Welcome to Gaia! ::

“That… I honestly don’t know. If I had answers I would tell you, but I can’t think of any reason why your insides would be affected first. Unless… Well we figured that each person who … have had that occur…so far had some sort of affiliation with the animal.”

Glaucus lowered his voice on the last sentence, when he continued he was nearly whispering, “One of our group loves wolves, and so far his… stages… have corresponded to that. And so far that seems to be the case for 3 out of the 5 of us, if you are… you know… then that’ll make 3/6.”

AJ signed, scanning the room, hoping to maybe find a free table somewhere to sit at while waiting for his food. He was about to give up and resigned himself to standing to wait, and perhaps heading home to eat, when he thought he heard something that caught his attention.

"affected.... animal... connection..."

It sent a chill down his spin and he turned to try and find its source. This was no simple task, as he couldn't tell what direction any sound came from now that he didn't have ears to focus sound, and the headband muffling what he could hear. He eventually decided it had come from a table where two guys sat in conversation. One of which was in a somewhat peculiar outfit for the weather.

He took a deep breath and approached the table.
"Erm, excuse me, do you mind if I sit here while I wait for my order?" He asked politely, feeling somewhat at ease at just the thought of being around some one who might... have some insight.

"Thank you," AJ said, sitting down across from the guy wrapped up. He got the distinct impression he had interrupted something important, and probably wasn't all that welcome. At the same time, he felt he needed to shut out his modest for the time being and get some real information about what was in store for him.

"My name's AJ," he began, "I'm from outside of town, in the woods."

He offered his hand, remember being trained by his mother to make a good impression. He felt like he was in need of one.

Glaucus gulped hard… he was in the same position again. But as Glaucus looked him over he noticed something. The man had a headband and peculiarly low point on his head, it covers his ears, ears that gave no indentation or contour of their existence.

“Oh the pizza is done! Excuse me!” Glaucus left in a rush. “Joseph want to help me with it?” He said with an urgent hand motion. He waited for Joseph to get over to the line where he could convey his findings immediately him.

Joseph stood up to help Glaucus with the pizzas, but he detected something in Glaucus' demeanor that made him think there was another reason he wanted to get out of earshot... of the guy who had just sat down, he supposed. It was a look he had seen once before: the look of mild panic that Glaucus had shown at Joseph's questioning earlier in the day.

"Sure!" he said, following Glaucus away from the table and towards the counter.

Joseph stole a glance at the man who had sat next to them, trying to ascertain what Glaucus had seen. He couldn't quite tell, but the headband was suspiciously low - it was almost like a trucker actually pulling his hat down all the way instead of letting it nearly float on top of his head. I was strange, certainly...

"I'm not sure... you're more experienced with such things," Joseph said. "Should we ... ask? I mean, at the worst he'd get offended and leave the table. At most... well, you'd add a number 7."

"Perhaps he heard us talking... but yes, that sounds like a good idea."

'Oh my goodness,' thought Joseph. 'I know he mentioned there being more, but... how widespread is this? What's causing it? ... and am I affected or not... ?'