I was once again looking through my own eyes. I was staring up at the ceiling of the store.
My body hurt everywhere, but that was a good thing because it meant that I was not dead as I had previously assumed. I was still stiflingly hungry, but it was not to the point that it took control of my every thought, like before.
I tried to sit up and managed to do so after a struggle. I was surprised that I managed to set up in the first place after remembering what had been done to my body in the battle.
It's a miracle that I have survived. I guess it could also be explained less as a miracle and more as as an evolution. At this point in time I can only speculate on what aspect of myself had been modified.
I looked down at my thoroughly bandaged arms. While the medical care was not professional, what it lacked in confidence it made up for in exuberance. The layers upon layers of gauze and tape made me doubt whether I even have a stitch of medical supplies still left in my backpack.
I tried to peek under in order to see the state of my wounds. It looked like my arms had already scabbed over, and I can only guess that my chest and face had done the same.
I came to the conclusion that I must of been sleeping for a good chunk of time, maybe even more than 24 hours.
While I was contemplating what the state of the world would been after that much time had passed I heard a shout. "He's awake" and with that shout three teenagers ran over.
I looked around the room I saw the shopkeeper sitting in a chair with her legs propped on the counter and a book in her hand looking over at me. On closer inspection I even noticed that the book was the same one that I found after I killed the cat. It appeared that the medical supplies were not the only thing that were liberated from my backpack.
I did not mind the intrusion as long as it helped everybody better prepare for the risks and dangers that they would be required to face soon.
"How long have I been asleep?" I asked to no one in particular. This was not the most pressing question in my mind as "how did I survive?" had a front row seat in my thoughts, but I figured that this was a question that one of these women should have an answer to.
"It has only been two hours since your collapse" said the shopkeeper.
This sent my mind reeling . How does one recuperate the to point of stabilization from wounds that had a strong likelihood of being fatal, in just two hours. This only could be an evolution.
The concept of superspeed healing is a far more complex modification to the DNA of my body then accelerated thought.
There are a number of ways that I can come up with to explain scientifically how my brain started functioning at a faster rate. I could easily have identified some individuals that have faster thought processes within the population of the world to the previous me. This made me believe that it was well within human potential to be able to think at twice the speed.
Now accelerated healing on the other hand was far outside the potential of the human species, and to my knowledge had never been seen before. This essentially meant that the cell division in my body had grown substantially more frequent. This had such a profound impact on every aspect of my body that I could only start to comprehend the ramifications.
My revelation that I was now substantially faster at healing myself brought so many questions to my mind about the process that I was forced to put it to the back of my mind until I could get some more information.
There are a number of animals and nature that have extraordinary healing capacities. A flatworm can regenerate its head after being decapitated in just two weeks. There is a salamander like animal in Mexico called a Axolotl, if one of its legs is removed the cells on the stump in the leg will start acting like stem cells allowing them to create any cell necessary for the regeneration of that limb from blood, to bone, to muscle, to skin. After less than two months it will have a completely new leg that functions just like the original. Cockroaches can have a leg ripped off and within minutes the hole that the leg was removed from can have sealed with a waxy substance.
There are a number of animals in nature that have astonishing abilities to heal, but I had so little information about my new genetic mutation that I was not sure which one, if any, I could use as a reference point.
In order to understand myself as well as what's happening to countless animals out in nature I needed more information. I decided that when I had the opportunity I would need to get to the University where I did my research because they have all the tools that I needed to start on the road of understanding.
Knowledge is a weapon the more you have the better prepared you are for any situation.
I had so many priorities at this point. I was aiming to get stronger so that I can protect myself and those around. I wanted to create a safe haven to start building a new society that was capable of adapting and responding to the new dangers that were being created all around us. Wanted to gain all the information necessary about myself as well as other people and animals that had gone through DNA restructuring. All of these things needed to be done as well as the other requirements for life such as finding food water and shelter.
I was overwhelming myself with the expectations of accomplishing all of this by myself. I looked around me and realized that I was not alone, and for a society to function properly it cannot rely on one person it has to rely on everybody.
My thoughts might have been accelerated but not to the extent that I could have contemplated all of this information and still maintained a flowing conversation with the women around me. I'm sure what they saw before them was me with a dazed expression.
I hope that they don't think that I had brain damage as well.
No time to think about that. Time was wasting, and I needed to start preparing and planning.
I came to the conclusion that I needed to recruit these people to my cause. With this in mind I composed and delivered a speech that I felt had the right mix of warning, hope, and encouragement to get anybody to follow me.
"I don't know how much you understand what's happening around us, but everything that you know and care about is about to change, or already has. Humankind has fallen into a desperate situation and we need to do everything that we can to survive. I know that I'm going to do my best with every ounce of effort to save any that needs help. I also hope to find, or build, a place that we as a species can survive and thrive once again. I know that I am not a man capable of doing something like this all alone, so I need help. Will you help me."
Taking a breath after giving such an impassioned speech I waited for a response.
One of the girls simply said "I don't know. I have to ask my parents first. Maybe I can come and help with it after school."
These young girls seemed very appreciative about me protecting them from such a savage bird, but they were clearly struggling to comprehend the concept of their own little world changing completely in a few hours.
I realized rather quickly after these responses that there was no real way for the people around me to have come to the realization that I had.
How does somebody come to the conclusion that they need to completely abandon their old life in just a matter of hours?
These girls are probably still terrified and hoping to get home to safety as soon as possible. They do not realize that there is no safety at home and that we have to fight for our own survival from this point onward.
"I'm in." Said the shopkeeper with the most serious expression that I had seen on her face yet. "What do you need from me?"
Yet again my internal monologue was interrupted with the exact opposite reaction that I was thinking of. I need to stop thinking everything internally and start voicing my thoughts out loud, or else everybody will be on completely different pages.
Realizing this I quickly voiced out what I was thinking. "I guess the first thing that I need your help with is to convince these three girls before us that the situation were in is not something that can be solved by just going home to their parents.The next thing that I need is for everybody to listen to me about what I discovered is currently happening around us in the world, as well as what I expect to happen in the near future. The third thing that I need is to understand people around me more, so if we could have a frank discussion where we introduce ourselves and explain our strengths and weaknesses to each other that would help me out immensely."
As I was saying this I was getting to my feet because I felt like I had almost no authority while sitting on the ground struggling to remain upright.
I am generally a funny and jovial guy, but in crisis situations I become much more serious and authoritarian. I was hoping that this characteristic would help me in this current situation.
After this the woman took the three girls over to the other side of the store, and they had a very quiet five minute discussion among themselves. After the conversation all four of them came over and looked at me with baited breath anticipating my explanation for the current state of things.
As quickly as I could I explained to them everything that happened to me before I ran into the store, as well as what I saw in what I described as a lucid dream. Progress is very slow because of course they had countless questions. By the end of my story all of us were exhausted.
"And now that you all understand the situation that we are in, I hope that you all can introduce yourselves, finally. It would also be very nice to know your skill set so that we can make a plan for all of us moving forward."
Of course I cannot keep describing my soon-to-be companions as the three teenagers and the shopkeeper.
One of the girls names was Savanna she looked to be about 15 years old and had a very slim build she was tall and had her black hair cut short she was wearing far too much makeup very close to becoming goth. From what I can guess she had a rather plain but still cute face under that mask of hers.
The second one of the teens was named Evie, she was a little shorter than Savanna with a much bulkier frame. Her hair was dyed red but her blonde roots were shown it was cut to about shoulder length. Her makeup had definitely reached the point of being Goth.
Both Savanna and Evie had primarily black and dark blue clothing with rips here and there revealing pale white skin underneath.
The last girl, Felicia was shorter than the other two girls maybe 5'1 or 5'2 but she looked older probably 16 or 17. She had close to a perfect hourglass figure with long brown hair. She was definitely attractive and probably had all the boys wrapped around her finger at high school.
She appeared to be the leader of the group which was slightly surprising considering her appearance and bright sunny fashion sense conflicted with the other two girls quite a bit.
Apparently Felicia was a practicing Wiccan, and she invited Savanna and Evie to try out a ritual. They were in the store trying to buy candles and incense in preparation for it.
The shop keeps name turned out to be Alice. Her eyes were always filled with curiosity with a quirk of a smile on her face. She had a French braid of platinum blonde hair and a very floury summer dress. She appeared to be about my age of 25. She was not as attractive as Felicia but still have a very charismatic charm that drew your attention towards her.
She revealed she had some form of precognition because she had known that I would be coming to her store before I had even showed up. She also revealed the this same sensation was encouraging her to help me with the pursuit of my goals.
The last piece of information she gave me was by far the most useful. Apparently after the announcement of E-Day a book had simply appeared in front of her without any action required. I was hoping to get my hands on that book right away. After all knowledge is power.