The dawn light woke me up once again, and I slowly lifted my head. I spent a solid minute staring at nothing. Thankfully no dreams or nightmares, but the memories were still fresh. That cracking noise. Was that the creature’s spine? Did bones shift and break inside the creature’s body to cause it to do that? If so, how could that creature stand, let alone run. I remembered the squeal of pain, and maybe I should have felt pity, but I didn’t. I caught such a small glimpse of it before, but there were still teeth. It was after me. It might want me dead.
I didn’t have any hit points, though. That might mean something, right? Just my stamina and my sanity.
My sanity.
Unlike stamina, my sanity only filled up halfway this morning. Did only a certain amount of sanity refill every day?
It made sense. I still felt groggy and my body gave a shudder every so often. I stumbled out of the partially decluttered bedroom and into the entertainment room. I refused to look at the VHS’s on the shelf as I got to the room. So, help me, I was not going to have another night like last night. Not with half my sanity gone.
Yeah, it felt like half my sanity was gone.
I got to the kitchen, my frame still trembling. With a shaking hand, I picked up the phone, pressing one before placing it against my ear.
“In four days, they will come. In four 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. 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.”
“I know,” I mumbled, despite the woman leaving a message and not actually talking to me.
“Purchase and plant ten tomato seeds.
“Water those ten tomato seeds.
“Finish putting in the rest of the firewood for the fence.
“Build the rest of the fence.
“Further instructions will follow…”
The phone beeped and I looked at the to-do list. It was short, but it would probably take me all day again.
I closed my eyes, which instantly made my mind replay the exact sound of the creature’s spine breaking as it stumbled to its hind legs to chase me.
I snapped my eyes open and tore the to-do list off the wall. Four more days. This trap was important. Four more days until they tried to attack, and this was the first time my instructions were anything toward my safety.
I went to the back, flipping through the clip board pages until I got to farming and saw how much the seeds were. A packet of five tomato seeds were .50 dopamine points. I needed two, which would completely drain me of my dopamine points.
I glanced at my total, surprised to see 3.15. I thought I only had 1.15.
After some thought, I remembered the first day that I was here. When I finished my to-do list I got +2.00 dopamine points. Last night I was so focused on running away that I probably didn’t register it.
Doesn’t matter. I have it, which means I don’t have to worry about it being a huge drain on my total to buy the seeds.
I bought the seeds and walked out of the back door to the green house, giving it a slight glare. This greenhouse put me through a lot of grief because I couldn’t find the key fast enough.
I planted the seeds in the soil bed as my farming overalls instructed, then glanced around for a watering can and a place to fill it up with water. When I found neither, I shrugged and went back into the house to get a cup of water. I was almost out the door when a physical wall was placed between the cup and the house, blocking me from taking the water to the greenhouse.
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“Come on evil overlord alien people! I’m being creative! Finding a different way to do a job! Doesn’t this help you understand human nature better? Let me do this!”
The wall remained, and I glared before filling my mouth with the tap water and setting the glass down on the counter. I then walked out the back door, toward the first greenhouse, walked right up to the soil bed, and spat the water out on the tomato seed.
I could almost feel the overlords glitching out before a text appeared in my vision.
Contaminated water, insufficient for tomato growth. Try again.
“Ugh, come on! Let me have this one! You guys took half my sanity. It’s only fair,” I said.
No reply. I grumbled, then kept digging in the small hill of things in the greenhouse.
Eventually I found a watering can which I filled up with the tap water. As I waited for it to fill, I started to wonder if I should be worried about whether the tap water was safe to drink, then quickly pushed away the thought. Seriously, after cleaning out a garage with no gloves or not getting blisters after chopping down two trees, I doubted the tap water here would give me a parasite.
I watered the plants, then checked my to-do list as I headed out of the greenhouse. There was a squelching noise behind me, which made me pause. I frowned, then glanced over to see ten little mounds of dirt squirming. My eyes widened as I watched the tomato plants inching up and unfurling their leaves. This was one magical place if they could get tomato plants to grow this quickly.
I shut the door and walked out. It was time to get started cutting down those trees. I was not staying out here after sunset. Or when the lamp post light flickered on.
I needed to bring down a lot of trees, but I started with the ones that were close to the house. For the purpose of trying to make the house look nice, it was good to get rid of the random trees that didn’t belong. I approached a tree, and the axe appeared in my hand. I gave the tree a few thwacks before I started to wonder where my axe came from. Did I have an inventory? I remembered chopping the trees the night before, but with the panic of everything, I didn’t quite remember where I left it.
Would the watering can magically appear when I needed to water the tomato plants? I left it in the greenhouse. It was worth a try tomorrow, because I’m pretty sure I needed to water these tomato plants every day.
Also, random thought, I realized I slept in the trapper hat and overalls. This really was leaning hard on the game logic.
The first tree fell, and I broke them down into firewood, placing them into the fence.
15/50
This was going to take a while. Seven more trees, to be exact.
For every tree and a half that I dropped, I had to take a break and eat something to regain my stamina. I kept an eye on my sanity, but it remained half filled the entire time. I had hoped that in the sunlight it would have trickled back to full, but no. It remained halfway.
By the time the fence read 50/50, there were a scattering of empty soup cans on the cleared off table. I gathered them all together and dropped them into the dumpster, giving me +.04 dopamine points. I wouldn’t complain about that. I was super tempted to drop more food into the dumpster to reach 5.00 again. I was eyeing some of those logging clothes. Maybe it gave me some bonus, like getting the tree to chop down faster, or getting more logs out of it.
“Like, are you guys taking notes? Because I have some notes,” I said to the sky as I walked out to the fence again before hesitating. “Also… please don’t blast me with unfair rules if I talk too much. You did send me here, after all.”
I examined the fence with my trapper hat on. The firewood turned into spikes that were crisscrossing each other. The fence circled around the entire house and the garage, though the greenhouses were unprotected. Would they be fine from them? I couldn’t be sure, but I did notice another demand for the fence.
0/10 boards
Right. I pulled out my to-do list to see everything crossed out except for build the rest of the fence. How much more was there to do? Because this was a lot of trees to chop down, and I was running low on food.
I glanced at the sky. It was starting to get into the early evening. As long as ten boards was it, I could make it well before bedtime. If there was another part of the fence after this, I seriously needed to consider buying a logging shirt. Or logging boots. Or their gloves. So far, I had the farming overalls and trapper hat. I could make it a weirder outfit somehow.
I walked over to the tree, picking up the axe. “Alright, let’s get this finished.”
After many hits with the axe, the tree fell to the ground, breaking off into logs. I placed the axe on my shoulder when something white rose up from the remaining tree trunk. I backed away, my eyes widening. It was a white glowing orb. It floated up until it was about chest high, and it hovered in the air. I stared at it, refusing to trust it. What even was this thing? How did it get here? What was it supposed to do?
The white orb continued to bob, trailing light as it did so. It was still daytime, so I wasn’t nearly as afraid as if this thing appeared at night, but I still couldn’t be sure what it did.
I’m not sure how much time had passed. Maybe a minute. But it was a solid minute of me staring at that orb, trying to figure out what it was supposed to do without examining it any closer. My mind was somehow simultaneously racing as well as freezing. I couldn’t trust it. I couldn’t.
The orb started vibrating, and then it shot toward my chest. I screamed, stumbling, before everything around me went black.