Faint/Synopsis

## Faint

With Evans' flesh transformed to his own unnatural form, Yaslatol attacks in a rush, screaming "'***CHIMERA!***" Paralyzed with fear, Phoebe holds her camera close even as she denies what she sees in front of her. Behind her, a grimly determined Joe recovers from his shock and reaches for her. Tossing her through an open doorway, he yells at her to lock the door. As the creature bears down on him, Joe reaches for a mop leaning against the wall by the door, daring the creature to come on. With his eyes beginning to glow yellow, Joe whips the mop around handle first, and his suddenly transformed ape-arm gives him the power to land a tremendous blow to Yaslatol's head, launching him into a row of hall lockers. Joe looks at his transformed hand in awe, but the sound of the growling creature pulling his head out of the ruined lockers brings his attention back to the fight. The creature gets free and looks at Joe. Joe looks up at the towering creature and tells himself he should be running. Putting words into actions, Joe races off, chiding himself for not having started sooner. The enraged creature takes off after him.

When the hall goes silent, the ever-curious Phoebe opens the door and peeks out to see what's going on.

Out of sight around the corner, Joe is running down the hall, desperately chanting encouragement to himself … and he morphs into a red-eyed half-man, half-hare hybrid with long, narrow ears on his head. Yaslatol laughs at Joe's failure to change into something lethal, leaping at him when he gets close and telling the little rabbit to run. Joe takes a hop and the creature misses, crushing floor tiles and surprising a curse out of Joe. Joe bounds out of reach like a hare on steroids, moving in great leaps.

Phoebe, meanwhile, takes a look around, and she spots only the trashed hallway and destroyed lockers; Joe and the creature are nowhere to be seen.

Yaslatol moves in pursuit of the hare and comes to a pair of solid doors closing off the hallway: Joe is nowhere to be found. The creature batters down the doors using his ram's horns, destroying the doors in the process.

Demonstrating boundless curiousity and a total lack of a survival instinct, Phoebe steps out of the room where she was safe and wanders down the hall.

Grumbling at not finding his prey, Yaslatol eyes another vacant hall, this one ending in a pair of glass doors; lockers line both sides of the hall. Yaslatol taunts Joe, believing Joe hasn't managed to get away, but instead has chosen just to hide away.     Joe's eyes peering through the slots in a locker door show that the creature is correct. Standing in the detritus of some random student's locker, Joe tries concentrating on not dying while stuffed in said locker. Crushing a locker with his fist, the creature announces he can smell the chimera. That he can hear him. Chanting the need to transform into a lion, a tiger, a bear, *anything*, Joe grows desperate. The creature lifts the locker next to the one Joe's hiding in, calling for him to come out.

Suddenly, Joe has a vision from a past life of a mighty saber-toothed tiger defending itself on a rocky outcropping from a variety of distorted creatures. Joe's eyes roll back then snap open, changed to slit-pupiled yellow chimera eyes. His exposed hand grows fur and shadowed talons, and his feet tear his shoes apart as they become paws. Finally, Joe's face grows striped fur and his muzzle forms. Yaslatol looks at the last locker with lustful consideration. He decides he'll just have to go and get his … prey. He peels back the locker door.

A saber-toothed tiger leaps out at Yaslatol from the ruined locker, roaring "***NO***" as he leads with his claws extended.