Zeke suddenly felt a huge weight on his shoulders. Somehow, he'd stumbled into the knowledge of Pure King and his plan of Uniting. Somehow, he felt a total confidence in his soul that everything he had seen last night was as real as the sweat he could feel dripping down his face. And somehow, he needed to use this information.

As Zeke stood up out of bed to start constructing a course of action, he stumbled on his now unfamiliar footing. It took him a few moments to steady himself- something about how body felt foreign. It took Zeke a couple seconds to identify exactly what was wrong. It was the sensation he had felt last night as Jet Bishop, the airy feeling that permeated his whole body. Although to a lesser degree, the feeling was still there when he woke up. Zeke wasn't exactly the same as when he went to bed last night. 

Zeke swung his arm in an arc to test this new feeling. His arm sliced through the air, with his momentum carrying in the arc and causing Zeke to stumble on his feet once again. His movements were quicker, smoother. But his base was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, leading to his balance being a major problem. Zeke knew it would take some time to get used to. His new, lighter body was not some superpower he had just discovered. Zeke's punches weren't any stronger, and his increased speed was imperceivable to anyone but him. It only threw Zeke off because he had spent 23 years living in the same body, and that body was now fundamentally different. It wasn't an improvement to himself, nor an impairment. It was just a change. 

After spending another fifteen minutes acclimating himself to the feeling, Zeke decided that he needed to go straight in the deep end. Taking meager steps in his small apartment wasn't helping him get accustomed to this feeling. So Zeke strapped on his high school running shoes, really yanking on them to force his oversized shoes under the tongue of the shoe. "If I do this, I can call off sick" he told himself. It was 6:36 and work started at 7:00. If he was really motivated, Zeke would definitely be able to make it in time. Zeke was well aware that his body would probably take a beating on this run, the cost necessary to regain the coordination he had built up between his brain and his legs his entire life. So he opened the door and headed out for a jog.

The route around his block was about a mile, and a pretty hilly mile at that. Zeke had always taken a small sense of pride in how steep it was. He would think "I could do an easier, flatter mile, but I'm not" and he would smile to himself for doing more than the minimum. On this particular mile run, Zeke fell eight times. He had to wave off many concerned people in the neighborhood, the dog walkers and fellow joggers who would either hurriedly come over to check on him or scoff thinking he was on substances. 

Each fall hurt. One leg would go a bit further than Zeke expected, his weight would get thrown off, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground. By the time Zeke arrived back in front of his apartment complex, twenty minutes later, he had scraped on his chest, forehead, forearms, shins, and back. His nose was bleeding and he tasted the iron from it on his tongue. Despite all of this, at the end of the mile Zeke was positively beaming.

Zeke spent a moment admiring the apartment complex he lived in. It was two floors, about fifteen apartments on both floors. The staircase between the floors had a handrail once but it had been busted a couple months back and now hung down into the gap formed by the staircase turning around. The whole place was dingy like this, but off the dopamine from his run, Zeke thought it looked absolutely beautiful. He climbed up the stairs and around to his home, seventh on the second floor. 

As soon as he stepped inside, Zeke whipped out his phone and flopped onto the bed while dialing his boss' number. "H-Hello?" Zeke started, speaking from his throat to make his voice hoarse. "I sincerely apologize, I will not be able to make it into work today be-" Zeke let out a few exaggerated coughs "because I've come down with something. Terribly sorry." The other end of the phone made a few angry huffs followed by a "fine, but don't let it happen again. We expect to see you here tomorrow" and the sound of them hanging up. 

Zeke winced his eyes closed. Knowing he didn't have to go into work relaxed his mind a little bit. Laying on his bed, Zeke could feel each of the scratches he accumulated during his run. They stung, dozens of little painful badges of honor. Zeke still had a lot on his mind, like what happened to his body, or what to do about the Uniting, or his connection to the mysterious Jet Bishop. Would he spend the next night in Jet's body again? As his mind whirled with thoughts of his uncertain future, one thing stood out. He was satisfied at having gotten used to this new sensation. A joke his mother had told him a while ago came to mind. "How do you eat an elephant?" she would say, then when Zeke replied cluelessly she would chuckle and answer "one bite at a time". Thinking of this, Zeke's mind drifted to sleep. During his nap, he dreamt of nothing, no Summits or houses or anything of the sort. It was an entirely peaceful and uneventful nap.

Zeke woke to a pinching on his right arm. It was not the same pain as the scratches that had accumulated there- it was as if his skin was being lightly pulled by someone. Sitting up, Zeke saw what had roused him- a pair of small, pale, paper-thin wings were flapping less than an inch above where he was feeling the pinch. The wings had nothing connecting them, and nothing that could grab onto Zeke's arm to pinch him, but nevertheless they pulled lightly at his skin.