Kaius snored himself awake and looked with bewilderment around the dimly lit room. It was night now, the only light in the room came from the street lamps outside shining through the windows. He found Terry leaning against a wall, his eyes on the street outside.

  “Where are we?” Kaius asked while stretching and groaning on the floor, looking like an overfed housecat.

  “An empty house in Prairie Creek,” Terry said.

  “Why?” Kaius said with a yawn.

  “Escape wasn’t an option, and it won’t be unless you can make me strong again.”

  “Just do the same thing you did last time,” Kaius said casually, looking himself over. “Isn’t it crazy that I’m already used to the smell? I think I threw up about nine times in the cart, and now,” Kaius sniffed deeply, “nothing.”

  “I tried,” Terry said through gritted teeth. “For several hours while you slept. It won’t work.”

  “Huh, pretty sure it’s supposed to be a permanent change. I wonder what we did wrong.” Kaius scrunched up his face in thought. “Shame we don’t have grandfather’s books. Bet they’d have some insight into this.”

  “No, shit,” Terry muttered. “We’re going to need them. We can’t risk another escape attempt unless we’re sure all that extra strength won’t suddenly stop before we’re outside the city.”

  “Indeed,” Kaius stroked his chin.

  Terry clapped his hands together. “So, how about you run me through whatever it was you did last time? I use the super strength to sneak in and grab the books, then you figure out how to make the change permanent. After that, we bail. Good?”

  “Sure, one question though: how long have I been out?”

  “You’ve been unconscious for like ten hours, man. Wasn’t sure if you’d wake up.”

  “Unconscious? Oh, no. I was just asleep.”

  “Asleep?” Terry nearly choked on his own words as he struggled to keep himself from shouting. “I carried your fat ass all the way across town, I’ve been on watch this whole time!”

  “I get super sleepy when I’m in carts or being carried in general, plus I haven’t slept in over a day, and I’m sure the fumes didn’t help.”

  “Unbelievable,” Terry shook his head. “I literally kicked you multiple times trying to wake you up.”

  Kaius chuckled to himself. “That sounds like me. My mother used to dump cold water on me to wake me up.”

  “I’d have done that if I had some water just to alleviate some of the stench.”

  Kaius smelled his own arm, “I really can’t smell it. Fascinating.”

  “Can we please focus on the task at hand? People are definitely hunting us after that fiasco in the town center. I've seen multiple guards out searching, and they will kill us unless I’m strong enough to get us out of here.”

  “Oh yes, they most definitely want you dead, my memory is a bit fuzzy but I do remember you hitting a lot of people”

  “Me!?” Terry half shouted, “You killed the– you know what? Nevermind. Just talk me through the thing again.”

  An hour passed as they attempted to restore Terry’s strength with no success. The moon was high in the sky, and the city outside was quiet. Terry sat on the floor, his legs crossed, his hands balled into white knuckled fists in his lap.

  “I feel like you’re not connecting with yourself,” Kaius said.

  “I still don’t really know what that means or what I did the first time,” Terry said, standing up to stretch his nearly numb legs.

  “You’re saying the same words you did the first time, but you’re not feeling it, or some part of you disagrees with it or you need to clarify it. It’s all about identifying aspects of yourself that sort of resonate with your core self, your place in the world, how you see yourself, how others see you, junk like that…I think at least. Obviously I don’t have it exactly right because clearly whatever we did the first time didn’t stick so something I’m saying is off the mark.”

  “What though?”

  “If I knew that I wouldn’t need you. I tried to work through this a bunch of times while I was hiding by the shit pile. After my grandfather died I suspected it was possible to gain power as you did, and having it would have meant preserving my life, maybe even ascending the throne.”

  “You? Ascend the throne?” Terry looked at the fat boy with something between amusement and bemusement.

  Kaius shrugged. “Who could have stopped me? From what I've read, it’s all a big race. In my grandfather’s youth, something happened, and this power you tapped into, juice–”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Not juice.”

  “-it became widely available to everyone out of nowhere.” Kaius continued without stopping. “Those that learned to harness it first had the advantage, and no one could catch up to them. If I could figure this out myself, I’d use my abilities to take my grandfather’s place and usher in an era of science and growth.”

  “How did you kill him?” Terry blurted out.

  “Crossbow,” Kaius said as his eyes drifted down to the floor. “He wanted to practice catching arrows to impress people at this year’s festival. I don’t know how to use a longbow, so he handed me a crossbow. He missed a few and they didn’t hurt him, then he caught five in a row, and decided he wanted to try it with his eyes closed. He missed it by a hair, then he was gone. No dying words like in the stories…just gone.”

  “And then you ran.” Terry finished the story for him. Kaius only nodded.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes. Terry looked out the window while Kaius stared at the floor. The silence was at last broken by the impossibly loud rumbling of Kaius' stomach.

  “What in all hells was that?” Terry hissed, looking down at the fat boy’s stomach.

  “I’m a bit snacky.”

  “A bit snacky? I’ve heard rabid dogs with less menacing growls than that.”

  “Do we have any food?”

  “Food?” Terry held up his hands, looking all around him, “in this vacant house?”

  Kaius seemed unaware of the sarcastic tone, only staring hopefully at Terry.

  “No,” Terry said. Obviously, not.”

  “Can we get some?”

  “We can’t exactly walk into the market right now, maybe not ever. Not as we are anyway.”

  “Disguises?” Kaius asked, sounding excited.

  “For me, yes. For you, no.”

  “Why not me?”

  “Pick a reason. We don’t have clothes that fit you, nor can we easily find them given their size. And, even if we did find clothes, it’s not like we can ignore the fact that the guards and everyone else will be on the lookout for someone noticeably rotund. Clothes can’t hide all that,” Terry gestured loosely at Kaius’ frame.

  Kaius tipped his head, acknowledging the logic.

  “If you want to leave the house in disguise, food is the last thing you need.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean stop eating until you don’t look like you anymore.”

  “What?!” Kaius looked utterly shocked and disgusted by the suggestion.

  “Poor people do it every day. Trust me, it’s really not that hard when you don’t have a choice. And, you don’t. If you leave this house for food, you will likely die.”

  Kaius grew stern. “I would rather die,” he said, enunciating each word. “Food and reading are my only joys in life.”

  “Then I guess we’d better figure out how to get me strong again. The sooner I’m strong, the sooner we can leave.”

  Kaius growled the growl of a frustrated child being forced to clean their room or eat vegetables. “Fine. Sit down and close your stupid eyes.”

  ======

  Lu sat on top of an empty bar, drinking straight from a bottle of aged whiskey as she tried to remember her real name. Her tongue picked up the complex flavors, and her brain picked them out one by one without provocation.

  Oak. Orange peel. Vanilla. P-

  She shook her head to free it of the unwelcome thought. She hated whiskey, or at least she used to. It was vile stuff, and yet ever since she’d awoken in the town square she found herself craving it. There had been a moment after the shovel connected with her skull, a dark moment of peace, of nothingness, then her mind began to transition through the void into whatever existence came after death in this world.

  During that transition, she’d connected with others, others that were also her. She’d felt herself across infinite existences, and connected with herself as a painter, a writer, a poet, a queen, a chef, a soldier, a criminal, a librarian, a teacher, a horse rancher, even a distiller of fine whiskey. Pieces of them all still rattled about in her head, making themselves known whenever they had something to add. The thoughts themselves were her own, but the knowledge was not any she’d acquired during her time in this world. She’d worked at a bar, serving food and drink to patrons while having her behind pinched by perverts, drunks, and drunk perverts. The pay was shit, the work was shit, but there were worse jobs–shit shovelers for example.

  She was never going back to that life, not after she’d glimpsed the heavens before that bitch dragged her back to her old body. Lu had no idea what that thing was or why it wanted her to stay here, but through their struggle she’d gotten the distinct impression that it was female, and that it felt fondness for the man who’d killed her in the first place, which made her next goal very simple.

  Revenge.

  Her decision to fight the pull had been the right one, even if she’d lost, for in her struggle she’d gained so much. The brief time spent basking in the aura of the world beyond had begun to reforge her body, and the longer she remained, the more she changed. Now she was impossibly strong, her senses were somewhat heightened, and she’d gained a confusing additional sense. While she couldn’t see anything, she could feel the presence of something seeping into the world like a thin fog. It didn’t coat the entire world like it had in the heavens, but it was there. There was no telling what it was or what purpose it served, even her additional banks of knowledge from all the other “hers” she’d connected with after death had nothing to offer on the subject.

  She lost herself for a moment, letting her newfound sense run unchecked, and suddenly its purpose became clear as another force connected with the substance, sending out a ripple easily sensed by anyone paying attention. There was no denying who’d caused it, and she silently thanked the unnamed substance for fulfilling its purpose: helping her track down that shovel wielding piece of garbage, rip off both his arms, then shove one arm in each orifice and laugh while he shook his own hand.

  Lu tossed the bottle of whiskey at the wall sending droplets of liquor and glass shards all over the almost empty bar. Her terrified former employer, and the patrons huddled behind the bar on which she sat were unwise enough to leave upon her rather chaotic arrival. They all shrieked and covered their heads as glass and whiskey rained down. She hopped off the bar, and made her way toward the door, flipping a few tables as she walked with the flick of her finger. Some tables landed on the unconscious, or possibly dead, patrons who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves all those years, and she smiled.