4 The Library Trip

As the sun starts to rise on a night full of thinking, arguing, and denial Z finally comes to accept the fact that not only animals became monsters, he killed his neighbors dog as the first thing he did as a skeleton. "Well it did try to kill me and it was always a bastard that attacked people."

With the rays of light coming in through the window he got up and changed outfits. He may be a skeleton but he was gonna make himself presentable, just in case. "It is still gonna take some time getting use to the fact that I see just as well at night as during the day. If only I had a working clock it wouldn't be so bad. Oh well." Z told himself as he was changing. "Anyways I guess I should start exploring more places but I really don't even know what to look for." So once again he sits on the couch and tries and debates what to do now.

It took all of five minutes for him to come to the astounding conclusion he doesn't know enough about magic and mythology or anything needed to survive in the world. Also learning some ways to cook without an oven would not hurt either. The solution to this problem was obvious at least the local library.

Well if you could call it a library it really is just a public section of city hall where people donated books but whatever. It was also one of the three things to do in this town before this weird shit started and now he won't need a library card.

"Well it will take me at least 30 minutes to get there normally if I walked, but now I need to be careful so I don't have another dog monster want to bury my boney ass and use my skull as a chew toy." With that thought Z got his trusty butcher knife and left his house locking the door and begin to slowly make his way to the library.

As he slowly walked he looked around at the buildings he passed and noticed not a lot of damage. In fact barely anything was broken until he got to the main road. At that point he stumbled upon something that actually scared him. Three gouges in the concrete road that were not only deep but around 7-8 feet long.

"What the hell would make something like this." Z muttered as he was feeling nervous for the first time. That in itself made him more worried that the actual gouges since not even the dog on top of him made him scared. Thinking about it his emotions have been strange since he became a skeleton but he has no time to worry about that now. Z started to look around for any more gouges but oddly found none which made him more nervous so he decided to go as fast as he could while being sneaky. He was very bad at it.

After almost an hour after he left his house he made it to the library. He many a time thought he heard something that made him stop and hide that just turned out to be his imagination. The last time was windchimes that he also hide right under. Z was not amused when he realized what had made him worried.

Anyways, Z walked into the library, the door once again unlocked, which was really strange but Z was just happy to not have to break the door. He walked in and immediately went to a book cart that normally is used for returning books but he is gonna use it to grab them all.

"I might as well read as much as I can since there is no guarantee I will be coming back after today." Z said since those gouges made him reluctant to travel to much until he at least knows what made them.

The first thing he did was make his way towards the survival books, looking at all the books on the shelves on the way, grabbing anything that seems interesting. Filling the cart up Z would then deposit them onto a table before going to the next section just grabbing anything that may or may not be useful. Of course there were sections that Z made sure to take everything there, mythology being the big one. He even found some self defense manuals and some books on how weapons were used in the past, such as spears and swords.

Z even took any book about magic whether fantasy book or historical ones. Of course the historical ones were mainly about witch hunts but still anything that might give a clue on how magic works was helpful. Though probably the most useful books and most useless was the various books on languages he found, including sign language. Z wouldn't have bothered with anything but the sign language one if not for the fact that there is a chance of other people becoming giant flying monsters from overseas and not speak a word of English.

After gathering any and every book that looked like it would be useful, Z was surprised by the shear number he got. Apparently this library was bigger than he thought but that was cause he hasn't been here on the inside only passing it while on walks. Anyways he started reading at a relaxed pace slowly losing himself in the reading.

The funny thing is he was never a good study nor a bad one just average. However, when he was reading the books everything made sense and stayed with him so easily. Of course Z, in all his denseness, didn't even really notice it as he was lost in reading. He just found it fun to be reading and not have a headache let alone enjoy it like he is now.

Z lost track of time going from one book to the next, taking the advantage of being a skeleton and not needing to stop for eating, sleeping, or relieving himself. The fact that he has the ability to see in the dark as well as daylight helps since there were no windows that provided sufficient light or power so he wasn't inhibited in any way either. Plus the fact those gauges he saw earlier made him not want to be near a window just in case. Needless to say by the time he read all the books he first grabbed, and some others he went to get after reading other books to help get some understanding on some topics that he didn't understand, quite some time passed by. Z even took the time to put the books back in their proper place.

After putting all the books up Z went to practicing some of the defense methods he seen. He even was trying some stuff he thought up while reading and connecting several different things. Needless to say he did read a lot of a certain martial arts manga and proceeded to try a certain attack while shouting kamehameha. It was as successful as anyone would expect but who wouldn't want to try if they woke up in this crazy situation.

Once he felt confident with going through the motions he decided to carefully make his way out and go back home. Once Z arrived at the door he froze instantly for just at the edge of the street in the open he saw something. A squirrel, however, it was as tall as he was and he is 6 feet tall. As he stood there staring at it it turned and looked him in the eye and a staring contest began. After a few seconds however the squirrel began moving towards him, making Z immediately pull out his knife in preparation. Oddly he was happy to find this opponent to try out his newly learned techniques on, if they worked at all. Though right as the squirrel took its first step toward Z a loud screech could be heard followed by the squirrel being taken into the air. Z immediately froze as a monstrous bird as big as a Boeing 737 swoop down and scoop up the squirrel. Of course the ground had some very familiar marks in the ground making Z not want to ever leave home again.

After a few minutes though Z's fear subsided enough for him to move. So he immediately took a path home that let him take as much cover from the sky. It was midafternoon when he left the building and by the time he got home it was after sundown. Needless to say as soon as he got inside he locked the door behind him and covered his windows with blankets and towels before sitting on his couch to collect his thoughts and plan out what was next.