As soon as the others are in view of the door, we bid Ella farewell and make our way out the back of the product design room through the maintenance door. A space usually reserved for resupplying materials and extra ventilation, and into the narrow strip of pathing that ran around the eastern side of the school. Ideally, we would have gone straight through the overflow car park and into the playground the younger years used during their break time.

  Sadly, the school's design had other ideas in the form of two tall green metal fences, each with a padlocked gate officially used to keep out intruders. Unofficially, it was there to stop kids sneaking in late to avoid detention as there has never been an intruder with school grounds, partly due to yet another large fence sounding the whole campus and the few security personnel that are probably dead or running off to find loved ones.

  Regardless, the fences were a problem or would have been roughly 15 minutes ago. Now, they were an excuse to use my nausea-inducing ability: 'Huh, not quite the flex I thought it would be.' Heading to the first gate, I placed my hand on the lock and called upon the foreign Power deep within my gut, dragging and ripping it through my body and into the cold metal.

  Without delay, the sickness hits me like a train; my insides churn like I swallowed a whirlpool that wreaked havoc on my insides. Overwhelming dizziness begins to set in, as though the ground beneath me shifts and tries to swallow me whole. Waves of nausea rise up, making my mouth go dry, and every blink begins to feel like a disorienting leap trying to drag me through time and space. The world becomes a blur, my body struggling to untangle the conflicting signals from my senses.

  But I hold on. It's not like feeling sick was new to me. In fact, years of Chronic nausea from IBD have made it an old friend, and this brief stint of discomfort was nothing to the pure joy of having a superpower. So I pushed on, and soon, the lock melted into a metallic liquid that pooled onto the floor as I gagged and retched for a brief moment.

  "Shit the bed, that sucks," I spit onto the floor. 'It said I could eat anything, right? Maybe I should just eat the next lock? Then again, practice is practice.'

  "Is that your Power? To melt things?" Asks Noah.

  I raise my finger to my lips and begin to whisper into Noah's ear.

  'Damn, I am a paranoid bastard.' Although my paranoia may be warranted as a young man, I vaguely recognised from the common area burst out of a glass door with a confident stride. I quickly step away from Noah and pull out the hammer I had tucked into my waistband as I eye the stranger warily.

  Not that any of that was necessary. While the young man had an air of confidence around him and strutted out of the door like he owned the place, as soon as they saw us, he stopped dead in his tracks and visibly paled like he saw a ghost.

  "Hello?" Noah said, still not drawing his hammer, as he stepped forward. But despite the seemingly friendly gesture, the stranger started hyperventilating as he stepped backwards, staring directly at…Me? I know I was holding a hammer, but my skinny ass was significantly less imposing than the 6ft 3 pile of athletic muscle ahead of me.

  I tilt my head in confusion as I stare at the short man, taking in his bleach-blonde hair and hazel eyes. 'What is going on?'

  Before I could ask that question, he burst into a series of panicked apologies and sobs. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't know you would be here, please Cala… I'm sorry…"

  "What are you talking about?" Noah asks in complete bafflement as I stare at him, wondering if this is some kind of trick. I quickly look around but don't see anything out of the ordinary, and by the time I look towards the odd man again, all I can see is his back as he runs away.

  "What in the fuck was that?" My question fills the empty air as I stare off after the man in confusion.

  "Did you know him?" asks Noah in equal confusion.

  "Dude, I don't even know my neighbours, and I'm pretty sure at least one of them has seen me naked through a window," I responded before turning back around and heading over to the lock, mulling the interaction over in my mind.

  "So people don't usually call you Cala… or Cam? And then run away crying?" Noah spares one last glance at the now out-of-site man and turns to follow me.

  "Not for free, they don't," I muttered, thinking the situation over. Finding no reasonable answer, I decided to push it to the back of my mind and focus on the immediate situation: theft. And you know, the apocalypse game show I was now sharing in. 'Maybe I should have taken drama; I didn't know I was going to be in the pictures. Please focus, brain.'

  Reaching the second lock, I began melting it, but this time, I tried to liquefy only a tiny portion to preserve my energy. To my surprise, it worked. I guided the energy to a specific part of the lock, reduced it to a liquid slag, and recalled the leftover Power back into my body while fighting back the need to empty my stomach and failing. Quite miserably, I might add.

  Noah politely didn't comment on my inability to keep my breakfast down and heaved the heavy gate open before changing the subject. "Soooooo, you can melt things?"

  "Kind of…" I pause momentarily as I consider my answer before saying, "I can change the state of matter but can't affect the temperature." I answer in a hushed tone and leave it at that. Sure, Noah was a friend, but in truth, that's because of our parents and the close proximity of our houses, allowing us to walk to school together, rather than a deep mutual respect or my award-winning personality.

  What about you? What did you get?" I ask as we continue around the back of the two-story brick school towards the sports storage lockers.

  'Plus, I'm not sure how seven people with random abilities will change anything. Maybe there's more to it? Like a gauge or something. If we can't survive, then they lower the difficulty?' I think internally as we crouch under windows to avoid being spotted.

  "My Power is that I'm hard…" Noah starts before a scream cuts him off. He looks at me with concern, but I gently shake my head, and we keep going.

  "And here I thought you were just happy to see me." I joke to try and lighten the mood.

  He snorts, "The message thing said I have harder crystal-like cells that mildly increase my strength and greatly increase my defence."

  "Hmmm, we are going to need to test all of our powers out when we get time," I say while considering different training programs for our powers and new adaptive bodies.

  Once we pass the windows of the school building, we jog past the exterior of the gym hall and go up the narrow wheelchair-access ramp, where we find ourselves in the shadows of the tall green metal fences with wooden bases surrounding the astroturf fields. Pausing for a moment, we take stock of our surroundings but find nothing but piles of dust and dead bodies of teachers that I can only assume were past the age range due to the general lack of disembowelment.

  Stolen story; please report.

  'Is the smell going to be an issue in the future?'

  A deep, distant roar breaks me out of my thoughts. We froze for a few moments, but no other sounds accompanied it, so we continued to make our way to the storage cupboard but with a noticeable increase in pace and quieter whispers.

  Keeping a low profile, we round the corner and finally see our first destination: a blue metal door and brick shed-like structure sticking out the side of the sports department.

  'Appears to be locked; let's hope it's untouched.'

  As we approach the sports locker, I press my finger against the lock like a key. My touch melts the locking mechanism, causing a stream of liquid metal and plastic to cascade down the door. When I release my control, the materials solidify again, returning to their original state, freezing as if welded to the door.

  I take a few moments to dry heave before going in while Noah keeps a lookout. It took a few seconds to find the light switch in the dark, but once I could see, I quickly grabbed the rounder bats and balls to store them in my inventory. I disregard the brightly colored sports bibs and tennis rackets before heading out the door. With the first objective completed Noah and I then set off to our second destination, the athletics shipping container.

  To get to said shipping container, we needed to pass the two large Astroturf fields and half of the athletic track. This does mean that we are out in the open for any prying eyes and could easily be ambushed on the way back. But on the upside, it is far quieter due to the fields neighbouring the local nature reserve.

  'Or that's just my paranoia speaking. After the athletics container, I want to hit up the nature reserves maintenance container for all of its potential goodies.'

  I glance at the corpses before continuing across the fields. 'Oh, I didn't know Miss Davies was over 38; she aged well,' I think before my vision is once again held hostage by flashing blue text.

  [First set event: Nature's return has begun. Plants were here before humanity and will be here long after they have died out. Botanical nomenclature will rapidly grow, evolve and mutate as it seeks to cover the land it has lost due to humanity's pollution and selfishness.]

  'Well fuck a duck and call me a goose; I thought we would have more time before more Godly fuckery.' As the message begins to fade from view, the sounds of creaking wood begin to fill the air, the small weeds on the side of the path start to grow rapidly, more than doubling in size, and the trees we could see through the astroturf fields almost seemed to explode. Branches multiplied, leaves grew in size and became increasingly vibrant shades of green. Thick pollen clings to the air and travels along the breeze, making Noah sneeze. Wooden trunks shoot into the sky, now towering over the fences that once dwarfed them.

  After a few moments, the air stilled again as the growth slowed to a less visible and, quite frankly, less disturbing rate. Noah and I took a few seconds to stop staring blankly at the now significantly more visible trees in awe.

  Snapping out of my daze, I grin at the blatant display of Power and wonder if I could ever do anything like that.

  "Javelins kind of seems redundant after that." I quipped.

  "Yup," Came Noah's stunned response.

  "What to get them anyway?" I ask.

  "Yup," He said, popping the P at the end before heading towards our destination.

  At first, our steps are hesitant, almost reluctant, but soon, they morph into a full sprint. We blur past the astroturf fields, their synthetic green giving way to the uneven, worn edges of what was once a perfectly manicured lawn but was now a patchwork of flowers, brambles, and knee-high grass that fought to reclaim its freedom.

  Beyond the field, past the towering fences, the nature reserve stretched out, its ancient trees now looming above us, their long shadows spilling across the edges of the field, merging with the dense, untamed undergrowth. Once, I knew this small forest like the back of my hand, its winding trails a place where I would lose track of the shit show of the World around me. But now, it felt alien—an untamed wilderness in a world that was rapidly becoming a land of uncertainty. A faint smile tugged at my lips even as the mutated greenery exhaled a quiet almost too heavy, a silence that made us halt in our tracks.

  We paused briefly to stare at the familiar yet foreign landscape in a weird sense of deja vu and trepidation. Cautiously, I poke the grass with my trainers and quickly draw it back. After a few moments of nothing happening, I step into the tall grass and wait as Noah watches with his hand on my shoulder, ready to pull me out if the plants turn out to be hostile. It was a stupid thought, especially after nothing happened for a solid minute, but I would challenge anyone not to be hesitant after finding out Gods are real, watching multiple people die in seconds and seeing nature rapidly evolve to be here "After humanity died out." It wouldn't surprise me if one of the events made plants evil or some shit.

  Regardless, after I wasn't turned into fertiliser, we ran through the large open fields, avoiding the thorny brambles threatening to trip us, towards the pale blue shipping container used to store the athletic equipment. It didn't take long to undo the lock as I did my best to instruct my Power to melt a tiny sliver of metal through visualisation and a general gut feeling that wasn't nausea. I had no idea if the mental gymnastics helped, but it opened the container and let us steal the javelins and after a moments thought, the shot puts it contained.

  "Should we head back now?" Noah asks me while keeping an eye out as I shoved the last of the heavy metal balls into my inventory.

  "I was actually thinking about breaking through to the nature reserve. That way, we are less likely to be ambushed on the way back, and we can loot the maintenance container. They have machetes," I responded while coming out of the container.

  "Hmmm, I don't think there are enough people left in the school to worry about an ambush, but machetes sound useful," he replied after a moment.

  I just shrugged at his reasoning. He was probably right, but we were in the open and couldn't be the only people thinking of stealing the best stuff from the school.

  "But we shouldn't leave the others for too long; you know where you're going?"

  I nod confidently despite the nature reserve changing before my eyes mere minutes ago. "It's like a 10-minute round trip. We should be good,"

  Noah just nods at my words, and we are once again running through the school grounds. Usually, I would have been slightly winded by now because, let's be honest, training cardio sucks ass. But the enhanced stamina from my new abilities was paying dividends, and I didn't feel any fatigue as we jogged over to the metal-wired fence. Where I slowly but surely melt each wire to make the perimeter of a small semi-circle just above the ground. I then proceeded to spend twice as long vomiting out any food left in my body while Noah crawled through the gap I had made.

  As I waited for the small opening to be clear, I pondered my weird situation more. Despite throwing up twice today, an odd fullness lingered, which is strange because I haven't eaten lunch. 'It said I could eat or breathe anything, so maybe I'm eating air?' Despite the ever-growing pile of questions, I put my churning mind to rest as I crawl through the gap and lead Noah into the surprisingly thick forest. It takes me a moment to get my bearings and find the remains of a gravel path cut up with recently exposed roots. It leads us through the now vibrant nature reserve, and I jump over an overgrown wooden fence to see the dark green container sitting at the back of the leisure centre. An area usually reserved for the nature reserves volunteer group and poorly locked roof access. Not that there was much up on the roof, but the thrill of practicing my rudimentary lock picking skills along with breaking and entering was mildly entertaining for a few weeks.

  'Although I suppose lock picking is kind of redundant now,' I stared at the newly melted lock and threw up; this time, Noah went in to get the loot while I emptied my guts as my world was once again spinning violently, forcing me to my knees to catch my breath and centre myself.

  'How am I vomiting air? Shit makes no sense. It just comes out as a thick gas.'

  When Noah finished looting the container of ropes and Billhook Machetes into his inventory, we quickly left the back of the leisure centre and hurried through its car park until we were at the school's main entrance. From there, it only took a quick trip back to the side car park, where we planned to meet the others.

  Finally, after reaching Noah's car and seeing the others, we came to a stop, giving my aching stomach and muscles a much-needed break. Even with my supposed super lungs, I found myself slightly out of breath and grateful for the brief break.

  "Finally." I try to stretch my sore muscles and look around. "Wait, where's Sam?"