Chapter 6: Shopping Spree

Nathan slid down the side of the building he was atop, down to the street, opting to walk the rest of the way in a bid to save energy.

His new location, was a supermarket that was close to this side of town, he didn't have money on him but he wasn't the kind of person to worry about such morality given the current state of the city and the distinct lack of people of any kind while he leaped from street to street. Sure, he heard a few signs of life that he did his damnedest to avoid but not as much as you would expect for the capital of a country. Besides, people could argue he was a bad person for stealing some food from the store, but the alternative was to at best hunt and eat someone's pet at worst a human.

On the way to the shop, Nathan could help but come to the conclusion that he'd probably eat and kill a human before he would a pet and he couldn't quite work out if that was a good thing or not, which mildly scared him especially the order that he had naturally arranged the actions in.

It took Nathan around five minutes to get to the shop, mainly due to him getting impatient and opting to run, having a bit of fun with his new inhuman reflexes and agility despite the hunger he felt.

The place had been lanced by a three pronged cluster of the black spires that jutted out of the ground around the city seemingly randomly and sporadically. These spires were definitely on the larger end of what Nathan had seen previously, but Nathan had already affirmed that these spires where nothing to be concerned of aside from perhaps impaling, or cutting oneself on.

Striding into the partially collapsed supermarket, Nathan opted to grab a shopping cart to assist him in carrying as much as he could. To Nathan's surprise, the place looked mostly untouched -at least by people. Sure there were a few signs of animals clawing open food, or knocking stuff of shelves though Nathan supposed most of that was probably caused by the spires puncturing the building from the ground.

Nathan managed to find a pile of sugary drinks near the entrance, and quaffed one down. Immediately he felt his hunger recede slightly, as well as the tiredness in his body. However, the aches in his tendrils did not ease at all.

Shrugging, and noticing how he unconsciously necked the drink like a man finding water for the first time in days in the middle of a dessert, he opened another and drank it. It wasn't until his seventh energy drink, that all signs of fatigue and desire to drink more vanished from his body. However, nothing seemed to touch the tiredness building in his tendrils. Sighing, Nathan put it down to two reasons:

1) His tendrils needed meat, and seeing as he still felt hungry he figured his body did too.

2) His tendrils couldn't be restored due to them being used to power the bridge.

Nathan had filled the cart with anything with high sugar content he could find, his shopping cart looked like a kid's dream diet, a thought that brought a small and brief dash of warmth and humor to his heart.

Eventually Nathan reached what should be the butcher's section of the store. The place was trashed, upturned and open fridges strewn across the floor which was covered with torn open packets and cling film.

The display desk itself was smashed open, and Nathan could see dried blood on the sharp edges of the shatter pattern.

Nathan knew this couldn't be an animal, well it was an animal but not a beast, this was a who. The question was, was it just somebody incredibly keen on meat or, more likely Nathan thought, somebody like him.

Nathan remembered the Hive's warning, about other Hives, with other Masters. Opting to leave in a sharpish fashion, Nathan quickly loaded as much as he could from the trolley into his bag, he wouldn't be able to take it all but he figured he was likely in danger here.

His bag full, Nathan took off in the direction of the exit as he did an unsettling feeling rang up his tendrils causing them to move on their own to face to his left, the bone on the tip growing sharper and nastier with jagged notches developing along the edges.

Glancing over in the direction, Nathan heard a a series of clicks and hisses, then blurs of something whizzing just behind his head and impacting the wall with a crashing thud.

Nathan surprised by this, staggered forwards ducking just in time to avoid another barrage of what he could now see as what looked like a miniature versions of the spines growing from the ground.

They impacted and penetrated the solid wall behind him like it was nothing but foam, leaving a small impact mark around it with fractures.

His flight instinct kicking in, he powered himself on towards the exit only to see something appear to block his path. Something that had a human silhouette, and tendrils just like him.

Knowing it was likely going to fire another volley directly at him, Nathan dived suddenly to the left towards one of the shelves, narrowly evading the burst of spines seemingly coming from the individual's outstretched palms.

As Nathan collided with the shelves, he attempted to clamber over it but his tendrils refused to assist him as he intended, instead giving him the sense that another two spines were about to collide with his back.

With this knew knowledge, Nathan kicked up and off the shelf which succeeded in pushing him up and around the projectiles, and also bore enough force to knock the shelf over and begin a domino effect along the rest of the store.

Through his tendrils, Nathan could sense more projectiles heading for his landing point, so he instinctively instructed his tendrils to pull him to the wall on the opposite side of the collapsing shelves and to ground him, something they did with a burst of movement like a striking cobra.

Realizing there was little to do to escape, Nathan had only one option. With a single elegant motion as he landed, Nathan moved his bag to his front and covered his head, his tendrils removing themselves from the wall and coiling up either side of his shielded face over his shoulders.

He couldn't see his attacker, but the tendrils seemed to be able to provide an extra sense of sorts and so Nathan blindly hoped they could guide him on his charge.