Waking up several hours later, Rachael groggily looked around only to hear her stomach rumbling. The only possible food she could find was the carcass of the bun-bun which she was, hesitant to eat to say that least. For one, she wasn’t sure if the meat would be poisonous or bad for her, so she just waited it out, having no energy to leave but enough energy to not risk eating the meat.

Eventually, Rachael was too hungry, and as someone who didn’t feel immense hunger all that often, it was unbearable for her. She decided to cave in and eat the bun-bun’s meat. She wasn’t all that sure if she could create a fire and she wasn’t going to waste 30 minutes working trying that out so she decided to eat it raw. All her lessons that strongly suggested against eating anything, especially a foren ingredient, raw flying out of her mind

Rachael couldn’t find any good angle to bite into so she just bit into a place where she deemed as to have the least bones and the most meat. Rachael braced herself, then bit.

It was a completely different feeling from anything else she had eaten so far. It felt weirdly fulfilling but tasted like something that she had never eaten before. It tasted nothing like what she could recall rabbit tasting like (not that she expected it to taste like rabbit) and more like a strange twist of beef, chicken, pork, and kangaroo.

But moments after Rachael had made this discovery, she felt her mind blank out as she started swaying before she, once again, fell unconscious.

…

Waking up, Rachael woke up fine, but then suddenly had a splitting headache from her new enhanced hearing. She felt like she could hear everything. From a small rustle in the leaves to an ant walking on the soft, moist soil. Rachael was stunned and amazed by her newfound abilities.

But after trying to get up and the only result she got was hurting her ears, she realized that her magically enhanced hearing wasn’t only a good thing. Her sensitive hearing greatly amplified the sounds from close up too and it caused her to hear even a whisper as a slight yell.

Massaging her forehead, Rachael tried to think of some solutions to her problem. Think she couldn’t really do it right now as the massive amount of new sounds she didn’t hear before really messed up her concentration.

Though in the end, Rachael decided to try and tune out unnecessary sounds but if that didn’t work, then she decided to just try and get used to her enhanced ears.

Hmm, if you just ignored your hearing, doesn’t that just negate your newfound powers? Why get something if you’re not gonna use it?.

“Oh great. Now look who’s back. Why couldn’t you just stay silent?” Rachael ranted in her head, feeling incredibly agitated by her situation. “And to answer your question, my ‘newfound powers’, as you put it are being more of a liability rather than being too benificial right now so why don’t you just help me intead of asking stupid questions and being a dick?.”

Whoa woah, calm down! Fine! I’ll shut up for now but I’ll be back!

Thinking back to her plans while ignoring the suking voice in her head, Rachael tried to dial down her hearing back to the level of a normal human’s. To her surprise, it actually worked! Not down to an acceptable level, but still lower than before.

Exhilarated at her small success, Rachael did it again and again until her hearing was manageable and let out a sigh of relief as her hearing wasn't as cluttered as before.

“Finally! I can relax now! It felt like my head was going to burst and it wa-”

In sheer horor, Rachael clasped her hands over her mouth and immediately stopped speaking. Frightened, she started frantically searching back and forth, left and right for any signs of movement, or an oversized, bloodthirsty bunny.

Luckily for Rachael, there appeared to be none. Heaving a sigh of relief but still not completely relaxing her guard. The sensitivity of their ears was enormous, after all. But speaking of ears, Rachael pondered how she ended up with probably the bun-bun’s ears.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you ATE it? Oh, and I also helped you gain those. Without me, you wouldn’t have gotten it! Now praise the mighty super brain!

Rachael just mentally groaned and went back to thinking.

“First humans turn into monsters, then my best-friend/colleague/childhood-friend probably dies and I get a stupid voice in my head, and then I turn half monster. Great. Absolutely wonderful. What a great day”

It’s not all bad! At least you got practically super powers with them, right?

“Sure,” Rachael half-heartedly replied.

Rachael then scoped the woods, decided that “what could go wrong?” and with super brain replying a lot actually, Rachael started walking in the woods, hoping that she’s going in the right direction for civilization or some human contact.