Flora Bloom watched coolly from the side, intending to slip away on her own. But the conversation that followed between the four of them made her stop in her tracks.
"Violet, your hospital is pretty close. Why don't we take Neal there? Who knows if this wound will get infected." The speaker was the first man who had rushed in the door. He wore a black suit and rimmed glasses—clearly an office worker who wasn't the athletic type.
"Yeah, Violet. That monster from before looked just like a zombie from the movies. Since he was bitten, will he turn into one too?" This time, the speaker was another man in casual clothes. His outfit was simple, but he only had a slipper on one foot—the other was likely lost when he was running away.
'He looked like a typical nerdy slob.'
As he spoke, something seemed to dawn on him. He pointed at the injured man, Neal, and began to back away.
"That's right! That's what they always say in novels and movies! You can't recover after being bitten by one of those things! Look, his face is already turning ashen. He's about to become a monster!"
Flora Bloom took a moment to observe the injured man as well. He was wearing a tracksuit, and though he had a somewhat slender build, he looked clean and sharp.
And it was true. The man's face had turned a deathly gray, his lips completely drained of color. Most importantly, the wound on his arm had turned entirely black, and the blood there had become thick and had already congealed.
These were definite signs of turning into a zombie. Yet, the man was gritting his teeth, drenched in a cold sweat. Though his gaze was weak, he held on, refusing to make a single sound.
The will to live in his eyes made Flora Bloom see him in a new light.
'If this man can fight off the zombie virus, maybe he won't have to turn after all. If he can just get through this, he might even awaken a superpower, gaining a constitution and opportunities far beyond those of a normal person.'
At that moment, the man's words seemed to strike a nerve with the woman who had been so close to the victim. After a brief, stunned pause, she abruptly let go of his hand and began to back away in fear.
Without her support, the injured man collapsed. He stared at the retreating woman, his eyes filled with utter disbelief.
"Violet, you..." The fear and hesitation in her eyes wounded him deeply.
But the other two men pulled Violet back. They looked down condescendingly at the man on the floor and said, "Neal, the monster that attacked us was definitely a zombie. Lots of people outside have turned. You... you were scratched by one. If... if you become a zombie too, wouldn't that put Violet in grave danger?"
"Exactly. You're a man; you should be thinking about your girlfriend. It's chaos out there. The world might really be ending. If you turn into a zombie, what about us? We'd be in danger."
Neal's face had now turned completely gray, and his despairing eyes were beginning to film over with white.
The hurt and despair in the man's eyes resonated with Flora Bloom. 'It's just like that time in my past life,' she thought, 'when I was persecuted by Shelton Underwood. The same heartbreak, the same despair.'
Flora Bloom suddenly walked toward the group, stopping beside the injured man and reaching out to examine his wound.
'This man's body is already infected. The wound is so deep, and his face and eyes are already showing signs of zombification. But his will is still strong, keeping him from being completely taken over.'
'A person like this... if he survives and awakens a superpower, he'll be anything but ordinary.'
She knelt beside the man and asked in a low, calm voice, "Do you want to live?"
The man's face was contorted in pain, but he heard Flora Bloom's voice. He struggled to lift his eyes to look at her and, with every ounce of strength he had, forced a single word from his throat: "Yes."
Meanwhile, of the other three, the woman's gaze flickered toward the man on the floor, her expression full of hesitation.
The other two men, as if to steel her resolve, stepped forward to speak.
"Hey, we'd advise you to stay out of it. He's been scratched by a zombie; he's a lost cause. When he turns and eats you, don't say we didn't warn you."
"There are already a ton of zombies in the supermarket. They could break down the door any second. Violet, let's just go. It's really not safe here."
Flora Bloom ignored them. The woman, Violet, however, seemed to have made up her mind. She gave one last look at Neal, who was hovering between life and death, then turned and left with the other two men.
Once they were gone, Flora Bloom no longer held back. A bead of deep blue water materialized in her palm. She poured it over the man's wound, washing it clean.
This was something Flora Bloom had discovered after experimenting with her Water Ability a few times. The water summoned by her superpower was far more effective at cleaning things than regular water.
For example, after she summoned the deep blue water with her superpower and washed his wound, she was amazed to see that the gray, rotting flesh had become exceptionally clean.
The blood, once black and congealed, began to flow freely again.
Flora Bloom summoned more water and continued to cleanse the wound. After a few more rinses, the blood at the injury site faintly began to regain its red color.
But when she stopped, the wound slowly began to decay again, and the blood reverted to black.
'Wait a minute,' Flora Bloom thought. 'Could it be that the deep blue water from my superpower can suppress the zombie virus?'
So she repeated the process, washing the man's wound again. This time, she didn't just rinse it. She retrieved a large basin from her space, filled it with the deep blue water, and submerged the man's injured arm.
It was just as she'd suspected. After his arm had been soaking for less than three minutes, all the blood in the wound had turned back to red, and even the rotting flesh started to look better.
The wound itself, however, remained.
Flora Bloom felt a pang of disappointment. 'My superpower can suppress the virus, but it can't heal wounds. If it could, I'd basically be immortal in this apocalypse.'
'Then again, that's probably being too greedy,' she mused. 'I awakened my Water Ability early, and I was just stressing out about its lack of offensive power. But now I've discovered my Water Ability can actually suppress the virus. In the apocalypse, that's way more useful than any of those other random superpowers.'
'I mean, what good is an offensive superpower? You can't guarantee you'll never get injured or infected. But now, even if I get scratched by a zombie, my own superpower can fight the virus. This is the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card.'
'So what if it can't heal wounds? The river water in my space can heal wounds *and* restore stamina and my physical state.'
'My superpower, combined with my space...' Flora Bloom had to resist the urge to throw her head back and laugh maniacally. 'In this apocalypse, I, Flora Bloom, am basically an unkillable cockroach!'
Glancing at the man, who had now fallen unconscious, Flora Bloom filled a bottle with water from her space's river. Heedless of whether he might choke, she shoved it to his lips and began pouring it down his throat.
The man, who had been unconscious, was jolted awake by Flora Bloom's actions.
Startled by her forcing water down his throat, the man instinctively tried to resist, but her next words stopped him cold.
"Drink it if you don't want to become a zombie."
The man lay helplessly on the ground, sputtering and choking as he tried to swallow the water Flora Bloom was pouring for him, managing to get down only a fraction of it.
Then, something incredible happened.
The wound on his arm, still submerged in the basin, was slowly starting to heal.
The healing was slow, though. It was as if the water and the virus were fighting for territory. The more water there was, the more the virus receded, but if the water wasn't continuously supplied, the virus would immediately fight back.
Frowning at the man's wound, Flora Bloom conjured several more spheres of deep blue water. With a flick of her wrist, she directed them, and the spheres transformed into streams that poured into the basin.
Seeing the healing process speed up significantly, Flora Bloom continued to channel water into the basin while pulling out another bottle of her space's stream water for the man to drink.
Fortunately, as his wound healed, the man was already regaining some of his strength. Bolstered by the restorative properties of the water from Flora Bloom's space, within a few minutes, he was able to hold the bottle and drink on his own.
Watching the wound on his own arm go from a rotting mess to completely healed flesh, the man had no idea how to feel or act toward Flora Bloom.
'The person I love abandoned me at death's door, yet a complete stranger saved my life. How ironic.'
As Flora Bloom watched the deathly pallor recede from the man's face and his eyes regain their former clear, determined light, she felt a surge of accomplishment and marveled once again at her own good fortune.
'So my space, transformed and evolved by that blue crystal, didn't just give me this pocket dimension... it also helped me gain such a powerful superpower.'