It did not take long before Marshall was about twenty to twenty-five meters away from his front door. He did not want to kill the zombie too close to his apartment. So, when he felt he was far enough from the apartment, he stopped backpedaling. He soon found out that was a terrible decision.

All the while, the zombie was about six to seven steps away from Marshall. When Marshall stopped, the zombie kept coming toward him. The small cushion between them was shortened in a heartbeat.

Fuck, Marshall yelled to himself while jumping out of the zombie's way.

With his heart beating fast, Marshall turned to face the zombie. It was still trotting forward but was slowing down as time passed. This was enough time for Marshall to calm down and catch his bearings.

AaaaaaAAAA!

The zombie came to a stop and slowly turned toward Marshall. Its eyes screamed of bloody murder and hunger. This was an unholy sight causing Marshal to almost buckle.

After seeing its prey through its deteriorating eyes, the zombie took an unsteady step forward. One step, then two steps forward, and on the third step, the zombie had its body under control and sped towards its delicious prey... Marshall.

Marshall watched every action the zombie took carefully. He did not want to make a mistake that would cause him his death. It became apparent to Marshall that the zombie was not simple. After the zombie took its first unsteady steps toward him, it would speed up out of nowhere. This was the second time Marshall noticed it. The first time caught him off guard, but there would be no third time.

The zombies' speed was between a fast-speed walk and a slow jog. This was not slow by any stretch of the imagination but was not fast enough for Marshall not to react.

Marshall thought of taking more time to observe the zombie as it neared him, but he knew in the back of his mind that would be unwise. It was late in the middle of the night, and he was unsure if more zombies would come after him.

When the zombie was about five feet away from Marshall, he sidestepped to his left. With the metal bat in a batter's stance, Marshall bent down and swung for the zombies' knees.

THWACK!

Marshall heard the sickening sound of the bat hitting the zombie's knee right before he saw something he was unprepared for. The bat had hit the zombie's right knee, forcefully terminating its momentum, while the other leg was still moving. Since the right leg was straight when the zombie fell forward, the right knee snapped. Marshall almost gagged

AAAaaaaaAAAaaAAA!

Marshall almost felt bad for the zombie after hearing its ghastly grunt.

While on the ground, the zombie did not let its egregious injury get in its way. It tried to get up, but before that could happen, it saw the last image it would see. In the corner of its eye, it saw Marshall walking up to it and raising his bat.

THWACK!

The zombie twitched for a few seconds after getting hit in the back of its head. Seeing that Marshall hit it once more. When the twitching stopped, reality caught up to Marshall. He involuntarily threw up right beside the zombie's head.

Marshall had no choice but to turn away from the crime scene. If he looked any longer, he would continue to throw up. After turning around, Marshall started dry heaving. This was the first time he killed something so big. What made it worse was the zombie was human. Even though Marshall knew the zombie was the living dead, he could not separate the two.

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It took some time before Marshall stopped dry heaving and got his stomach under control. When this happened, he started feeling a subtle change from the metal bat. Usually, when Marshall held the metal bat, he would get a calming feeling of warmth. This time the bat was giving off a soothing heat almost similar to the temperature of a hot shower.

As Marshall paid attention to the heat, he felt a trickle of foreign energy entering his body. It gave off the warmth of a mother's loving embrace.

Something at the back of Marshall's mind urged him to focus the energy slightly above the center of his brow. Marshall did not stop to think of why he was getting that feeling. He knew that following his intuition would lead him to a great outcome.

Not wasting time, Marshall focused on the energy entering his body through his arm. Since this was the first time trying to control this energy and much less energy flowing through his body, Marshall failed. The elusive energy force somehow escaped his grasp every time he had an ounce of control over it. It was a frustrating experience.

After trying for a minute, Marshall felt defeated and was about to give up and let the energy do whatever it wanted. The thing about Marshall was that he could not stand the thought of losing, especially to something his intuition was telling him was important.

Marshall stood still while trying to think of how to control the energy, but as time passed, he started to smell the dead zombie. The smell was worse than the first time he smelled it. After walking far enough from the dead zombie, Marshall felt the mysterious energy waning.

Fuck, Marshall muttered in frustration.

Feeling the urgency, Marshall sat crisscrossed on the cold ground with the bat on his lap while positioning his hands in the enlightenment mudra stance. This helped Marshall calm down and strengthen his control over his senses.

After taking some deep breaths and releasing them, Marshall left all distractions and failure out of his mind and focused purely on the bat. Marshall then noticed the foreign energy entering his body through his legs. He had an inkling that that would be the case but was still surprised at how right he was. That thought came fast and left faster since Marshall had something more important to figure out.

There were hundreds of little dots of energy entering his legs. Marshall knew he did not have the ability to control all of them, so he started handling one energy dot and increased from there. The first thirteenth dots of the energy were the easiest to have under control. When he got to the fifteenth dot, it became harder to control. By the nineteenth energy dot, he could not handle it anymore. No matter how hard he tried to direct it, the twentieth energy dot would wiggle out of his control.

With that settled, Marshall tried moving the dots of energy from his legs through his stomach and all the way to the spot his intuition was hinting for. It was a frustrating experience. Since every few moments, a dot of energy would try and escape his control. When that happened, he had to stop and watch as the energy assimilated in his body. By the time he controlled the energy dots to reach above the center of his brow, Marshall only had four energy dots under his control.

When Marshall let go of the four energy dots, they assimilated on the spot. He felt something was trying to awaken above the center of his brow but was still missing more energy. With a clear goal to accomplish, Marshall did not wait long before taking action.

On the third cycle, Marshall accomplished his goal. As soon as he did that, he felt something in his mind eye break. Marshall got scared that he was making a mistake, or something went wrong, but within moments he knew that that was untrue.

[Innate ability – Third eye]

As soon as Marshall heard the same voice from earlier that day, he was put in a trance. At first, he felt nothing was happening, and then, in a second, he felt all his senses opening up. The world of possibilities seemed to flash before his eyes. His confidence was on cloud nine, and he felt more powerful than he ever had in his entire life.

The omnipotent feeling soon faded away before Marshall opened his eyes. He did not know how much time past. It could have been a second, a minute, an hour, or even an eternity. Whatever time passed; Marshall felt tranquil. The world felt brighter, the colors more vibrant, and life seemed to blossom.

One thing Marshall noticed was the air felt fresher and not as polluted. Looking down at his metal bat, he also felt how magical and strange it was.

Turning his eyes away from the bat, Marshall noticed something strange about the zombie. He might be misjudging something, but it looked smaller. It was as if something was missing from it. That was when Marshall put two and two together. The energy he was getting from the bat came from the zombie.

Marshall was worried that there might be something wrong with him absorbing the strange energy from the zombie.

That thought did not stay long before he heard multiple groans.