And my clothes are ruined. My track jacket is literally torn on the right side—the sleeve is completely gone—and there are obvious holes in the back through which my T-shirt is visible. The T-shirt itself miraculously survived all the hardships, though I wouldn't mind replacing it. The jeans weren't damaged, but after the encounter with the Licker, they now have holes that clearly weren't part of the design, so they need to be replaced as well, though not as urgently. What else? Well, at least now I'm walking around barefoot. I don't feel any discomfort (I don't feel anything at all), but I don't like walking without shoes purely for aesthetic reasons. In general, clothing has become more of a symbol for me now—a kind of statement that I haven't sunk to the level of an ordinary, unkempt zombie.
By the way, speaking of sinking, Lisa was supposed to be smarter, yet here she'd acted more like a regular zombie. Even those moments of freezing didn't fit with intelligence, because there was nothing to think about at that point—throwing sneakers was the only odd move, and she froze even before that! Either her intelligence was exaggerated in the canon, or I'm missing something. Or maybe she didn't survive the explosion completely unscathed. Who knows?
With these thoughts in mind, I moved steadily toward the city. Screw this mansion and everything else—I'll climb into the sewers and from there make my way into the laboratory beneath the city. Or maybe I won't have to, because there will be crowds of people running around here, both protagonists and antagonists alike, and every second person will have a strain of the virus at one point or another. That's a decent bargaining chip in any negotiations, especially with Wesker.
When I reached the city, the first thing I noticed was a store… no, not a clothing store—otherwise that would have been almost mystical—but something far more mundane: a grocery supermarket. Without thinking twice, I decided to check whether I could eat normal, human food. Slipping past a couple of slowly wandering zombies, I entered through a window that had been broken long before I arrived. After giving the place a critical look, I headed for the produce section.
Why there? I have a chance to eat meat even now, fish falls into the same category—especially now that I could consume these products raw without any issues. So the simplest option was to try the same tomato, fortunately, there were washed ones available. I took a bite, and nothing. In fact, unlike meat and blood, it had no taste at all.
Following by an eaten tomato, I decided not to try another and reached for something else. A carrot shared its fate (washed and peeled), followed by an apple—it was called the produce section, after all, and there were fruits and berries there as well. I didn't have time to continue the feast, however, and for a very good reason. It felt as if a red-hot poker were being stirred around inside me. I started to choke, my stomach twisted with pain, my lungs refused to work, and, reflexively collapsing to my knees in another spasm, I simply emptied my stomach, returning the vegetables my body had rejected. The moment they left my system, all the pain vanished.
Damn it! A complete failure—not a normal diet for me.
Then I decided to run another experiment and went to the meat department, where I sliced off a small piece of pork with my claw, judging by the label. I swallowed it, noting with some relief that I could taste it, and that cheered me up a little. I waited half a minute, but no cramps followed, so I happily ate a decent portion of meat. Just like that, my hunger receded, and I realized I could eat more than just monsters and people—which was a definite plus. Now I just needed to find out whether fried or smoked meat would work as well. If so, that would be ideal.
In the meantime, I headed for the fish department. What can I say? Learning as much as possible about the needs of my own body is definitely a priority, and I've always loved fish.
The tests—as I proudly called my curiosity—showed that fish was also suitable for me, at least when raw. To my delight, my body didn't reject smoked fish either, though the taste was already somewhat dulled. Sausage, on the other hand, turned me off completely—the conclusion was obvious: too much soy and not enough meat. Damn semi-finished products and meat substitutes!
After snacking on some more raw meat, this time chicken and satisfying the hunger that had returned after the sausage fiasco, I moved on. Naturally, I didn't take anything with me. It seems silly to carry food around when almost the entire city is listed in this column. No, testing the suitability of various products was also idiotic—but I could excuse that with curiosity, and with the fact that I might have to pretend to be human someday. You never know what life will throw at you, and I won't be wandering alone forever without communication, or I really might go crazy. So, with some stretch, I could count all of this as a necessary experiment.
The next store on the same street was a gun shop. On the one hand, I should buy something; on the other—let's say I bought a pistol, then what? I didn't know how to use it, I'd never fired a gun before, and shooting would be noisy, which meant drawing attention. What was the point? Right—I could handle things on my own, and if I couldn't, a pistol wouldn't really help me anyway. Besides, the shelves in the store were half empty, which I could clearly see from the street, as well as the zombies staggering around inside. So, after weighing the pros and cons, I moved on.
I'd never had any admiration for shooting "toys," and I lacked the skills for anything more serious. No, of course, I could absorb a soldier or a police officer and try to learn shooting skills from their memories—but I was sorry to say that people with the knowledge I needed weren't lying around in the street, and zombies didn't have anything like that. I thought about it sadly as I stepped around the living corpse—an absurd phrase, if you think about it—of a police officer crawling along the road.