8. Day 2.2
Before Alex leaves the bathroom, he decides to go though the exercises one more time before getting out in case he lets out corruption.
‘Maybe I should call this something else, its not quite exercise even though that I sweat. Meditation? I feel that is better but not quite. Refinement? I think it’s more accurate and sounds better, let’s try it’.
“Give me a moment I have to refine the corruption in my body into vital energy”
‘It doesn’t sound bad, I liked it. I think I just entered a Xinxiang novel ha ha ha ha ha!’.
Alex sits on the floor and starts refining the remaining corruption in his body. After a little over 15 minutes the corruption starts to exit out of his body but this time it’s a dark brown color.
‘Huuu that’s better but I still feel sore, YAWN haaaa tired and sleepy’.
After taking another shower, he starts to make his way out of the bathroom but stops when he seems his reflection on the mirror.
The person looking at him from the mirror is familiar but also different. The slightly over weigh and inoffensive looking man was no more and in his place was an athletic young man marred in scars and a stare of someone that was seen some scaring shit go down.
Alex starts to touch his body tracing the many scares that he had accumulated through two days since The Big Knockout. The white scares contrast heavenly whit his light brown skin making them more noticeable. He grabs at his stomach where before he could get a handful of fat, now he can only get about half of before. His eyes, while they hadn’t changed in any actual shape or form, there was a heaviness to his stare that he couldn’t quite explain. His muscles looked smaller, probably from the loss of fat, but now they look more defined and solid.
Looking at himself and realizing how much he had changed in such a sort time make him dreadful for the future.
‘If the early days are these bad how, much worse can it be in the future?’.
These thoughts make Alex’s resolve start to crack and doubt his choice of struggling for as long as he can.
“NO!”
Alex shouts defiantly
“The first steps are always the hardest as long as I keep moving forward, it will eventually get easier”.
Alex puts his hand in the mirror and looks intensely into his eyes.
“You can do it!”
After looking at his reflection for a few moments as if looking for any disagreement Alex takes his hand from the mirror, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath to calm down.
Opening his eyes Alex traces the scare on his face whit his finger. The scare stars from below the middle of his left eye to the end of his jaw.
‘At least I look badass.’
After giving himself a light smile, he makes his way out of the bathroom with a towel covering his lower body. Looking in what appears to be the room of the two sons he finds clothes that fit him good enough.
After finishing changing clothes, he makes his way to the kitchen.
‘I feel like decent human being now that I have clean clothes and underwear’
After raiding the kitchen and eating his fill Alex makes his way towards the living room and sits on the couch.
‘Getting to the Army Installation is going to be more difficult than I was first expecting. I have to check if I lost something from the back of the truck and see if the crash broke anything important’.
Getting up he makes his way upstairs to get his pickaxe and then to the truck.
‘I lost 2 cans of fuel but other than that the back is fine if a little messier than before. I’m not a mechanic so I can’t do a deep inspection but at least I can tell that nothing is leaking which should be good enough, also I can’t believe I forgot about the corps in the passenger seat.’
Alex takes the cops out of the truck and takes its core and the other 2. After turning the truck around so that he can make a fast geta away in case of an emergency Alex takes his backpack and starts heading back inside the house but stops when he spots something that catches his attention.
On the side of the house there is a small shed and in front of the shed there is a stump that has an axe stuck on top of it, there are also some logs close to it. Alex makes his way towards it and pulls it out.
‘It’s a little bit bigger than the pickaxe and heavier’.
After a couple of practice swings, he decides to keep it
‘I wonder if I should use the pickaxe and the axe together…. no, I can barely use one I shouldn’t over complicate this. I wonder if I can find something useful in the shed’.
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Lucky for Alex the shed wasn’t lock, going inside he sees some gardening tool, 2 shovels, another pickaxe, and other thing that don’t seem that useful but before he leaves, he spots something round that looks like an odd, shaped stone.
‘What is this?......huu I think it’s a sharpening stone. Let’s try it on the axe’.
Alex leaves the shed and makes his way towards a tree that is close by. Taking a swing Alex leaves a shallow cut on the tree. Sitting down on the stump Alex begins to sharpen the axe, after a couple of minutes he takes another swing at the tree and this time it appeared to be twice as deep as the first one.
“Nice”
Alex goes back to the shed to see if he can find another one lucky, he finds one more and it’s still in its packed.
‘These things are called pucks huu interesting’
After putting the puck in his backpack, he goes inside the house and sits down on the sofa. Taking out of his backpack the plastic bag with the cores he takes one out and examines it.
‘it’s roughly the size of my thumb, it has rough edges but not enough to cut myself with, it’s not hot or cold to the touch, it doesn’t have any smell. I’m not going to taste it. I wonder what would happen if I put it in boiling water.’
Alex heads to the kitchen and starts boiling some water. When he thinks it’s enough, he drops a core inside, almost instantly the core melts turning the water into a dark green substance. He pours it in a transparent glass of water.
‘I wonder if I should drink it’.
As Alex debates on his next course of action the substance in the glass starts to change. The bottom starts to get darker, and the top gets transparent in under a minute the bottom of the glass has the same substance that he sweats when he is refining the corrupt energy and the top looks like normal water.
After waiting for the water to cool off he takes a sip.
“UGH COUGH this tastes horrible, and I don’t think there is any vital energy in it”.
After throwing away his failed experiment he looks around for anything that could be useful for his travel around the house. An hour later Alex found a much bigger backpack, a sleeping bag, a pair of hiking boots that fit, canned food and two changes of clothes. After filling his new backpack and securing the sleeping bag on top of it he makes his way back to the living room.
Alex turns on the TV and stars going through the channels looking for any news, but most of them have a “we are currently experiencing technical difficulties, sorry for the inconvenience” image, just static and one had a “national emergency, please remind calm and stay home” after going through the channels twice he turns off the TV.
‘Sight I can’t stay here all day I have to go back on the road.’
Alex leans back on the couch and lets out a deep sight, reluctantly Alex gets up to gather his things and makes his way towards the truck. After loading his thing on the truck, he tries to turn it on.
Chukchuk chuk……
‘What, it was working find a while ago’
Alex tries again.
Chukchukchuk chuk…...
‘Please don’t do this to me’
Chukchukchuk..Brrum BRUUUM!
“SIIIGH that scared me, I thought that I was going to have to walk the rest of the way”
Alex makes his way out into the street and tries to orientate himself.
‘Humm, I think that If I go left from here then another left at the light I’ll be back where I was before, but if I keep going in that direction, I’ll end up passing another residential area and a shopping center. I don’t think passing through those areas is a good idea. I barely got close to the residential area last time and I almost got swarmed by zombies.’
Alex stops the truck and thinks.
‘There is an old route that should take me close to my parents’ house but I’m not sure where it is from here. If the internet is still working, I should be able to get on a computer and get directions, hell I might be able to confirm if there is a refugee camp or something close by’.
Alex looks around from where he is parked and notices a few houses in the distance.
‘I’m still in a rural area so I might get unlucky again and not find a computer in one of the houses and I don’t want to clear every hose I come across. I think if I go left and then keep going straight, I’ll eventually end up in a rich people area. The hoses are considerately far apart so it shouldn't be too dangerous.’
With a new plan in mind Alex makes his way through the road running over any zombie that he sees and reaches, getting lost and back track. After 30 minutes of driving Alex finally makes it to an area where the houses are bigger, fancier and have big lawn space.
‘Man, if it is in one of these houses maybe I should wait for the Army to come rescue me’.
Alex thinks jokingly because of the big lack of places where he could get food and lack of other people.
‘That hoses should do.’
Alex heads in the direction of a house that is in a little hill and has a new looking big black truck.
‘I should change trucks while I can, I don’t know when this one is going to give out on me’.
As he got closer two zombies that were close to the house started to run towards him. Alex speeds up and tried to run them over getting the first one but the second one managed to jump on top of his truck.
‘Son of a bitch!’
Alex stops the truck hard hoping to make the zombie fall off, but it doesn’t let go. The Zombie starts hitting the front window while the car stops. Putting the truck in revers Alex tries to shake it off by stopping hard again but the zombie stays in the ceiling of the truck. Alex tries again and again trying to shake it off only managing to attract more. Alex looks at his gun but decides not to use it’.
‘I only have a few bullets and I don’t think I can hit it from here. Maybe I should get out of here.’
Putting the truck on driver Alex floored the gas, but instead of making a quick exit, the truck makes a ‘crack’ sound and stops moving.
“FUCK.... FINE I’ll do it the hard way”
Alex grabs the gun and the axe, places the gun on his belt and kicks open the door. Alex jumps out of the truck and brings down his axe on the closes zombie’s head killing it instantly, as the zombie falls Alex takes the axe out of its head and makes a wide swing cutting two approaching zombies making them stop. Alex throws himself on the ground and rolls out of the way of a falling zombie.
Reacting quickly Alex swings his axe upward hitting the zombie on the neck, cutting deep enough to cut it’s head off. Bringing his axe down, Alex aims to hit the approaching zombie on the head but misses and hits it on the shoulder breaking it, and making it stumble. This gives the second one enough time to get close enough that Alex can’t swing his axe properly. Letting one hand go of the axe Alex Lowers his body, grabs the zombie by the hips, lifts it up and slams it down head firs. Letting go off the body Alex jumps back dodging a tackle from the first one. As it turns to face him, Alex swings his axe at its face cutting half its face off.
Getting a moment to breathe Alex looks around and finds 3 more coming from the front. Alex takes a deep breath and charges forward, turning slightly to the right he swings and cuts the head of the zombie on the right, then he brings it back and hits the one in middle on the head. Bringing the axe up Alex waits for the one on the left and when it is close enough, he brings it down as hard as he can, splitting its head open.
“Haaa Haaa I’m, I’m getting better at this, no bits or scratches”.
Suddenly he feels pain in his back.
“OUCH”
‘When did…. The one that I lift. That was still a sweet move’
When Alex is about to get on the truck something catches his attention and when he turns to get a better look he freezes. A man is looking at him from the balcony of one of the houses. Alex wants to talk to the man but the pain in his back stops him. Getting inside the truck quickly Alex starts to refine the corruption on his body.