Tepatrian

Back to the scene back at the car wreckage.

"I'm afraid he's dead Ma'am." The helpful man declared a heavy line.

The crazed Jenny, whose eyes were bloodshot from stress had more blood rushing to her eyes all of a sudden. In other words, she couldn't believe the words of the man.

"That's not true!" Jenny denied the man's statement.

"Yes. He's lying!" A voice replied from outside the wreckage.

"Adam!? Where are you?" Jenny asked Adam.

The man was surprised. He didn't see anyone approaching them from either side of the road. He looked left and right but there was no one. That would mean there could only be up and down.

"Hello there Mister." The child who was sprawled on the ground said.

Adam, who was badly beaten on the ground with both arms, legs and neck in awkward positions that it would be weird if he was still alive, tried to introduce himself to the man. It was amazing how he was conscious.

"Uhh, hello?" The man did not know how to react.

It was a weird sight indeed. A mangled body speaking in a bright voice. The man had seen it all.

"Uncle, can you help me up?" Adam asked politely.

"I can't move my legs." He continued.

The man was still dumbstruck, but he had seen enough weird things today to be standing still. The man steeled his will and started walking towards the pretzel shaped boy.

"Are you okay?" The man held Adam up and decided to carefully carry him to his parent's jeep.

"I am okay mister." Adam said in a cheerful voice.

Even though Adam experienced the pain from the crash, the pain he felt from his reconstructing body was even greater. Though he should have suffered a trauma, that was negated by his alter-ego---Older Adam--- and even though his body was badly damaged, it was still in the process of reconstruction.

Due to this, his recovering body was healing at a visible pace. It was a blessing that he assimilated with Gaia Essence that he didn't die so early this time.

Understanding what was happening to his body, Adam who thought he had healed enough and was no longer feeling pain tried to move his limbs. Fact check, he couldn't move any of his limbs.

He then looked towards his arms and legs only to see them bent in weird shapes.

"What!?" Adam was surprised.

It was at the moment Adam realized his limbs were mangled, he knew that they weren't supposed to be like that, and that caused Adam to pass out due to shock. His alter-ego could no longer handle the stress and was unable to help him alleviate his psyche.

"He passed out." The man said to himself.

Once the man reached the backseat door again, he saw the window was fully rolled down unlike earlier which was only half-opened. He saw Jenny who was being very erratic inside.

"Ma'am, is this your child?"

"Oh poor baby. Come here." Jenny reached for Adam.

The man gave Adam to Jenny then proceeded to ready himself to open the jeep door once more. Meanwhile, Jenny was anguished at the sight of her passed out son.

Jenny, who was still out of her mind, was disturbed by Adam's limbs severely. Even though the wounds and rashes Adam suffered due to the crash healed visibly, his arms and legs weren't going back to how they were originally. This gave Jenny an idea to put Adam's appendages in their proper places.

She pulled both of Adam's arms forcefully. The dislocated shoulders and bent arm were weird to look at before, but the act of Jenny's fixing his limbs were even more shocking.

Crackle~

Crack~

The bones in Adam's arm made very eerie sounds that they normally shouldn't make. Due to the sudden jolt in his arms, Adam woke up from his unconscious state and he soon felt the pain.

"Aaaa, Mom!" The first thing Adam saw was his mother pulling his arms as he screamed in pain.

"Stay still, Adam!" Jenny continued her assault on Adam's limbs.

This time, she pulled both of Adam's short legs to straighten them from pretzel shape. This caused Adam a lot of pain.

"Mom! Please stop! It hurts!" Adam's cries were but a whisper in the wind in Jenny's ears.

After the legs were back to being straight, it still wasn't properly in place. It was twisted, so Jenny just twisted it back. This act gave Adam even more pain than before.

"Ow." Adam said.

Though oddly enough, after the initial scream, Adam did not cry. His shrieks were short-lived and this is due to him no longer feeling any pain. Adam himself was surprised.

Adam looked at both his arms that were certainly unserviceable, he could now move them with relative ease. He could feel deep within his skin, the tears on his muscles were being repaired in real time.

"What?" Adam asked as he looked at his mother.

Adam thought his mother had gone crazy earlier. Her eyes were bloodshot and she had a zealous look on her face as she pulled on his arms and legs. It turns out that she thought of a method to help Adam instead of hurting him.

It was a rational decision but it was executed poorly by Jenny. However, what she did was apparently the right thing to do at that moment. Adam was visibly healing his injuries, if his limbs were left in pretzels, his body would heal with that form in mind. Adam would have to live while shaped like a snack.

His body was no longer a regular human's body. It was now an energy based entity, his blood is no longer the one that drives it, but instead his energy. The amount of self-healing his body made consumed a lot of energy, that includes the body reconstruction from earlier. In other words -

Borborygmus~

It was the sound of a rumbling stomach. Adam was hungry.

"Mom, I'm hungry." Adam rubbed his tummy with his now functioning hand.

"Yes, Adam. Wait for a moment." Jenny, who looked demonic and scary earlier, was now a gentle-faced beauty.

Jenny reached for the luggage that she packed earlier. There were no clothes in the bags, only emergency kits and food were packed in it. After closing the bag she got snacks from, she noticed the unconscious child from earlier, who now opened his eyes and was staring at her.

Jenny did not say anything though. She quietly stared at the child and saw that his eyes were trembling. It was constantly shifting between her and the snacks on her hand.

'What happens if I' Jenny waved her hand that held the snack.

The child's eyes wandered and followed the hand. Brian, the child wearing loincloth, who was unconscious since earlier, was hungry as well.

'Will he run if I throw this outside?' Jenny had that thought but she didn't throw it outside the window.

However, she still shook her hand left and right. Following after her hand, Brian's eyes were also moving left and right, soon even his head followed the motion.

"Just give it to him already!" Adam broke the peace.

"And give me one. I'm starving, Mom." He continued.

Adam may have asked for the snack but he took it forcefully from Jenny's hands anyway. He ripped the wrapper open and voraciously ate. One certainly wouldn't be enough for Adam so Jenny opened the bag once again and grabbed more.

She looked at the loincloth wearing child once again and the child also stared at her. Due to this, she decided to get another snack before closing the bag. She gave it to the child and the child grabbed it quickly.

But instead of eating the snack, the child first sniffed the snack.

'This doesn't smell like food.' The child was confused.

He looked at Adam and recalled what Adam did.

'This is a wrapper, inside must be the grub.' He was learning.

This child was not aware of the things outside of the forest. It was natural as he was living in the forest by himself. There was no one to tell him about things and civilization. However, this child knew his name and where he came from.

'What is this place?' He thought as he looked around himself.

He was shocked at what he was seeing. First of all, the thing that's enclosing him, the car, was very comfortable. He could somewhat feel in his state of unconsciousness that they were moving.

'Is this a carriage? But there's no beast pulling it?'

His thoughts were strange. He was a child that should not have had any contact with civilization at all. His looks were as young as 5 years and he himself said that he has lived in the forest by himself for a year.

His earlier years would have been filled with nonsense, however he was assessing things like a proper and normal person.

He soon copied Adam's earlier action of ripping the wrapper apart and eating the snack within. This sight caused Jenny to heave a sigh of relief.

'It seems he isn't a child totally detached from civilization.' Jenny thought of those.

"Ma'am, I am opening the door now." The helpful man from before stated.

Jenny looked towards the man and nodded. The backseat door was relatively untouched unlike the front seat doors. The door was easily opened from the outside.

"Let's get out for the moment." Jenny said towards the children who were busy stuffing their faces.

She grabbed Adam and went outside the car. She then saw the large gaping hole on the road ahead. The road that was supposed to be very busy due to evacuation was fully stopped. There were a lot of similar wrecks within the vicinity.

Cars were crashed and rear-ended. A lot of people also saw the hole and stopped before falling to their doom, that would mean that a similar amount of people would crash from their rear as well.

Looking around, there were people who weren't so fortunate. There were motorcycles left but there was no rider, the riders themselves flew further. And you can still hear crashes happening from the back. The cataclysm didn't end yet.

Brian, who struggled to get outside of the unfamiliar vehicle, finally made it outside.

"By the gods! What is this place?" Brian was shocked.

In his vision, he saw a not so blue sky. The land around him was not dirt, nor were there any grass. He did see some trees here and there but what truly captured his eye was landscape beyond.

He saw high rise buildings and apartments. Normal houses looked like advanced technology to him and the asphalt ground he was standing on was connected to the city he saw in his vision.

"Where in Basinfall am I?"

Brian, who was from another world, asked in utter confusion but to no one in particular.