It felt like paper, but it glowed with a soft milky hue, so I did the next logical thing when you hold a piece of mystical paper, that coukd hold forbidden knowledge and possess incalculabke power__ I tried tearing it in two.

Don’t look at me like that.

Imagine my surprise when it followed the normal applications of physics. When you apply more than inordinate amount of force above the threshold of any material, It does the next best thing and follows the path of least resistance...

In the case of thus mysterious paper, it tore in two. Did I underestimate my strength again?. I really needed a way to judge how strong I am.

Perhaps I just destroyed an invaluable treasure.

A treasure that rapidly degraded into motes of light that glowed and moved like fireflies... and like its annoying brethren, floated around my hands. I moved my hands left and right, and they followed, tracing my movement, even when I rapidly shook my hands like I was shaking away maggots. Oh the messed up imagery in my head.

The lights followed, and I wonder if I was ever going to rid myself of them, or they would slowly dissipate. It said so to my lack of wonder at my present situation that I did not bother to critically assess what that page was, or why it turned to motes of light.... I didn’t even try to read the faint squiggly lines on the page.

Perhaps I should be more careful with what I dig up from this place, I was solely lacking in knowledge, and moving through this situation like a bumbling behemoth was not going to help my situation a tiny bit.

Placing both my hands on my stomach, the Comfortable hum of digestion reassured me with a gentle strength, waves of warmth flowed into my hearts and limbs. Clearing my thought, as I tried not to think of what I ate in other preserve my sanity and life.

Some of those bones were humanoid.

I was not stuck up over the human bodily anatomy and the sanctity of our skeletal privileges. As far as my knowledge covered, most humanoid creatures were sentient or at least possess self awareness.

Eating the bones of thinking Creatures were a line I never thought I would cross, the hunger that dulled my reasoning to dust had disappeared and in its wake guilt and self condemnation slowly bubbled up.

Then my soul did that weird thing I picked up on earlier, it clamped up, and like soft breeze blowing against a towering tree, the emotion failed to influence my thought, I became more than a subject to my feelings, I became its observer.

These pains won’t serve me. I needed to survive if not for anything else, to understand why this happened to me, and fulfil one of my most prime duty that my baba gave to me...

***************

Securing more food would be my number one priority. I still felt full, but slowly I could judge the rate of energy my body was consuming. It seems my body rapidly converts matter into energy, stored that energy in a ball of cold heat in my stomach, that was being slowly scrapped away to ignite my flames of life.

I tried to closely perceive that ball of energy, and shook a little in surprise, when it unfolded. Like flower petals of a rose, the ball separated into four distinct white petals, and only one of the petals was being consumed.

I suppose I could call them petals of power?, rose of energy?.... if so, each of these petals must signify a certain amount of energy stored to a particular limit. The petal being consumed was slightly smaller than the rest three.

If I could theorise this correctly, my body needs an awful lot of energy to sustain itself, when I have an excess of that energy, it is stored as these petals - as stores of power, and my body slowly draw on those reserves to replenish and power my existence.

Slowly the petals folded back into the ball like shape they were once in. And I idly wondered why that ball of petals was cold. In a manner I always imagined energy to be hot and vibrant, the golden drop of blood in my heart surely was.

I frowned in anger and concern, I had been trying to check the states of my heart with the inner vision I inexplicably seem to possess, but I have been failing ever since... I only knew they needed power to survive, they needed food, or I was dead.

The awful stuff I ate, if alive or were alive, tend to give me more bangs for my buck... the rocks and the soil I swallowed hardly gave me anything to work with, the bones added the bulk to layers of coating of that cold ball.

I had to experiment with my rate of expenditure of energy, if action or inactivity affected the depletion. A good way was to gather food, and see how well my body react to physical exertions and the tolls it demanded in energy.

Without knowing the source of my next meal, I should try to secure what I had, and if not, make it more palatable. At least it should be more cleaner and presentable.

I set up the gathering the bones in the grounds. First I scooped up water flowing in the cracks and wiped out a patch of ground, letting the murky water flow back to the hole in the back of the cave, rinse and repeat a few times and that section of the ground was now cleaner.

Now came the best part, I picked up bones on the floor, gently brushing up the mud and algae that had accumulated on it, I then took it an ran them through the flowing water, shaking them for a faster clean, and I placed then in the washed section of the floor.

I selected the biggest bones, and gently snapped them into bite size pieces, a rib cage there that looked like it came from an elephant, was broken apart, first in bigger sections, then I slowly broke those down again. I slowly worked my way through the bones, and deduced many fantastical creatures through the work. There were also smaller bones, like a thigh bone that came from a very small creature__ a mouse I suppose?.

My actions took on a robot like quality, as I did not focus on my task but inside me to monitor how much energy I was losing. And as far as I could tell, it was not a lot, the slow dribble of energy from that cold ball would last for days at this rate.

In an hour time, I had a respectable mound of bones piled up knee high, they have been broken into bits and pieces and now looked like a hill of broken wafer. Besides the small pile of humanoid bones I left untouched, this was all the grim loot left in the cave.

It was not that I wouldn’t eat those bones, but I would rather not.

I looked around the cave, walked up to the wall and pinched some green algae on the walls, I placed it on my tongue, idly noting that I had indeed not lost my sense of taste__ it didn’t taste good. But the tiny bit of essence was nice. A brief flash of cold that didn’t travel beyond my throat before it was greedily absorbed by my flesh.

Thankfully the leafy taste disappeared from my mouth after a short while. Sighing I placed my palm on the wall. Again the map of light reasserted itself in my head, directly on the spot my hand was, another mystical page lay beneath. This time I should try not to tear it apart.

The little spot of light still danced around my hands, happy little midgets. I smiled. Concentrating on my energy reserves, I slowly pressed my hand into the wall, immediately noting the sharp draw of energy from that ball that travelled from the ball and pooled around my hand.

I did not know how that energy worked in boosting my strength and durability, but the rocks could as well be caked dust for all the hindrance it gave to me. I lost a petal of energy but my hands settled on the page.