The kid followed Roland through the back alleys of the city with panic lingering at the back of his mind, threatening to creep up on him at any moment. The loss of hearing made him feel helpless and vulnerable, flinching at what little he could hear and jumping at the wind blowing his hair on the back of his neck and pulling on his vest. Roland walked confidently, standing tall and acting as though he were just out for a casual stroll. He barely even seemed bothered when a zombie broke down a door and stumbled out of a building. Without breaking stride he stepped around the zombie and grabbed the back of its shirt, dragging it off its feet and pulling it behind him like a kid with a doll.
He dragged the zombie out of the alley and into the middle of a street where he just stopped, holding the thrashing zombie without concern. Roland looked around until he spotted another zombie through the window of a diner. Roland walked into the diner, the bell ringing dully as he went straight for the zombie, pulling a knife and ramming it up through its jaw and out the top of its skull as it turned toward the noise. The kid just watched as Roland pulled the knife out, then drove it through the temple of the zombie he'd been dragging. Without a word, he motioned the kid to come over as he lowered the corpse to the ground and wiped his knife clean on its shirt.
Roland knelt next to the bodies and the kid did the same. He watched as Roland reached his hand out over the body, and more of that black substance started to rise toward his palm. Roland grabbed the kid’s hand and pulled it into the black goo. They both watched as it seeped into his skin, the kid wondering what was supposed to happen to him now, then his body began to react.
The veins on his arm bulged out as the black goo seeped inside his body and ran up his arm. His eyes went wide as he felt the surge of what could only be described as pure power condensed into a biological form run through his body like an electric shock. He couldn’t breathe, his blurry vision started going grey, his body was falling out of his control, and he struggled to remain conscious, but it was a losing battle. Then a sharp stab of pain in his left ear brought him back, seemingly stopping the energy cold before pushing it back down into something that felt stable.
The kid gasped with relief as he regained control of his lungs. Almost instantly his vision cleared as fresh oxygen was pumped through his body, but then he saw the barrel of a handgun hovering an inch from his forehead. "What?" The kid asked, holding absolutely still.
"Just making sure," Roland said before ripping his finger, which was now tipped with a long dagger-like nail, out of the kid's ear. The kid didn't actually hear him but he was able to read his lips. Roland lowered the gun and pointed towards the other zombie body on the ground. He mouthed the words, "now you do it." The kid looked down at the corpse, then back to Roland. He took a breath and did as Roland instructed, holding his hand out over the corpse. A minute passed where nothing happened before the kid realized that he was actually supposed to be doing something and not just waiting for something to happen. With no real clue as to how or even what to do, he tried tensing his muscles, multiple breathing exercises, even reciting the lyrics to Paint Shit Black quietly to himself.
When nothing proved effective, he lowered his hand closer to the body, and closer, and then he just placed his palm on the corpse's forehead. He just sighed and was about to give up, when he felt something. It was that same energy from before, the same energy that nearly killed him moments ago. He pulled his hand away as the energy started working up his arm. It wasn't until he started clenching his fist in an attempt to loosen the muscles that he realized that it wasn't an electrical shock. This energy was felt in a way he had never felt before, it wasn't a physical sensation but something different. Trying to compare it to something else was pointless, like explaining music to the deaf or art to the blind. Maybe someone could, with complicated big words that probably wouldn't translate to someone without proper context, but the kid sure couldn’t.
The only way the kid could describe it was a completely new sense, one that wasn't physical. He felt the energy in his arm, and as he became aware of this new sense for the energy he felt the energy of the corpse slowly fading as decomposition set in quickly. He could even feel Roland with this sense. "What the hell?" The kid said in utter confusion.
"Happy baptism," Roland said. The kid registered somewhere in the back of his mind that he was actually hearing him again, though it was distant and muffled as his hearing wasn’t back up to par. But the simple fact that his ear had been repaired in such a short time was incredible, and anything was better than nothing so he really couldn’t complain. "Now finish the job."
"How-" The kid whispered, but Roland cut him off.
"If you can feel it, you can use it as a part of your body. Now do it." The kid groaned quietly and reached toward the corpse again. He tried to reach for the energy, but even after making contact, for lack of a better word, he couldn’t manipulate it the way he assumed Roland wanted him to. He could feel the energy in the corpse, and the portion in his body running up and down his arm. But it felt different.
The energy in his body and the energy in the corpse were different…somehow. It was different from a sensory perspective like different flavors are to a sense of taste or colors are to sight, but with a new sense that couldn't be properly described to another. The difference between the 2 energies was equally undefinable. He couldn't explain how he did it, but the kid used his energy to reach for the energy in the corpse and draw it out into him, like blending colors of paint. He opened his eyes to see the black ichor seeping out of the body, literally squeezing its way out of the corpse’s skin like a series of popped zits. The small drops flowed over the skin to form a mound that quickly turned into a spire as the ichor tried to reach up toward his hand. When it made contact with his skin, the black substance began to absorb into his skin, energy crashing over his system like before, but he was in control now.
He held the energy within his body, but that wasn’t good enough. If he relaxed, the energy would run rampant through his system, overcharge his brain like an electric shock or do the same to his internal organs. While he'd been showed how to absorb it, he didn’t have any way to store it. He looked to Roland for help, only to realize that he couldn't see, at least not in the way he had ever defined sight before. Instead, his sense of sight was being overwritten with his new sense, letting him see the energy instead. When he saw Roland, or rather the energy he'd sensed from him, he understood what he needed to do.
The "energy" he'd been feeling was actually some kind of viral cells. The viral cells held high concentrations of cellular energy, which was trying to spread that energy to his cells. His cells couldn't contain that level of energy, the human body wasn’t made that way. But that wasn’t the only thing that he was feeling, despite holding it back the energy was seeping into his cells, but he had some control over the viral cells and the energy. This allowed him to take control of his own cells as they were saturated with energy, and he quickly grasped how to handle the situation.
The kid used the energy in his cells to make the cells divide and replicate at a ridiculous rate. The reproduction was crude, inefficient, and barely under his control. After only 2 minutes, the kid sat back with a heavy sigh as the remaining energy he'd taken from the corpse was stored within the extra cells he'd created, cells that were able to house more energy than what his body naturally produced. While the majority of the energy was burned off by the replication process, he had kept an eye on the process itself to gauge just how much energy every cell he created could safely store, and essentially held on to as much as he could as a form of energy reserve.
The kid blinked again, the energy sight that had overwritten his vision before had stopped, allowing him to see clearly again. The kid looked down at his arm, the layers of skin that he'd grown looked like thick animal hide covering a layer of fat. "Not the most creative construct," Roland said as he grabbed the kids arm. "But pretty good considering it’s your first time, especially considering its localized. Were you trying to make anything specific?"
"You knew this would happen?" Roland looked up at the kid, then back down to his arm as he turned his hand over. "I was just trying to make cells that would be able to store this… energy. It was more of an afterthought but I also wanted to isolate it. You know, in case I did it wrong and had to cut it off."
"Smart. I'm almost impressed. Keep it up. Now I want you to try and remake that."
"What?"
"Use the energy, break down the construct but don't destroy the cells. Restructure those cells and make the skin on that arm into a thick leather, like a gauntlet.” The kid glared at Roland for a second, then focused and watched as the thick mass on his arm trimmed down, becoming a thick solid shape from his elbow to his wrist, then thinning around his wrist before forming into a pad on the back of his hand, over his knuckles, and down his fingers to the first joints. When he was done and felt that it was good enough for him, he held up his arm to show Roland. "Wow. Now I'm impressed. It took me 6 months to learn how to do that. I'd give you credit, but we have company."
The kid looked to the window and started to stand before realizing that was a bad idea. Staying low, he crept to one of the booths and peaked his head up so he could look outside. 7 zombies were in the street, walking in the direction of the stadium. Even to his untrained eyes, the kid knew these were different. They didn't shamble like poorly controlled puppets using all their efforts to keep from falling over, but they had an awkward walk like someone who shit themselves.
The kid lowered himself back down and slipped out of the booth. "What's up with those ones?" The kid asked as he crawled over towards Roland.
"Specials," Roland said quietly, reminding the kid about his damaged hearing, which was now fully repaired. "I'll tell you later, but right now we need to move."
"Right. How do we hit them?"
"We don't." Roland turned and started to shuffle towards the kitchen, staying low on all 4's. The kid followed and gently pushed the swinging door as he quickly slipped in. Once in the kitchen, Roland got back onto his feet and grabbed his silenced pistol as he swept the room.
"Why are we sneaking around instead of killing the zombies in the street?" The kid asked as he pulled his silenced pistol as well.
"Because the ones on the street are specials. We have no idea what they can do, and we don't have the firepower to take risks like that."
"What are specials?" Roland stopped at the back door and held his hand out, signaling the kid to stop too. He flashed through sever hand signs before pointing to the door, then the left. "What?" Roland took a breath and stepped forward to get up to the kid's ear.
"Keep quiet. Switch to the SMG. I’m going through the door first and will clear the alley. If I call you, you come around guns blazing. If we don’t go loud when we get to the alley, switch back to the silenced pistol and follow me to the left. And keep checking behind us as we go. Got it?" The kid nodded and stepped away from the door, kneeling down so he had a clear shot at the door, but could dive to his right behind the central kitchen island for cover if he needed it. Roland smiled at the kid, then walked to the door and slowly turned the knob.
He pushed the door open slowly, pistol raised in his opposite hand in case he was rushed. Roland swept the left side of the alley, then spun around the open door to sweep the right side. He waved for the kid to follow, and started walking to the left of the door. The kid followed, still holding the SMG until he was through the door and swept the alley himself, then switched to the pistol like he was told. When they reached the end of the alley, Roland checked up and down the street before cutting across the road to the alleys on the other side. It wasn’t lost on the Kid that Roland was now quieter and lacked the confident stride he’d had earlier.
They continued this for what seemed like hours, moving through the alleys and cutting across streets only when necessary. As far as zombie-killing went, they mainly stuck to targets that were in their way, had already spotted them, or were exceptionally easy prey with no risk. As they made their way through the city, they brought down less than ten zombies, and the energy they absorbed from those zombies was small, nothing like what the kid got from the 2 back in the diner. The kid tried to ask why and to bring up other questions several times, but Roland just shushed him whenever he spoke up. After the first hour, the kid got the picture and silently followed Roland through the alleys as they moved deeper into the city.
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