As night Approached both of us came back in front of the cave
"so, did you find anything that might give us any clues about where we are and what is going on?" lily asked me while I was rubbing the sticks together to create fire from friction.
"not really, everything I came across is way too unfamiliar, to the point that it almost feels like we are on an entirely different universe. who knows we might even be in a parallel universe or on a different planet entirely" as I joked about to lighten up the mood, suddenly I felt something warm entering my heart before disappearing.
looking at me suddenly stop rubbing the sticks, lily comforted me worriedly "don't worry, everything will be fine. we might be able to find humans if we go down the stream, as humans usually set up homes near the water source"
I came to myself after hearing her comforting words "don't misunderstand me, I didn't stop my work due to worry. I just felt like something warm just entered my heart before disappearing and this isn't the first time it has happened. this has happened once before as well, right before the explosion occurred something exactly like this happened back then as well" as I was contemplating to myself, I noticed there was shock on Lily's face.
"Ralph, now that you mention it, something exactly like that happened to me as well, right when I was about to enter the lab, I also felt something warm entering my heart before disappearing. I thought it was only an illusion.." lily started thinking about something while looking towards the ground.
seeing that I was not the only one that experienced it, I felt relief for some reason. while I was feeling relief I looked towards lily and suddenly shock filled my face. lily had her hand stretched in front of her and a fire was burning on top of her palm. as soon as I saw that fire something struck in my head and I did what my intelligence was telling me to do. i picked up the tinder that was near my foot and tried to place it right on top of the fire. I mean there was free fire right in front of me, I can be shocked afterwards but getting that tinder burnt was my top most priority and I will not let this opportunity slip through my hands.
Right as the tinder was on top of the fire, the fire extinguished, I stood there with my tinder in hand like an idiot as the opportunity was no more, I wanted to cry but I could not as no tears came to my eyes.
After the fire was extinguished lily came back to herself from her trance and then looked at me standing in front of her with tinder in hand. she gave me a weird look but before she could say anything, I said "make that fire appear again, that is the quickest way to start a fire. why didn't you tell me before that you were a witch capable of producing fire? were you having fun watching me rub the sticks?"
"are you an idiot? I am not a witch and what kind of a pervert do you think I am? do you think i like watching a guy rub sticks together for enjoyment?" asking me these questions I quickly nodded my head. watching her face filled with exasperation, I stopped joking "so, how where you able to make a fire appear on your palm?"
" I was just reminiscing about the warm thing entering my heart when I observed something warm suddenly move near my heart, as I focused on it it started to move as I wished and when I directed it towards my hand it came out in the form of fire"
"so can you make the fire appear again?"
after a while she nodded her head. "I think I might be able to make it appear again after taking a bit of rest, making the fire appear seems to be a bit taxing on my head"
"ok then, let's see what I can do while you rest" as I said that I tried to feel for the warm feeling inside me, but no matter how hard I tried I could not find anything anywhere in my body that was even relativly like some kind of warm energy. after awhile I grew dejected and squatted in a corner of the cave drawing circles " I am useless" I mumbled to myself as I started to summon the devil.
" who knows, your intelligence might need to be above a certain level to use the energy" lily chucked to herself while enjoying my misery as she set the tinder on fire.
"screw you! I am gonna go check if anything that we foraged is edible or not, food is the highest priority after fire" as I said I went to the other corner of the cave where all the supposed edible food was piled up.
after taking a quick look at the food i picked up what appeared to be an miniature apple with yellow stripes. as I tried to figure out how exactly am I supposed to check if the fruit is edible or not, I pulled out Tobi from my pocket "what do you think Tobi, do you think this fruit is edible?"
"..."
"indeed it might be poisonous, but before that we should give this fruit some kind of name so that we can make some detailed observations under it's name, which name do you think we should give it?"
"..."
"that's true we should give it a simple name so that it's easy to remember. what about stripped apple?"
"..."
"I knew we were thinking of the same name!" after saying that I looked towards the stripped apple " from this point forth you shall be called stripped apple"
just after naming the stripped apple, something warm flew from my heart to my hand holding the apple and a panel appeared in front of me.
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Name: Stripped Apple
Properties:
1).Edible - Safe for human consumption.
2).Health Regen - increases natural health by 20% for 10 minutes upon Consumption.
3).Warm Energy Recovery - restores 1-2 Warm Energy Upon Consumption
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as I looked at the panel I blanked out. after recovering from the shock, I reached for the cucumber like fruit with prickles on it next "I name you prickly cucumber" as I said that, warm energy sped up from my heart to hand and another panel appeared, but this time my head was feeling a bit dizzy.
-------------------------------
Name:Prickly Cucumber
Properties:
1)Toxic - Not safe for human consumption.
2)Poison - Causes the consumer Explosive diarrhea which might lead to death.
3)Insect Repellent - It's Odor can be Used to Repel Insects.
--------------------------------
after checking the status of the prickly cucumber, I picked up the the stripped apple again and looked over it's panel after reading it I felt that the warm energy sounded weird and it might have been better if it was named something like ether and soon the warm energy in the description changed to ether, seeing this a smile appeared on my lips. after that I consumed the stripped apple and checked the panels of rest of the food stuff.
after conducting the experiment for awhile I noticed a few things, firstly panels only appear after I name an object and the status shown in the panel depends upon my own understanding and vocabulary, if I don't know a word, the panel will display it as something similar even if it is awkward sounding. second, I don't really need to name the object by calling it out by mouth, I can name it just by thinking about it. thirdly, I need to be in direct contact with the object in order for the panel to appear. fourth, every time I use the panel 1 ether is consumed and once I know about the object, the panel appears without the consumption of energy.
as I was contemplating to myself I heard a voice behind me "hey, you have already consumed 4 of those apples, are you trying to eat all the ones that appear edible? don't come crying to me if there is some kind of side effect or if those apples are poisonous"
after hearing her rant on, I turned to her and explained to her about my powers. after hearing about it she was excited, as she didn't need to eat anything poisonous due to my powers.
after settling the issue of fire and food we sat outside while chatting to each other about our lives, previous to the mess that it is in now, while chatting it was already late into the night and I looked towards the sky to see the familiar scene of the sky and soon smiled while looking at the beautiful milky way, but soon my smile grew stiff and then stiffer. I turned towards lily and said " I have a good news and a bad news, which one do you want to hear first?"
at the question that I asked suddenly she was startled and then said "first tell me the bad news and then the good news, I don't want to feel bad after listening to both"
after listening to her reply I gave her a wry smile and said " the bad news is that we would not be able to go back to our normal lives and the good news is that we did not go to some other planet or parallel universe and are still on earth or rather we are still in Texas"
as I said that I saw the color of Lily's face fly away, then she also looked towards the sky and there it was, all too familiar to almost every one that lived on earth, the starry sky that we saw while growing up not changed in the slightest with all the same constellations which appeared at there usual place.