After healing her broken femur within a day, Daphne got used to her speed with far less concern for injuring herself. Of course, it hadn’t been pleasant breaking a bone, but at least she knew that she could heal up quickly.

And her interest in her potential abilities grew.

As she made her way up Prince Edward Island, she began to experiment with jumping, which she wasn’t adept at. Not at all.

I’ve seen a bunch of parkour videos, how hard can this be?

As it turned out, hard as fuck. She found that she couldn’t necessarily jump higher than she felt a normal human could, and her agility definitely needed work.

But when she free ran, her heart fell into a steady bumpbumpbump, senses on high alert, and it almost felt like she was in slow motion.

The asphalt was warm beneath her bare feet, propelling her forward, long ponytail fluttering behind her. She reached the cluster of busted cars at an intersection and leapt up onto the hood of the first one, landing far more gracefully than she had the previous hundred or so times she’d attempted this.

She likened it to having a better set of shocks than a normal human. She’d discovered her strength wasn’t in the jumping, but figuring out how to land properly.

As soon as her feet hit fiberglass, she pushed off again, hopping to the roof of another car, and then again to another, before propelling herself up to grasp the balcony above. She grunted as she pulled her whole body with her fingertips, swinging a leg up over the railing and scrabbling to roll over it and land on her feet on the other side.

On her next breath, she twisted and hopped up, grasping the roof’s edge above her, heaving and riding the momentum of her leap until she landed on the edge in a squat before lunging forward to tear across the shingles. The balls of her feet had toughened up enough that the rough surface didn’t faze her, toes curling and uncurling at proper intervals to keep her balance as she sprinted across.

At the other end, she didn’t stop, didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, and threw herself to the next building. For a second, in mid-air, she thought she might miss again.

Bumpbump, said her heart, and she extended her left foot, catching the edge of the steel roof. A wild grin broke out on her face at the contact, and then immediately evaporated as her flesh slipped down the smooth surface and her face smashed into the metal.

Heat and copper flooded her mouth as pain shot up her nose, and her stomach flew up into her throat before she hit the ground hard on her back.

Daphne gasped for breath, lungs clenching, choking and gurgling on the blood waterfalling from her nostrils. She flopped over onto her side, spine screaming in agony from the motion.

“Caw!” the crow declared from somewhere above her.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

She spat a glob of crimson goo onto the asphalt and finally managed to find oxygen, taking in a deep, ragged breath as she glared up at the black bird proudly perched on the very roof she’d attempted to land on.

The damn thing looked smug and condescending at the same time, and she wanted to tell it to go fuck itself, but she didn’t want to swallow the blood filling her mouth.

She rested her head on her arm, tilting her face down towards the ground so that her wound could drain freely while her back recovered from its vicious smack into the ground.

It didn’t feel like she’d broken anything—at least she didn’t think so—so at least she wouldn’t be stuck laying there for the rest of the day.

A snotty crimson bubble emerged from her left nostril and she gagged at the feel of it popping against her face.

I’m gonna need a saltwater bath.

*  *  *

By the time Daphne had driven her commandeered party boat back to New Brunswick to continue her travels west, she began to learn her limits better. She found that when she was hyper-focused, like when she was free-running, her senses seemed much more attuned to her surroundings.

It was on a farm near Shediac River that she did her first hearing test. There was an expensive looking coupe in the garage, and when she managed to scrounge up the key fob, she set off the vehicle’s alarm and ran.

She ran across easy terrain, letting herself fall into that trance-like state, and didn’t stop until she couldn’t hear the alarm anymore.

My stamina’s picking up, too, she thought. She was warm and sweaty, but not gasping for breath, and she managed to stop without collapsing into the grass.

She turned back towards the farm and started to walk back. Within five minutes she could hear the car alarm.

“Well, I guess I don’t have super hearing then,” she muttered.

“Caw!” said the crow.

“Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to see.” She sped up into a light jog. “Let’s see if this house has a deep freeze. I could go for some steak, eh?”

With a flutter of wings, the crow soared back towards the farm. She shook her head and broke into a run.

She’d spied a barbecue in the side yard of the house on her way in, and hoped that maybe since there’d been signs of cattle that there’d be a steak or two in a basement freezer.

She wasn’t quite keen on killing any animals herself to eat, but if she came across meat, she wasn’t about to turn it down. The power grid had gone down a few days prior, or at least in the areas she’d been in, but this property seemed to have some kind of automatic generator going on, or at least emergency lights shone from the garage.

So maybe, just maybe, there’d be a still-working freezer in the basement full of fat steak. Her stomach growled.

When she reached the house, she punched the button on the alarm to disable it, and the silence jarred her. It struck her all at once just how quiet the world was now. She’d been travelling along the coast mostly, happier listening to the ocean, some sign of life in a world of death.

“Caw!” said the crow.

“Yeah, I like listening to you too, chatterbox,” she admitted, and then tried the front door of the house. The knob turned, and before her brain properly grasped why the original inhabitants would have left it unlocked, she pulled it open.

The immediate stench of rot smacked her in the face like a battering ram, and her stomach heaved. She staggered backwards, tripping over her own feet and falling down on her ass in the dirt.

She suddenly didn’t want meat anymore. All she could think about was a dead family, rotting in their house this whole time, putrid melted organs covered in maggots and pus.

She retched, flopping into her side, burning liquid splashing to the ground.

I wish I had a super-stomach, she thought bitterly as her gut continued to wrench its way from her body.

When she finally staggered to her feet, she stared at the open door, and then glanced back at her SUV. She thought she should maybe close the door… but for who? It wasn’t like anyone was coming through here.

She swallowed hard and winced at the nasty taste in her mouth, heading back to the vehicle.