Chapter 27

After making sure Adair was ok and that the glow was not a significant problem, Hank started to collect all of the dead sea life that was in the once beautiful lake. As Adair watched Hank do this, she noticed that one huge black catfish that was at least fifty feet long was still alive and some similar fish that were a bit smaller that she assumed were its its kids lay around it dead, and if looks could kill, Adair would have been struck down by thousands of more lightning bolts by this fish.

Adair then pointed this fish out to Hank, and he too was shocked that a fish was still alive. They then wrote about what they wanted to do with the fish, and they decided that they would leave the fish alone and hope that it would die by the time the rest of the fish were collected by Hank.

They were not so lucky, though, and even after several more hours without water, the fish still sat there staring at Adair and Hank. They knew that it wasn't dead due to its gaze switching to Hank whenever he collected a fish close to itself. Hank would have had no problem if this fish was just a tiny one, but since the water had such magical effects and was such a giant fish, they decided that it was best to leave the fish to its own devices.

But even after two days, the fish was still alive and well. Adair still couldn't move around freely, and she started to wonder if this wing growth was natural or if it was unnatural. She leaned towards unnatural since they grew so rapidly and she was also pretty sure that the water from the lake had something to do with her wing growth as well, but for all she knew, her mom could have teleported her to a spot where the water was just for her wings to grow. She also wondered if her wings would continue growing but she put all her ideas about the wings aside because there were hundreds of other possibilities that could have happened. She also realised that thinking about these ideas were useless to her since it was all theoretical and no matter how many potential answers she thought of.

Once Hank was done collecting all of the fish besides the big one and its kids Adair and Hank eventually started to talk about the problem of water and liquids. They still had a few dozen bottles of the lake water that Hank had collected before the storm had stopped, but at most, that was going to last them only a few weeks at most a month, and they had no real way of fixing this issue unless they found a new lake or stream.

At least with the hundreds of fish that Hank had collected, they had some solid food to eat. Adair was worried, though, that the fish would go bad, so Adair had directed Hank on how to smoke the fish in order to make it last longer. As they did this, the smell of cooked fish surrounded the whole nearby area, and when the big blackfish noticed what they were doing, its expression somehow got even darker.

Adair was worried that the fish would be unedible but luckily for them they were edible and better yet, whenever they ate a fish, it was as if it replenished all necessary things that someone needed to live on, such as food and water somehow. Adair was starting to think that it is impossible to ever die of hunger or thirst on this planet because originally the longer days would require people to eat more but that has not been the case at all for Adiar and Hank. Ever since they found out, this was the case; they had decided to stay where they were for the time being because even though they could toss all of the food into the bag and travel around, they knew they were safe for the time being.

After several days of eating the fish, Adair noticed that the weight from her wings started to get less and less. At first, she just thought that she was just getting used to the new weight added, but after a week of eating the fish from the lake, she noticed a correlation between the fish she ate. When she realized this, she started to stuff herself with fish which worried Hank since this was one of the only two food sources they had. Adair quickly explained what she was doing, however, Hank still stopped her because while he wanted to stop dragging Adair around to move her, burning through their food source was not the correct way to fix this problem.

And now that Hank stopped her, Adair worried what would happen to her body if she ate a whole bunch of these fish because there had to be a downside right? Would she explode? Or start to inflate? Or would she get super fat? Or would she stop being hungry for weeks on end? The list went on and on and the bad options greatly outweighed the good ones. Still staying close to the same place for such a long time was still incredibly boring. So as a compromise they decided to eat two fish a day until she was able to move freely and easily again.

During this time Adair started to wonder if the fish made her lighter or made her muscles stronger, so she could move her wings or something else entirely. After two months Adair could finally move and control her wings enough to flap them back and forth. While it only took one month for her to be able to walk normally they kept on doing the two fish a day on Adair's assistance just in case she could learn how to fly. Unfortunately her flapping her wings back and forth quickly did not allow her to fly, it did allow her to have an easier time walking though as she had another form of balance.

At one month in though she did not realize how much of a problem learning how to walk again was going to be. Not walking for one month atrophied her musccles so much that she needed to start from the basics again. Furthermore, the amount of faceplanting and stumbling that happened for the next few months was not enjoyable for her whatsoever.

At this two month mark where she was able to walk normally again, She still used a cane on occasion but she was trying to get herself off of it. Unfortunately though they were down to their last 50 fish, and they had to decide what they wanted to do with the blackfish that somehow was still alive. Hank wanted to leave it be since it didn't do them any harm, and he had a bad experience the last time he went towards another living being of the forest. While Adiar agreed, she really wanted to know what the benefits would be for herself if she ate the fish.

Hank quickly convinced her that the cons outweigh the potential benefits of eating the fish, so they decided to leave this place where they were living for approximately the past year. This was because they needed to find a new food and water source before they ran out of food, and they hoped that 50 days of old dried fish and a couple dozen bottles of water were enough to find a new source of food and water.

This number could be less though if the old fish decided to give them food poisoning but at this point she doubted this would happen because it hasn't happened yet and the fish did not appear to be going bad. But for all she knew fish aged differently on this planet but based on her experience with Hank's fruit she doubted it.

The other reason why they decided that now was a good time to leave was that Adair could finally walk normally again. While it was still very slow compared to her old speed, it was significantly better than nothing at all.

Adair packed everything they had into the bag, which was a significant amount of wood, the 50 fish, two bottles of water that they had kept, and one basketball-sized fruit that Hank randomly found when Adair was learning how to walk. The only thing that did not fit was their house.

They also had to decide which way they wanted to head out. They both ruled out heading towards where the red tree was, but they still had three directions to head. They also chose against the way the path headed. Because even though it was in a different direction than the red tree they were not in a position to deal with whoever or whatever created the path so they chose not to go that way. There was a chance that the path could have led Adair away from the lightning and her not following the path was a punishment from the path's creator but again this was all speculation and they did not want to test this theory.

They couldn't come up with one of the last two options though, so they decided that it was worth it to use one of their bottles of water to ask the blue tree which direction they should head.

Hank tried to ask the tree without paying, but the blue tree just didn't respond until they poured the water at the base of the tree. And once they had, all the tree did was direct all of its branches in the direction of the red tree. They tried to get more out of the tree, but it didn't respond, and they did not want to waste their last bottle of water on this temperamental tree, so they left the tree and debated if they wanted to listen to the tree or not.

While they could avoid the red tree, they did not know if there were any other red trees or dangers that way. So, in the end, they decided to disregard the tree's advice. They then decided to head in the opposite direction from the red tree just to make sure they wouldn't run into that tree. They then said goodbye to the blue tree, which as usual, did not give any response, and then they headed off on a new chapter of their life.

The first few days of travel were not great. This is because Adair still was not used to walking long distances again but eventually she got used to it and when she did their travels sped up.

Over this time, she tried to fly several times because that would make both her life and Hanks easier since they would hypothetically be able to go much further than their current pace but it never worked.

This caused Hank to carry Adair significantly more than he would have liked, and eventually, Hank was the one slowing the two of them down due to him getting a decent amount of back pain after carrying Adair for a while. While they knew the water from the lake healed their pain they both agreed not to waste their last bottle of water just so they could walk a bit farther each day.

For the most part, they did not see anything different than just the normal thick trees, but around the 50th day of travel, Adair noticed that the trees were gradually getting thinner. The canopy above them was the same thick green, but the trees were getting smaller.

Not by a huge amount, but as they traveled, she noticed that they were getting smaller and smaller until, eventually, she was able to see drops of sunlight breaking through the canopy. While neither Adair nor Hank knew what this meant, they hoped it meant that there was something useful to them because they were running low on supplies.

Luckily for them, as they continued, they were able to see more and more sunlight until eventually, there were little to no trees around, and there was grassland that spanned nearly as far as they could see except for one area which looked like it was the ruins of a town.