Author's Note: Hey guys, I know it's been a while. But in my temporary absence, I stumbled upon a wonderful little game called Left 4 Dead and liked the characters so much that I decided to try my hand at a story about them. This is SmokerxHunter, and the characters could be considered OCs I suppose. But nevermind you that, sit back, relax, and enjoy! By the way, this is boyxboy, yaoi, whatever you want to call it. Don't like, don't read. By the way, this is inspired by the song of the same name by Three Days Grace. Just in case you were wondering. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Left 4 Dead or any of the characters associated with it.

Animal I Have Become

It's been three days.

Three days since the pains started. Three days since the burning, the sickness. He found that he practically lived in the bathroom; unable to truly leave the ceramic bowl because the urge to push whatever remained in his thoroughly harassed stomach out of his body was so strong. But a lot had happened in those three days.

His parents had vanished, along with his little sister. They intended to go out to eat for his little sister's birthday, they said, as he lay in bed stricken with fever. That stumbling woman had bit him.. he thought nothing of it, but he couldn't help but be a bit perturbed. After all, why would someone bite as a first defense? Not that he had really been threatening her.. She'd stood in the middle of the street, looking mindless, lost, dragging crooked feet along in broken high heels. Her clothing was tattered and bloodied, body shuddering with each step. He'd been uneasy when he approached her at first, and it hadn't taken long for his gut feeling to be justified.

"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you alright?"

The night was dark. Pitch black; no sign of a moon. The street lights intermittently flickered, and it struck the him as a bit suspicious. He stared up at the towering poles and then back to the woman, who still stood with her back facing him. "Ma'am..?" He tried again. No response.

The closer he stepped to the woman, the more apprehension he felt. She bore long slashes in her light pink dress suit, stockings long since stripped from her once shapely legs. Now they were ghostly pale—almost sickly—dripping dark, congealed blood from fresh cuts and littered with ugly, yellowish bruises. Shuffling along carefully behind her, he reached out and gripped her shoulder, heartbeat hammering in his ears. Something in him told him to turn away, to mind his own business like he usually would have.

But as soon as he touched her, all hell broke loose.

Swirling, straggly, grimy hair framing her face and making her pupil-less eyes seem just that much larger, she turned, let out a guttural growl, and lunged for him. Taken off guard by the sudden turn of events, he didn't have time to defend himself as she charged, swinging fists with surprising strength, all the while hissing and moaning like no human being should.

"What the fuck, lady?! Get offa me!" He screeched himself, kicking at her as she knocked him to the ground, blood dripping from her gaping mouth down onto her already-soiled front. Before he managed a single blow to her skinny form, she grabbed the arm he was using to defend himself from her vicious attack, and sunk her teeth in so deeply that he could swear he felt his bone start to crack.

With a punch that freed him from beneath her and a rushed, silencing kick to her head that left her crumbled lifelessly on the street, he was on his feet and sprinting back down the desolate street, confused, disoriented, and in immense pain. Arriving home, he ducked his mother's maternal concern and fled upstairs immediately to his room, injured arm cradled to his chest.

"Caiden!" She called up the stairs. But he ignored her, locking his door and collapsing against the cool wood.

That was the last time he was going out in the middle of the night to buy a fucking video game.

Caiden never told his parents about the bite. Even as he watched it grow over the last three days, the varicose veins spreading like swollen spider webs and framing the yellowing bite. And even as his health started to noticeably deteriorate. His mother, despite her mild prying about 'that night', never really suspected that anything was seriously wrong with her son. She dismissed it as a bad cold and gave him the needed remedies. Her chicken soup used to quell even the most stubborn illness, but the one that had taken control of Caiden remained undaunted. They'd all heard about that sickness – the 'Green Flu', was it? But nobody in their neighborhood took it very seriously. It was a mild biological threat that would never touch their perfect lives, never break apart picturesque homes. He wished now that his parents hadn't been so nonchalant.

His family disappeared on the second day. As he lay on the cold tiling of the bathroom floor, Caiden remembered the last thing his mother had promised. "Keep taking your medicine," She'd said, kissing his forehead. "We'll be back by nine at the latest."

Nine 'o clock passed, and then ten. If he hadn't felt like absolute shit, he might have tried call, text, something. But his insides burned with a raging inferno that he had never felt before in his nineteen years, and no matter how much water he drank, the fire would not ease. Leaning over the toilet bowl again, Caiden heaved; his stomach offered nothing more than a vicious burning that scalded his esophagus. Of course by then he wasn't completely ignorant of what was going on on 'the outside', not that he knew too much either. The Dead Walk! The newspaper his father left lying on the kitchen table to be studied later read days before, emblazed with pictures of sprinting, terrifying monsters that bore a striking resemblance to that woman who'd bitten him.

Is the end of the world upon us? Local officials have had to exterminate twelve more of the aggressive creatures that many residents started spotting beginning late last month. Officers report that these creatures are extremely dangerous, and have given citizens the permission to kill any seen on sight without facing punishment. For now, officials request that everyone remain indoors with all doors and windows locked and await further instructions. If you are unfortunately bitten, seek out medical attention immediately. The virus is spread by a transfer of bodily fluids, similar to HIV or AIDS, and is believed to be a mutated form of rabies. Recent studies show-

Upset, Caiden had stopped reading. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. No one had seen these 'creatures', no one that he knew anyway, so it was dismissed as an inner city problem that the gang-bangers and whatever other nonsense that dwelled there spread.

Where was his family? The only reason they'd ventured out in such tumultuous times was because his little sister's birthday was in a few days. Casey was the baby of the family, a gorgeous doll the absolute spitting image of her mother, so naturally she got what she wanted. They'd all decided on treating her to her favorite restaurant as a family outing before the extravaganza that was planned for her on the true day, though Caiden wouldn't be joining them. "Cici's Pizza," He remembered her yelling excitedly from downstairs as his mother gave him her instructions for the evening. "Hurry up, Mommy! Caiden's a big boy. He won't die. Let's go!" His mind started to wander, floating above the chaotic city. Had his family even made it down the street..?

Dark hair splayed about him on the tile when he decided to press his cheek against it again, he clenched jade eyes tightly shut, fists balling. Outside everything was being turned inside out, and he could barely muster enough strength to raise his head. He'd heard the sirens wailing up and down the streets, seen the strobing red and blue lights. Ambulances? Police? It was a scary thought, all of this. To think that he might have actually been left behind by his family as they fled to a safer place by government order. But it was an even scarier thought to believe that the immaculately cleaned bathroom tiles would be the last thing he saw before he died. Casey was wrong. He didn't feel as if he'd be around to see her tenth birthday.

As soon as the notion was formed within his mind, Caiden could feel his heart start to weaken, beating ominously loud like a drum being struck over and over again, methodically slow, in a long, dark hallway. His vision blurred, everything doubling and then tripling, before eventually it all simply faded to black.

The moon seemed to glow crimson that night.

It was the coldness that struck him first, despite his heavy jacket and baggy jeans. It was a chill that snaked into his bones, into his very being, constricting him but quelling the fire that had burned him from the inside out before. Caiden lay immobile for a moment, trying to gather scurrying thoughts. He could feel all of his limbs.. everything was attached. It took a few moments of convincing before he believed that he could move, and when he did, he took things slowly. But everything felt so.. effortless, as if half his weight had been lifted away. Finally, hesitantly, he pried his eyes open, but all the faster he wished he hadn't.

The florescent light hanging above burned Caiden's eyes, searing his pupils. He let out an inhuman hiss, pushing away from the tub on which he'd supported his back against and propped himself up on all fours, front crouched lower to the ground than his back. Before Caiden could even comprehend what was happening, he was in his bedroom again, gazing through eyes that did not feel like his own. Despite the pitch-blackness of the room, he could see everything perfectly, from the intricate, quilted patterns on the blanket his mother had sewn for him, down to the quarters scattered about on the wood paneling underneath his bed.

Dropping onto his side, a deep frown creasing his face, Caiden simply stared. What the hell is going on..? Is this some sort of a dream? That was truly what it seemed like. Some sort of a cruel dream. Wearily, almost too slowly he stood on shaky legs and seated himself onto his bed.

"My God.." It was something that he'd tried to speak, but it came out as strangled hisses and grunts, not that Caiden truly noticed. He was too horrified to notice much of anything. Hands having folding themselves in his lap, he'd caught a glimpse of them. Now holding them in front of his face, he took note of their appearance. Long, incredibly sharp claws had grown from previously well-trimmed fingernails, stained yellow and standing out in a harsh comparison against the otherwise extreme paleness of his skin. Though his body, for the most part, felt normal-enough, placing one tentative hand on top of the other told him that his skin was shockingly clammy and almost numb, lacking any true heat at all.

This was all going to hell real fast.