Chapter 4

He rushed over to the kitchen window, which opened into the main street.

‘Well at least I know why the screaming stopped.’

It was quite an unnatural sight. The zombies just stood there. The entire street was full of them, with not a single living human anywhere in sight. The moonlight illuminated the sea of standing corpses like some horror movie. They didn’t breathe or groan like they did in the movies, nor did they just shamble along aimlessly. They just… swayed, from side to side. Like tall stalks of grass swaying in the wind.

It kind of made sense, Shades thought. He never really knew why they had to breathe or make any sounds in the movies, or even how they could in the first place. If people shot out their lungs, it’s not like they ever slowed down or choked on their blood or lack of air.

Wanting to test something, Shades opened his window carefully. Taking a fork, he threw it to the other side of the street, as far down the road as he could. It was like a wave, moving outwards, as all the zombies closest to the landing fork stopped swaying. It was eerie as they all just stood there.

It took about two minutes before they resumed their swaying.

‘So they first stop to listen?’

He bet if he threw something else, they’d all rush over to it.

He carefully closed the window again and went back to his room. He sat on his bed, Mel joined him, standing on his knee again. She seemed a bit more comfortable being close to him after he picked her up.

“We can’t stay here too long.” He said, thinking out loud. “Since none of the street lights are on and my fridge doesn’t work, I’m assuming the power’s dead.” He didn’t turn on his apartment’s lights at first, not wanting to attract anything, but after seeing how dark it was outside, and not hearing the usual hum of the fridge, it made sense that the power was down everywhere. Who’d want to work at the power stations in a time like this? “Since there’s no power, the pumps won’t work. No pumps means no water. Besides, I doubt I have enough food here to last me more than a few weeks.” He looked at Mel, playing with a tiny smoky ball in her hands. “Do you eat anything?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But I doubt my method of sustenance is equal to yours.”

“What do you mean?”

“At this stage, I require only one feeding per cycle.”

That sounded slightly ominous.

“Feeding? Cycle? And what do you mean by, ‘at this stage’?” A small shiver crawled down his spine.

“Blood.” He knew it! Those teeth weren’t just for show! “A cycle’s length is determined by the passage of the moon. When it is shining its brightest, one cycle would have passed.” He nodded. “Shadowlings only need one feeding to survive. As we grow in power, the more blood I will require. But that is only to survive. I will still starve and grow weaker, the more time passes.”

“Can it be any blood?” He didn’t particularly like the idea of killing other humans if he didn’t need to, just yet.

“It must be fresh, but yes. My body can break down the blood of any creature.” She explained.

“So once a month, at the minimum, we’ll need to get you some blood.” He scratched his chin. “I don’t think a zombie’s blood would be very fresh. If they even have any left. Do you know how much you need?”

“Until I’m full?” She shrugged.

Getting up, he went to the kitchen window. Looking up at the moon, he saw it was indeed a full one.

“Hmm…” He grabbed a chair, Mel joining him, looking curious. “This isn’t actually a bad thing. You can have some of mine now. It shouldn’t be too much at this stage, then we’ll at least know what your appetite is like, if nothing else.”

She hesitated for a moment, before nodding. “If you think it is needed.”

He held out the side of his finger, which she took. She closed her eyes and her fangs became longer just before she bit into it. He barely felt anything, the area around her bite becoming slightly warm. Thin, dark lines spread across her cheeks, going down her neck as she took what looked like a few mouthfuls. It wasn’t much, she was only barely taller than his hand, after all.

When she finished, the lines slowly disappeared, as her eyes opened. They shined brighter momentarily, before they resumed their normal glow. She licked her lips and let go of his finger, stepping back. The small bite marks leaked a little mist, sealing up.

“Thank you.” She nodded. “It is the only blood I’ve tasted, but it was very enjoyable.”

He nodded back awkwardly. It wasn’t everyday someone sucked on his blood. Even if it was his idea.

“It tasted good?” He wondered.

“Yes. I’d imagine your different types of food, has different flavours?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah…”

‘Another one of those obvious things I guess.’

Shaking his head, he sat back and thought about what he should do now, making a mental list of his goals as he said them out loud. Before he started, the journal appeared off to the side. Its pages opened and writing started appearing.

Goals:

‘Well that’s helpful… Is that what it meant by the journal now being fully unlocked?’

“So the most important thing is getting stronger. If the champions are gonna be fighting against each other, they’ll want to get stronger too. To do that, I’m assuming I’ll have to kill monsters?” Mel nodded. “Practising with the power also helps.” He added. “I guess we’ll figure everything out as we go along.”

Goals:

1. Get stronger

Grabbing one of the few cans of food he had left and a bottle of water from the still-cold fridge, he set about practising his abilities for the rest of the night. Mel watched him for a few minutes, before growing bored started exploring his apartment.

The sun was peeking through his window when he finally stopped. His abilities burned up more energy, the brighter it got.

He found out a bunch of things in the seven or so hours.

The moons would start breaking up the moment they were orbiting the planets, adding their mass to the planets, which in-turn, allowed them to hold more energy. Using the energy in a planet didn’t actually cause that energy to disappear or get burned up. The ‘embers’ it shed got transferred to the red star. After a few moments, the energy got transferred from the star back to the planets, refilling them, like a seesaw, energy passing from one thing to the other. The more energy and passed through the smoky lines connecting everything, the easier it became and the faster they moved, basically increasing his regeneration speed. Like the resistance in a copper wire was lowered allowing the electricity pass through it more easily.

While playing around with the lights, he saw that if he made the lights enter a planet instead of orbiting them, that light would get altered and become a red orb instead of a golden one. Like he was refining minerals. That red orb would then go to his big red star and merge with it, increasing the star’s size. He didn’t really know what this achieved just yet, but figured it was important.

“And last but not least.” He said, pacing randomly throughout the house, as the floating journal continued taking notes of all his discoveries. “The more I use a certain power, the easier it gets to use it and the more potent it becomes, increasing in efficiency.”

All of his improvements were only very slight increases. It was only about seven hours since he started and he only had ten Dayles after all. He’d need more Dayles and to train a lot more before he would see any significant gains. He smiled to himself. At least he had a much better grasp of how the system worked now.

When he asked the journal what all the dark misty stuff actually was, it surprisingly had a pretty straightforward answer.

‘Dark Etherea.’ He thought, as he summoned some of it into his hand, forming a small coin and flicking it between his fingers. It left dark trails as it went this way and that. He could actually form it into any shape and maintaining that shape wasn’t very hard. It was the size and density that made the most difference. Something the size of a small marble with the strength of glass wasn’t too difficult but making it as big and strong as a glass basketball was almost beyond him. Even making that small marble as strong as iron was impossible at this point, which he found out, when he tried to make a knife.

For some reason, if he made something breakable, like giving it the density of glass, and it ‘broke’, he got a big dip in his reserves, but reforming it manually was fairly simple. He could also only keep something’s shape about two metres away from him. If it reached past that point, the Etherea dispersed, returning to him. If he wanted something long-range, he’d have to use ordinary guns. For now at least.

“Maybe the size of my sun affects my range?” He wondered.

He couldn’t test it, he’d already run out of Dayle, but it seemed like that could be what improving his sun did. It could also be related to Mel. Making her more powerful, the bigger it got. Unfortunately, only one Dayle didn’t really make much of a difference.

He thought about asking his journal, but just then he noticed the sun shining brightly through his window and decided to take a break.

“Hey Mel?”

“Hmm?” She answered, right above him. She was inspecting one of his ceiling lights. Peering into the blurry glass as if trying to understand some profound mystery.

“Can other people see you too? Or are you like my interface?”

“No, others can see me.” She floated down to him, abandoning her pursuit of otherworldly knowledge. “I wouldn’t be much of a companion if I couldn’t affect the world around me.” She explained. “Why?”

“I was just thinking. If we found survivors, we wouldn’t want to scare them off or have them attack us if they see you. You’re not exactly the most normal-looking.” He said dryly.

She smiled amusingly, lifting an eyebrow.

“Have you forgotten about your eyes? I doubt they are any more human than mine.”

She had become a lot more comfortable around him once she realised that he didn’t really care how she spoke or acted. She still spoke with an ethereal accent though, which he liked about her. He had a sneaking suspicion that she knew, but doubted it since she was still practically a new-born.

“Hmm.”

He had actually. He went over to his bedroom mirror. Sure enough, his blood red eyes stared back at him.

“You have a point.” He said as Mel sat on his shoulder. He could always wear glasses, but it would be slightly suspicious if he wore them indoors, where he was likely to find other people. If he could survive by staying indoors, others could to. Besides, his eyesight had improved but not to the point where he could where sun-glasses when it was already dark.

“Why did my eyesight improve anyway?” He wondered.

Mel shrugged.

“Maybe as you grow stronger, other things improve too?”

“Yeah, that’s probably it.” He gave one last look in the mirror before leaving.

Was he always that pale?

‘Staying indoors all that time couldn’t have been good for my health.’ He thought as he remembered how little time he spent outside, before everything went ass over teakettle.

He went to grab a bag to put some provisions in, but glancing at his hand as he picked one up, made him remember the storage space he had. He had forgotten about it since all the excitement started. He grabbed as much food as he could – which was depressingly little, he hadn’t gone shopping in a while – as well as anything he could use as a weapon.

He figured his Etherea would become his main weapon, but until he was strong enough, normal things would have to do. He reminded himself so improve as fast as possible. He somehow doubted those hounds would much care if he stabbed them with a butter knife.

‘I’ve got enough food and water to last me a few days, so better weapons should be my priority for now.’ He thought as he glanced one last time at his small apartment.

He had a long, sharpened stick in one hand – which used to be a broom – and a happy, evil-looking fairy on his shoulder.

‘What could go wrong?’ He thought as he opened the door, trying not to make a noise.

His efforts were in vain however, as he came face to decaying-face of, what used to be, his sexy next door neighbour.