C.3 : Instincts

Lyn didn't intentionally muffle their footsteps, but no sound was heard as they made their way deeper inside. The occasional zombie looked at them while sniffing the air but lost interest after getting a whiff of their scent.

"Even the dark seems less frightening now... Perks of being a walking corpse that eats flesh I guess." Lyn mumbled as they made a beeline for the frozen meat section. Unlike Lyn, the zombies seemed to ignore the meat in the freezer, but Lyn was glad because if the zombies had eaten it, what would they eat?

Opening the freezer, Lyn sniffed the air once more to confirm they were alone, ignoring the zombies that had no conscious thoughts, and retrieved several packs of meat, still cold. Even if Lyn ignored the obvious looted areas of the store, the frozen food section was rather untouched since survivors weren't sure when power would be cut off.

Their nails easily punctured the seals, and in a half crazed state where their rationality flew out the window, Lyn relished in the cold but delicious meal. Lyn could feel their body's instincts telling them it wasn't right, that it wasn't human, but they ignored it.

"I don't recall food ever being this tasty." Lyn chewed on a piece of fat, enjoying the chewy piece of meat before swallowing it. As a zombie, Lyn really didn't have to chew much since they didn't need to breathe, but Lyn didn't want to get something lodged in their throat since they were used to breathing.

Even the bone, which was quite thick was directly broken to fragments and swallowed by Lyn. The meat in their body seemed to fill them with energy, like a warm flame, minus the warmth as Lyn only had the awareness that there was a little more energy in their body now.

"I feel a limit... Can I possibly evolve then if I exceed it?" Lyn had read many many novels and didn't see the harm in trying. Worse case, they'd be stuffed, and in the best, they'd get stronger. Lyn calculated according to the limit they felt and decided to eat the entire stock.

If they were human, they'd have a limit to what they could consume, but Lyn directly ate and ate, the meat turning into streams of energy that filled their body. Feeling the limit grow closer and closer, Lyn felt a bit jittery and excited.

After biting through a rather juicy piece and gulping it down, Lyn's body grew warmer and warmer, a vast difference from the usual coolness. Somehow, Lyn could feel their cells dividing and multiplying rapidly, and they entered a strange state where they could 'see' their inner body.

'I can change things! Well, obviously not too much, but I can alter my internal structure.' Lyn didn't take biology seriously when they were in college, but Lyn somehow knew what each alteration would cost and how much energy they had remaining.

'Bones, make them harder! Skin should be tougher... I still have a third of my energy left over. Increase muscle density and cognitive functions. And my senses, can't forget those either...' Lyn was left with a third of their former energy, and then they decided to get creative.

'I watched an anime where there were some creatures with organs that could be used to fight. I want that... Oh? I can just think of it, but it's costing the rest of my energy if I want to make it like that. Well, it should be helpful.'

A new organ was formed and the energy content inside was high. Though Lyn made it similar to that anime, Lyn's didn't have one form, but several. On it's creation, Lyn added eight limbs similar to a spider's legs, two like a praying mantis, and another that had countless strands that could be controlled, and each was as sharp, if not sharper than their nails.

As the energy surged through their body, Lyn thought of something and then felt helpless. The evolution wasn't over, but Lyn still hadn't left that mode, and their thought just now just... Let's just say Lyn no longer had the male parts they previously had, though they didn't particularly mind.

Though they lost that part, their chest wasn't magically huge and was quite small, and even though their shape was slender, it wasn't as masculine as before, becoming more slender and feminine. Even their face couldn't escape the fate of being changed.

When Lyn felt the energy vanish, their eyes opened and Lyn sat up, not being aware of when they had fallen to the floor. Even if they were aware then, they wouldn't have cared since it was harder to damage them just by falling over.

"Hello?" Lyn spoke, and perhaps due to the evolution, Lyn's voice was softer and airy, with a weird reverberation deep inside, one that kept popping up no matter how Lyn tried to suppress it. Looking down, Lyn's coat hid their now bigger chest and slender frame, but they weren't to anxious since they had already seen the changes beforehand.

With a thought, the coat tore open and two limbs four meters long with sharp flattened tips stretched out, looking as if they were made from a mixture of muscle tissue and bone, but the color was purple and green strangely enough.

"This is awesome! I won't even have to bother to fight, I can just use these!" Lyn giggled as the two limbs flashed, the two flattened tips cutting through both the freezer and the contents inside, making Lyn very satisfied with their choice as they put them away.

"My clothes... or my coat. Nah my clothes, they don't exactly fit anymore." Lyn grabbed a cart and loaded it with what remained of the meat and looked at the sign before heading to the clothing section of the store.

As they pushed the cart by a zombie, it shuffled over attracted to the noise Lyn's cart made. With a blank look, Lyn watched as it reached for the cart, then something inside Lyn broke and the eight limbs pierced the zombie three times repeatedly, making it a sieve.

Lyn retracted the extra limbs and stored them, and watched as the zombie fell to the ground, but aside from a few splashes of black blood, it twitched and then went still. Being careful not to pierce it's head when attacking, Lyn knew it would recover even if it took a while.

If they killed all of the zombies, wouldn't that mean if humans came they'd only attack Lyn? It was better to have cannon fodd- allies between them and themself. Lyn kicked another curious zombie away and stopped at the clothing section, looking for panties and a bra first.

Not being a stranger to clothing, they wore them witbout too much trouble and then picked out a sweat pants and shirt that fit them quite well before pushing the cart to the front of the store.