Luckily I only had to fall an about 2 feet after slamming into the wall. Winded I stubble to my feet and set fire to the sheet rope to try and cover my tracks then later realizing that a giant burning tree would attract more attention than a rope. [Oops]. After realizing my mistake I run into the unknown streets taking turns at random quickly leaving the larger and nicer houses surrounding the church's grounds and running towards the poorer parts of the city.
As I run I start to notice people as the streets become more crowded. Looking at groups of people begins to flood my mind with memories and images.
A loving couple with a daughter holding their hands. I see a twisted metal cage sounding me as I stare at the bloodied corpses of a woman and girl feeling a grate lose and I cry out in pain and sorrow.
A group of boys playing a game. Being surrounded and beaten as I lash out in anger.
An older couple with a teenage boy walking along laughing. two flaming corpses lie in front of me as flames lick my body and smoke fills my lungs.
I continue running but the memories and images keep invading my mind. Walking in on my loved one with another man who bullied me. My mother beating me then another mother abandoning me. Being beaten by the priests and being eaten alive by a giant cave-like mouth.
Tears streaming down my face I run for what feels like hours as the feeling of sludge moves to my sore muscles making them stronger and more efficient. Although this does not make me tied it does make me incredibly hungry this accompanied with the mental exhaustion made me go into a narrow alleyway in the dirty and poor part of the city. Crouching down I put my head in my hands as I feel my emotions harden and I once again am in control. Hearing a noise I look up to see a black cat.
The cat is so cute. I reach out to pet it but it shies away. “Aww its ok little fella I just want to pat you is all” speaking is a soft, soothing voice as I slowly approach the cat. This time the cat does not shy away from me as I pet it, going as if to scratch the cat's ears my hand snaps forward and grips its throat as I lift it and slam it down on to the ground twice before lifting it to my mouth and use my new teeth to rip out its throat.
Eating the now-dead cat I notice that it eyes are different from humans so sending in the sludge to investigate its eyes and discover that a reflective layer behind the eyeball that sends light that passes through the eyeball back into the eye. Curious I use the sludge to replicate it to my own eyes. My vision improves in the dark but now I can't see as far in the light. [Hmmm] I return my eyes to normal while planning to use the “cat eyes” for night time.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Now curious about the rest of the cat body I stop eating it and send the sludge into the cat’s body. “ Got to figure out a better name for this” I mumble absentmindedly. After much experimentation, I discovered that the cat has a much better smell than that of a human with it having more receptors in its nose and having a sent organ its mouth. Copying these to the best of my ability to my own body, my senses were overloaded from the sense of smell from the alleyway. Clutching my head in pain and confusion, as the smells of blood, mud, shit and piss assault my nose, and quickly reducing the number of smell receptors in my nose as well as the size of the sent organ in my mouth.
After about 10 minutes of pain and confusion, I finally find a balance that enhances my sense of smell but not too much as to overload my senses. After that debacle, I decided to slowly change and modify when adding alien parts to my body. Looking at the cat's tail I decided that it would stand out too much on my “human” body so no tail modification for me. I do however decide to give myself small retractable claws in my fingers. Finished with dissecting the cat I eat the rest of it and head deeper into the maze of alleyways and small houses.
Completely and utterly lost I stumble around aimlessly in the back streets of the city until finding a puddle of water on the ground where my reflection is visible. “Damn I am ugly” [or perhaps just deformed from all the experiments with the cat?] Looking Closer at my reflection I notice that my face looks disturbingly like an 8-year-old boy with a cat's face stretched over it who has sharp crooked fangs. Lumps and stretch marks cover the rest of my body I assume from moving all the “sludge” inside my body and randomly building muscle mass when running for hours without stopping.
[Well I guess I got to fix my ugly mug if I want to be seen by people, with them not want to kill “it” with fire]. Setting about turning my face back to normal by smoothing out my features and making my teeth normal while still trying to keep my enhanced senses and muscles. The result is a slim-faced, blue-eyed and curly brown-haired 8-year-old face staring back at me from the reflection. [Hmmm a chubby face would look more innocent] with this in mind I make my face look more round and chubby,[that's better].
Next is the body. Smoothing out the stretch marks on my skin does not take long and soon I am evenly distributing the added muscle mass that looked unnatural and disproportionate to the rest of my body. Once all the muscle mass is distributed I try moving around but the moving muscle mass feels disconnected from the rest of my body but the mass gained from when I was running feels fine. Tying lots of exercises such as push-ups, sit-ups, burpees and sprinting in the alleyway the added muscles eventually started to feel like part of my body. [Come to think of it, the more I use the added parts to my body the more natural they feel and the better they work] With this discovery I decided to start a daily routine where I try to get better suited to my body.
The daily routine will consist of stretching for flexibility. 25 push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, squats, burpees and sprinting the length of an alleyway each for strength and endurance. I will do this every morning and evening to get better used to my body and to build more muscle mass. Before anything else could be decided or planned I notice that the sun is setting and the shadows are growing and consuming what is left of the light. Smiling as I change my eyes into their cat form the dark is easier to see in and I venture into the night to find a place to sleep.