List of things I need to do, ordered from most important to least important.

1. Spider issue, find a way to terminate all the spiders, possibly from removing the web's ability to grow

2. Dream monster issue, there's about 5 more times I can sleep (I ASSUME) before it will reach my floor and probably kill me. Fun.

3. Compost issue, need to figure out how to get this compost ‘machine’ actually working, expanding on the farm will greatly increase survival chances.

4. This whole mess... issue, I need to find a way out of here, floor zero is the best bet, I will come up with a plan soon.

5. The zee issue, zee is a ticking time bomb, this place can easily break a child, if he breaks, I don't know what he could be capable of.

I get woken up to coffee in bed, this kid is proving more useful to me as a servant rather than a death machine, I think there is something he desperately wants to tell me, but can't convey it, so he has been studying that book.

“let's hunt.” I say softly as I get up, last night I didn't get a dream, I don't know if it was supposed to be a mercy or if there's a cooldown on when it can infiltrate my mind, but either way it was nice to be woken up in bed without my teeth missing.

Zee shakes his head, “I am book.”

“You don't look like one, say ‘I read book.’” I take a sip of my coffee,

“I read book, hunt bad.”

Fine, I need a day to myself anyway, it's getting tiring having to constantly train zee to talk, especially while I have a million other things to take care of.

I get dressed and make a new spear, today I am going to figure out a way to burn down 297, I have a lighter but no way to start a fire strong enough to burn down the floor, so how does one create a strong fire? Hm... gas.

I walk into some of the rooms from floor 288, there are some gas stoves, with little gas canisters below, I just need to find a way to remotely light it without blowing me to bits. I gather around 5 and drag them down the main stairwell, leaving them by the stairwell door 297.

I need a candle, I have a VERY basic idea on what I can do, I let the gas go out of the canisters in a room, leave the door open, have a candle burning, leave flammable paper below the candle, and HOPE it does something. How will I stop it from igniting while I'm in the room setting the candle? No clue, I don't know, that's why this is stupid.

I grab a candle and a lighter from my room, zee is writing something, “you good zee?”

He smiles, “dream monster is evil monster. By... by down? By down home. Down room”

“Down floor?”

He smiles, writing it, he is learning way too quickly. He seems to notice my assortment of items in my arms and asks, “what is Alice make?”

“Explosion.”

He doesn't grasp the word so I do an explosion sound with my mouth and expand my arms out, before I can see his reaction I walk out, time to stop the issue at the top of my list.

I walk into 297, the sounds of many face spiders echo throughout the halls, there are around 8 that I can actively see, they are oddly passive, probably think they have a good gig here and don’t want to die for no reason since nothing is hunting them.

I walk through a door and a face spider follows me into the room, crawling into the kitchen and circling me, his grey old skin sagging with little to no hair on his head. He goes back into the bedroom and I just lock the door, these things are so unintelligent.

I get all the canisters in the room and begin to let them seep out, the smell is intoxicating, quite literally, I feel intoxicated. I grab my candle and place it low down, because gas rises up and stuff, i think. I place a ton of paper below the candle that'll hopefully burn up when the candle reaches zero.

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I hold the lighter to the candle, a single spark could kill me, a single spark would also get rid of this weird dream stuff. A single spark would send me back to that roof, reset completely.

A single spark lights the candle, I let the other gas canisters seep out gas and walk out, my steps are kind of fast but way too slow for the situation I'm in. I step up the steps to floor 288 and realise that I'm a moron. The room right above the room I had put the explosives in, is my home.

I run in and spot zee on the couch, “we gotta go, now.”

“Go?” I grab his wrist and drag us into the hallway, into another hallway, into another hallway that leads us into another hallway. Zee pushes off me and stands arm's length, “Alice.”

“What?” I spit out more venomously than I intended to, he steps back, taking a deep breath in.

“Dream monster wave you, you make wave, dream monster make home am Alice head.”

He knows, he knows what this monster is, “Okay... okay how do I... survive dream monster?”

“Win game?” He shakes his head a couple times, then points a finger gun at his head, “bang.” He stares at me, waiting for my response. I open my mouth to say something, anything, I'm still scared of dying, I don't want to lose everything again.

“I...” an explosion goes off knocking us both over, the hallway fills up with an incredible amount of heat, it's so hot I feel like my skin is boiling, then it calms down and dissipates.

“Uh... so...” a second explosion ripples through the hallway, the sound of wooden scraps stab into the wall and we are blown backwards, I land on the carpet after doing a roll and zee just slides and burns himself on the harsh texture of the floor.

I grab zee and take us further back, he is shaking and keeps blinking like he has something stuck in his eye, “hey hey, calm down.” He can't stop breathing heavily, he might be having a panic attack I'm unsure, I cradle his head, I breathe with him, he begins to copy me.

In between breathes he tries to say something, “Alice... lose... game... makes... Zee... hurts...” smoke begins to fill up the hallways and I just carry him further back until we find a stairway, I take us up to the roof.

It feels weird, it's kind of like I'm a kid again, reminds me of the time when my parents car got broken into, it was raining, and I sat on the curb of the road, my parents were freaking out, glass was on the graphite, they checked for missing things and all I could think was, ‘why am I so calm? Why is everything okay?’ They called the cops and a nice woman cop gave me some hot chocolate, I took it and passed it to my mother, somehow realising that she was more stressed than I was.

It's hard, its hard how easy things are when you are focused on the problems in front of you, you aren't thinking about taxes and rent when there's a guy running at you with a knife, all you are thinking about is how to kick this knife guy’s ass. Then you go home and its more stressful with the incomprehensible problems.

Zee sits beside me nearby the concrete block on the roof, we are by the farm, smoke is flowing out of the stairway, the door was completely blown off its hinges. The plants in the pots are finally showing their existence, some green, some yellow, one is blue which is fun.

“Zee... that dream monster... how do I win?”

“Make win?” He does the finger to his head again, “bang?”

“No, no bang.”

He thinks for a moment, pulling at the cloth on his shorts, twisting it in between his fingers.

“No win. Draw. Split pot, Alice makes pair 2, dream monster makes pair 2.” I can tell he wants to say more but can't, it must be infuriating to have the answers in your mind but no way to communicate them.

“Zee... you are good.”

“No.” He twirls my hair in his fingers, “pretty.”

Where did he learn that word? Knowing him he probably somehow figured out it from the book, how smart will he get with this fast progression? He is my ticket out of here... he is my ticket to freedom...

“White... black... pretty.” He touches the bleached parts of my hair, I almost completely forgot that happened. We stay in silence for a bit, the smoke bellowing out of the stairway had become a lot less black.

“Hair.”

“Hair... hair pretty.” He continues to twirl it, I fall asleep unknowingly.

299, 298, 297, 296, 295, 294... there's smokes on the table again, with a man I presume is my dad, this time his mouth is visible, only his mouth.

“You’re stupid.” He says in my dad's deep voice, taking a deep drag in and blowing it into my face, it almost hurts me until I remember its not my dad actually saying it, I sit down next to the glass table and take a cigarette.

“Thanks, light it please.” He nods and lights my cigarette, as soon as i put it in my mouth it disappears, “asshole.”

“Burning the Aranea was smart, exploding them was not.”

“Aranea?”

“Urgh, whatever you call them, face spiders.”

I take his cigarette out of his mouth, “why are you not torturing me?”

“I thought you were going to ‘split the pot.’”

“What does that mean?” I put the cigarette in my mouth again and it disappears.

“I'm unsure, but if you don't know, then I guess I had my hopes up. Chop your finger off.” A knife appears in his hand, he places it softly on the table.