8 Peace

Hugh ate his own arm. It was strangely sweet and he could feel his own chewy skin and the rough texture of his muscle. His heart skipped a beat, then another.

He could feel pressure around his eyes.he saw his sight getting darker and darker until he could see only black and white. Black veins started appearing all around his body as his fat started disappearing accompanied by black smoke.

He felt power. A power even stronger than his transformation, but this was different. It felt like the power was flowing in a different way and in a different place. He closed his eyes as he felt power in his feet and subconsciously released it. The grass unfurled as he started levitating.

The armadillo mowed down the air as Hugh dodged by floating in the air. Even with his eyes closed, he could see things. What he saw was a world filled with longitudes and latitudes. He saw the armadillo's outline in the distance. In the middle of the armadillo was a silver ball with no boundaries.

He descended back in the ground and waited for the armadillo. He waited. He felt confident in taking this insignificant animal. With the armadillo now once again in its way to Hugh, he raised his hands and pointed it at the armadillo. Only a few meters away and Hugh would have been destroyed but huge roots suddenly appeared from the ground and restrained it from moving. It tried its best but it was fully restrained.

Hugh went near the animal. He had no fear for he had everything under control. He raised his hand and put it in the armadillo's head. If anybody were to see this, they would guess that Hugh would have crushed the armadillo's head. It didn't happen.

Instead of violence, a sense of peace came. The forests hummed in harmony together with the birds. The plants and flowers swayed in flow with the wind. The cool breeze gave a warm feeling to whoever felt it in their body.

Hugh patted the armadillo. He had a melancholic look as he frowned and pitied the poor thing. The armadillo who was struggling and frustrated suddenly stopped moving. It looked up at Hugh and stared at him. They both felt each other's presence in their hearts and in their souls. The armadillo felt like Hugh had touched its soul directly.

A tear suddenly fell from its eyes. It cried and wailed, not in anger, but relief. The burden it was feeling was now gone and it was now truly in peace; that was the last thought it had as it slumped down the ground.

The trees stopped moving. The leaves were frozen in place as well as the flowers down on its feet. Fallen leaves stopped in mid air as time had miraculously stopped, but Hugh moved. He looked around his surroundings and a slight smile started to emerge from his mouth. He took his hand and started to swallow it whole. He didn't chew but directly put it in his endless stomach. His body started contorting and bending on itself. He ate more and more of himself like a snake eating its own tail.

As he ate the last part of himself, a small dark sphere started to emerge from his place. This dark sphere was the purest form of black. Every light within it had been absorbed on itself. It grew. It grew large enough to start pulling the trees from the ground and absorbed it. Rocks, soil, leaves and everything within a 1km diameter had no way out but the dark sphere.

———————

In a dark and enclosed space full of touchscreen tv. A sleeping analyst who wore a dark uniform that was unbuttoned the whole way through, was suddenly woken up from his sleep. The sounds of sirens blaring through his ears woke him up as his adrenaline started filling his body.

At first, the analyst couldn't figure out was wrong until he came upon a small blue circle. There was a giant exclamation point in the circle's way with a caption that said 'EARTH'.

His jaw was on the ground as he stumbled his fingers onto a glass box that contained a red button. The alarms kept blaring as each time he tried to open the glass box, he kept slipping up. His sweaty and nervous hands couldn't seem to work in this inappropriate time.

Another hand suddenly grabbed the glass box, pried it open, and pushed the red button. The analyst turned and saw his square faced superior looking back at him. He clumsily stood up and and crossed his arms with his fists making circles using his thumbs and fingers.

"I'm sorry commander!! I won't ever do that again."

The analyst begged as hard as he can but he saw that his superior was looking at the screen not him. He sighed in relief.

"A black hole suddenly emerged from planet Earth. Interesting. Call the elite troop squadron, we're going on a trip."

The commander wore a black jacket with medals and awards stitched onto his chest and shoulders. Under his chest was a stitched black and red font that said 'Cmd. SquareJaw'. Commander SquareJaw had a slight smile in his face as he looked at the screen. His legs were fidgeting as he couldn't wait to find out the reason for this anomaly.

"Yes sir! Calling the elite troop squadron, sir!"

The analyst ran out of the stuffy room hoping that his commander wouldn't scold him. He went into a different room and relayed the information to the reception desk.

———————

Hugh opened his eyes to the bright sun. He had to cover it to protect from being blinded. Gathering his thoughts, he looked around his surroundings. The last thing he remembered was eating his own arm and feeling a slight pain in his eyes; after that, he didn't remember anything.

He looked around to see if he could remember anything else but the huge and deep crater that he was in would definitely be memorable. Confusion filled his face as he scrunched his eyebrows together.

'What happened?'

His clothes were ripped in pieces as it barely held on to him. He had no idea what happened but something made him regain his caution. He heard a loud roar outside the crater that made him remember that he was in a dangerous place. He had to get out.

He propped himself back up and started making his way out of the crater. He had to use his hands as the curve of the crater was quite steep and the soil was slippery. With the greenery forest back in his eyesight, he felt relieved. He started walking in a direction until he luckily found a steel fence.

The familiar sounds of hovercars booming in the air was heard in the distance. At least he was finally safe from the wild. He didn't know where he was did know that he was in the border of the city. The problem was that the steel fence was very tall and had a barbed wire at the top.

He was able to get in because he had an astonishing jumping power when he was transformed but the cooldown still wasn't up. What to do?

He racked his brains of all possibilities. He thought about walking around the fence until he saw a gate but he quickly rejected that idea. The gates were usually filled with guards and he wasn't about to take the risk.

'Should I dig down? No, that would be stupid. I don't even have anything to dig with. How about I destroy some part of the fence to get through?'

That last idea seemed the most safest way to get out but he had no way to do that right? A thought suddenly crossed his mind. He remembered when he was fighting the large armadillo and he transformed his arms and feet into some kind of metal and wood. It didn't appear because of the system, the transformation was still on cooldown. It must have been because he was in trouble which means he could probably make it appear again.

He closed his eyes and ruffled through his memories of fighting with the armadillo. The risk of death, the helplessness, the adrenaline, he tried his best to replicate those feelings. He felt a tingle in his spine as he saw a metal and wood type liquid appear on his arms and start to take shape. Unfortunately, it disappeared as fast as it came.

This was it. He knew how to get out of the fence. He tried to remember again those feelings but it wasn't enough. The liquid would only appear for less than a second. He concentrated even harder. Beads of sweat came out of his forehead and dripped down on the ground.

He didn't notice when but at the time he was concentrating and trying, the sun was almost dead. Night started to fill the sky as Hugh improved his control. From half a second turned into a three-fourths of a second. He tried again with a serious and stubborn face until finally, the transformation lasted for a second.

He readied himself near the fence and activated the liquid. It filled his legs with the same metal sheen that replaced his skin and the wood that acted as the muscles. A second was all it took for Hugh to jump high enough to get over the fence. He did it. It took the whole afternoon to do that but it was worth it.