Killie jumped on the bed to check on me. I knew I couldn’t waste time, but everything inside me ached. I lifted my hand, running my fingers down Killie’s fur.

“Hey, girl,” I said.

Killie purred in return. She was more a cat than a kitten, now.

“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Killie.

She didn’t respond. She just kept purring. For her I got out of bed. That, and curiosity. Curiosity and cat is what will keep me going. Hopefully it won’t kill me.

I couldn’t tell if I was having some strange dream or if hearing those two beings were real. Honestly, this whole thing made me question my mental stability.

I passed the entertainment room, suppressing a shudder as I moved past where I got attacked by them. Those leeches stole my energy and my sanity.

I entered the kitchen and picked up the phone, rubbing my head before pressing one.

“It seems we miscalculated your skill level.”

Both my eyebrows shot up, and I felt morally offended by that. “Excuse me?”

“As such we will try this again. We will not give you a steeper punishment because of our miscalculation, therefore your sanity has returned to fifty percent, and they will not come for another seven days.”

My gaze shot to the calendar. Somehow it was reflected there. Seven more days.

“We have made the next list more manageable. If what happened last time happens again, we will continue to tweak it. If we find you did not complete it due to your own negligence, you will get the full brunt of the consequences, including an attack from them.”

My breath shuddered. That all but assured me they were indeed unkillable.

“Your to-do list is as follows:

“Repair the damages caused by them,

“Strengthen the wall around the house and the greenhouses,

“Finish the chicken coop,

“Purchase a third article of building clothing,

“Clean all walls on first floor of home.

“Your next to-do list will be given to you after they come.”

The to-do list finished writing itself, and I stared at it. I thought of everything that happened last night. Or whatever time it was that I was suspended in, listening to those two beings talk. The female was definitely the same female voice I heard over the phone, except there wasn’t that weird thing done to her voice when I listened to her just now. I couldn’t even explain what I heard. It was like some sort of echo to her voice, but it was like if her words were being translated from some other language. No earth language, that was for certain.

“I… am not… your rat… in a maze,” I said it quietly. I knew they could read my mind. Whatever machine they had me hooked up to no doubt helped them know exactly what I was thinking, but this was my own sort of rebellion. Neither one of them cared. They watched as I was attacked, the life sucked out of me, and they calmly discussed my welfare while I was sitting not that far from them. Then they shoved me back into this game to watch me play.

We are a neutral party.

It was that impression again. A feeling so clear that it was practically translated to words.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

A memory from last night hit me. The memory of the male’s voice.

“You will get your answers. Just play the game.”

“Am I safe here?”

The prompting came back.

Are you ever safe?

I sighed, dipping my head. I wasn’t in the mood for existential crap. Despite how much I hated it, the guy was right. I got most of my answers while playing the game. Those memory orbs gave me something, and they only came while I was working.

I tore the to-do list off, then glanced at the calendar. On the last two days there was a sun icon, which meant I had to get all my outside stuff done before then. I checked my to-do list. It was a bit of a pity, because I wanted to see if cleaning all the walls on the first floor would lengthen my stamina and sanity bars again like decluttering had. If it did, that would give me a nice boost throughout the week. Then again, I was running out of milk. And I did not want to end up without a fence again.

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I mentally chose to dress in my farming overalls and straw hat, prepared for my morning routine, when I pulled to a stop. They got into the greenhouse. Three panes of glass were shattered, with four others cracked.

I rushed into the greenhouse to see the soil boxes destroyed, and my tomato and potatoes useless on the ground. I gave myself a moment to mourn the loss before glancing around. I didn’t know how to make glass. Could I still repair the soil boxes and have the crops grow?

“I really need these to grow,” I said, glancing again at my list. I needed to finish the chicken coop in a week. That was going to take so many boards, which meant it would take so much stamina. If I didn’t have my food to keep replenishing my stamina…

“Happy thoughts,” I said. “Don’t worry about what you can’t control. We’ll cross that bridge if we get there. Right now, focus on seeing if you can grow plants.”

In the end, it didn’t take too much to fix the boxes of soil. A bundle of firewood for each and a few scoops of fertilizer. I was getting low on fertilizer, though. Maybe there was a way to replenish that, too.

With my farming gear on, I understood that without the glass, my crops would take an extra day to get produce. It was better than nothing.

With the repairs in the greenhouse done as best I could, I moved on to the fence around the main house. I had five days to repair and make this and the greenhouse fence stronger. I still held out hope that I would be getting a cow, but until then, milk was my only help against the heat those last two days.

Despite the unease, I went to work. It was going to be monotonous, but I had Killie to comfort me. For the next two days I gathered what I needed and made bricks. The hole in the fence would take some bricks and stones, and those took the longest to gather.

I kept waiting for a memory orb, but it didn’t appear in the riverbed. The first one came after cutting down a log. Whatever it was, it was always while I was working, so I kept working.

When I woke up on the last morning before two days of unbearable heat and checked the calendar, I realized this strange season was halfway done. I glanced out the window at the hazy sky and wondered if it would ever clear. Would I ever see a blue sky again? It had been a yellowish haze for so long I almost missed what it was like to have a blue sky. My mind went back to my first conundrum. Who was my family? Were they on earth, too? Was time going fast for them? Was I in a coma? Did a summer here mean a full summer where I was at? Did anyone miss me?

I had so many questions as I finished putting the last of the firewood into the fence of the greenhouse, as the fence around my house had finished upgrading yesterday. I moved to one of the trees around the fence, pulling out my axe to get more boards into the chicken coop. Yes, if the wolf was able to jump the fence from inside, there was a chance he could jump the fence from outside, too. I still felt driven to chop down all the trees outside the fence. That chicken coop would take a lot of time, after all.

My building and logging levels got higher together. Of all the groups, these two often skyrocketed together. Where everything else was still in the single digit levels, Building was at level 14, while logging was at level 13. I had done a lot of both the past five days. I needed to get my building to level 15 before I could buy the third article of clothing. Buying a third piece for logging would be nice, too. I already knew another log would drop with a third level of clothing. It made me curious what would happen with a third article of building clothing.

I took a break from filling the chicken coop with boards to eat some soup for my stamina. The coop was close to being finished, with 68/100 boards in there and still half a days’ worth of chopping still to go. I studied my progress list on the clipboard.

Farming level 9

Cleaning level 7

Logging level 13

Cooking level 6

Building level 14

Animal Care level 7

I had been so focused on getting jobs done on my to-do list that I didn’t worry too much about the clothes. I could have bought the second level of clothes for both animal care and cooking.

I dropped ten dopamine points for both cooking and animal care clothes. I got a fancy little bakers cap out of it, and what looked like a scrub top in animal care.

Some more things unlocked on the clipboard. I flipped through the pages to see what it was. I wasn’t too surprised to see I could now buy chickens, though not until the chicken coop was done. Another food source that wasn’t from the greenhouse. That would be nice.

I flipped through the pages again until I got to the next added item. It was a fishing rod. My eyes danced at the possibilities. Fish. I could catch fish now.

I tried to put that all aside as I focused on making sure I had the chicken coop ready. It was the last thing I could do. At least the last thing I could do outside. Repairing the damages from them on my to-do list was still uncrossed, which I assumed meant the broken greenhouse. But I didn’t know how to make glass. The fence was secured, though, so if I couldn’t figure out how to make glass soon, they shouldn’t be able to break it anymore.

With the sun finally setting, I placed the final board into the chicken coop. And got 0/50 firewood for my trouble.

“Stupid firewood,” I muttered. I needed to stop thinking the section I was working on would be the last.

I broke the last logs and boards down until I had no more stamina left and dropped them into the chicken coop. 14/50 firewood was nice, but I knew the next two days would be too hot to do anything without drinking some milk.

Despite working on the list for five whole days now, the only thing crossed off was strengthening the walls. I still had to repair the glass to the greenhouse, which I had no idea how to do, but the fences were sturdy. It worried me how big the list still was, but the walls were strengthened. If I didn’t get my dopamine point bonus, I was okay as long as they couldn’t get through the walls.

When the lamplight flickered on, I knew I was pushing it by not staying inside. My sanity was at full, and I didn’t want to stay out. But I went to the clipboard to see my building level was finally at fifteen.

Not only did I have to wait until I was at level 15, but now the price for the clothes was at 10.00 dopamine points. I sighed, glancing at my total. I only had 7.42 total.

Tomorrow. I still had tomorrow. Then I could see if I could get more stamina and sanity added to my bar by cleaning the walls. That would be a godsend. Because I was going to get out of this game alive.