First exploration

Nearing his car, Alric was reminded of the previous situation he was in during the night.

"How can the same place look so different during the day? It seems so peaceful, so wonderful..." he thought.

Small dots of dust were floating in the breeze, catching the sunrays, looking like small fireflies.

The leaves on the bushes were moving with the grace only Nature could have, giving the scene a sense of serenity.

Even the car, surrounded by vegetation as if it had been stuck there for more than a few years, didn't break the natural synergy.

Opening the car's door, he began to search with a renewed interest for his fossil, to convince him overwise of the hypothesis he had in mind.

As time passed, he began to slow down his search, having found nothing apart from some groceries tickets hiding under the seat.

He was not so surprised, the engraving on his left hand looked like the natural swirls he had the time to see on the plant fossil.

"Look like it ended fusing with my hand... How?" he thought while looking at the strange black inscriptions on his left hand "I can't even begin to know, but somewhat from the small facts I could glean here and there, it's the most likely possibility, it was in this hand during the explosion, it has disappeared and the resemblance is uncanny."

A bit disappointed by its disappearance but, appeased nonetheless to know at least where this strange black mark could come from, Alric put the key on the contact and started the engine.

Driving slowly, he winced each time he had to crush a bush under the car's wheel, and that was considered a lot with how the track was just a stack of bushes and small trees with long grasses everywhere.

Now that he was more attuned to the vegetation around him, and seeing the now tranquil and luxurious plants, destroying them felt like damaging his flesh, a not-so-pleasant experience.

Arduously parking the vehicle near the workshop, small drops of sweat could be seen on Alric's face as well as a feeling of relief knowing he would not use the vehicle for a bit of time.

Indeed, the tracks having nearly disappeared, the fuel tank of the car being close to empty, he had no choice in the near future but to carefully explore on his own feet the surrounding, searching for an area with a working network or a small village.

Closing the car's door he verified for the third time already that the workshop was correctly locked.

"Time to explore a bit," he thought decisively, the forest not so scary for him anymore, even a bit closer.

Knowing this exploration would take a lot more than just a day, the distance seeming to have increased quite a bit as his previous experience had shown him, he first decided to put more traps around the workshop and perhaps catch small prey.

He had no intention of sleeping in the forest without knowing its new danger so he took his time to plan carefully this exploration.

It was not like his previous trip for the chunk of wood or the car, he wanted to go the furthest possible allowed on this now short day without having to return during the night.

He took a wood bow in the workshop, a creation of his own used sometimes to catch small games.

"My aim isn't as good as I want it to be but it should nevertheless be useful." he thought while filling a gourd with the water he previously bring back.

Armed with a big knife, his arc and naturally his seven chisels, he finally decided against the crowbar, the weight having more than impeded him during his first trip this morning.

Looking ahead he finally decisively and warily entered the wood without looking back, the day didn't seem too dangerous in the forest, looking even like a little paradise for him.

It was when he was installing his third trap that his wariness paid off.

He heard a small noise inside a shrub, seven meters from him.

Stopping all his previous noises, he carefully reached for his bow, arming it with a carbon arrow he had bought when wanting to train himself.

After what seemed like an eternity, ten seconds at most, a rat as big as a cat exited carefully from the bush.

Its fur was silver, shining under the bit of sun going through the forest, its eyes a clear blue shining with intelligence.

"At least, not all the animals are crazy like the rabbit I met..."

Alric let the arrow go after having stabilized his aims, knowing that at this distance, he didn't have too much of a chance to miss even with his poor talent.

"SWOOOSH"

The arrow planted itself at the designated spot, but the rat was already a good meter next to it, having avoided it without much effort.

"What? How come?" Alric was astounded but didn't fail to rearm the bow.

The rat disappeared once more to reappear before him, just thirty centimetres from his leg.

Clumsily trying to jump to avoid the rat and under the surprise of the attack, Alric couldn't completely avoid it and two small teeth bite strongly in his calves while he let loose the previously armed arrow with a completely missed aim.

"AOUTCH! Don't you dare..."

Under the anger of his poor performance and the shame coming from the size difference, Alric grabbed the rat with his left hand by its neck.

The big and beautiful rat struggled with all his might, bitting and clawing its way out but Alric's hand hold it tight, the energy he absorbed previously allowing him to hold without too much effort, even the pain coming from the powerful scratch wasn't enough to let him go.

The scratch wounded his hand quite a bit but it was healing at a speed visible by the naked eye, much faster than before allowing Alric to squeeze even more.

He quickly put his other hand on the head as big as a fist and twist the beast's neck.

Feeling the rat instantly becoming flaccid, Alric let go to observe it from closer.

"It's such a magnificent creature, it's a bit of a shame, but my traps are empty so..." Thought Alric, not regretting either his choice. " But it's bigger, stronger and above all, all lot faster than the average rat. I suppose all kinds of life had profoundly changed after this event, I must not be left out!"

His confidence renewed anew, he took the not-so-small flaccid body and link it to his belt, next to the chisel.

While continuing his trip, writing all kinds of descriptions and annotations in his small leather notebook, he encountered another rat and a squirrel which he killed with a bit more efficiency.

The other rat was as black as night and he nearly walked on it, but its speed was nothing like the previous one.

The squirrel was more of a headache for him, it was naturally quite quick, and now with its claw sharper than steel, his left hand was shredded quite a bit.

Thankfully, the powerful regenerative abilities of his left hand help him overcome it once again.

Alric was beginning to grow accustomed to defending himself from each attack with his left hand, knowing he couldn't heal as well with his other body part, the healing process taking longer even if it was much quicker than before.

His chisels were quite handy in puncturing the dense fur of the little creatures, his experience in manipulating them greatly increasing their efficiency as opposed to his bow.

Having put more traps without too much hope, the previous ones having all been destroyed, Alric decided to call it a day and return to the workshop before the night began to fall and to draw some conclusion on this situation with its head well-rested.

A bit exhausted, he was nevertheless quite excited, enjoying the slowly setting sun, he returned without any hitch to his small wooden workshop which was beginning to disappear under the dense ivy.

"If all of my suppositions are right, the situation could make a bit more sense'" he happily thought. "All of this can be explained if the luminous shockwave provoked some kind of mutation crisis where all wildlife was affected, including me..."

Reading his notebook while sitting on a carved wooden bank in front of his workshop's porch, he was analysing all of the things he wrote, from the feeling each tree gave him, to the different wildlife he encountered, their reaction, his answer..."

Before coming here, he was a pretty good drawer for a big firm, making quite a few sketches each day with pencils for their uses.

It was one of the reasons why he tried woodcarving, to put in reality what was in his head and on his drawings.

"That and the fact they used my drawing as if it was theirs, not considering author rights at all or even mentioning my name, why didn't I quit sooner, I don't even know... "

His leather notebook was now full of sketches from the various animals he encountered, even the strange bird he saw from afar or the fish in the small stream.

Instinctively beginning to draw the silver rat on a new page, his thoughts continued their course without interruption.

"The mutation seems quite random, I wonder what influences them? Did the crazy rabbit mutate in some sort of super killing machine or was there a problem in the mutation process?" Not an expert in the field, Alric was nevertheless trying to find a plausible answer with the knowledge he had. " But for the few animals I could see from closer, their intelligence seems to have increased drastically, explaining perhaps why my simple traps don't work anymore..."

The rat was now beautifully inscribed on the cream-coloured paper, its expression vivid as it opened its mouth to bite him.

"If the mutations were random, it wouldn't be too much of a surprise," he thought, "But if they were truly random, there would probably have more gross ones, with a fair bit of dead live forms. I seem to recall that the majority of mutation leads to death or a decrease in ability, enhancing ones being rare, as seen in the Darwinian process which takes millions of years to happen."

Wondering if his hypothesis was even half correct, Alric was now beginning to write each particularity of the animal, using the dead one next to him to be the most precise possible.

The other rat and the squirrel lay flat on a rock near him, each having a hole in their body showing the deadliness of the wood chisel.

"I hope the mutation wasn't random, if it was, the chance of another human being like me, or even alive would be truly low..."

The night was beginning to fall, removing this marvellous feeling he had during the day.

Gazing at the last bit of sunlight shining on the horizon, a sudden thought occurred to him.

"Could this mutation be linked to the night? The beast turning rabid when the sky is dark? It could very well be! I won't feel safe in the night anymore then..."

Alric felt a profound chill all other his body.

He could feel this odd sensation was more profound than just the scary memory he had still in mind or the possibility of murderous beasts coming at night as if the lack of sunlight was truly what was to fear.

Just when he was beginning to feel his throat tighten, as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the air, a pale blue light began to shine on the area.

The moon was bathing the area in its glow as it was rising in the sky, seeming at least a hundredfold bigger than he could recall.

The night before had been completely dark, covered by the dust of the luminous explosion, hence why he could not perceive the shining brilliance of this nearly new heavenly body.

"What was that sensation?" Alric thought a bit frightful, "Why didn't I feel the same last night? Even if I was a bit more scared of the dark than normal, it wasn't as intense as today... Could this feeling grow each night? If it is, I won't be able to survive as easily as I thought. Or is it me who is becoming more sensitive to it?"

Recalling the strange euphoric sensation he had when exposing his left hand to the sun during the morning, he put it directly in the direction of the glow.

"It's nearly the same, but it seems a bit lacking..." he thought while reminding himself of all of the strange phenomena he experienced linked to this hand "What I am? Did I mutate into some sort of plant?"