Chapter 6: Rescue

What does it feel like to wake up from hunger? Like someone clamped a wrench onto your gut and twisted. Over. And over. Until it felt like your insides were being wrung dry. The kind of pain that makes you curl up like a boiled shrimp, teeth clenched, fists buried in your stomach. He didn't think he was lucky to be alive. He didn't think anything, really—except that everything hurt, and he was definitely not dead. New bedding. New air. A ceiling that wasn't metal. His brain registered all of it, but didn't exactly process. It was like information was flowing in but not sticking. Just static. "Welcome back, stranger." The voice was old. Gravelly. Belonged to a wiry man with a head of white hair and a mustache that looked like the only thing on him that had ever been trimmed on purpose. He sat by an unlit fireplace, a half-filled glass of cheap amber whiskey in hand. So... that guy was talking to him? The thought sparked a flash of pain in his head, like someone drove an icepick straight into his temple. The hunger twisted again in his gut, but the headache somehow drowned it out. Still, something had changed. His mind wasn't the mess it had been. The flood of chaotic signals from his enhanced senses had—somehow—been sorted. Not quiet, but manageable. He blinked. Wait a minute—was the old man speaking English He'd studied it in school. Barely. Just enough to fail the entrance exam and cry about it. In a normal conversation, he'd maybe catch one word in ten. But this? He understood it. Every word. Wait—how? The thought barely formed before another spike of pain punched through his skull, like his brain didn't appreciate being questioned. The old man raised an eyebrow, watching the play of expressions across his face. Confusion. Realization. Pain. Panic. Grimace. The whole show. "...Jesus," the old man muttered under his breath. "Did I just rescue a lunatic?" He shifted slightly, his hand drifting behind the chair—where a shotgun rested in the shadows. Just in case. But then the man on the bed moved. Not to attack. To eat. He saw the food—cold fries, a dense roll of bread—sitting beside the bed, and lunged for it like a starving wolf. And truly, he was starving. His body demanded fuel. His cells were screaming for energy, every fiber still riding the wave of solar-charged transformation. Any normal human, after prolonged starvation, would've retched from that kind of solid food. But his digestive system? Forged in fire. He could've eaten rebar and probably broken it down for protein. Still, even eating wasn't easy. From the first bite, his senses kicked in again—hyper-responsive, hypersensitive. Every crunch, every grain of starch, every trace of oil triggered a thousand reactions, every one of them fed back into his brain like diagnostic reports. He didn't just eat the food—he experienced it. In frames. Like someone had paused time and annotated every molecule. It wasn't just a meal—it was data. And his brain struggled to parse it all. The fries tasted of starch, yes—but also dozens of trace elements, oils, and flavoring agents he couldn't identify. It was like staring at a half-completed puzzle, glaring at all the missing pieces. Frustrating. Maddening. But strangely... grounding. The confusion, the irritation—it helped. Like a tangled knot finally being tugged into clarity. His mind, once overwhelmed, began to thread itself into something resembling order. To the old man, it probably looked like nothing more than a few seconds of twitchy chewing and twitchier blinking. Then... calm. Then, realization. The man on the bed looked down at himself. He was completely naked. He yelped like a kicked puppy and grabbed the blanket, pulling it up to his chest in a panic. The old man just stared, unimpressed. "Don't get all modest now," he said, dryly. "You were face-down on the beach yesterday, butt-naked and half-dead. The surf was washing you like you were laundry on spin cycle." He took a sip of whiskey. "I figured people don't usually bathe like that. Took me half an hour to drag your freezing carcass to my truck and get you back here. Dried you off, dumped you on my only bed, and passed out from the effort. You're welcome, by the way." He gestured lazily to a bundle of clothes nearby. "Didn't see any luggage. So... that's what I got. Don't complain." The words came through clearly. Crystal clear. And the man on the bed couldn't explain how he understood them—but he did. No subtitles. No guesswork. Just comprehension. He didn't waste time overthinking it. Just grabbed the shirt and tried to pull it over his head. Riiiiip. The shirt tore like paper. He froze. Looked down. His arms. His chest. His strength was still out of whack. He and the old man locked eyes. Awkward silence. "...Okay," the old man muttered, rising from the chair and pulling another shirt from a nearby pile of clothes. "Try this one. Maybe don't hulk out this time." The new shirt was at least clean—sort of. Smelled like it had been washed, if not folded. That was good enough. This time, he moved slowly. Deliberately. Carefully working the shirt over his head and onto his arms without shredding it. The pants followed. He stayed under the blanket as he slipped them on—because modesty wasn't dead, apparently. No underwear. No socks. No complaints. The clothes were a size too small, but his frame was so thin they still fit. Just barely. Sleeves short. Pants riding high. But it was something. And for the first time since the crash, the chaos, the blackout— He was warm. He was clothed. And he was awake.