You are afflicted.

Perhaps you already know this. You've noticed the minor signs, or the major ones, and perhaps you even have some idea of the fate that awaits you at the end of your slow transformation. Perhaps the changes, so far, have been so slight that they have not yet seemed to be changes, and you are blissfully unaware of what waits for you.

Whichever is the case, if you find yourself somewhere in the city alone at night, your disease-ridden blood may catch the attention of a stranger. From around a corner or out of a shadow, a short figure in a dark cloak steps forth.

"You're contaminated, you know," she says, in a high, fluting, critical voice, "Been mucking about in the ocean, I expect? Or exchanging - fluids - with who knows what, and who knows when? The absolute state of you all - well! It is only to be expected."

A delicate, pale hand is thrust towards you impatiently.

"Blood type, and your hand, if you please!" Woe says, in displeasure, and even with her face hidden away from sight, her sour pucker scowl is somehow palpable.

Even those fortunate enough to be spared the ocean's spreading curse are not free of Woe.

Sleepers with untainted blood may find themselves, too, beset by a short, dark-cloaked stranger, who steps out of an alley way or recessed nook and plants herself in the path of her latest target. She looks you up and down with a sharp jerk of her unseen chin and utters a pronounced, exasperated 'hmph!'

"Adequate," she announces, without preamble, cutting to the point like a machete through tall grass, "Blood type and associated novel capabilities? Five hundred words or less, if possible - and an estimate of your current donor capacity, expressed in percentage of total blood volume."

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