I thought waking up would be hard. But when I opened my eyes and the red light of dawn filled the bedroom, I saw the white primer all over the wall. My sanity was at fifty percent, which explained why I almost ran straight for the garage when I stopped.

“To-do list, girl,” I said, shutting the front door. “To-do list. You are going to finish a to-do list for once, and it’s going to be this time.”

I grabbed the phone, hit the number one, and listened to the woman speaking, watching the list appear.

Repair all damages caused by them

Strengthen the wall around the house and greenhouses

Prime and paint three rooms on first floor

Upgrade cooking fire

Purchase third article of clothing for farming

Plant lettuce and carrots

“Oh, some new produce!” I said, tearing off the to-do list.

I was feeling good about this. Like, really good. In fact, I was quite sure I would be able to have the entire first floor primed and painted in four days, not just three rooms. The bedroom was already painted, after all. I was glad to see one of my jobs was to upgrade the cooking fire. I was curious what that would do. Would it help me do more complex recipes besides soups, cooked fish, and eggs? I hoped so. That would be nice.

I walked out the back door to see how much the greenhouse was damaged in their attack.

0/7 glass

Not bad. Not bad at all. Yes, they left me shaking and scared last night, but I had four days to prepare for them again. And double plus, I wouldn’t have to build the greenhouse from the ground up.

“I’m going to do it. These next four days I will finally be able to finish my to-do list. I will do it!” I shouted. “But first I need to make sure lilac is an option.”

It was. My alien overlords listened to me! I had never mentally chosen something so quickly. I then paid the dopamine points to prime the entertainment room. I was already thinking of a really nice, forest green for that room and the living room. I tried not to think about what it would look like with the brown shag carpet, because eventually I would tear that up. Or this game would be the one to do that. I needed to see that beautiful hardwood floor!

Until then, I had plans for that space, and forest green would be so cozy. If only the horror movies and books disappeared.

I checked my to-do list and made a plan. I pulled out the glass from the tool that I put in there from the night before and placed them into the greenhouse. Now it read 0/2 glass that was needed to fix the greenhouse. I needed more glass. And to get more glass, I would need more sand.

There were so many things to do. I quickly did my morning routine, feeling excited that the tomato plants were growing faster. If anything, these next four days I was going to stockpile more food, because it was going to rain every day for those last three days. I hoped I would have enough room in my storage for the food. I really needed to consider upgrading that, too.

My morning routine was finished by complimenting Daisy on a beautiful egg before placing it in the storage and checking my progress. As expected, my farming hit level 15.

I grabbed a bundle of firewood from storage to drop in the dumpster and got the +5 dopamine points from it to purchase my third article of farming clothes. I passed the brick making tool on the way back to the clipboard. Every moment the tool wasn’t making something made me anxious. There were so many times I would be at a standstill because I was waiting for that tool to make bricks or stone blocks or glass. Having it empty felt wasteful.

I bought a red checkered button up shirt as my new farming clothes, and smiled when I put on my farmer overalls and straw hat. I then paused as information downloaded into my brain and I heard the distinct click of a lock falling to the ground.

Congratulations! Second greenhouse now unlocked.

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There were so many decisions to be made that in a panic, I froze where I stood. I had so much to do, and I could almost feel the deadline coming. Glass was needed. Fences would always be my priority. I only needed 0/2 panes of glass, and if the fences needed shattered glass, I had those stored away. But bricks and stone blocks might be needed, too.

And yet a second greenhouse just unlocked! What decision did I need to make?!

Fences. Fences would always be my priority. Yes, I had new produce to plant, but as long as I had them planted and watered before I went to bed, they would grow at a regular rate.

I was too curious, and my axe was strong enough that I was willing to take the twenty minutes to chop down some trees into logs and boards to set into the main fence to see what I would need to strengthen the fence.

0/3 stone blocks. I could do that. I already had enough stone in the storage to break up for blocks. I broke ten stones and placed them in the tool, figuring the fence around the greenhouses would need those, too.

The tool was making blocks, and the fences were on their way to getting strengthened. I pulled out the to-do list to figure out my next game plan.

Repair all damages caused by them

Strengthen the wall around the house and greenhouses

Prime and paint three rooms on first floor

Upgrade cooking fire

Purchase third article of clothing for farming

Plant lettuce and carrots

I was going to do this. This was the four days I would finish a to-do list and go to bed an hour early with Killie snuggled next to me.

I glanced at the cooking fire and saw it would need 0/10 bricks. I already had about seven bricks in storage, so I would need more. I would also need as much sand as I could carry, because I liked the idea of only going on the other side of the bridge for huge hauls of sand. I went through twenty bags fast, but if I get another twenty, it wouldn’t go nearly as fast because the greenhouse wasn’t getting damaged every time.

It looked like today was another day of gathering materials, though I first wanted to buy some lettuce and carrot seeds to plant in the second greenhouse and explore that a bit.

Were there even lettuce seeds? Despite how many farming games I played, I didn’t actually know the logistics of growing lettuce. Did they all come from seeds? And did carrots and lettuce commonly grow together? I didn’t even know. It didn’t matter. Since when did this game think about the logistics of things.

I walked over to the second greenhouse. This one looked slightly bigger than the first one. It probably had six soil beds instead of three. I pushed open the door and saw this greenhouse, too, was a bit disorganized and cluttered. It wouldn’t take me long. I realized that I couldn’t plant the produce until I had this place cleared out and the soil boxes fixed. I thought today might be a resource gathering day, but it looked like it was another organize day.

If I could get the produce planted by the time I went to bed, it would count, so I got to work, gathering together the items that I knew were junk while saving two more bags of fertilizer.

It took a couple hours to dump the junk and rebuild the soil beds. Enough that I checked the garage to see the entertainment room had about two and a half hours left on its timer. I purchased the seeds from the clipboard and got to planting. It was strange being in an intact greenhouse as I watered the seeds. I could hear the lettuce and the carrots growing at a fast rate as little green leaves already poked out of the ground. With carrots I wondered if I would have to keep buying seeds, kind of like how I had to cut up a new potato every time I planted one there. I honestly didn’t know. The carrots weren’t that expensive at .50 dopamine points, but it still could be pretty pricey after a while. I figured it would depend on the recipes I got from carrots.

Once it was all done, I still had plenty of time before the tool was done with the stone bricks and the entertainment room was done with primer. I went back to my original plan to make this a resource gathering day. Those always took a while, even with me able to carry two stones or two mounds of clay. Try as I might, I was burning through my stockpile, too. The fences and upgrading always made my small pile of saved resources get used up fast.

Tomorrow was going to be a ridiculously hot day, and I wanted to test if a hotter day meant a quicker clay baking time. Which meant I would be carrying back mostly clay and sand from the river. I might hold off on cooking food for a day or two to make sure I had room to hold all that clay. If my theories were right and a hotter day did make a faster clay baking time, then I was hoping to form a nice collection of bricks.

As I got closer to the bridge, I pulled out the to-do list.

Repair all damages caused by them

Strengthen the wall around the house and greenhouses

Prime and paint three rooms on first floor

Upgrade cooking fire

Purchase third article of clothing for farming

Plant lettuce and carrots

I still had half a day, then three full days. I could do this. I was totally going to finish this. Three and a half days and I already had two items crossed off. By tonight I’ll have the sand in the tool and have glass out by tomorrow morning to finish repairing the damages, which will be another thing crossed off my to-do list. When the blocks are done in another hour or two, that means the entertainment room will be finished priming, and I’ll have the painting station start on the living room. By tomorrow morning two more things will be crossed off my to-do list, with three more full days to finish up strengthening the wall and upgrading the fire. This will so be done.

I tucked the list away right as I got to the bridge and glanced over at the other side of the river. Waiting on the other side was a spider monster, who turned fast and noticed me. It opened its mouth full of jagged teeth and sneered. Everything inside me froze.

I spoke way too soon.