Driven by a newfound determination to find his sister, taken by the mysterious suited figures, Carter Clove pushed himself off the ground and began running in the direction the truck had gone.
While en route, Carter recognized he was moving far too slowly. At this pace, he would never have been able to follow the suited figures. Suddenly, the idea to use the buildings for navigation struck him. He considered jumping from rooftop to rooftop to avoid people and cars.
Carter dashed into the tallest building nearby and raced up twenty flights of stairs to the roof access. He quickly pushed through the door, hoping his plan would work.
He reached the top of the building, poised to jump to the next, when… "Tap. Tap. Tap." A familiar sound echoed, the same one from the day everything started. It was coming from a pipe behind him. Intrigued, Carter approached the pipe. Then, the pipes began shaking violently. Carter jumped back, anticipating something might happen. As the pipes calmed down, Carter sighed in relief, turning to resume his initial plan.
"PSHHTTT"
THE PIPES BURST!! Water surged towards him. Carter let it hit him, assuming it would pass right through, unconcerned. He was wrong. The pressurized water slammed into Carter, throwing him back and nearly causing him to fall off the building.
"Why didn't it go through me?" Carter said, confused.
Looking back at the water, he saw it swirling, forming a whirlpool eerily similar to the wave that had struck him before. Although he hadn't considered it then, it now made sense that the wave had brought him across the veil; he just didn't know how. The wave had been able to kill him and burst the pipes, both of which he had thought impossible.
Carter launched himself at the wave, attempting to punch it. His fist passed straight through. The wave then enveloped Carter's body, forming a ball around him, filling his lungs with water once again, drowning him. Struggling to escape, Carter began running as fast as he possibly could, the wave pursuing him. This chase lasted for half an hour before Carter turned and noticed the wave was significantly smaller than before, its volume of water reduced. Seeing this, Carter had an idea: "Could I beat it now?"
Carter ran towards the wave and punched it, forgetting his inability to affect it physically. Although the wave had lost a significant amount of water, it could still drown him. It began to engulf Carter with its remaining volume, and Carter screamed, terrified for his life.
While being drowned, Carter saw something: an orb within the wave's body. He immediately thought it was the core. Although he wanted to attack it, he couldn't muster the strength. So, he did the next thing he could think of to get rid of it… He ate the core of the wave.
Carter could feel the core moving frantically within his stomach, as if it would burst open. This continued for hours, until early the next morning, when his body completely absorbed it. Similar to when he killed the first monster and the green smoke entered him, he could feel his body undergoing changes at a molecular level. However, this time there was no pain. Instead, it flowed through him like a wave in the ocean.
Although Carter didn't feel much stronger physically, he knew something incredible had happened. He could now sense the water in the air, in the ground, in the pipes, even the water within human bodies. He could essentially feel all water within a ten-meter radius around him as if it were a part of his own body.
"What if I could control the water to…" Carter thought, holding out his hand and concentrating intensely on feeling the water, on being the water. In that moment, Carter felt as though he had become water itself, and yet he couldn't control it at all.
Carter's face flushed with embarrassment, relieved that no one could see him. Unbeknownst to him, at that very moment, Carter had literally become water, capable of interacting with the physical plane and beyond the veil.