After finishing with the first book I moved back to the shelf, set the book on the carpet, and started on the second. The more I read, the more I wanted to read on the topic of the human body as well as tangentially related medical information.

The outer-body experience which had taken hold of me hadn't lessened in the slightest.

In my mind's eye I could see the growing web of information, as if I were seeing the very neurons inside my brain firing. The more I read, the smaller this web of information seemed to become despite the web itself growing; the more I learned, the more I understood how inadequate my understanding was. Each new nugget of information from the medical book pages created many more unanswered questions.

As much as my brain was in overdrive absorbing, sorting, comparing, and doing who-knows-what with all the new information, another part of me enjoyed being an observer rather than in the driver's seat of my body. Oftentimes in life I wished I could somehow let my body carry out tasks on autopilot whilst the real me could observe, sit back, and relax whilst the tasks were being done. Using this learning state ability was exactly that.

I could take back control, I thought, but I don't want to.

By the seventh doorstopper book there were no more medical textbooks on the shelf for me to devour. This seemed to be the thing which broke the learning state I was in.

Daylight shone in from the nearby window. It was a drizzly, overcast sky outside, but light enough that I understood I must have been sitting on the carpet reading for several hours.

There was something about the tower of books which disgusted me, as if each book were a meal I had already eaten and yet was available for me to eat in full all over again if I wanted to.

I know all of the information in those books now, I thought.

Or did I?

I tried to recall something, anything I had learnt from one of the books. Nothing came to mind.

My eyes searched the room whilst a puzzled look settled on my face.

Okay, I thought, maybe it requires a prompt of some kind?

The dull ache from the hump wound on the back of my right shoulder drew my attention.

What's wrong with it? I thought.

Still no answer came. Just the quiet passing of time in the little room.

Had I just wasted my time reading all of these books?

Birds twittered outside, singing their late-morning song.

It had been a while since I enhanced my hearing to see if any trouble might be heading my way. Despite this, I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.

I needed to get to the bottom of using my power.

I uncrossed my legs. My knees gave a little crunching sound from being stuck in the same position for so long. The ache in my legs was more uncomfortable than it was satisfying to spread them out in front of me again (being careful not to knock over the tower of books.)

Try tapping into the knowledge via unlocking, I told myself.

I concentrated on finding the unlocking sensation associated with the knowledge I had soaked up from the books.

This too proved useless.

"What the heck?" I said, aloud.

I wanted to kick the tower of books to make myself feel better, but stopped myself. Why couldn't I get this power to work properly? I had taken in all of that new knowledge, hadn't I?

Feeling restless, I rose to my feet and started pacing around the room.

Think, think, I told myself, as if I hadn't used my power for hours already to circumvent having to do the hard work of thinking and learning.

I moved over to the bed, sat down, and gazed out the window. From where I was sat on the edge of the bed the best I could see was the top of the nearby forest canopy and thick clouds looming overhead.

You didn't soak in the information, I thought, continuing to mull things over, the power did.

I nodded, putting a hand to my chin.

Right, I thought, and am I the power? Are we one and the same thing? Or is it something external to me?

I could tell I was flailing for an answer. It wasn't as if some experienced user of this power was going to come and teach me how to use it. Often in movies and TV shows newbies, when trying to learn the ropes of their new superpowers, had mentors to rely on.

Where was my mentor?

How could there be one? I thought, everyone who has the power is around your age. You're going to have to be your own mentor. Figure it out.

I scratched my head.

"Okay," I said, aloud, and sighed.

"Alright," I said, finding it easier to think things through by saying my thoughts, "Let's go with the assumption that you're not your power. And let's go with the assumption that each use of your power, which you unlock within your mind, is its own subset of the overall power."

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I remembered then that I had used combinations of my power at the facility.

I had used a combination of coiling up, bulbing up, and vibrating in order to create an incredibly powerful punch that had taken out the unfortunate were-tiger-girl-revolutionary in one hit.

"The powers can stack?" I said, aloud.

But could the abstract learning I had just done combine with the healing power?

The absence of knowledge is imagination, I thought.

When I had tried to heal the hump-wound before I had relied on my own knowledge of the human body to fix it, and hadn't gotten very far because of it.

But somewhere inside me now was at least some knowledge, seven huge medical book's worth, which I needed to find a way to access.

"Start with healing," I muttered.

I got up onto my knees and took off the green flannel shirt. I reached back and felt the nasty hump on my back, which was still weeping a nasty smelly juice.

My skin crawled with disgust.

"Alright," I muttered, "Heal, heal."

I tapped into the power and found the unlocking sensation I needed for healing. Finding it, the hump on my back jiggled wetly; bit by bit the gaps in the crust healed over again with yet more scab-like crust.

Now combine this healing with the knowledge. Find the knowledge, I told myself.

It took me a few moments to find the inner web of knowledge I had built up using the power whilst in the learning state.

The instant I found this knowledge there came a sudden resistance to me accessing it. It was as if this resistance was asking the question: are you sure you want to use this knowledge?

Yes, I thought, willing the power to give into my request.

I wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Agony erupted at the location of the hump. I thought I had felt pain before but this was on another level entirely. It was as if the very nerve endings at my shoulder were on fire.

This wasn't the kind of agony that could be fought against, no more than a person could ignore being branded with a burning hot iron.

I let out a scream of pain that emptied out my lungs and made me fight to breathe.

I writhed atop the bed and quickly fell off, hitting the carpet with a hard thud.

I couldn't stop the pain because I didn't have the presence of mind to do so. I was aware I wanted it to stop, and felt every second of the agony at my shoulder.

Sometime later the pain lessened.

I had writhed for a while on the carpet but had eventually stopped.

Drool pooled from my mouth onto the carpet and my eyes fluttered as if I were having a fit.

And then I lost consciousness.

*

Reality came crashing in like a wave.

My eyes shot open.

I saw the room I was in but at the same time I couldn't stop myself from sitting up with a start.

I breathed in a huge lungful of air.

"It's alright!" said a familiar voice.

It was Donald. His hand was pressed against the middle of my bare chest.

I was still in the bedroom they had let me stay in before. Somehow I was back on the single bed by the window.

Donald was sitting on a chair beside the bed. His face seemed to glow from the light from the window shining against his weather-beaten face.

I groped for the hump-wound on my back and quickly found, much to my relief, that it was no longer there.

All I felt was normal, smooth, bare skin.

I did it! I thought.

Before a giddy excitement could take hold of me I saw Donald's questioning gaze fixed on me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You almost died," said Donald.

"I did?" I said.

He nodded gravely.

"We heard you screaming. When I came in to see what was wrong…"

He hesitated what he was about to say because it clearly bothered him.

"...you were choking on your own vomit," he said.

Ah, I thought, way to go Burgess you stupid idiot.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Donald seemed to be mulling something over.

He brought his hand to my knee and patted it.

"Sienna's fixing breakfast," he said, "Do you feel up to eating?"

I nodded, feeling suddenly tender and emotionally wrung out.

"Come down when you're ready," said Donald.

He grunted as he stood from his chair. As he shuffled out of the room he glanced at the tower of books.

"If you could put those back I'd appreciate it," he said.

"I will," I said, "Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for," he said, "Just glad you're alright."

And then he left the bedroom. I listened to the sound of his footsteps descending the creaky stairs.

As nice as Donald had been about the whole situation I couldn't help but feel like a freak. A nasty burning sensation followed in my throat after I swallowed.

I don't know how much more pain I can take, I thought.

I lifted my gaze and saw the bloody crucifix on the wall. Something about it was strangely comforting.

I put my hands to my face and let out a haggard sigh.

Well, I thought, lifting my head up again and swinging my legs off the bed, breakfast is waiting.

I put the flannel shirt back on and found it much easier to do the buttons without the hump on my shoulder.

Each second without the hump was like its own reward for having gone through the agony to get rid of it.

Dressed, I took a moment to put the tower of books back onto the shelf. Finished, I made my way out of the bedroom and down the flight of stairs. Although my body was in great condition compared to how it had been when I had washed up on the bank by the Wedder Gorge facility, I still felt very tender, as if my body were an exposed nerve.

The sound of frying eggs met my ears and the smell quickly followed. I entered the kitchen and found Donald was already sitting at the dinner table. To my amusement he was smoking from an old pipe.

"Morning," he said, speaking around the pipe.

"Morning," I mumbled back, feeling guilty for all the stress I had caused them both.

I sat in the same seat I had last night.

"Eggs on toast, okay?" said Sienna, "There's no meat since it's Friday."

"That sounds great," I mumbled, "Thank you."

I sat back, again enjoying the absence of the hump on my back.

I was disappointed to see the little baby fox was no longer under the table. It had been curled up on a cushion last night.

"Where's the fox?" I said.

"Hm?" Donald hummed.

His bushy eyebrows narrowed.

"Fox?" he said.

"Yeah," I said, "The baby one on the cushion?"

Sienna looked over her shoulder, her gaze meeting Donald's.

"I don't know what you're talking about, son," he said, "You know about any fox, dear?"

Sienna shook her head and then went back to tending to the frying eggs.

There had been a fox, hadn't there?