"Human conscious is frail, but the spirit is strong. It is only as weak as you deign it to be." - author unknown

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Splat!

The gore covered Jeremy. An intense urge to vomit rose from the back of his throat, uvula undulating, stomach churning with a lurch. Sounds of retching indicated that the other members of the crowd were as confused and panicked as he was. He looked, a little wildly, around. His mind told him to run, but his adolescent heart still held Sarah dear.

'Leave her!' Something hissed at him from within. "Fuck!" He resisted. He needed something to protect him from the self centered desires that made him no different than the Darkist. "She is right."

He slapped the slime, yuck, and grime off his face. Something was nagging him, more discretely than his instinct, that he should wash himself before more of the blood contaminates soaked into his skin.

"FUCK!" He raged as if that was the only word he remembered. I'll look for her after cleaning most of this off.

A woman next to Jeremy was wailing about how gross she felt. Her cries attracted his attention. She was fairly pretty for a gore covered knit, but but his attention was only at her skin. A dark splotch was spreading across her near exposed breast. The magnificent D's looked to be withering.

Craze. That was the only thing left in Jeremy's heart. I need to wash this shit off of me!

He bobbed up and down attempting to look around the motley crew of people vomiting and crying. In the distance, three blocks away, he noticed a fire hydrant. Peering beyond the fire hydrant, Jeremy recognized the olde first fire house. He hoped the facilities would be available.

Rushing with great enthusiasm, Jeremy fogged himself quickly. He felt his energy drawing through his skin like the sun was tanning his muscles. He felt everything around him become more narrowed. A hunger bore through his mind like an earth worm in the ground.

Eat!

It called to him. That voice that he couldn't hear, different from his instinct, the one that told him to clean himself, it was now telling him to eat. Eat anything.

Jeremy ignored the burn. He felt like the back of his head was exploding. He finally reached the steps of the fire house.

Coincidence

The shower room was down stairs near the back wall. It was labeled as so. It was near an old timey fire truck with a beige hose. He looked at the distance and thought about his screaming muscles. The hunger urged him again.

Eat!

"No," Jeremy hoarsely replied. He rushed to the side of the Firetruck, unlatched the safety harness for the house, pulling vigorously down. The sound of the hose coming undone from its harness was like the sound of a book bag being continuously unzipped.

EAT! Eat them all!

The voice was becoming more coherent and sinister. The burning became less clear, a shadow had brushed behind him, he was slightly relieved of the pangs of hunger.

"Ahh," Jeremy moaned with pleasure.

Dink!

The hose was unwound.

COINCIDENCE

Jeremy spun the crank shaft on the side of the fire truck. It was fairly self explanatory that which ever direction he turned it and moved would turn the hose on.

A lub dub of noise glopped out of the house with orange rust and murk. Jeremy paid no attention to the unsanitary water. He was more urgently aware of the affect of the blood and guts on his direct skin.

He cleaned himself, not nearly as decent enough as he was used to, but good enough that the burning completely stopped. He felt a dull tingle in his nerve receptors as he rubbed his hands over his body, shivering. His skin looked like a baked prawn. His hair was now a dark, dark, brown. He saw himself in a puddled.

The once cross country, lean and toned, figure he was proud of was a husk of its former glory.

"I nearly looked like skin and bones." The light from a window above cut across his eyes. He stared in the reflection with abject horror. His once green eyes now had a gold ring around the pupil.

"What the fuck," he stammered before hearing shrieks in the street. Peering out of the opened front of the fire station, Jeremy witnessed the aftermath of those that did not clean.

People, skin and bones, frantically running towards other less skinny people, swamping them in a craze, while assaulting them with boney appendages.

Jeremy blinked. If he could see his eyes he would see the gold ring surrounding his pupils shrank into the inside of the retina.

Round 1: Begin