Chapter 5: Experiments

A sensation of gallons of water crashing over Nathan slammed into him as he plunged into the pool.

As soon as his head dipped below the surface, he could see little but a veil of dark patches of mist.

Occasionally the darkness was lifted by flashes of pink light, originating from arks of lightning bouncing between the patches of black as he hurtled past them. The sensation of motion was akin to white water rafting without a boat while also free falling from the sky.

Occasionally he would be janked harshly in one direction or the other, but always heading downwards at a seemingly ever increasing speed.

Nathan couldn't help but suppress a startled shout as he fell, beginning to regret his decisions but soon the acceleration ended and he felt his feet touch something solid. This was unexpected, and soon enough he found himself staggering and tripping over his own feet, the same sensation he felt when entering the pool washing over him again as he fell to the ground.

He cursed as he tried to scramble back to his feet, but flailed about without much success due to the air being momentarily knocked from his lungs.

Once he had caught his breath, and once again stood tall, he was inside the alleyway he had seen previously. In front of him, he could see the devastation... his eyes momentarily freezing on the corpse of the kid he had seen.

Shaking himself, he looked away reaffirming the simple fact he could not help now. He strode out into the street to get a better idea of his surroundings.

The street was empty, aside from the occasional patch of debris from crumbling buildings. Nathan began to wonder just what had happened here, but answered the question when he looked to his left.

In the distance, down the street he saw a large spine of black vaguely chitinous looking material lancing through one of the buildings. As his vision focused, he could see that the building was not alone, with many suffering similar fates.

He also noticed that there were distinct fissures in the road of the street, where cars had slid into or where dangling on one side of the gap or the other.

Suddenly he heard a cluster of footsteps, nearby perhaps on a street over. Having seen and read enough disaster fiction, and not quite trusting himself with his new hunger he opted to run the opposite direction, heading into another alleyway across the road now knowing vaguely where he was and where he would need to go to find somewhere with a non-human population that he could hunt.

As he was running, he did begin to ponder just how he was going to hunt any creatures. However, he noticed that he was running at a speed far faster he had ever in his life as he quickly ate up the distance to the exit of the alleyway in maybe a few strides.

As a test, he stopped his run and leaped into the air clearing the ground by at least ten to fifteen feet. Surprised by this as he was with the force of his tendrils earlier, he ended up staggering on his landing, but again just about managed to stabilize himself with the help of his new limbs which lashed out and impaled the walls of the alley he had stopped in. Noticing this, another test came to mind and in the next few minutes he had clambered up one of the sides of the alley, and onto the roof of what was a bakery chain.

From the new vantage, Nathan could see more clearly the true extent of the damage. Every street had a handful of ruined buildings, and more than a handful of fires billowing smoke into the night sky.

As if to illustrate the point, a flash of fire in the distance erupted shortly followed by a wave of sound crashing into Nathan as the explosion rang out audibly.

Instinctively Nathan crouched low to the ground, his tendrils lancing into the roof of the building underneath of him to provide additional stabilization. This turned out to be unnecessary as the wave quickly ended with little to no effect beside kicking up dust, and billowing Nathan's medium length scruffy brown hair.

Glancing in the direction of the new fire, Nathan used the landmarks that were still intact and realized it was probably a petrol station if his internal map of the area was right. He hoped there was no one around to be harmed in the blast, but he dared not approach fearing both himself around people right now and how they would react to his new distinctly inhuman features.

Getting back to his feet, and retracting his embedded tendrils from the roof, he opted to continue his experiments by attempting to traverse across the roofs of buildings which if he could do successfully would speed up his travel time by allowing him to move as the crow flies.

Nathan lined up with the edge of the building, eyeing a building on the opposite side of the street, he sprinted at it. However, upon reaching the lip and seeing his height he lost his nerve and attempted to skid to a stop.

Fortunately his tendrils also reacted, and slammed down like an anchor, quickly bringing him to a stop before he could skid of the ledge. Catching his panicked breath, he opted to try testing his jump distance, at a slightly lesser and safer altitude.

Clambering down the side of the building, once again making use of his tendrils, he had a slight pang of guilt as he realized the damage his limbs where having on the building. However he quickly smothered it when he once again looked at the street around him.

Nathan spent a few moments, running from someone's front garden and leaping across the street. After a few tries, his tendrils began to assist him in his leap punching down at the ground as his legs coiled to jump.

This initially caught him of guard, and caused him to slam into the wall of a house on the opposite side of the street. He fell to the ground, pain radiating angrily from the points on his body that made contact with the wall.

Nathan spent a few moments dazed on the floor, recovering and noticed yet another inhuman feature he had developed.

Glancing at his hand, he saw scratches and scrapes from where it had impacted and then slid down the wall. However, in front of his eyes a blackish inky liquidly gas belched out from the tiny cuts and stormed around it. In moments it dissipated and all that was left was normal skin, with no signs of any kind of damage.

"Well, that's re-assuring in a way I guess..." Nathan thought to himself as the pain he felt quickly melted away.

Shortly after the impact with the wall, Nathan was leaping between the roofs of buildings with ease. Well relatively so, there were a few times he had to make use of his tendrils to crawl around a building with a far too slopped roof. However when he cleared the residential area, and started into a more commercial area this problem resolved itself, but also was replaced with the issue of far taller buildings.

Nathan figured he could attempt to climb up the buildings, but he could feel his tendrils growing achy and tired, a sensation that was not helped with the constant tugging pulses that ran down them, the cost of keeping the bridge open.

Now that he stopped for a moment, Nathan realized it wasn't just the tendrils feeling tired his whole body was feeling distinctly more lethargic, and as he focused on his body his gut piped up with a growl and a flutter of pain. He wasn't going to make it to the farm or the woods he had hopped to, he needed food now.

Remembering what the Hive said about Sugar, a new location came to Nathan's mind that was far closer to him at present.