The red light of dawn woke me up, and I stared at the green painted ceiling, blinking. I was quite sure I woke up at the same time every morning. No alarm clock, no nothing. Just the dawn filling this room with it’s red light. I had slept in the overalls, but I really didn’t care.

I climbed out of bed, still having no idea what this was. A part of me knew that if I kept going, I would just accept this as my life, and I didn’t want to. There were too many questions for me to blindly accept this as my fate. Who am I? Who was my mom that I briefly remembered? Does she miss me? Is she still alive? Is she worried about me? How did I get here? Was this going to be the rest of my life? How could I make this not the rest of my life.

Why did I wake up that first day sobbing?

I stumbled into the kitchen, seeing the red light blinking on the phone. I picked it up, pressing one.

“In five days, they will come. In five days, they will start to destroy. Anything you didn’t complete on your to-do list from yesterday will be added to this new list. An added rule: if you do not finish your to-do list, you may not go to bed until midnight, or until your sanity drops to 20 percent.”

“No!” I shouted. They were watching me. They had to be. They knew I dropped everything and ran the first time the lamp light turned on outside.

“Please do the following so you may protect your-”

“Who are you!” I shouted into the phone. “Why am I here?”

“-chop down two trees-”

“Give me some answers! Please! Who are ‘they’ you keep talking about? Why are you making me do this?”

“-chopped firewood onto-”

“I can’t do this!” I shouted. “Not without answers! Please! Why are you doing this to me!”

The phone beeped, signaling the end of the conversation. I was hyperventilating as I slammed the phone back on the base. Farming games, home décor games, I loved them and played them for hours.

I hated being a rat in a laboratory experiment.

The to-do list finished writing, waiting for me to tear it off. There was a lot, because I hardly did any of it yesterday. Now if I didn’t finish it, I would have to stay up until midnight. Or my sanity dropped to below twenty percent. Due to my inability to stay sane with even that guttural growl I heard, there was no way I would last until midnight. Which meant I would be traumatized by who knows what during the night.

I didn’t even bother letting myself wonder if it would be that bad. Everything was fine in the morning light, even if the sky was still hazy and the dawn brought a reddish glow to this old house. Once the night came, all my sensibilities ran out the window. I would not be able to handle it. The unease of unanswered questions was bad enough. Any horrors the stupid woman and her group wanted to throw at her would only make it worse.

“Stupid. Stupid. Unfair. Stupid,” I said.

I took a few steadying breaths, trying to ground myself from keeping a panic attack from hitting. My fingers ran over the sticky cherry wood table that cut this kitchen in half. The smell of mildew was still on my nostrils. If I spent an entire day cleaning out the small garage full of rusty nails and oil stains and never got a stain, let alone a cut, the mildew didn’t seem nearly the threat as it had before. I opened my eyes to see the to-do list, ready for me to tear off and get started for the day.

There was something else on the wall. I hadn’t noticed it before until now. It was a calendar that I was positive wasn’t there before. Instead of the name of the month, it just said SUMMER, and instead of thirty or thirty-one days, there were thirty-five days. It gave each of the five weeks a perfect amount of seven days. The picture was a drawn picture of the house in its peak. When it wasn’t falling apart, and the white paint wasn’t peeling off. The garage wasn’t in the picture, but it looked like a happy, cheerful place. It had gone to ruin since then.

I tried to turn the calendar, but the other three pages were glued to the wall. Apparently seasons here only lasted thirty-five days.

The implication hit me. What would it be like here in the fall? Or winter? I wouldn’t stay here that long, right? Surely I’d figure out how to get back home by then. Wherever home was. They couldn’t keep me here forever. Despite farming games seeming to have no end, this one had to end, right? There had to be some objective, besides surviving ‘them’ and getting this house clean.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The calendar started to glow. My eyes widened as I braced myself.

Upgrade Calendar for -.25?

Y/N

I stared at the words over the picture of the house. Considering I worked a lot in the garage, I managed to get 2.75 dopamine points from the cleaning. Yes, it was hard, but I was also curious, and it was low enough that I wanted to figure out what updating the calendar did.

I mentally chose yes, then waited. My dopamine points dropped to 2.50. Two X’s appeared on the first two days, with a red circle appearing on the seventh. In perfect cursive, I watched They Arrive appear on the seventh day. Five days later, another circle appeared, with They Arrive on it. My stomach churned as the days between shortened from five, to four, to three, before they consistently were three days apart until the end of summer.

Upgrade Calendar for -.30?

Y/N

They would keep coming. The thought made me nauseous. But maybe it was better to prepare for it than to guess. Granted, I knew the first time, and maybe the lady would keep reminding me with every phone call, but it still unsettled me that they would keep coming. Whoever they were. I didn’t even know.

For whatever reason, the people who stuck me in this weird land was forcing me to play a game to make me suffer. There was a movie franchise that had that plot, I was pretty sure. I didn’t know much about the horror genre, just that I hated it and that no sane person should ever consider it entertainment.

Even as I thought it, I knew those were controversial thoughts, because someone I knew loved the horror genre.

The calendar was the only thing giving answers, so I mentally chose yes again and watched as .30 dopamine points left my total dopamine points, leaving me with 2.15.

A moment later, there was a scattering of images on the calendar. I leaned closer to the calendar, seeing a few cartoon images of a bright sun on a few of the days. There were none in this first week, but the first one was the day they arrive. There were a few more, and I wasn’t sure what it meant.

Upgrade Calendar for -.35?

Y/N

My main dopamine point stock was slowly getting hit by this, and I hadn’t even checked my to-do list. I needed to make sure I didn’t need to buy anything else.

I checked the to-do list.

*Previous Days list*

Find the key to the first greenhouse in the garage

Prepare one soil bed in the greenhouse

*New list*

Find axe in the green house

Purchase trapper hat

Chop down two trees

Load 0/10 chopped firewood onto traps

The cursive was beautiful, but my list was long. According to my evil overlords, I needed to finish it or suffer consequences.

I blinked back tears as the fear threatened to take hold of me again. I couldn’t panic. For whatever reason, I was here. I needed a few more days to figure out if I could get any answers, but for now, I really didn’t want to hear that growl again in the middle of the night with no one around to help me.

I was still in my farmers outfit from last night, and I didn’t care. I sighed, closed my eyes for a moment, and promised myself that I would not let this game make me forget that I was my own person. I needed to figure out who I was, and I needed to figure out how to get back home.

After checking the catalogue by the food storage place, I figured out trapper hats were 5.00 dopamine points. Those clothes had opened up. I felt a little bad about spending .55 points on upgrading the calendar, but on the other hand, it was the only thing giving me information in advance. For all the questions I had, I craved any information anyone, or anything, could give me. If I knew the creature who growled could give me information, I would walk right up to it and demand answers.

I faced my pile of trash, hands on my hips. With a sigh, I knew this had to be done. All of my “definitely trash” pile was gone, but there was a lot more sorting I had to do. How could a car port get so messy?

I dove into the unsorted junk, ignoring my bare fingers against the greasy junk. It never remained on my hands. It followed game logic that I was happy to comply to.

There was a warmth on the side of my hand right hand that made me frown. At first, I ignored it, but as I kept going, it was getting impossible to push to one side. I moved my hand and found a warmth grow in my right hand. This was weird. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling. In fact, I could feel somewhere inside me enjoying the feeling very much. I walked forward, feeling the warmth surround my hand as I did so. I took a few steps before half my body was comfortable, and a few more before I was completely comfortable. Once my entire body was comfortable, something inside one of the desk drawers started to glow. I grabbed the drawer and pulled it open. I tossed some tin boxes out of the drawer before I saw a key. Once my fingers touched it, the comforting warmth that I felt disappeared from my body.

I picked up the key, my eyes widening. This was the greenhouse key, I just knew it. I also knew that whoever placed me here must have heard my idea from yesterday about some sort of system of hot and cold to help me find it easier.

Except I never said that out loud, because there was no one to talk to. They must have heard my thoughts. Which gave me a different, chilling thought all together.

“I… absolutely do not want to get answers from whatever growled last night,” was the first words out of my mouth when the realization hit me. “I would not be able to handle it. I… would so much rather go weeks with no answers than face that thing for anything.” Once that was out of the way, I let out another breath. “And… thank you for helping me find the key.”