Blaze felt his muscles ache from the hours of exertion he had endured. He decided to take a breather and munch on a piece of jerky from his backpack.
He glanced at the zombie he had captured and secured to a tree. The creature was still struggling to free itself, pulling on the rope with such force that Blaze wondered if it would rip its own head off.
He finished his snack and adjusted the rope, making sure the zombie was tightly bound. He also stuffed something in its mouth and wrapped a cloth around it, to prevent it from biting anything.
He noticed other zombies bumping into the tree, then after a while, they climbed up the trunk and jumped over it like nimble grasshoppers. Blaze was amazed by their agility and skill, seeing them in a different light now that he was not their target.
He looked at the distant sky, where lightning still flashed and thunder roared. He sighed and said, "Forget it!"
He had lost his patience waiting for the storm to subside. It seemed that the survivor had somehow managed to stay alive despite the odds.
"So tell me… Sam… Samantha. How can you not see me?"
Blaze addressed the zombie who had once been a woman named Samantha, according to the name tag on her chest.
He did not expect an answer from her, nor did he get one. After all, her mouth was muffled by a cloth that prevented her from biting him.
Blaze examined Samantha with curiosity, performing some tests on her. He checked if her eyes reacted to light, if her skin felt any touch or pain, and so on.
Samantha writhed and squirmed, oblivious to Blaze's intrusive actions. She did not seem to care if he stripped her naked or not.
Blaze scratched his head, wondering what else he could do with his experiment. Then he had a brilliant idea that he wanted to try.
He removed the cloth from Samantha's mouth, and the stench of her decayed teeth made him gag.
He cut his palm with a knife and let some blood drip on her tongue, hoping to elicit some reaction from her.
But Samantha did not show any interest or aggression towards his blood. She continued to struggle and reach for the lightning that was her only obsession.
Blaze was tempted to slice off some of his flesh and feed it to her, but he stopped himself. He realized it was foolish to harm himself for a mere experiment.
He had already learned something from his blood test; it was enough for him to conclude that the zombie did not hunger for blood or flesh. It hungered for something else, of which he did not know, hidden within the blood and flesh.
Blaze had a suspicion that it had something to do with the lightning that had cleansed that substance from his body and made him immune to the zombies' attack.
Blaze gazed at the distant storm of lightning, and wondered if he was also safe from its wrath. No, not safe, but rather ignored, just like the zombies ignored him.
Whatever that substance was in his body, it was probably taken away by the lightning, making him undesirable by both the zombie and the lightning.
"Huh. Does that mean that this world is not dangerous for me anymore?"
He voiced his thought, but he quickly shook his head. He knew it was too optimistic. He did not want to risk being struck by lightning to prove his theory. He knew better than to tempt fate.
Blaze knew that the world was still full of dangers, even if the zombies and the lightning did not bother him anymore. He did not relax his vigilance, thinking that his situation might change at any moment.
He speculated that the substance that the zombies and the lightning craved was something natural that the human body produced or replenished over time. Something that the lightning had removed from his body, but could come back.
He was content with the results of his experiments, and he realized that the day was almost over. He had spent too much time fondling with Samantha and experimenting on her.
He also observed that there were hardly any zombies running towards the lightning, as if they had all gathered there already.
He decided to call it a day and release Samantha from her bondage. To bid her goodbye, and looked for a place to spend the night.
But as the shadows of the trees grew longer, he noticed a speck of light on Samantha's forehead.
He squinted, and saw that the light was growing bigger, until it was the same size as the hole in his nose.
Blaze was baffled, but he became even more baffled as more specks of light appeared on Samantha's zombie body.
Some were tiny, but some were as big as the one on her forehead.
He wondered what they were, and what they meant. He had never seen anything like that on any zombie. He felt a mix of curiosity and fear, not knowing if they were benign or malignant.
He leaned closer to Samantha, trying to get a better look at the specks of light. He reached out his hand to touch one of them, hoping to discover something about their origin.
He gasped as he also saw his hand glowing with a strange light. It was like a constellation of tiny dots embedded in his palm, pulsating and swirling.
He recoiled in shock, trying to shake off the light as if it was a parasite that latched onto him. He had no idea what it was or where it came from. It was unlike anything he had ever witnessed before.
He realized that the light was not only on his hand, but on his whole body. He felt a weird sensation under his skin, as if he was filled with fireflies. He lifted his shirt and saw the same dots on his torso. He touched his face and felt them there too. He looked down at his legs and feet and saw them everywhere.