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Spamton woke up in a motel room outside of Cyber City the morning after turning and running away from his life.
Already feeling disgusting, he wandered groggily into the bathroom and realized, in shock, that may have been the first Addison ever to develop a skin condition.
Dark little thorns of new growth now protruded from his skin, and passing by the mirror, he couldn’t have missed it if he tried.
All over his arms, dull little growths peppered his skin like pointy little black petals. They could have easily been mistaken for freckles at a distance (which he had! Just a few, over his cheeks.) But certainly not up close. He looked sick.
His stomach dropped as he touched the black specks with one pale hand. He wasn’t quite glowing anymore. He wasn’t quite corporeal either, but- *something* was certainly happening and it had given him a membrane out of which *something* could grow. He felt nauseous.
He had feared exactly this, for a long time.
Call after call after call, he wondered, terrified, if somehow everyone else could tell. That his transgressions against normalcy and fate and whatever else was in Spamton’s way would slowly start to change him in a way no one would be able to ignore.
He’d had nightmares about it. Looking in the mirror and seeing some warped, frightening version of himself. Having frighteningly real feeling teeth, and then feeling them all fall, brittle, out of his skull. In one horrible dream, he had gone home and seen Lacey, who didn’t recognize him.
And in the dream, the orange Addison who had never let him see her in any distress and had little tolerance for nonsense or jokes, looked into him, silent, horrified. Like she was looking at someone who had died and come back all wrong.
But that hadn’t happened. As terrifying as the thoughts and the dreams were, the only thing that had changed was his life. Even so, he thought, after so many times, of course some toll should have been taken. But none came.
At least it seemed now, he was just starting to pay the price he so gravely feared.
Spamton had been glowing brighter than ever just yesterday! Even after he got the call-.
Spamton’s stomach lurched in horror as he felt his neck crack violently to the side, completely out of his control. His other hand shot up to the back of his head, as if trying to protect it. He cursed under his breath. He couldn’t think about what he did, not right now.
He had gotten out of there. The problem had been taken care of, that was all that mattered. No more phones. He could fix this later, if that was even possible.
He lightly ran his fingertips in the opposite direction of the little black flecks, up his arm. He stood dumbfounded in front of the bathroom mirror and flicked his eyes back and forth from his arm and his reflection.
His skin was raised all over, beneath the little protrusions. They looked like goosebumps.
Spamton stopped cold. His fingers twitched away from his arm.
As if in a trance of morbid curiosity, he gently pressed the tip of his thumb into his arm, tugging gently at one of the little flecks, resisting the urge to pick.
As if indulging his curiosity, a, tiny, ghostly looking papery sheath fell off the growth and drifted to the floor.
Underneath the fragile cap of fingernail-like material, the little growth Spamton now studied was glossy black, almost violet in the harsh light of the bathroom.
He exhaled through his nose. He felt suddenly glued to the floor, like his whole body was stone.
They were feathers.