Melody and her brother, who had been standing right there, went with me to find John and Randy. We told them of the plan to find a more defensible position, then with them in tow, we set out to go look for one. I suggested that Melody and her brother stay, but they didn’t seem to mind going. We started at the top of the hill, cresting it slowly to make sure that there wasn’t an army of soldiers and Welders waiting on the other side. To my great relief, there wasn’t.

We looked around and off to the right while facing the town, the hill continued to rise, and trees started to become denser. As I looked again toward the town, I could see a small road that seemed to go in that direction. I pointed up the hill and to the trees.

“Let’s check out that area,” I said. No one argued, or really said anything at all, we just moved in that direction. We entered into the sparse thicket of trees, slowly making our way up the hill as we walked around large rocks and bushes. A loud squeaking noise, not unlike a high-pitched bark came from the trees.

“It’s a squirrel! We need to run!” Melody said with panic in her voice.

I was wondering why we would run from a squirrel, and I could tell John and Randy were too. Then, the lithe but overly large body of a squirrel scurried down a tree about a dozen feet from us. The squirrel was three feet long, without its bushy tail. Its front teeth were longer than my fingers, and its eyes were blood red. It squeaked at us again and jumped forward a couple of feet.

“They’re very territorial,” Melody said. “If we slowly back away, maybe it won’t attack.”

We all started moving backward. I also started to move a little to the side to shield Melody and her brother, just in case it did attack. The squirrel was huge, and my mind was in shock as to what I was seeing. If Melody hadn’t been there, I would still be routed to the spot. Why hadn’t anyone told us about this? They mentioned that things changed, but giant ferocious squirrels? What else is out there? I couldn’t believe I just ran away from camp as I did before.

We all started moving backward slowly, but then Randy tripped on a rock. He managed to catch himself before he fell all the way to the ground, but the sudden movement triggered the squirrel, and it began rushing toward him. Randy hadn’t even recovered yet to see the squirrel rushing forward. Even if he did see it, he wasn’t near any vegetation other than a small bush, so he would be unable to protect himself. I activated my ability and rushed to intercept the squirrel. If I had actually thought about what I was doing, there would be no way I’d do it, but I moved without thinking.

I tried to mimic the color of the squirrel the best I could. It was a red and black swirling miasma hurtling toward Randy. I reached the squirrel first and struck it with a fist. As I hit, I concentrated on disrupting the color pattern I saw in any way I could. The result was more destructive than I thought it would be. Much more destructive.

My punch was like a cannon going off right against the squirrel. I hit the squirrel’s left side, but its right side exploded in a spray of blood and viscera that blanketed the area in a cone that extended ten feet out. The squirrel’s body flew with the force of my punch, and it was dead long before its body hit the ground. I was stunned, and I just stood there with my arm and fist still extended from my strike. Everyone must have also been in a state of shock because no one else moved or said anything for a long moment. Finally, Once I felt pain in my arm from holding it aloft, I dropped it to my side.

“What was that?” Randy asked, my movement breaking him from his shock.

“The giant squirrel, or the punch?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Well, that squirrel sure was scary, and I think I should be scared of seeing more of them, but with you here and that punch.” Randy ventured. “I’m not too worried.”

I peeled my eyes off the results of my destruction to look over at Hector. He had a big grin on his face and didn’t seem too shaken up. “Thanks,” I said.

“His punch wasn’t everything,” Melody said.

“Yeah, man,” John said. “It was almost like you teleported over there.”

I looked at him questioningly and saw that he was serious, so I looked at Melody to confirm what he said. She nodded and said, “It was amazing, you didn’t actually teleport, but if I had blinked, I would have thought you did. That squirrel was fast, but you…” she paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, then finally settled on, “that was crazy.”

“Speaking of crazy, why the hell did a giant rabid squirrel attack us?” I said. I really didn’t have any answers about my speed or my punch; they were both things I would have to try to replicate later.

“What else did you expect it to do?” Melody asked. “We were in its territory, so it’s not like it was a surprise.” I looked closely at her to see if she was joking, and I could see she wasn’t.

“He means, why was there a giant rabid squirrel?” John clarified.

“What do you mean, why?”

Randy held his hands close together and said, “I thought squirrels were small creatures that just ate nuts and had a show about singing?”

“Those are chipmunks,” John said.

“Oh, you better hope we don’t run into a pack of chipmunks,” Melody said with a shiver.

“We’re getting off the subject,” I said, then turned to Melody. “Squirrels are small, nut gathering creatures. How is there a giant rabid one that exists?”

“They didn’t tell you guys about this in that camp of yours?” She asked. We all shook our heads. “But, you guys know how you got your powers?” We all nodded. “Well, it was the same way.”

“So we all got powers, the squirrels became giant, and something else happened to the chipmunks? It doesn’t seem likely that whatever happened would only affect forest rodents and us. What else changed?” John looked to Melody for the answer.

“God!” Melody expelled. “They sure did keep you guys in the dark.” Melody Flailed her arms in an arc. “Everything changed. All the plants, all the animals, sure somethings look the same, but nothing really is.” John was about to say something else, but Melody cut him off. “Look, we could be out here for a week while I explain to you guys all the crazy shit going on in the world. But, that’s probably not the best idea since we just saw a giant squirrel. We don’t know what else is out here, and you have a military regiment or whatever the hell they’re called coming after you. Plus, if you guys don’t know anything, then the others probably don’t either, so we should probably all sit down later and we can discuss it.”

I nodded. Melody was right, and ultimately, it didn’t matter right then. I reiterated that to the others, and we set off again up the hill, but this time we were much more cautious as we moved. While we were walking, off-handed comments by people started to run through my mind, and everything started to make sense. Jace told me I didn’t know what was really going on. I just assumed he was only referring to the camp; I could have been wrong. The sergeants and the colonel had repeated that it was a dangerous world now, but we just assumed it was governmental and societal unrest. Old man Enzo was about to tell me something when I had a meeting with him, but we got interrupted. He probably didn’t think it was a big deal and just assumed I knew about it.

All those thoughts flitted about in my head as we moved up the hill. After about ten minutes, the trees cleared out a little, and I could see the road that had led from the town to here. But, on closer inspection, it wasn’t a road at all, but a driveway to a house.