A few kilometers away from a blue car, heading downtown, a young couple was looking for something inside a warehouse, which was in disrepair. All that was needed was a puff of smoker for the walls to collapse. The floor was littered with concrete debris and body parts, while the ceiling, despite being present, was just short of falling.
While they were scouring the warehouse for water, the man said without stopping looking, his face was serene, he didn't seem to care much about the matter:
"It's almost time, is he still alive?"
The woman replied with the same serenity: "Whatever, we can spend the night here if he dies."
That couple was Ace and Ruby, they were looking for water and gas. Gasoline was the most difficult, because in the midst of all that destruction, finding an extremely flammable liquid that was intact was almost impossible. However, they had some ideas on how to get the fuel.
On the way, while looking for a gas station, they would stop and check each car to see if there was gas in their tank and so, little by little, they reached the goal. As for water, the couple searched from building to building. That's exactly what they're doing in the warehouse right now, but unfortunately they didn't find anything.
Not finding water in the warehouse and the surrounding area, they decided to go deeper into the city. They took the time to talk:
"Lucas looks very innocent to me, I mean, he just asked to come with us. Isn't he afraid someone will kill him?" Said Ace.
"It's not strange, the most common instinct of the human being is survival, as he was already relatively safe, the second biggest instinct of the human being came, the need to form 'bands'." Ruby replied calmly and rhythmically.
"Aff, I hate it when you analyze everything, the psychology faculty screwed up all the good in you." Ace snapped back with a disgruntled expression.
"That without a clue, once you begin to understand how the mind works, your perception of the world changes. It's possible to see everything more clearly." Ruby explained with a hint of sarcasm, clearly mocking Ace.
"Whatever, we haven't found water yet and it's time to go back. I don't know what to do, it's risky to spend the night inside the city, but going deeper into the city is just as dangerous. We never went to the center of any city. I don't want to go until it's totally necessary." She suggested Ace with a certain amount of awe in her words.
Since their awakening, the couple has never entered a city center again. There was no need to take chances, but now it seemed almost necessary if they didn't want to sleep in it at night.
"Why didn't I see any living beings but us?" Ruby thought, but didn't give voice to her thought.
…
Almost outside the city, a young man was surrounded by about ten to fifteen beings that resembled dogs. The young man's hands held a knife firmly in each, his eyes were sliding towards all the dogs, not wanting to lose a single one.
That young man was Lucas, he was excited but at the same time worried. Happy to be able to test his skill with his mutation, especially now that many of his doubts have been taken away. Fear, because the test is not ideal. If there were only 3 to 5 'dogs', their safety would be almost guaranteed, but against almost 15, their determination loosened.
However, he knew that he couldn't run faster than the mutant dogs, if he did, he would only be exposing his back to the enemy, giving him countless chances to attack him. So he tensed his muscles and prepared for battle.
The first thing he did was try to activate his ability to sense where living beings with 'mutant energy' were. Lucas called it [Blood Intuition], after all, it was literally an intuition of where the targets were.
Ever since he finished his experiments in dressing his knife in blood, he had purposely tried to activate that sixth sense. When he was finally able to activate it on his own, he practiced some more until he was confident he could activate his ability at any time.
His eyes were almost completely white, only the right and left corners had some shades of red. They didn't glow, just changed their color, but that was enough to make the oncoming dogs pause for a second and rescan their prey.
When [Blood Intuition] was activated, Lucas was able to perfectly count the number of mutant dogs he would have to face. Unfortunately, instead of being happy to know where everyone was, he was terrified. He sensed exactly 23 mutant dogs and saw only 13, so where were the other 10?
He didn't know exactly, but it wasn't time to occupy his mind with it, after all he had a bitter fight now with the first 13 dogs and he could also see that the other 10 weren't after him, but after the 13 dogs he could see. , so there was no danger of leaving your back unprotected, at least for the time being.
The mutated dogs waited no longer and advanced on his prey. They apparently didn't have a leader, so they all ran at once opening their mouths and showing their inwardly curved teeth. This tooth structure was perfect for biting the flesh and trapping it easily, preventing the prey from escaping if it didn't give up on that piece of meat.
Although all 13 mutant dogs advanced at the same time, there were 2 of them that reached their prey first, one aimed at the left leg while the other aimed at the torso.
Since Lucas had his [Blood Intuition] activated, he realized where each one was aiming and activated his newest ability. It was something he realized was possible while manipulating the liquid to wrap around the knife, in fact, it was more like an instinct. Since he learned how to manipulate blood, it had become very familiar, it just needed continued practice to refine this skill.
Since when he entered the city, he hasn't found a street that doesn't have blood and mutilated bodies and this street he was on was no different. There was so much, spilled everywhere and he quickly gathered it close to his body.
There was less than 2 seconds for the first two mutant dogs to reach him, luckily that time was enough for him to gather all that red liquid close. The liquid then converged into his position and instead of entering the body, it enveloped him, forming a kind of clothing or armor. This garment did not cover the entirety, just the arms, torso and legs. He lacked experience in using this skill, as well as time to employ it, something he didn't have now.
Just as the dogs reached his position, their defensive layer of blood enveloped him and the curved teeth of the dog aimed at his torso bit into his red-covered arm, digging it in firmly. At that moment, Lucas' eyes sparkled and in a split second he moved his waist 180 degrees and his arm followed the movement, throwing the dog attached to him a few meters away and dodging by hairs from the second dog that was aiming for his leg.
Lucas was very satisfied with the usefulness of his 'blood armor', the mutant's teeth failed to pierce his skin, that dense liquid surrounding it protected him from serious injuries to his arm and allowed him to harm the dog, throwing him away.
However, that was no reason for happiness, yet. There were 11 dogs left that he could see and another 10 waiting for him in the shadows, it was definitely not time to relax.
With his concentration on the heights, the young man coated his knives in blood and increased the blood flow to his brain. That was the other skill he tried to understand how it worked during his food search. Unfortunately, it was the one he understood the least, it only managed to increase the blood flow a little.
However, that small increase was enough now. Since your past experiences with fights and your blood absorption, your body has improved a lot, so even without the purposeful increase of blood flow in the brain, this organ was already much faster and more efficient than before, when it fought against its first mutant.
Then, a cloud of dogs covered his view. Lucas now had only one goal, to kill!