Author's note: My sincere apologies for not keeping my promise of releasing another chapter yesterday. To make up I have written an extra-long chapter! This one is more than twice as long as any other chapter of mine, so I hope this makes up for me not keeping to my promise...

Anyways, hope you guys like this chapter. The suggestions and feedback thread is always present for you guys to comment on!

Thanks a lot for reading!

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After I finished cursing the damn cat, I looked at the syringe and saw that I had somehow managed to fill almost half of it with the cat’s blood. I quickly gulped it down and waited for ‘mind me’ to do his magic.

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Enhanced speed. You will now be able to move much faster then before.

Excellent, I always referred to it as super-speed but oh well, enhanced speed will also do. This could help me both in the air and on the ground, I think. If it’s possible for me to use both flight and enhanced speed at the same time, my flying speed can be greatly improved.

As I was thinking about all this, my gaze passed over the plant over at the windowsill. My mother had given it to me when I first moved to this apartment, and it was still alive only because I knew mom would kill me if I let it die due to carelessness. Plants apparently have abilities too now according to the internet, so I should be able to absorb abilities from them too shouldn’t I? But plants don’t have blood per say… So how do I absorb abilities from plants?

I could just eat them raw….

With that decided, I pulled off a leaf and went over to the sink to wash it, and then I put it in my mouth and started chewing. It tasted extremely bitter and it was extremely dry. I had to drink a whole glass of water to force it down.

I waited and just a few moments later…

Plant-Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Poison resistance. You now have increased resistance to weak poisons. Consuming more plants of the same species could make this ability evolve.

So, plants do really have blood huh…? I wasn’t aware of that… Or did they somehow get blood added to their bodies with their new abilities…?

Hold on… Did ‘mind me’ just say the ability could evolve if I ate more plants…? I had no idea abilities could evolve! What does evolution of abilities even mean…?

I hurriedly pulled out another leaf, washed it and ate it. If this works then this could be huge for me going forward…

Plant-blood successfully absorbed. Poison resistance increased.

This is great!

Without waiting any further, I stripped off all the leaves of the plant (sorry mom) and washed them all up before eating them all in one go with a lot of water to help me gulp it all down.

Plant-blood successfully absorbed. Poison resistance increased.

No evolution yet huh…? Oh well, this was only a short potted plant, my parent’s house has so many more of these guys, I’m sure I will be able to evolve this ability later when I go visit them again.

I looked at the now bare stem of the plant and wondered if eating the stem would help me improve the ability as well…? I grabbed for it and when I squeezed it to pull it out a white sort-of sticky substance came out from the stem… Is this what plant-blood is supposed to be? I scooped up some of the substance, it had a strong sweet-smell, and quickly swallowed it. It tasted absolutely horrible!

Plant-blood successfully absorbed. Poison resistance increased.

Excellent! So this sticky white substance is supposedly plant-blood, and eating the stem will also give me improvement to my abilities!

I quickly took out the stem, chopped it up into little bits and ate them all with A LOT of water to help me push all of it down. In the end I got the same message about my poison resistance increasing, but no messages about an evolution.

Seeing as there were no more plants for me to experiment on right now, I decided to shift my focus onto the enhanced speed ability I gained earlier. I opened up my window and jumped off, luckily my apartment was only on the 3rd floor so I was still able to fly quite easily at this height.

I was searching for a wide-open space for me to practice my speed ability when I thought of the football field at my university, it was perfect for practice so I headed over there.

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5 hours later I returned to my apartment extremely tired but also extremely pleased with myself. After the first try of almost crashing straight into the other end of the field, I had practiced non-stop in order to control my speed better. Now I could figure out what was in front of me quite easily, could make a few turns but nothing too sharp, it was more of a curve then a turn, and I could also stop anytime I wanted to.

But the most pleasing thing for me was the fact that I could use both flight and enhanced speed at the same time! This increased my flying speed greatly and will certainly help me in the future!

Pleased with myself, I took a quick shower and headed off to bed.

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I woke up to the sound of my mobile ringing. I looked at the time and it was 1:04pm.

Getting up I reached for my phone and saw that it was my ‘best friend’ James calling. He had already called about 20 times since the day the abilities came but I was either too tired or asleep to answer so I have ignored him so far.

I sighed and answered the phone, and immediately James started yelling. I was used to it so I didn’t even put my mobile anywhere near my ear, I could hear James’s voice perfectly fine from a distance.

He continued talking about why I hadn’t replied so far, what ability do I have and abilities in general without giving me any time for an answer.

I don’t really like company at all, and no one except James calls or texts me regularly. I would prefer James not to do it too but the guy is oddly very clingy.

Our friendship started about 5 years ago, I was introduced to him from one of my other friends. I did the usual polite greeting and as usual I pretended to be interested in anything James said and pretended to be interested in the same things too. I had long ago learned that I didn’t like anyone’s company, so I had come up with the ‘fake interest’ technique to make myself seem normal and not be a complete outcast. I was pretty good at it too, seeing how I made friends quite easily and no one ever figured out that my interest was fake.

However I regretted using the same tactic with James almost immediately. He was in awe of 'how could anyone have the exact same interests as he did', and that he had never had so much in common with anyone before and from now on we were ‘bros for life.’ Ever since then he has referred to me as his best friend and I can’t get rid of him no matter what… not that I try too hard though.

The reason I put up with him is because I know that it is practically a guarantee that he will help me out if I am ever in need. He is extremely loyal, and it is always nice to have someone you know you can rely on if ever the need arises.

He is also extremely gullible, so I find it easy enough to manipulate him, and my manipulating has had great effects as I have ‘trained’ him not be so clingy anymore and not bother me much.

James had kept on speaking very loudly all this time and he finally stopped with the words, “So, what is your ability? And guess what mine is!”

James’s ability… It has to be either super-strength or increased loyalty. If my theory about abilities somehow relating to a person’s personality or actions is correct then these two should be the most probable abilities he could have. He is extremely loyal, and he is also obsessed with strength, always going to the gym and training to get stronger and ‘impress the chicks’. Though with the way he is so excited, I imagine super-strength would be his ability and not loyalty….

So, I answered with “Super strength?”

“Damn! How did you guess that? I wanted it to be a surprise!”

“I have a theory, I’ll tell you about it later. Listen, want to meet up? We should meet with each other instead of talking over the phone, we could have lunch and discuss comfortably.”

James was extremely excited and immediately agreed, and we set up a meeting point at one of our usual hangouts in about an hour.

I got up, took a quick shower, put on some clean clothes and emptied my bag. I had some shopping to do!

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After about 20 minutes of flying and searching around, I finally found what I was looking for, a pharmacy! Almost every shop was still closed up due to all this ability business and this was the only pharmacy I could find that was open.

I landed and immediately entered a shop, to find a really, really old man behind the counter who was looking at me sharply. In just a moment I was able to figure out how I needed to act around him to get what I want, and I started speaking.

“Good afternoon sir. I am so thankful to you that you still have this shop running. Thank you for still doing business while everyone else has their shops closed.”

“Hmph. Polite one are ya? Well, you’re welcome. So, what can I help you with?” The old guy answered.

He still had a bit of suspicion in his eyes but it had decreased to a certain degree. I am very good at acting, after so many years of practicing I am bound to be good and I am at a stage where it comes naturally to me. I can also observe people quite well and know what kind of ‘act’ I need to put on to gain their favour.

“I needed some basic medical supplies please.”

“That I can do. This here is a basic medical box. Anything else?”

“Yes sir. I also need a few syringes.” This is what I basically wanted, but asking outright for syringes could have been detrimental for me with such a sharp looking man behind the counter so I had started off with asking about basic medical supplies.

“Oh? And what do you need them for, may I ask? Especially since this medical box contains 5 syringes too.” He was immediately suspicious again. Can’t blame him, a 21-year old guy buying syringes will immediately be thought of as a drug user.

“I need them for my mom. She is diabetic so she needs them to inject insulin. I thought with the way things are going with the abilities the next few days could be crazy, so I thought it will be best if I have some stock at hand in case something bad happens and medical supplies are hard to come by. Here, I also have a prescription.”

I handed him the prescription. It was actually a real prescription, but it wasn’t for my mom instead it was one for James’s mom. He gave it to me once long ago to help me get drugs and such, but as I never use any drugs it has so far been unused. I only remembered about it by chance after speaking to James this morning.

“This does look like a real prescription, but I can’t just hand out a high number of syringes without confirming. And since I doubt the doctor who wrote this will be in his office to confirm, I don’t think I will be able to give them to you. Sorry.”

Hmm… seems like the old man is still a little suspicious. Let’s take it up a notch.

I pretended to be downcast for about 3 seconds, then pretended to have a good idea and brightened up a bit and said “ That’s fine, I understand. Then I’ll take as many basic medical supplies you have! They have syringes too, and plus medical supplies are always useful, win-win.”

The old guy was a little taken back, but quickly regained that suspicious hint in his eyes. “Son, I don’t know if you are telling the truth or not. You seem too nice to be real… But it could just be me. I will sell you one pack of syringes that has 20 syringes in them, but that’s it.”

Crap. Either my acting isn’t good enough or this guy just has too much life experience. Either way, I thanked him, took the syringes and the medical box and left the shop. At least I have a few syringes for now, I can always find more later. The reason for me wanting so many syringes was that I don’t want to pass diseases or such from one person to another by using the same syringe over and over. I’m already doing a disgusting enough thing, no need for me to make people sick at the same time too...

With the business with the syringes done, I took off again and flew the short distance to meet up with James.

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The meeting with James was a great success. On top of being so gullible, he also freaks out over the smallest health issues. I simply had to tell him that Chloe was a bit suspicious about how these abilities could affect our bodies, and she had asked me to collect some blood from friends so she could run some tests. As soon as he saw the pack of syringes he figured it must be the truth and let me draw his blood quite easily. This was the real reason I asked James to meet me today, super-strength was a great asset to have after all!

He also saw me flying when I arrived so assumed that my ability was flight, and I didn’t feel the need to correct him. My family doesn’t live near me, but when the holidays are done I will see James everyday in classes, which is why I didn’t tell him the same lie I told my family. I don’t want him to find out that I can’t actually absorb abilities by touch and I most certainly am not going to tell him about the deal with the blood. Letting him think my ability was flight seemed a simple enough answer for now.

After the meeting with James was done I headed home, dropped off the medical box and the pack of syringes and took out the syringe which was full of James's blood. With a grin on my face, I hurriedly drank all of the blood and waited…

Blood successfully absorbed. Ability gained: Enhanced strength. You will be much stronger now.

Excellent! A new ability gained and a question answered.

Except for the plant I ate, no other ability had prompted ‘mind-me’ to state that it could be evolved. Which either means that only abilities from plants can be evolved or there are only a few abilities that can be evolved and poison-resistance was one of them.

That being said, I am going to wait till after the ability evolves before eating other plants. The reason being I want to know what evolution of abilities actually means. It would most probably evolve into something like greater poison resistance or higher poison resistance, but there is a small chance that it could be something different. What if instead of the ability evolving it is my body that evolves? I could turn into something that can inject poison to others like a snake… Or my blood could become poisonous… or something. It seems highly unlikely that this will happen, but with so many changes in the world recently anything is possible, and I am not taking any chances…

Right, now to head out and see how much my strength has increased….

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As usual, I was lying exhausted on my bed. I had spent the last 7 hours training non-stop and I was beyond tired.

I mainly trained my new ability of enhanced strength, but all the flying around looking for secluded spots to train in made me improve my flight ability too, and I could now go higher and a bit faster then before.

I found out that I could now lift cars like they were nothing! But buses and large trucks took some effort. As I was sweating while lifting a bus, it suddenly dawned on me how incredible it was for me to be actually lifting a bus! A mere 4 days ago I was a lazy couch-potato doing nothing but reading novels and watching stuff on my laptop all day. Now I am flying around, drinking blood and lifting vehicles as if it’s the most normal thing in the world! Incredible how much everything has changed in such a short time!

With such thoughts I fell asleep yet again.

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I was currently back in my parent’s house sniffing the sweet scent coming from somewhere....

I woke up today morning from my mom calling me and demanding me to get back home. It seemed she was too worked up over all the craziness lately and wanted the whole family to stay together for the time being.

The day had been quite uneventful so far. First thing I did was look for Stella. I hadn’t seen her since the night I took her blood, and if I were to move back to my parent’s house I needed to find her. Luckily, I found her not too far away in an alley where she was busy rummaging through a trash bin. As she was busy, I managed to sneak up to her by floating a few inches off the ground and quickly forced her into a bag so she couldn’t escape.

I dropped her off at another neighbour’s house, but not before I took some more blood from her, extra speed is always helpful.

After dropping off Stella I made my way back to my parent’s house. The journey this time was much quicker thanks to my increased speed, taking less then an hour now!

I got home, had lunch, talked a bit with my family and went back to train some more. I call it training but actually it’s just me having fun doing incredible stuff!

Anyways… It was currently 1:04am and I was smelling some kind of sweet scent. It seemed oddly familiar… perhaps a perfume from one of my sisters…? Yeah… that must be it.

A couple minutes passed by but the smell kept getting stronger and stronger, to the point that it was starting to irritate my nose. I opened the door of my room and moved out into the hallway to see what was going on.

The smell in the hallway was incredibly strong! I had to go back and pick up a shirt to cover up my nose before going back out into the hallway. Even though the smell was so strong, I couldn’t see anything that looked out of place. The same hallway lined with plants, the same doors and the same floor made up of…

The plants! The plant in my apartment and these plants lining the hallway were the exact same species!

A bad premonition of what this smell probably meant came over me and I rushed to my parents bedroom and immediately put my hand on my mother’s neck….. nothing! I put my face on her chest… nothing! No sound of her heart beating, no feeling of her chest moving while taking breaths… absolutely nothing!

With a heavy heart I checked on my father and found the same thing…. the silence in the room was absolutely suffocating.

I rushed off to the other bedrooms and found the same situation with Chloe, Mark and Karen. None of them were making a sound, none of them were moving, none of them were breathing.

They were all dead.

…..

…..

I started hearing shouts and screams from outside, and tore my gaze from Mark’s lifeless body. I headed over to the window to find people screaming everywhere, a few fires in the distance and animals moving everywhere.

The more I saw the more clearer it got. Animals and plants, for some unknown reason, were attacking and killing any human they could see. There were people being chased by bloodthirsty animals of all kinds, people getting eaten alive and trees and plants moving about crushing people with vines or by other means.

I understood what was going on, but I couldn’t care right now. I moved back into the hallway and wordlessly started eating the ones responsible for my family’s death: the plants in the hallway.

The sweet-smelling scent was some kind of poison released from these plants, and it had spread all over and killed everyone but me. My poison resistance was what had kept me alive probably...

I was eating the plants because it would help me improve my ability, but mainly because these plants had obviously known they were going to kill everyone in the house when they released the poison, and I wanted to repay them by slowly eating them alive. I wasn’t even picking off the leaves one by one, instead I was eating the plants whole from the pots themselves so that they could feel me eating them bit by bit. I wasn’t sure if plants could feel or not, but I really hope they can.

10 minutes later I had eaten every plant in the hallway, and I stood up as my gaze fell back to my parent’s now lifeless bodies. As the sounds of screams, gunfire and crashes kept reaching me from outside, I couldn’t help but smile at how lucky my family was.

They had all died exactly like my grandfather did, peacefully in their sleep. Their faces didn’t show any hint of pain or agony but instead looked calm and content. Such a lucky family. The only unlucky one is me, who is still alive and will have to face whatever chaos is going on outside. But still, I was glad of my family’s peaceful death, and thankful to my mother who had grown all these plants.

A sudden thought of how this would be a good opportunity for me to find out if absorbing blood from dead bodies still granted me abilities or improvements in my abilities flashed through my mind. But I immediately pushed the thought away. I know I can’t feel much emotions, I know I won’t be able to shed even a single tear for my family’s death for it had been years and years since I last cried, but the least I can do is not defile their dead bodies. Logically speaking I should go for it and experiment right now, but for once I went with my heart instead of my brain.

I went downstairs, took all the largest knives I could see from downstairs and went back to my room. I picked up my bag and filled it with the syringes, the knives, the medic box, some food, a water bottle and a few clothes. I then jumped off the window and soared into the sky as I saw the chaos below.

I don’t care about all these people who are suffering, I don’t care about saving them, but I will make damn sure to kill as many animals and plants today as I can. Let the blood I will flow today be a sick sort of tribute for my family.

And with such thoughts, I dived into the carnage below....