Getting one of the hair ties for animal care meant I could make dry food appear out of thin air and place it in a bowl on the front porch. That turned out to be a very clever trick. I also filled up the watering bowl and placed it next to the food bowl. The kitten started eating, and I remained beside her, sitting on the ground.
“I think the tag around your collar was more to comfort me,” I said to the kitty. “But I don’t want to call you Unkillable, because… I don’t know. It just doesn’t fit.”
The kitty glanced up, but kept eating because it seemed like it hadn’t eaten in a while.
“Unkillable isn’t necessarily a name someone gives a cat. Or any pet. Seems like you’re just tempting fate at that point. No, I’m pretty sure this was just a message to comfort me.”
I watched the kitten licking up some water, and I couldn’t help it and ran my hand down her back again. She seemed positively unbothered now that she had food and water.
“Killie?” I asked.
Again, the kitten kept her focus on what was in front of her. It made me smile.
“I like Killie better. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a good mouse chaser. I did see a few mice holes in the house.”
The kitten purred. She was finished with her food, so with little fanfare, she walked off the front porch and moved around the house. I smiled to myself, wondering if I was a cat person. I got up, following the kitten, but she just walked over to the cement slab outside the covered back porch and stretched before curling up in a ball and taking a nap. It was probably better that way. Considering I was done with my to-do list, I was ready to throw away the entire day to make sure Killie that kitty was situated well in her new life.
I used up the rest of my stamina sticking more logs into the chicken coop, as well as stockpiling some firewood, sticks, and matches in the storage area. Once that was done, I went over to the greenhouse and got another box of soil ready. Maybe I could try potatoes or something.
Killie walked into the greenhouse, rubbing her body against my legs as I worked on the second soil bed, making sure I wore my faded overalls.
It was nice. This was the aspect of the games that I enjoyed. An entire day free to do what I needed to keep my farm running and my house clean. I got two of the potatoes from the storage area and cut them up, placing them in the soil before watering them. The neutral party above me didn’t stop me, so I did it. If I could get ten potatoes for every two, that would be really nice. I watered them, then watched the plants start to grow at an impossible rate.
It was early evening time by the time I moved around the front porch to make sure Killie’s food bowl was replenished and she had water. Then I bought a cleaning apron now that I was level five and was given the power to wash the walls.
Whoever lived here was a smoker. Yes, I should have realized that with the multiple ashtrays full of cigarette butts, but the walls in the bedroom especially were yellow. I cleaned the walls of the bedroom and kitchen to give it that extra nice sheen. It was now difficult looking at the carpet and knowing I couldn’t vacuum it. These rooms were so close to being done, and I couldn’t finish them because there was no electricity.
Once the walls were done, I dove into the living area. I tried to only focus on this one room, because it was too easy to consider this room and the entertainment room as one. The living room was such a mess, and it somehow got messier the more the kitchen and the bedroom got cleaned. I needed to tame this beast.
Killie walked inside the house, wandering around, observing everything. A mouse scampered across the room, and Killie watched it, almost curious.
“Catching those would be nice,” I said, gesturing toward the mouse. Killie gave me a look that said she’d think about it. “I mean, I do love your company and everything. But cats do have a great job that would help me out with keeping this place clean.”
Killie had grown today. She was a small kitten this morning, and somehow an older kitten this evening. I didn’t consider it, because the thought never crossed my mind. Plants grew at an impossibly fast rate. The seasons were only thirty-five days. Time was different here.
My thoughts drifted to where I’d come from. What my family was like. How did I get here? Had anyone noticed I was missing? Was time moving on in an equally fast rate at home as it was here? If I stayed here for the thirty-five days of summer, would that be an entire summer back home?
Was this some sort of coma? Was I fighting for my life right now in a hospital room while I lived out this fantasy? Fighting off a wolf monster that was actually some deadly tumor?
What an absolutely wild theory. And yet something about it would not let go. What if that wolf monster was some sort of illness. If it was, what were they?
“Wild,” I said, walking over to Killie who was sitting on top of the couch, watching over her domain. I gave her a pet, which she accepted, closing her eyes as she leaned into my hand. I smiled, then sorted through the junk on the card table. It wasn’t too difficult putting all the dirty dishes in the sink. With the sink being newly empty, there was plenty of space, and I could do dishes now without it taking out my stamina. But I didn’t focus on the dishes, I went back to the living room and kept organizing the junk.
Through organizing a bunch of letters, something peeked out of the pile. My fingers brushed aside blank letters as I discovered a flashlight. I stared at it a few seconds before clicking it on. A thin beam of light came out of the flashlight, and I glanced up at the ceiling.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Uh… yes please,” I said, turning off the flashlight and sticking it in my pocket. Maybe this is what those batteries in the garage would be used for. That would be nice, especially since there was no electricity.
I wouldn’t finish this room today. That much was certain. The red light of sunset glowed in the room as I dropped the final bag of letters into the dumpster before scurrying back into the room. I picked up Killie from her spot on the chair and moved into the bedroom. I placed her in the little kitty bed in the room. There was no way I was letting her sleep outside. Not with a prowling wolf creature. Sure, maybe she was Unkillable, but I wasn’t going to test it.
I went to my bed when words popped into my vision.
This is a night they are coming. Cannot sleep until they are gone.
A sickening feeling entered my gut. I stared at the bed, not realizing that this was part of the arrangement. I tried not to panic as the last of the red light disappeared. I didn’t want to experience this. I just wanted to sleep and have it over with. To wake up tomorrow and deal with the aftermath. I… didn’t want to see what was going on.
Killie stood straight up on all fours, her back arched and her fur stood up. She started hissing, staring at something in the corner. My stomach dropped as I pulled out the flashlight and clicked it on. There was nothing in the corner, but Killie still hissed at the emptiness. Her teeth were showing as she kept hissing, her paw up and ready to attack.
Transparent woman. Floral house coat. Blood. Shrieking. Maybe Killie’s main job in the house wasn’t to catch mice. Maybe she had a different job entirely.
Killie made a warning noise at the emptiness in the corner, and I backed away toward the door, throwing it open.
“Killie. Killie,” I whispered. “Come on, girl. Come on.”
She kept hissing at the corner, her claws out. Once I had the door open, she took the opportunity to retreat from the room. When Killie was out, I slammed the door. I used my flashlight to triple check that the front and back doors were locked before checking on Killie again. She was in the middle of the entertainment room, her back still arched, her eyes fixed on the bedroom door.
“Hey, girl,” I said, kneeling to carefully move into her line of vision. Killie was in attack mode, and I didn’t want to startle her. “Hey, it’s me. Is the entertainment room safe? Are there any…ghosts here?”
Were they ghosts? It certainly seemed so, but I didn’t know much. Killie did not move her gaze from the room. I sat on the recliner chair, content to stay there until I could go to sleep. The doors were locked, even as I was fighting the urge to check again to make sure they were. Killie crawled into my lap, her body shaking, and I did my best to comfort her. I didn’t know how well I could, considering I myself could not calm down.
“We’ll be okay,” I said, my hand constantly running over her back. “They’re scary, but… they can’t hurt us. At least… I’m pretty sure they can’t hurt us. They can’t hurt you, at least. I’m quite sure about that.”
Killie hissed again before leaping out of my lap. She scrambled to the living room, pacing the length of the room as she stared at the ceiling, hissing and spitting. I approached cautiously, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t see anything, but I doubted I would ever see it.
Killie stopped hissing, but she definitely kept her back arched as she stared at something above us. I heard shuffling feet, making my gaze shoot toward the ceiling. There was someone walking around the second floor. I stared, waiting. Shuffling was all I heard. My breathing turned shallow. I’d stop my heart, too, if it helped me hear better. There were whisperings above, two women talking. At first it was quiet, but the whispers turned more heated.
I dropped to my knees next to Killie, going back to petting her. The women continued to whisper to each other upstairs, and I stared at the dirty carpet, trying to imagine this was nothing more than a regular house. I was simply visiting a friend’s, and their relatives were having a conversation upstairs. It didn’t matter that I’ve never seen another human being since appearing here with my memories wiped. I had been wrong. For my sanity, I needed to think this was nothing more than relatives talking upstairs.
Speaking of sanity, it was holding at one hundred percent. No doubt Killie was keeping me alert of where in the house there were… people. People I couldn’t see. People who might make my sanity take a hit.
“You know what, girl?” I asked, continuing to pet her arched back. “You don’t need to catch mice. I like this ability so much better.”
Killie remained next to me, her eyes never leaving the ceiling. The women kept whispering, and I tried to ignore them. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, which was fine. I really didn’t want to know.
I don’t know how long I was on my knees, but I didn’t dare move. It was a few seconds after the whispers abruptly stopped that Killie relaxed. I kept the flashlight off, just in case I needed to save the batteries. Killie returned to the recliner, stretching. I didn’t dare go back into the room until she gave the okay. It was dark, and I could hear the wolves howling in the forest. Was the wolf creature out there, too? Not like I was going to walk out there and find out. I was fine to stay in here and just wonder.
I picked up Killie from the recliner and sat down, leaving her on my lap. She curled into my lap. She wasn’t asleep, even though she acted like it. No doubt she kept one eye open, just like I was.
The silence became absolute. The crickets were gone. It almost seemed even the buzzing lamp was holding its breath. I sat up in the recliner, hearing nothing but my own breathing.
Killie leapt out of my lap, her eyes wide, ears flat. A growl came from the woods, deep and low. I shouldn’t have heard it, because it was so quiet, yet the sound reverberated in my soul. The growl stopped, and silence returned. The axe was in my hand. My sweaty palms made the axe handle difficult to hold, but I wasn’t letting go. Killie was back in a corner, her pupils dilated and her tail tucked under her.
The growl returned, choppy and uneven as it again shook my soul, making my own heartbeat irregular. My sanity started to drop. Tears filled my eyes as I stood before the door, axe in hand as silence came back. Somehow, despite all my hard work, those spikes seemed flimsy to me now.
The growl turned into a rumbling as it got closer. The lamplight gave off a faint glow outside, and part of me knew I could part the curtains and see who they were, but the very thought made me nauseous.
I could barely breathe, the silence between the growls almost more terrifying. The silence made me realize how alone I was, how there was no one to help. The silence crushed every part of my soul, and the growl reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I was with them.
It was the longest time of silence between growls. Tears raced down my cheeks as my sanity dropped to the halfway mark. They were close enough to be at the fence. My knees trembled, but I kept the axe held high. I didn’t dare get any closer to the door, and I could only pray the fence held. I remained in the darkened house, refusing to leave, refusing to let them know I was here.
A crack shook the ground, followed shortly by a bellowing that made the entire house shake. I dropped the axe as I fell to my knees, covering my ears. My breathing turned quick and uneasy as the air disappeared from the room. The darkness covered me, but it wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough. The growl that I felt in my bones was now replaced by the bellow that would no doubt shatter them.
Another crack filled the sky, and another bellow. The spikes must have got them. The fence held. The growl returned, shaking my knees. It still churned my stomach as the growl quieted. They slipped back into the woods. The growl soon disappeared, but it left its imprint on my soul.