His friends arrive

Jen, Alice, and Sam walked in like they paid rent. They were each carrying grocery bags that they dropped on the counter. Sam flopped down on the couch exhausted. “ I’m just getting off a 12. Let me catch a few on the couch, then we’ll talk about what’s going on.” Jen and Alice started putting away groceries. Tom ‘s move out of his old place necessitated a certain amount of purging from his pantry, they had been dismay over his stock of frozen meals and a general lack of any vegetation.

He compared them Jen was looking taller and Alice had seemingly lost a few inches in height. Alice was Korean, her family had moved over here two generations ago. Jens family was Irish as they come, although she had escaped the stereotypical Irish red hair and freckles. Jen was looking more muscular than she had appeared this morning. She was definitely going to be an Amazonian. Alice hadn’t exactly been a slouch in the fitness department but he could already tell that she was looking a little bit thicker around the middle. Reaching for any of the shelves seemed to make her uncomfortable.

Sam was already asleep on the couch. His hair was a medium brown color, roughly medium length and not styled any particular way. He and Tom had been friends since high school. He was wearing a loose pair of gym shorts and a gray faded T-shirt. He had his eyes covered with one arm.

Sam woke up sometime later and sat up rubbing his eyes. Alice and Jen sat over at the table with Tom. They were playing one of Tom’s strategy board games, although it was clear to see who was not doing well. Most of Jen’s pieces were off to the side of the board and this was readily looking like it was really going to be a matchup between Alice and Tom.

Sam got up and walked over to the table, taking the empty fourth chair and waited for the game to finish. It was a close thing, with Tom securing a narrow victory after using the last of Jen’s pieces to keep Alice tied up long enough to decimate her forces. They started cleaning up.

“So we’ve gotten a huge number of complaints over at the ER. Nothing serious it’s just people have been complaining about feeling funny. Like, we get a lot of whack jobs showing up to the ER complaining about things that aren’t really problems, but this is different, there’s a lot of people all at once. We have been telling them to just go home but something is definitely weird. I mean Health care has changed a lot, in the last decade. Less people are getting sick than ever before, and the only reason the hospital is still open is to respond to injuries. ” Sam frowned. “Tom, you definitely have something going on. Nobody gets that fucking jacked overnight.”

Tom shrugged, feigning ignorance. “Hey, don’t look at me I’m is clueless as the rest of you.”

Sam bit his lip. “Okay, yeah. I don’t think anyone has any idea about what’s going on. Listen, I have the next two days off but then I’m going back to work. We’re all feeling it, right? I think that we should stay here and keep an eye on each other.” He looked around for agreement.

“I work from home, so no skin off my back.”

Alice nodded. “Same here.”

Jen shook her head. “I can’t. But I’ll stay here unless I’m at work.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, it’ll have to do. Tom, you’re the most affected by whatever this is so I might ask to take some vitals.” Tom shrugged. “I can do that.”

“Alright, Alice and Jen can share the guest bedroom, I’ll sleep on the couch. Sound good?”