Chapter 56 – Florida Man Struck by Lightning Bolts, Becomes Super Florida Man
50,000 Years Ago…
In a dark room inside a round structure with a flat metal surface, 10,000 3-meter-tall capsules trapped mutated humans inside while the green fluid prevented them from rotting. However, nobody was there to monitor their conditions. On the floor, a dozen corpses of humanoid creatures were already dried and decayed.
WHOOSH
The only entrance to this room was a sci-fi door. It automatically slid to the side as someone stood at the other side of the door. From a circular passageway, a thin silhouette of a human entered the dark lab.
The skeleton-thin middle-aged man with white hair looked around the room with his green eyes. He grumbled as he inspected the room, searching for survivors.
"Anybody there?! HELLOOOO?!"
HELLOOO
ELLOO
LOO
His voice echoed in the strange lab. The man scanned the room, searching for anything that he could use or eat.
Leo, who hadn't eaten anything since he woke up in the strange place, was desperate. He was starving, and he slowly lost the strength to walk or move. He looked around the room and found that it was similar to the place that he came from.
"WHERE IS THIS PLACE?!"
Because of the shock and panic, Leo forgot about the horror movie flags as one shouldn't shout or make a loud noise in a foreign place. Instead, he should have remained quiet to keep his presence hidden from potentially unknown entities.
As Leo dragged his feet to explore the room, he accidentally stumbled upon a corpse on the ground. As he fell, his hand reached out to grab something to balance himself.
BEEP
Leo's hand touched a console panel, and it lit up in green color. The strange machine activated, and the control panel became bright, including the large tube in front.
Leo looked up and found another mutated human in the tube. It looked like something from Resident Evil games as it had a zombie-like face and disfigured limbs. Fortunately, this was not Leo's first time that he saw another mutant.
The thin middle-aged man sighed and looked at his arms and hands. His hands were twice bigger than Shaq's hands, and the green cysts on his face were the same as many zombie monsters in the capsules.
*COUGH*
Leo vomited a mouthful of green liquid. His stomach churned as if something inside was eating his innards.
"Damn cancer cells! Just kill me!"
Confused and frustrated, Leo punched his stomach. The impact dizzied him, but he somehow felt better.
*BLECH*
Again, Leo hurled more liquid from his mouth. This time, a one-foot-long larva came out along with the puke. As if it knew that it was no longer inside its host, it turned around and looked at Leo.
HISS
Its face split open like a flower. Then, it crawled toward Leo.
"GO TO HELL!"
Leo mustered his feeble strength and stomped it.
SPLASH
It was crushed and splattered green liquid everywhere.
Leo panted in exhaustion. He slightly leaned backward to bend his back while he shut his eyes tight.
"UGH!"
After the stretch, Leo felt a lot better. The pain in his stomach was gone.
While Leo was about to give up living, the capsule in front of him suddenly released the pressure inside the container. The green liquid decreased, and the mutated zombie in the tube collapsed to the bottom of the container.
Leo sighed and looked at the dead zombie in pity.
"Sucks to be you. Just don't wake up."
Fortunately, such a scenario didn't happen. A long metal, attached with sharp blades, slowly descended from the top of the capsule. It pressed the corpse to the bottom of the container, and it started spinning.
WHIZZ WHIZZ
Leo felt nauseous. That capsule turned into a blending machine, slicing and grinding the mutated corpse inside into mincemeat. Despite the disgust, Leo kept watching, wondering what the machine tried to do.
A few minutes later, the capsule finished turning the zombie into red juice. It retracted the blades and filled the tube with yellow liquid.
Red blood and mysterious yellow fluid turned into orange HUMAN juice. Leo's expression turned dark as he imagined himself drinking it.
GROWL
Because of such a thought, Leo got hungry. His stomach rebelled, forcing him to bend forward in pain.
The capsule didn't end there. After mixing the juices together, the machine added strange powder into the container. Then, the same blades descended to stir the juice.
WHIZZ WHIZZ
Nothing traumatized and captivated Leo more than watching this strange machine mixing something inhuman. Leo noticed that it started throwing random grass, leaves, monster bones, and strange meat into the container.
WHOOSH
While Leo kept watching, the other capsules also activated. They repeated what the machine in front of Leo did, crushing the mutants inside and militating them into red juice.
Leo no longer had the strength to walk or leave this room. He sat there and looked at his side, finally noticing the dried corpse that he had stumbled on.
"Oh, you. What are you?"
It was not a human corpse as its skull was too big. It also had big hands and long fingers like Leo. Moreover, it had white hair.
Leo bitterly smiled. He remembered that he woke up on a single bed, and many tubes were inside him, filling his body with white fluid. His mouth was also covered by a strange mask, feeding him nitrogen-like gas.
Thinking of how his current state looked like the corpse of this creature, Leo wondered if this alien mistook him as one of its kind and tried to resurrect him. Unfortunately, something killed the alien before Leo could find out the truth behind the experiment and his resurrection.
PZZSSSHHHH
Finally, the machine in front of Leo finished blending and mixing random substances. The capsule glass turned red, and Leo could feel the heat.
However, inside the glass, only a suspicious finger-sized ball was left behind. Moreover, the capsule glass was open, allowing Leo to access the content.
Seeing the strange ball, Leo had a sick thought. He wondered if it was edible. Because of hunger, he no longer cared about the ingredient of this weird ball.
Leo stood up and reached out to grab it.
SCREECH
Unfortunately, the ball immediately transformed into a larva, similar to the thing that Leo had crushed earlier. It jumped and opened its flower mouth, trying to bite him.
"DAMMIT"
Leo punched the creature by reflex. Although he didn't use much strength, the creature was shattered upon impact, splashing its green blood everywhere.
After killing the monster, Leo bitterly smiled. He turned toward the other capsules in the large room as they were also creating a similar creature.
"I take it back. This is hell."
Leo turned around and gathered his last bit of strength to leave. But as he looked at the alien corpse, he noticed glittering objects on him.
On the alien's fingers, Leo found five rings of different colors.
Curious, Leo returned to the corpse and pulled out the rings. Again, it was his reflex as a former Florida Man.
"Ah, crap."
Unfortunately, out of five rings, four were broken in half upon touch. Only one remained intact. Leo put the clear gold ring on his finger and admired it.
WHOOSH-CLICK
Leo's luck was downright terrible. The door automatically closed and locked Leo inside the room. At the same time, the 9,999 capsules finished creating 9,999 alien larvae.
Seeing how his situation changed from bad to worse, Leo was on the verge of giving up. He sat down and waited for the larvae to find him.
"That's enough. I'm out. Let me die."
Leo bitterly laughed and rubbed the gold ring. He deeply sighed and prayed for a quick death.
DING
As Leo was about to close his eyes and lie down, a semi-transparent blue screen appeared in front of Leo. It showed strange moon rune language at first, but Leo somehow understood them. He read the first sentences on the screen.
<Identifying New User…>
"Huh?"
<Confirming New User's Data...>
<Confirming New User's Identity…>
<New User's Karma Identified.>
<New User's Gnosis Identified.>
<Evaluating Compatibility with Entity Fate Crystal…>
<Evaluating Completed! Compatibility Rate: 99.10 %!>
<Merging New User's Gnosis and Karma with Entity Fate Crystal…>
"What?"
Leo didn't understand anything as the message popped up so fast. Before he could even comprehend what the message meant, the golden ring already merged with his finger.
Instantly, Leo could no longer breathe. His body slowly floated, and his skin emitted rainbow light. A million small worms suddenly emerged from the pores of his skin, and they extended everywhere, turning him into a porcupine.
CLANK-CLANK
The tiny tentacles from Leo's skin crushed the machine, ceiling, floor, walls, larvae, corpses, and random objects. They melt every metal and creature. Then, they sucked the liquid into Leo's body.
The thin body of Leo absorbed the nutrition from the tiny tentacles even though they were made of metal material or glass. He even took in the green fluid of the larvae and the corpses of aliens.
The tentacles kept melting and sucking fluid while Leo looked around in confusion. Then, his consciousness slowly faded, and his heart stopped beating.
.
"Umm."
Leo didn't know how long he had died or slept. He felt like something zappy and tingling hit his chest so hard that his heart resumed beating. Slowly, Leo opened his eyes.
When Leo could see everything clearly again, his first sight was a thick black thundercloud. It rumbled and flashed countless strings of light.
"Oh, a thunderstorm?"
BANG
As soon as Leo talked, a lightning bolt struck his chest. The terrifying heat and the electricity instantly burnt half of his body. He could even sense the heat frying his soft brain.
However, a blue screen showed up, informing Leo.
DING
<Warning: You are under attack.>
<Your current lifespan: 1,150 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
"What?"
Leo was confused. He didn't even have enough time to check his current appearance or the surroundings as the new lightning bolt came for him.
BOOM
Once again, Leo felt like he was burnt alive.
DING
<Warning: You are under attack.>
<Your current lifespan: 650 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
In one hit, Leo's lifespan decreased by 500 years. However, it was far from over.
"Son of a…!"
Leo grasped the gist of the situation. He looked up and tried to predict the timing to dodge the lightning bolt.
However, before the next lightning bolt came, Leo's constitution changed. He felt that some of the heat transferred to his hair and fingers. Moreover, some of the residual energy merged with his muscle fibers and blood cells.
DING
<Your current lifespan: 1,350 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
Leo's lifespan bounced back. Not only it refunded the decreased years, but Leo also gained 200 years extra!
"Eh? How?"
BOOM
Before Leo could react, the next strike landed directly on his head. Leo's consciousness blacked out for a few seconds, and he fell to his knees.
DING
<Warning: You are under attack.>
<Your current lifespan: 350 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
RUMBLE
The thunderclouds echoed in the sky. As if heaven waited for Leo to recuperate, no lightning came for him when he was unconscious.
A few minutes later, Leo regained his sense. He swore that he saw the River Styx and the Grim Reaper on a ferry boat. However, the reaper chased him away, saying that Samsara God rejected him.
DING
<Your current lifespan: 1,550 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
Leo didn't know how, but the fried brain cells were resurrected, and he could feel their presence inside him. He could even command them to move around. Furthermore, he could tell what each cell thought of him.
"What the hell? What am I?"
BOOM
The next strike came when Leo least expected it. Again, the thunderclouds headshot him. However, this time, Leo didn't fall unconscious.
DING
<Your current lifespan: 1,350 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
DING
<Your current lifespan: 1,750 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days, 14 Hours, 43 Minutes.>
The damage was also a lot less, and his body somehow adapted to the recovery process. Leo was no longer injured by the lightning anymore.
Getting addicted to the lightning strikes, Leo looked up and challenged heaven, "Do it again! I love it!"
BOOM
Unfortunately, the next strike didn't come for him. It hit something else.
Finally, Leo looked around the check his surroundings. He then found himself in the same mysterious room, but the ceilings were blasted open. Upon further inspection, Leo found several floors and the rough structure of a massive damaged spaceship.
BOOM
BOOM
It was too late for Leo to inspect the spaceship as lightning bolts started destroying modules and melting metal objects. The white lightning bolt changed their color to red, and they were as sharp as lightsabers. Everything that the red lightning bolts hit, they left behind red melting holes and lava.
"Shit. WAIT! THERE ARE THINGS THAT I HAVEN'T EXPLORED YET!"
