I think if you make the bird a pet or something loved it would better get the point across but it's still a little weak because you want to show large stakes. Having her friends laboring to breathe is very good! I'd recommend having a death actually occur, not by your main character, but maybe as something that happened in the past to someone else.
You don't think the death of a bird would be enough without it being a pet? To add context of how I see the scene with the bird. Imagine this; She just reached her this level. She feels like she is in full control. She runs around really fast, punches rocks. Just testing herself. Then she tests the time-slowing-perception skill. She sees a bird flying. It is as if it is still in midair. She gets close to look at it. When time returns to normal it falls out of the sky. She realized that even though she didn't touch it, she killed the bird. Her power is so high to crush the soul of small animals just be being near them. Then again. I was more curious in your case of how you would feel to be blessed with this power or cursed with it. Which ever you may consider it.
I think that things would feel approximately the same, until they actually break. You know those tubular ice cream wafers that you can easily crush between two fingers or with your teeth? Or an expensive chocolate with a very, very thin shell? They're incredibly fragile, but they still feel hard until you break through them. Perhaps the word might stop being "hard" and become "crisp", but the fundamental sensation is still the same--it's a firm unyielding surface, until it's a broken surface. Imagine that the ice cream wafer gets even more thin and fragile. It could get quite a bit more fragile, and you could still pick it up without breaking it, as long as you were mindful of your own strength--you can control the amount of force that you apply. Now, that would be one of your questions. We all have a range of strength--we can pick up a quite fragile object ever so carefuly without breaking it, and we can crush things that are quite a bit less fragile. Would this character's range of strength stay the same at the bottom, and then just go up and up and up, so that she could pick up an ice cream wafer between two fingers without crushing it if she chooses, but crush an iron pipe between two fingers if she chooses? Or would the bottom of the range go up, too, so that she would have to re-learn how not to crush everything? That decision is entirely up to you. Actually, it could be interesting if her range went crazy in BOTH directions, so that she could hold a soap bubble between two fingers without bursting it. (Or something similarly fragile. I don't know if it's force or breaking surface tension or something else that bursts a soap bubble.) I think it would probably feel hard and crisp, like breaking a CD jewel case--or something like a CD jewel case but even thinner and more brittle. (Edited: Potato chip?) Or it might feel like ripping open one of those plastic bubble containers that various consumer goods come in--more stretchy than the jewel case, so that it deforms and tears rather than cracks. Maybe like fudge. Sand is already separated, whereas this would be a gummy substance that sticks together but that she can easily deform.
You're awesome! I like the soap premise. I will have to remember that. It reminds me of an idea of someone else like this. As in same level of power but a full control. The premise was that he caught an explosion. The idea was that he unleashed a film of energy around the force of the explosion and wouldn't let the explosion well explode. I guess the premise is similar even if different. lol. At moments like this when I say something powerful out of context I get nervous I sound like my ideas are too overpowered. lol
Oh, I already explained how I'd feel about the power. You asked me what I thought about the scenario with the bird and her friends and that's why I answered further. I'm sure you'll get some other great responses.
I'm a bit of an analytical type and I would try and assess how much I've grown in ability. In a giddy, excited way.
