I frowned, moving away from the sink. I could not pick up another dish and clean it, even if I wanted to. The thought made me physically ill. Some games I played the stamina had a timer to reset, and I wasn’t sure I had time to wait for that. The other option was eating something to restore it. But I didn’t have much food, despite the kitchen looking so much better now. I threw a lot of spoiled food away, and until there was another certain way of getting that food, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to waste it on doing dishes.

Though…

I gathered a lot of the dishes in the sink, taking a few steps. No dip in my stamina, no overwhelming feeling to stop. I took a few more steps, then smiled as I walked outside to the dumpster and dropped the dirty dishes in the dumpster.

+0.03

Sweet. Whatever these points were, I wouldn’t mind having more of them. After all, I didn’t need all these dishes if I was isolated.

The sun was starting to set when I gathered the last of the dirty dishes in the kitchen and dropped them in the dumpster. I had a grand total of 2.75 points that made my dopamine soar. Dopamine points. That was a good indicator.

I returned to the kitchen that already looked so much better and gathered up the old coats and purses. They looked like they were from the mid-nineties. They weren’t mine, so I didn’t have a problem dragging them toward the door. Whoever the owners were, I doubted they would be back, considering I was miles away from civilization.

I tried to drag a bag of old coats when that same overwhelming feeling of nausea hit me. Well, okay then. Too heavy. After taking dirty dishes to the dumpster for a while, none of my stamina returned, so it wasn’t on a timer. It must reset every day.

The sun was setting, and I just wanted these final bags of clutter out of the kitchen. I wanted that sweet, sweet dopamine of the to-do list to be done. Sure, the kitchen wasn’t clean, but the clutter was gone. I assumed cleaning would come another day.

Right. Cleaning the dishes probably was for a different day too. Oh, well. The points were nice.

I stood up, hands on my hips, when I noticed a clipboard hanging by the door of the cool food storage room. I frowned, too curious not to look. I walked over and picked it up, flipping through the pages on the clipboard. It was connected to the wall, so I couldn’t take it anywhere, but in the dying light, I saw what looked like what my dopamine points would be needed for.

It was a catalog of some sort. One page had multiple sets of clothes I could buy. It reminded me that I had stayed in my nightgown all day. Some of these clothes looked like they had upgrade possibilities. One was a faded white shirt that gave a small stamina buff in all farming related work. The overalls, boots, and hat were all separate purchases. Another was a cleaning outfit, with a blue dress, white apron, gloves, and some hair ribbon to tie my hair back. All separate purchases, too, all giving a boost to cleaning related stamina.

“This would have been nice to know, lady leaving messages on my phone,” I said out loud, hoping that woman had heard somehow as I searched through other pages.

There were a few grayed out pages, and I recognized them as being locked. They still had labels on the side, though. Like farming, housing, and traps. I didn’t so much like the traps page, as it reminded me of the message from this morning.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The final page made me pause. At the top there was a word.

Progress of the woman who does not know her name yet.

That was a mouthful. I stared at it, blinking. An uneasy feeling came over me again. Something was weird, something was up, and despite this being my favorite type of game, I needed to figure out why I was here.

I studied the one progress bar that was not grayed out, labeled cleaning. I was very close to level three, whatever that meant. I didn’t even realize I’d reached level two. Thinking back on it, though, I did realize that I probably felt like I could take three bags of groceries instead of two without hurting my stamina, but I ignored the thought.

Well… that was on me. Apparently, I was close to level three, which would strengthen my carrying capacity.

With that in mind, I went back to the large bag of clutter and started emptying it out. I grabbed it, a quarter full, and started walking out the back door. Yep, my stamina wasn’t affected. That was nice, because I still had no stamina left.

I made a few more trips, knowing that I could get stronger soon, if the leveling was right. As I’d hoped, after two more trips, I felt like I could carry a bigger bag of stuff. I carried the last of the clutter and placed it in the dumpster as the first stars appeared in the sky. I brushed my hands on my nightgown, remembering again that I’d been in it all day. Yet somehow, despite working hard, they didn’t smell of sweat. They stayed fresh, and I wouldn’t mind sleeping in them.

“Still would have been nice to know about the clothes, though,” I said to myself as I pulled out my to-do list. The final thing was crossed off, and I let out a sigh. That felt nice. +2.00 dopamine points appeared, no doubt my prize for completing the to-do list.

Something buzzed, and I frowned, walking around to find the source. The buzzing got louder, until a lamp post flickered to life a couple yards away from the front porch. I stared, confused. Electricity didn’t work in the house. How was the light working out here? It gave a soft orange glow, not like the blinding white lights of LED bulbs. This orange light showed the shadows so much more. My eyes widened as I stared at the post, the only outside source of light with miles of forest. A wolf howled somewhere far away, and my knees grew weak. This morning, with the sun shining bright in an admittedly hazy sky, being miles away from civilization seemed fun. Now that I was here in the blackness of night, I realized anything could be in those woods. I already had a hint that they were coming in seven days, whoever they were.

I didn’t notice the crickets were chirping until every single one of them went silent. I heard my own breath give a shudder as I stared again at the light. Something just beyond the darkness made a deep, guttural, close growl, and my sanity started to drop.

With a gasp I ran straight for the front door, throwing the screen door open, not caring if it was thrown off its hinges. I jumped into the house and slammed the door shut, searching for a bolt lock. As soon as the bolt clicked into place, I sprinted to the back door and made sure that was locked, too.

I sucked in air, not sure what I felt. They weren’t supposed to be here yet. Not for another seven days. It’s what the message said. Unless this wasn’t they at all. Unless this was completely different. Was this something different?

My imagination ran wild. Anything could be out there. My entire emotions were so unsettled by it all, that I was almost nauseous with fear.

“Absolutely not.” I threw the bedroom door open and leapt into bed, covering my ears with the pillow. I was safe. I had to be. My sanity hadn’t dropped since that first initial growl.

Would you like to sleep?

It was a prompt, the words hanging in my vision.

“Yes! Sleep! Yes!” I shouted. I wasn’t sure if whoever it was could read my mind, and I wanted to sleep. Forget what I heard. I did not want to know what would happen if my sanity bar dropped to zero like my stamina had today.

Tiredness overcame me in an instant. My fingers loosened around the pillow, and my body eased into the bed as my darkening vision eased the panicked feeling in my soul.