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S.H.A.G.A. A Field Study Chapter 2 - Medical Visit

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S.H.A.G.A. – Field Work
by tfancred.  All content, story, and characters belongs to tfancred.  Translated from French to English by Shepherd-of-Nyx (Shepherd, Shepherdnyx).  This chapter corresponds to the second part of "SHAGA Etudier sur le terrain Partie 1 (TF et TG)"

CHAPTER 2
Medical Visit

I waited a good three hours like a moron in the waiting room of the CLSC public medical clinic when they finally called me into the examination room.

Inside, a nurse who I would call an old withered twig forced me to sit in a tiny metal chair.  On her part, she reclined on a large leather divan.

“Mister Langevin, I have to ask you several routine questions.  Is that okay?”

“Well…”

“Very good, do you have background with SHAGA?”

“Uhm…”

“Very good, we’ll say no.  High temperature, cough?”

“Not…”

“That neither, that’s good… and you came here for..?”

“I experienced an intense claustrophobic episode, and…”

With a pretentious air, the nurse closed my file.  “If that’s in the past, we can hardly do much… When you have finished wasting my time…”

“That’s not all…”

“In that case, speed it up a little…”

“Well, you could say that I don’t have as much strength.”

“In other words?”

“Well, before my incident, I could lift fifty kilo weights, and now, I can only move forty kilos.

“Okay, the doctor will be with you in a few minutes…”

A few minutes? I waited for practically two hours more in that room trying to make that metal chair comfortable.  I was just at the point of leaving and letting come what would come, when finally the doctor entered the room.

This was a man with a sizable stature and a full beard. At the sight of his four arms, I realized that he had already suffered from SHAGA.  Even though such a situation might seem rather ironic, a number of medical practitioners were contaminated at the start of the epidemic.  One might imagine that’s the risk of the trade.

He sat down in the armchair and read the notes left by the nurse in my folder.  After several minutes of silence, he finally looked up and asked me, “Have they taken a blood sample?”

I shook my head no.

“Then we are going to begin there,” he told me and rose to go see another patient.

One hour later, I found the same nurse who had received me earlier.  One sting, several curses, and an oppressing look from that horrible twig, and I was (finally) left the CLSC.  From what I understood, I would receive me results in a week if I had anything.

It already was one o’clock, and I was starving.  I had, incidentally, not eaten breakfast or lunch this morning, nor had I had supper last night, and my jeans had begun to let me know.  I tightened my belt and returned to my house where a well-stocked refrigerator was waiting for me.

In the early afternoon, I went to see my Evolution and Diversity professor, the course I hadn’t attended the day before.   He was a large man with grey hair and a wide broad forehead.  Despite my six feet two inches, I only came to his shoulder, and that was only if I was wearing thick socks.  His office was situated on the second floor of the main building.  The place was rather dark and the décor dated from the 1970s: long beige hallways, concrete floors, and above all, a jumbled mess of rooms and a cul-de-sacs which was not unlike the Labyrinth of King Minos. Each time I went there, I ended up lost.  It was truly an ordeal to reach the end in the poorly lit maze of pour taste. 

I finally knocked on the door, and almost immediately, Michael, my professor, opened the door.  Seeing me, he let escape a sigh of relief.

“Ah! You are well… When I saw you were not at the exam, I believed you had caught it too.”

“Caught what?”

“SHAGA, my friend!  One of the students in your group nabbed that bug.  When I saw that you were absent…”

“Someone caught the SHAGA?  Do you know who it is?”

“To be honest, I shouldn’t speak of it… That’s not for me to say… The majority of the class is is away taking a preventative treatment, which I think is a bit of an over-reaction.  If someone has caught it, it will be too late to avoid a mutation.  Anyway, glad to see you are in good health! What may I do for you?”

“Eh, well, about the exam yesterday…”

“Don’t worry, you did not miss anything.  Considering the situation, I judged that it would be preferable to do the makeup later.  It will be a good two weeks before everyone comes back from their preventative treatment anyway.  Where were you yesterday, anyway?”

“In short, I was called into work.”  I spent a good part of the afternoon talking with him. I saw the opportunity to learn a little more about a field that interested me.  It was only when his office hours ended that I decided to get going.  I lifted myself from the small chair which he reserved for students who came to consult him and shook his hand.

He stared at me then, with a worried expression, “Weren’t you a little taller?”

The question surprised me, but I knew where he was coming from.

“You are working too much, Michael!  As you say, if I have the SHAGA , I would already have undergone a mutation.”

“Certain mutations are more subtle… but you are right!”

“In any case, if I had begun to mutate, it would already be too late…”

“You are right again!  Go on, return home and don’t worry about that anymore.”

 I was standing in my bathroom in front of my mirror.  Was it possible that I was smaller?  Giving more careful attention, it was true that my clothes seemed a bit too big.  On the other hand, the difference was so small that it could be the emotion of the past few days playing with my head.  Michael must be right.  I wasn’t going to worry myself with that.

Upon returning to my living room, I noticed the My Little Pony bed cover that I had brought from the warehouse.  I had been so disturbed that I had completely forgotten that I had left it there.  I gathered it up and, about to to put in the trash, I stopped myself.  Why throw away a new cover?  There must be someone who would be glad to receive it.  I put it away in the closet and promised myself to find a taker when I had the opportunity.

I installed myself in my recliner in front of the television, my laptop sitting on my coffee table.  I thought over what Michael had told me… and if I had been infected.  What would I become?  Depending on the branch of the disease, I had an equal chance of becoming a monster as simply becoming a red-head.  At this moment, I asked myself which of the two would be worse.  I let out a small grin: being a red-head would probably be worse.  I had to change my train of thought.  Normally, I would not have hesitated to go work out, but my session yesterday had left me with stiffness in my arms.  What more, I risked not being able to lift my usual weights and such a situation would certainly not be calming.

No, I would have to find something else.  I thought about the blanket in my closet.  Why was that series so popular after all?  One of my friends had admitted to me that he was a fan.  Maybe I could give it a glance before judging.

Towards midnight, I had just finished the first season.  As surprising as this situation seemed to me, I was quite simply incapable of stopping.  I continued to watch the episodes one after another right up until I fell asleep in front of my computer screen.

It was my telephone that woke me.  Instinctively, I glanced at the clock, it was only nine thirty.

“Yes, hello?” I picked up, my voice hoarse from the night.

“Hello, Mr. Langevin, please.”

“That’s me!”

“Hello, this is Doctor Lefebvre from the CLSC.  I have received the results of the tests and… well, normally I ask the patients to come in for this sort of thing, but we have a bit of an overflow at the moment as you are aware.  Would you be bothered if I…?”

“No, it’s okay, you may give me the results right now!”

“Good…” he hesitated several seconds, took a deep breath and said in one go, “I believe that you have contracted the SHAG…”

“I have the…”

“The most extensive tests are still ongoing, but I am ninety-nine percent certain that this is the case.  The examination of your hormones shows a net rise in the levels of estrogen and, to be frank, certain hormones that are not human…”

“Not human…”

“Unecessary to panic… these situations are not rare… for the moment, your blood work has revealed nothing too alarming apart from your hormones.   If, nevertheless, you observe any worrying changes such as…”

“I have the SHAGA?”

“Yes, that’s what I just said… The only thing that you can do is to carefully observe your body to make sure no dangerous mutations take place.”

“And there is nothing we can do?”

“Your mutation is already in progress… As long as your transformation does not put your life in danger, we prefer to let the disease run its course.”

My heart beat a thousand miles per hour and my head wasn’t responding.  All that I had known about this disease seemed to be evaporating bit by bit.

“What am I going to become?”

“Difficult to say… the disease is still in its infancy.  Considering your hormone levels, I would say your Y chromosome has probably been replaced by an X chromosome, but that’s all I can say.  There are no tests to see if the virus reaches the brain.  So it is  possible that you will observe changes in personality.  That’s all I can say.  If you have other questions, I invite you to come by the CLSC, we have a support group for…”

I hung up without paying attention to the end of his explanations.  I fell to the ground expressionless.  I was annihilated.

This is my translation of tfancred 's story tfancred.deviantart.com/art/SH… .  This is the second chapter, which is contained within the first posting of tfancred 's original.  All characters, story, plot, and everything else in this story belongs to tfancred , all translations are mine.  There will be more chapters to come.
© 2015 - 2024 Shepherd-of-Nyx
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G61's avatar
This is interesting, i'm looking forward for the next