hand as he fruitlessly tried to stop them. Get a haircut, get a haircut go get a fucking haircut-
His vision seemed to focus in on that scrap of a note, his reflection growing blissfully blurry as frustration began to bubble up, fury at this goddamned scrap of paper from back in a time about a week ago when he could still think about getting a fucking HAIRCUT-
The porcelain of the hand basin cracked, splintered and then fell to the floor and shattered. Phil looked down to find his hands barely harmed. The scales barely seemed scuffed. The laughter almost choked him up again. He didn’t have skin anymore he had scales . Phil took a step back from the shattered remains of the sink, wound back a wing-arm, and punched his bathroom mirror.
The glass shards tinkled pleasantly as they crunched around his fist. Pulling his hand away, the glass began to fall out piece by piece, before shattering further on the tiled floor. The glowing blue of his eyes looked even more disturbing in the cracked glass, reflecting his masked face again and again dizzyingly, hair twisting above and below and a hundred wings spreading from his shoulders.
The hammering at the door was sounding more and more like an axe hacking through it.
Surveying it at a safe distance he could see that the wood was beginning to splinter. Phil with a no longer surprising lack of effort dragged the now defunct refrigerator out into the living room to replace the couch. Satisfied that it would slow progress down further, Phil raided all that remained in the fridge. The milk and fruits were useless to him, the bread a possibility. He devoured the last of his sandwich meat and sat the eggs on the counter curiously. He knew the stove would be useless, but Phil could eat raw meat no problem so raw eggs…
The fact he was even considering this was disgusting. With a flick of his wrist over the counter the egg was raised over his mouth and it tasted-
Not bad actually.
Wiping his mouth and double checking the security of the fridge (it hadn’t budged- not yet anyway) Phil once again shut the door to the bathroom and slipped back into his room. It was nice, going to bed on his own terms. It wasn’t that he needed to, he simply wanted to sleep. Might as well get the nightmares out of the way. After pushing his bedframe to block his bedroom door just in case Phil leapt into his nest with a lack of grace rivalling a newborn cow and flopped face first into his nest.
He pretended his wings were just more blankets. His feathers just fibers. The pounding at his door simple white noise to lull him to sleep. He only had a bad cold after all.