Before finding the keys, Danny instead found a safe hidden behind a pile of books. Unfortunately, however, he had no way of opening it. He did not have the password and he doubted he could brute-force it open.

Even if he was stronger now, he was not stronger to the point of bending steel with his bare hands. He would need the appropriate tools to open this – tools he didn’t have at the moment and couldn’t just simply carry around anyway.

There was always the possibility that he could find the password to the safe in one of the scattered papers and books he had so carelessly thrown on the floor. However, Danny did not even entertain the idea of searching for it. He could not even be sure if such notes existed after all.

He was not in a video game. There was no guarantee that if he went searching through every nook and cranny of the place, and perused every bit of information contained in those paper sheets, he would eventually come across the password hidden somewhere, so he did not bother to even try.

He couldn’t bring himself to dedicate what would undoubtedly be hours of looking through lines and lines of text for something as uncertain as that, and for a reward he had no idea of whether or not it would be useful to him.

For all he knew, the safe could contain only money and other legal documents, things that were completely useless to him, so it would be foolish of him to waste so much time trying to open it. His time was better spent doing other things.

Giving up on the unknown loot inside the protected safe, Danny went back to his search for the keys to the place, finding them not too long after.

Hiding in one of the last drawers Danny checked, there was a bunch of keys in a keyring. They were safely placed inside a blue mug that had “best dad in the world” stamped on it. The keys were all labelled and numbered - covering all the rooms in the motel -, so it was quite easy for Danny to identify which one opened which door.

After taking them and making sure all the doors in the lobby were properly locked, Danny went back to the second floor and chose one of the middle rooms in the corridor as his elected spot for spending the night.

Danny then got in, locked the door behind him, and dropped his bag on a chair that stood just beside the door, before properly taking a look for the first time at the place he would be resting in.

The room was fairly decent and cozy, but nothing worth writing home about as one would expect from a motel in the middle of nowhere.

Besides the main bedroom which contained a bed, a nightstand by its side, a small walnut-colored wooden wardrobe, a corner table and a chair going with it where Danny had deposited his backpack, there was also a small bathroom to the side, with a sink, toilet and shower.

The place appeared to have been well-kept during its functioning days, even if a layer of dust already started to settle around the room. After all, it had been quite a while already since it had last seen an occupant or an employee to keep it clean and tidy.

Nonetheless, Danny was satisfied with what he found. This place was already well above the average when taking into account all the spots he had spent the night on ever since the zombie outbreak. After he started his journey south, Danny had spent nights under the open sky, cramped in tiny rooms and even slept on the roof of a building once, so a nice motel room was way more than he could ask for.

Being able to sleep on a bed with a roof over his head already made Danny pretty damn satisfied with his accommodations. Everything else was just a plus.

Danny went to the bathroom next and checked the sink and shower. Fortunately, there was still running water in this building, even if not heated. However, that was not a problem. It wasn’t cold enough out there to prevent him from partaking in a nice shower to feel clean and refreshed.

“Great! It seems that I’ll be able to cleanse myself from all this sticky grime before going to sleep today.” The thought immediately brought a smile to Danny’s face.

“I have to remember to wash my gear as well while I’m at it.” Danny remembered in passing. He knew the importance of maintaining his gear and weapons.

If he took good care of his things, they would be able to serve him for a long time to come, and you never knew how much you needed something until you actually needed it. Therefore, it paid dividends to make sure to keep his equipment in as pristine of a condition as possible.

After checking everything around the room and making sure he didn’t miss anything, Danny went outside once more to gather a few things. First, he grabbed some towels in one of the storage rooms at the ground floor. Then, Danny opened the main glass doors in the lobby and went straight towards a vending machine that leaned into one of the building’s walls on the outside.

He then took his hammer and easily broke the flimsy transparent plastic screen separating him from his desired goodies with a few smashes, before looting the contents of the vending machine.

If there was one thing Danny had learned this day, was the incredible trading value chocolate and other similar foodstuffs had. The fact that industrial production and commerce had all but stopped made those small amenities all the more valuable, so it was good to always keep a few on hand.

He had left all of his sweets with Lara since he didn’t have the heart to take them back after trading them in the first place and seeing how excited she was about the stuff. He also didn’t strictly need them, given that he had filled his bag to capacity with other healthier kinds of food, but now he could restock on his snack supplies anyway.

If he ever found another survivor that was friendly enough and open to trade again, than hopefully those sweets would come in handy as a nice bargaining chip.

Also, with the surplus of food that this vending machine provided him, Danny wouldn’t have to dig into his bag reserves and would be able to keep them topped off when he left tomorrow morning.

After getting everything he wanted, locking the main doors to the motel again and returning to his room, Danny started tending to his equipment and cleaning it on the bathroom sink.

The stained towels that kept being thrown to the floor after being used to dry his gear revealed all the dirt, grime and overall nastiness that he had been carrying around on himself.

It had been a few days since the last time he had the chance to take the time and clean all his clothes and tools, so he had days’ worth of all kinds of filth stuck on him, with more and more accumulating on him every day that passed. Thankfully, those days were now in the past. At least until a few more days passed and he got covered in zombie goop all over again anyways.

After a lot of scrubbing and washing, Danny went over his possessions to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything. Seeing that he had covered everything, Danny nodded with satisfaction while looking the now pristine condition of his equipment. Well… almost pristine.

He then threw himself under the shower. It was now his turn to go through the cleansing process, so he immediately started to tend to himself.

The soapy feeling on his skin and the scrubbing of his scalp and hair with shampoo was simply heavenly. Danny was so engrossed and lost in the sensation of washing away all the grease from his body that he didn’t even care about the coldness of the water.

After a few rounds of washing his body all over, and then again, Danny quickly dried himself and picked up the spare clothing he had left by the bed before he started showering and dressed himself. Seeing all the filth that came out of his body and clothes and into the now unusable towels, Danny knew that he had to have looked like a dirty savage to Lara.

Even then, she had not said a single thing about it.

Danny also didn’t notice any sign of revulsion or aversion in her eyes and mannerisms, and given that Lara was not particularly adept at hiding her thoughts as he came to know, that meant that she really did not care or, most likely, did not hold it against him or judge him for it.

Thinking about it now, the way he looked might have played a large role in drawing all those pitying looks from the farm girl.

“She really is a kind girl.” Danny thought with a smile. Even if it was somewhat troublesome to go on this quest to help her, he did not regret his decision. He was glad he made the choice to lend a helping hand in the end. After all, wasn’t this what being human was all about? Doing the humane thing?

Danny knew from first-hand experience that human being could be incredibly cruel to one another, but that was just one side of the coin. Human beings were also capable of incredible acts of generosity and compassion. Though he had seen much more of the first side than the second – making him into a cynic and somewhat selfish young man – he still strove to live in a way that would make his mother proud of him.

People were often contradictory like that, tending even to hypocrisy sometimes. Danny was pessimistic about others, but hoped to find good in people. He was wary of strangers but at the same time, deep down, looked forward making real connections with others.

Human beings were complicated. Emotions were hard to explain.

Anyway, Danny cleared his thoughts of the blond girl he had left behind with a slight shake of the head, and went to get his bag that remained sitting on top of the chair by the door.

Danny only had one thing left to do before he could rest.

“Almost eight hours have passed. I think it’s already safe enough to continue.” Danny said out-loud to no one in particular as he checked his wristwatch and judged the time since the last time he ate a crystal.

Then, he reached for the pouch which contained his most valuable possessions inside his hiker bag. After grabbing it, he took out a single crystal from within, before quickly swallowing it.

Danny then safely stored the pouch back inside his bag and sat on top of the bed with his legs crossed and joined his hands together on top of his lap in a meditating position, waiting for the energy to start being released.

A few moments later, Danny could already feel the very same sensations he had already grown accustomed to begin spreading from within his stomach and throughout his whole body.

By ingesting the crystals with a decent break in-between each time, the discomfort from his sessions had become way more manageable. That isn’t to say that it was a pain-free experience like it would be if Danny was willing to wait more before making use of the crystals again, but it was well within his tolerance threshold.

Danny was pretty confident that, no matter how much pain they caused by being ingested in quick succession, the soul gems had no harmful permanent side effects. That was what he assumed from the information he had gathered from his talks with the demon anyway, even if he was not one hundred percent sure.

Even if that was the case, given his cautious nature, Danny decided to limit himself to one crystal every eight hours to keep the pain in a stable – and what he felt was a reasonable – range. Just in case.

Also, by limiting the pain to just this much, Danny could actually concentrate on other matters and think while the soul gems did their thing, dedicating his mind to other tasks during the process.

Instead of simply enduring and gritting his teeth, Danny had been spending his sessions looking and focusing inwards, trying to glean any details and to understand what was happening to him and the inner workings behind how the crystals functioned. To feel the effects of the soul energy and study its incredible secrets.

He was way out of his depth obviously.

There was no way that Danny would suddenly receive an epiphany after a single week of training simply because he started meditating after swallowing the tiny crystals, but his actions weren’t without merit as well. Even though he still couldn’t make head of tails of all of this, Danny was getting more and more familiar with the process.

Danny would have another meeting with the demon soon enough – around one week from now –, and getting a good feel on the soul energies and paying attention to what was going on inside of him every time might help him better understand matters related to his current training method down the road and who knows what else.

He might even be able to pick up on some of the dodgy demon’s knowledge whenever Tutu inevitably let something relevant slip in one of his unamusing tirades. Tutu sure as hell liked to irk him, so maybe Danny could try to use this to his advantage.

It wasn’t so far-fetched of an idea to be able to derive some important information from his personal experience added by the crumbs that the demon left along the way, so it was well worth investing his time familiarizing himself with this strengthening method and all its peculiarities.

He was already quite used to the process overall, but every time he meditated over it again while the energies coursed through his body, Danny always perceived something slightly different or garnered a tiny detail he had not noticed before.

A small itch here that he was not aware of. The absence of pain there that was decidedly uncomfortable last time.

Danny wasn’t quite sure if he was just imagining things and whether his brain was playing tricks on him. If he was getting more perceptive and there really were small changes from one session to the next or if he was just seeing things because he had been looking at the same thing repeatedly non-stop, and even more importantly, if those changes were random or if they meant anything.

After the feelings of discomfort finally subsided, announcing the end of his training, Danny slowly opened his eyes. He looked down to his own hands and tightly closed them into fists, exerting strength in his fingers as he did so.

Danny could feel the great strength contained in his grip. The dormant power in his muscles that he couldn’t dream of before all this mess started. He was becoming stronger, he was becoming faster, he was becoming more. Just as Tutu had promised.

His vision was clearer and could cover larger distances. His muscles could sustain more intensive activities and for longer periods of time. He could punch, kick and strike harder and faster. Danny knew he was not the same person as the Danny from a week ago.

However, he was already losing track of how significant those changes truly were. Danny didn’t have an objective point of reference to measure those changes.

He couldn’t help it.

There weren’t any magical numbers or some kind of convenient assistance tool to break down the changes he was going through and hand it over to him in an easy-to-understand manner.

Just like a kid who was still growing or someone who had just started to go on a diet, it was hard to tell how much you effectively changed through the days. Of course, you could tell if you were taller, thinner or fatter, but how much exactly was hard to say for sure.

A person saw herself or himself in the mirror every day, so tiny changes that added up to big changes tended to trick their individual perception, making one feel that no changes actually happened. Without auxiliary measuring tools, like a weighing scale for example, it was easy to lost track or not notice one’s own progress. Therefore, Danny had been trying to think of a way to solve the issue.

“I guess it all loops back to asking Tutu about it.” Danny sighed.

He desired a better way to check his increase in power other than just feeling it, but his hands were tied. There was no one he could turn to other than Tutu to answer his many questions, so either he had to come up with a way to solve the problem himself or he would have to pay tribute to the demon and ask him.

He could not just simply straight-up question the demon about it as well. Danny could only count on the demon for an answer only if he could spin his question in a way that it seemed to be related with the crystals.

Given that he was still ‘in debt’, and hadn’t completely repaid the demon for telling him about the magical properties of the soul gems, Tutu wouldn’t talk about anything else with him other than the crystals until Danny fulfilled his part of the arrangement.

That was what they had settled on, so there was no two-ways about it.

Danny also had no intention to break their agreement, given that it was in his best interest to keep his deal with the demon valid for as long as he could. Leaving aside soul rending tortures that Danny would no doubt be submitted to if he failed to do his part, the pact he had with Tutu was the only thing ensuring his safety and reserving Danny a modicum of autonomy and control over his own life, so he would definitely do his best to preserve it.

If it is was up to him, this pact will stand for a very long time. After all, what was a little bit of pain and blood compared to freedom? Compared with having control over his own life?

Danny placed his trusty hammer on the nightstand – to make sure he could react quickly to anything if he was suddenly awakened – before heading to bed.

He had his mother’s memento with him and, as he laid on the bed thinking, he listened to a few of the songs she had recorded on these tapes all those years ago. The melodic tunes brought him comfort, helping him to relax and organize his thoughts.

“I guess the only way out is to make it sound like something related with the crystals… but how do I do it? How do I phrase it to convince Tutu to spill the beans?” Danny pondered silently with both his hands under his head and on top of his pillow.

Until sleep finally came for him, Danny could not figure out a solution.