Dawn was approaching and Lewis had fled from the city of Yatar.

At the moment, he kept himself high above the ground so that he could have a good vantage point of the surrounding area and because he thought it was probably safer. He didn't have his mask and cloak he was wearing earlier, so it was useless to go back there anyway without attracting attention. It was still too dark to see much of anything.

Uncertain of the direction he should travel, he decided to wait for the sun to rise and illuminate his surroundings.

In the meantime, he was thinking about his recent near-death experience back in the city. It left a grave impression on him, that this wasn't turning out to be the joyful adventure he had hoped for. It wasn't the same as some video game or light novel. This was now his reality. Despite how unreal and fantasy-like everything that had happened to him may seem to be, he now believed he needed to 'wake up'. He needed to be wary of people and of their hidden nature, he could not afford to be so trusting again. The tornado might not have ended his life, but who knows if he'll get a revival a second time. He didn't want to risk it, especially because he was so grateful when it happened the first time.

He hadn't been aware of it himself, but his personality had changed somewhat. Instead of embracing the thrill of danger as he had done so recklessly when he lept off a pedestrian's bridge before, he was now more considerate for the safety of his own life, something any ordinary person should have had to begin with.

The starry night sky began to fade as the sun was making its way over the horizon.

Just like yesterday evening, there was a mountain range that appeared beyond the city of Yatar.

Lewis still wasn't exactly sure what he should do, but he thought it would be best if he explored this world himself. 

Even though he wasn't hungry or thirsty much earlier, he was now starting to feel a bit thirsty. He also felt a bit out of a energy, but he knew it was impossible to relieve himself by eating.

Was he taking a toll because of earlier when he somehow emitted electricity? He wondered how it happened in the first place. Was it because he was angry at the time?

Despite his questioning of how he could produce electricity, it wasn't as if he did not know anything about the subject. Quite the contrary, Lewis was actually quite knowledgeable about how electricity was produced in clouds. Unlike his sisters, he grew up alongside his father during his childhood. His father worked as a storm chaser for the state government. As a storm chaser, he made weather maps, took measurements, developed computer models that would analyze meteorological data, and prepared weather forecasts. He often took Lewis along with him in his van when going on excursions and would explain all sorts of things about storms. Lewis very much enjoyed spending time with his father and his father enjoyed Lewis's company. But something happened that ended such memorable times. One stormy night, his father didn't come home from an excursion. The storm his father went to observe that night, was said to be the most severe storm to occur in over one-hundred and fifty years. Amazingly, the only death that had occured throughout the entire storm's duration was his father's. His father's van was found days later in a badly crumpled state lying in a farmer's field. The body was never found, but investigators were certain that he died given the fact that he hadn't been found and because there was blood on the front seat, indicating that he was still in the car when it was picked up by the tornado. The media was all over the story, slandering his father as a nutty idiot to be the only one to go out during the storm and get killed. His father's reputation was ruined and it angered Lewis to no end. He couldn't believe people would say such despicable things about his father, who was always very careful around storms and helped people by issuing emergency warnings.

In an attempt to emit electricity again, Lewis tried to replicate the same anger he felt before in Galyn's shop, but it wasn't as easy as he thought it would be when there wasn't a reason to be angry.

Besides, he realized that if making electricity did weaken him, then he shouldn't attempt it right now. He didn't have the same physiology as he did when he was human, so what would he need to do to relieve himself from this unpleasant feeling? Well, he couldn't eat anything if he really was a wisp, but perhaps he still needed water.

He presumed that maybe he could find some water in the far off mountains he had seen the day before. Perhaps by traveling towards them, he could exit out of this inhospitable desert and find water. After all, clouds often form near mountains. 

For now at least, he had a destination in mind. He started his journey towards them, flying through the air at as fast as he could as he didn't tire easily being a cloud wisp.

-----------

It had been almost a dozen hours since Lewis set out towards the mountains. During his travels, his flight speed had noticeably improved a bit as he became more accustomed to flying. The mountains, as when he started his journey however, did not seem to be getting visually bigger as he traveled towards them even though he was high above the sand dunes.

'Just how absurdly big...are those mountains... for them to still appear to be so far away even after travelling for quite a distance...'

Unlike when he left, he was now feeling slightly dehydrated and he also perceived that his white puffs were becoming thinner. He had yet to drink any water ever since he first arrived in this world. If he were human though, he probably would have lasted only one day under such intense heat without water, especially if he were running at a pace that matched his flight speed. Most likely as a wisp, he guessed he was more resilient to dehydration than when he was a human which was why only now was he feeling moderate effects of dehydration and not yesterday.

Traveling through the desert was also becoming more and more mundane and boring. He had no one to talk to as he did when Razul travelled with him.

Even though Razul was tempted relatively easy by a large amount of money, he was still a decent travelling companion while their relationship lasted.

However, he was now very lonely and wanted at least someone to talk to.

He suddenly paused in mid flight hesitatingly. 

'Maybe I should have stayed in Yatar, at least then I could have...No...I shouldn't have any regrets. Even if it would have been a better choice. I've come this far. I must keep going.'

 Onwards he continued, holding back any unwillingness he might have had within himself.

-----------

After an entire day of traveling, the terrain changed from desert sand dunes to a completely flat and cracked land.

In the last few hours, Lewis's mind had played tricks on him. Sometimes while flying, he would hallucinate that he saw people below or even an oasis surrounded by greenery. Except, when he approached the things he thought he had seen, they always disappeared.

He was becoming more and more mentally exhausted and was also suffering from moderate dehydration, but luckily still had plenty of energy left to go on.

He wondered what would happen if he didn't get water soon. Just like how they did earlier, his puffs were now even thinner to the extent that he could barely make them out. 

But one notably good thing happened that made Lewis's mood perk up, which was that he could now see the base of the mountain range which seemed to be only a few miles away.

It may not seem like much of an accomplishment to someone else, but after journeying for so long, it showed him just how much progress he had made in his journey. It was enough to boost his willpower significantly.

Now that he was closer, he could see that some of the mountains really were gigantic and that behind the mountain range, extended even more mountains of various sizes. In particular, there were several mountains in the back that were significantly bigger than all the rest. They were without a doubt the ones he could see all the way to Yatar.

'Only a little more to go, and I'll finally reach my destination,' he thought enthusiastically.

As he flew across the barren land, the sun had neared closer to the horizon's edge on Lewis's left. By the time he reached the slopes of one of the mountains, the sun had completely set and the sky let off a twilight glow. To go over the mountains, he still had to ascend even higher. He could see that the mountain he was closest to was made of gray granite rock.

After passing over the first row of mountains, he saw that there was a large valley below in the midst of the mountains. So far, he had only traveled through barren deserts and recently, over these desolate rocky mountains. But he could now see greenery throughout the valley. It vaguely reminded him of the area around his home made up of plains and patches of woodland.

It was now nightfall and on this night the two moons appeared in the sky, glowing brighter than they were the nights before. They lit up the valley like how the Earth's moon would as a full moon. The only difference being that the moonlight wasn't completely white, but a mix of faint pink and gloomy purple light.

Lewis was observing the valley from above, when suddenly a swarm of bats burst from a crevice in one of the mountains and swerved in many directions.

Upon seeing these bats, he noticed these ones were definitely larger than those back on Earth, some of them even reaching the size of small planes.

Moments later, they were now flocking straight towards him. He dodged them just barely, but they swerved around and were flocking towards him again.

'It looks like they are coming after me. Annoying. Why can't they just leave me alone?!' 

He wasn't sure if they could injure him. Probably not, he thought, but he also just didn't want to take a risk like allowing himself to be swallowed by some large bat, if they were really targeting him as food. He descended nearer to the ground until he was hidden among the tree tops. The bats passed by above where he was hidden.

'Bats rely mostly on echolocation to perceive their environment, so they most likely can't see me now that I'm not in the open sky anymore' he guessed.

Now that he had evaded the swarm of bats, he believed it would be the best course of action if he searched for a safe place to sleep nearby since it was nightfall and because he didn't know what other creatuers might be out in the forest at night.

He was thirsty, but he didn't urgently need water to the extent that he would be willing to venture out while it was still dark in an unfamiliar terrain.

After a short while, he found a tree with a hollow space in its trunk at a good height above the ground. When he peered inside, there was a scared looking squirrel, but he didn't think much of it. He wanted a place to sleep for himself, so he slowly floated towards the squirrel moaning as if he was a ghost, causing it to scurry out of the tree hollow and down the tree.

Lewis flew into the tree hollow and kept an eye on the branch outside the entrance. He did not want to be cornered like the squirrel if something dangerous came along and cornered him while he was caught off guard, but it couldn't be helped. At least he was far safer in the tree hollow rather than out in the open.

Some time later, after he was close to falling asleep, he heard noise on the branch in front of the tree hollow's entrance. The squirrel he had scared away had come back. 

After being alone for so long, Lewis decided to humor himself by talking to the squirrel as if it were a trained dog.

"Hmm? Why'd you come back? You want your home back? I don't feel like bunking with a rodent. So get lost."

The squirrel simply continued to stare at him with melancholic eyes.

As it did so, Lewis began to feel just a bit bad for this little critter.

"I won't eat you, unless I really do get hungry of course, so why don't you come back in?" He offered. His intentions being a little serious and mostly as a jest to himself.

Seeing that the squirrel merely continued to stare blankly, he laughed. Not minding the staring squirrel at all, he soon went to sleep.

---------

The morning light pierced through the forest and birds were chirping.

Lewis woke up to the chirping and was looking around groggily. He now felt severely thirsty.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

The squirrel from last night was was sound asleep on the other side of the tree hollow.

Before coming to this world, he would often enjoy having a big breakfast in the morning at the town's diner when he didn't have to work, usually ordering french toast and delicious bacon.

As a cloud wisp however, he couldn't eat anything and it seemed that it was unnecessary for him to do so. But he did miss being able to eat.

He was looking at the squirrel appraisingly and wondered how skewered squirrel would taste. Too bad he couldn't find out any time soon, he thought.

It was now time for him to explore the forest. He exited out of the tree hollow and ascended higher to get a decent view of the landscape.

He had only ascended a bit when he noticed there was a clearing in the middle of some trees not far from the tree hollow he had just exited. He wondered what might be there and so he flew towards the clearing.

At the clearing below, there was a small clear blue pond surrounded by tall grass. He had finally found water, something he could not find at all in the desert and hadn't bothered to in Yatar.

Lewis noticed he could see his reflection in the water. Razul had told him what he looked like and he accepted what he said, but seeing it for himself was entirely different. He really wasn't human anymore. At this point in time, his white puffs were almost nonexistant and all there seemed to be was a white floating wisp core in the reflection.

'So how do I drink...' he pondered.

He felt quite silly for having to figure out how to drink water, something that should be so simple.

Obviously, he couldn't use his mouth since he didn't have one.

'Ah, maybe if I dunked myself in the water.'

He dunked himself, creating a splash that rippled across the whole pond.

After a few seconds, he ascended back above the water.

'That...Why didn't that work? I still feel really thirsty. How the heck am I suppose to do this?!' he exclaimed inwardly.

Water was right in front of him and yet he couldn't even drink.

He tried staying underwater for a much longer period of time but still nothing happened. He badly needed something to drink and began to panic a bit.

'Okay, calm down. I need to put on my thinking cap. How do clouds normally refill on water?' He asked himself.

'First water evaporates, then air and water vapor rise, and finally the vapor condenses to form clou-'

All of a sudden, water droplets were forming all around him within about a two foot radius. 

"What...how?!" he questioned outloud in a dumbfounded manner.

It was as if he was harnessing the water as his own body. It wasn't simply just water anymore when it formed around him, it was now apart of his body. The water moved with his wisp core as the core moved. Some kind of force he was producing seemed to have constantly pulled the water.

The water droplets had soon immediately ceased to form when he took his mind off of visualizing how clouds formed.

'I don't feel thirsty anymore!! How did I do that? What was I doing at the time to make that happen?' He pondered.

He was contemplating why, when he realized something. At the time, he was recalling how clouds were formed.

'Maybe it had something to do with visualizing the process of cloud formation.'

In a second attempt, he visualized it the same way he did before and water droplets were forming around him yet again, this time within a seven foot radius.

He continued growing larger until suddenly, he felt mental pain.

 A great deal of mental stress had started to accumulate, so he stopped visualizing the process. It seemed that there was a limit on how much water he could absorb.

The pain soon went away but he was puzzled why it happened in the first place. He wondered if it was because he was overburdening himself with the amount of water he could absorb. If so, it kind of seemed like a super power sort of like telekinesis in terms of using mental images to affect the environment in some way and yet, it wasn't simply telekinesis. The water was animated as part of his cloud form now rather than inanimate as it would naturally be.

His school teachers would always tell the class: "Think of your brain as a muscle, the more often you use it, the more mentally fit it will be." 

Lewis wasn't even sure if he had a human brain anymore after becoming a wisp, but assuming that it worked the same anyway, maybe he could accumulate more water if he practiced.

At present, his size was bigger by a few feet in diameter than when he had first arrived in this world. He was more than satisfied now since he felt much better physically and mentally.

Furthermore, if the key to accumulating water was visualization, maybe he could apply it to other things too.

He thought about all the cool things he could do as a cloud if he mastered how to control the water that made up his body. 

Now that his thirst was quenched, what Lewis badly wanted now, was to be able to protect himself.

This was a perilous world and he did not want to be travelling without learning how to fight. If he didn't and he encountered something dangerous while unprepared, it would almost certainly be the end of his life.

Thus, he decided it would be best to remain in this valley and practice for a while. Besides, the tree hollow was a decent place to sleep given his current form as a cloud wisp.

He was ascending from the pond into the air when he spotted something overhead shadowing parts of the landscape.

From the angle he was watching, he could not clearly see what it was because it was flying at the same angle as where the sun currently was set.

Even though he did not have human eyes, his vision reacted similarly to light as if he did have them and so the sun blinded him.

It was flying at a relatively high altitude and was circling like a hawk trying to find prey.

Lewis descended back down to the tree line and hid among some branches to avoid being seen.

Whatever it was, it was fairly lengthy, much much bigger than an ordinary bird or bat.

It was circling the sky, focusing on a particular area on the ground until abruptly swooping down.

Now Lewis could see what it was. It had a dark green sixty-foot elongated snake-like body with a feathery tail at the end. There were four feathered wings on its back. The first two wings nearest to the head, were long, wide, and thin. While the other wings of which were at the middle part of the snake, closer to the tail, were short, narrow, and thick. It's head was covered in feathers of which made up a feathered crest and had a hooked beak that resembled a hawk's or an eagle's.

As it flew, it's body went in arcs going up and down. The long and wide wings near the head allowed it to glide through the air, moving only with every arc. While it's smaller wings like a humming bird's, were flapping very fast.

The creature soon disappeared below the tree line and he could hear terrified squeals in the direction that it had landed. 

'What was that thing? It looked like a snake and also sort of like a hawk. A dragon, maybe?'

Lewis had never seen anything quite like this hawk-serpent creature and was naturally a tad curious about it.

However, Lewis decided that it would be safest if he waited for the hawk-serpent creature to finish hunting before heading back to the tree hollow since he could still hear the squealing.

Quickly though, he realized exactly where the hawk-serpent creature had landed.

It was the same area as where the tree hollow was located.  

'Did it get the squirrel? Damn. Well, at least now I'll have the tree hollow all to myself. R.I.P. Have fun in nut heaven.' 

He was thinking the squirrel was already a goner, but it seemed that had yet to be the case since he could still hear the high pitched squeals.

He wondered what was taking so long for the hawk-serpent to kill one measly squirrel. His curiosity won over his fear as he chose to head in the direction of the squeals to investigate.

As he neared the source of the squeals, he approached cautiously while hidden among the treetop branches. The tree and it's hollow soon came within his view, along with a sight that slightly irritated him.

The squirrel was cornered in the tree hollow while the hawk-serpent was violently striking the hole continuously but couldn't actually fit its hooked beak through the gap to reach the cornered squirrel.

What made Lewis bitter though, was that the tree hollow's entrance was becoming more and more damaged as the hawk-serpent creature was trying to destroy it with each strike. Although there were other places to stay for a night, it might take a while to find as good of a place like this tree hollow hidden in this surrounding dense green foliage.

'Even if I wanted to, how would I fight it?'

He soon recalled the event where he emitted electricity and it shocked Galyn. At the time, he had been in an angered state of mind, so perhaps that was probably how he could do it.

But the power of this hawk-serpent creature was no joke whatsoever.

After a little deliberation, he quickly chose that it would be a really really bad idea to attack the hawk-serpent, and that he should just quietly fly away so as to not cause a disturbance and alert the hawk-serpent creature.

He was right about to do just that, when suddenly, a figure appeared from the tree hollow. At a moment when the hawk-snake wasn't striking the hollow, the squirrel scurried from the hollow and jumped onto a series of branches, heading towards Lewis's direction, as if it knew he was there.

'This squirrel actually has balls this big??? Are you kidding me?!'

In fact, the squirrel really didn't know he was there and was just running in that direction to try to escape the hawk-serpent creature in the highly dense foliage of the hiding spot Lewis had chosen.

In his shock, Lewis had already lost the small crucial moments he had to flee to somewhere away from his current hiding spot. Because right behind the squirrel was the hawk-serpent in pursuit.

The squirrel had already made it's way into the dense foliage around Lewis and so with powerful thrusts of the more larger wings it had, the hawk-serpent creature actually had the idea of blowing away the leafy foliage in order to flush out the squirrel. At the same time though, the squirrel had also actually been blown away with the foliage, flying through the trees and landing relatively safely among some branches far away.

Meanwhile, Lewis was all by himself out in the open in front of the hawk-serpent, floating. He, being able to float steadily enough to maintain his position in the air, was not blown away by the strong winds like the squirrel, something at which he cursed internally.

The hawk-serpent's attention was now most definitely on Lewis, as it was looking at him in surprise. It then thought that Lewis looked like one of the giant white doves it would often prey on, and it's gaze turned keener and keener.

'If I try to run from it and I can't escape, I would have lost precious time to prepare an attack. But if I try to attack it and can't in the end, then I'm dead. What to do?!!!'

He was truly beginning to panic, just like in Galyn's shop before.

Quickly trying to calm himself, his thoughts quickly flashed in his mind:

'Trying to get away means I might not see it coming close to me in time. But if I decide to stand my ground somehow, I might at least be able to dodge it if it tries to strike at me.'

In choosing to stand his ground, he thought about how he could even attack it. He remembered way back, when he had made himself as angry as he had been in Galyn's shop.That had triggered an electrical attack of some sort.

However, he was having a hard time getting the same feeling. He recalled one of the times when he was very angry, when the corrupt media slandered his dad as a nutjob after he passed away.

'How dare they. Those evil and corrupt media outlets.'

He managed to convince himself of a reason to be angry and was now genuinely angry. Except, the only problem now was that he wasn't actually emitting any electrical discharges despite being angry, so clearly he was doing something wrong.

He ceased recalling the unhappy memories and tried to think of what he might have done wrong.

'Is it maybe because I'm not trapped like I was in Galyn's shop? Did it happen last time because I was?' he questioned.

He was recalling exactly what had happened in Galyn's shop, when he remembered something he hadn't before.

When he was angry, he had heard a voice whispering to him in a foreign language. If there wasn't a voice whispering to him, could he not emit lightning?

'Well that would be a dumb requirement for a super power to have.' He grunted internally.

At present, the hawk-serpent had immediately drew it's wings open and flew at it's fastest speed. Lewis was about to give up trying to fight the hawk-serpent and despite being very risky,  was simply going to try dodging it's strike at this point, when he realized there was one last thing he could try.

If he could create cloud droplets through visualization, maybe he could do the same thing if he were visualizing how lightning forms in a cloud. 

He quickly remembered the times he spent with his father talking about lightning when they went storm chasing together.

There were certain conditions necessary for lightning to form and even more conditions for lighting to be a cloud to ground strike. The general theory behind the formation of lightning in a cloud, was that there was a seperation of positive and negative charge fields within a cloud and electrons from the negative field flowed toward a positive charge field.

To make the separation of charges, he first needed to adjust the temperature of his cloud droplets so that his bottom half was cooler while his upper half was warmer, shifting the cloud droplets between the two so that they collided.

Suddenly, he could somehow feel the changes being made within his cloud droplets. It felt surreal.

'Okay, so I think I'm on the right track to doing this. But this wasn't how it happened in Galyn's shop when I was angry. How did it work back then? Did that whispering voice cause me to do it somehow?'

He couldn't help but think that it was odd and wondered what that whispering was.

'Well, whatever. At least it's working now. Time to fry some hawk-serpent.'

Continuing on, he tried imagining how a stepped leader (a channel of negative charge) could pass through the atmosphere and strike the hawk-serpent.

At this point, he had built up a strong negatively charged field.

He had to build up a strong electrostatic field since the atmosphere was a fairly good insulator.

Due to the electric field he was producing, he could sense that pools of positively charged particles were gathering all around nearby. But he wanted to strike the hawk-serpent, so he held the electricity in like holding his breath as a human, with numerous small electric currents flowing throughout his cloud body.

Up to this point, only a very short amount of time had actually passed as the hawk-serpent was flying straight towards him. While doing so, it had also instinctively sensed danger and began to slow down and eyed Lewis cautiously as he lit up with bright electricty.

All of a sudden, Lewis flew away into the sky, away from the approaching hawk-serpent.

Seeing this, the hawk-serpent instinctively gave chase as if Lewis were prey.

It closed the distance bit by bit, getting even as close as twenty feet.

*BOOM. BOOM.* 

Down went the wounded and burnt hawk-serpent, falling towards the forest floor while it's body convulsed.

It had happened so fast the hawk-serpent didn't have any time whatsoever to react.

Upon impact with the ground, it's body had suffered even more injuries.

'If it's not dead, I'll finish it off.'

Lewis flew down to verify this.