I don’t know how long we’ve been standing here. Way too long. It feels like forever. Joey has given up trying to get away from me. I don’t hear mom getting eaten any more. I take a peek over Joey’s shoulder. I don’t see the monster. I look around and see it past dad’s body. It is lying on the ground back where it started, before we attacked. Its head resting on its front legs. Paws?

I get excited. This is our chance. We can get away. I think as best I can, coming up with a plan. Hopefully Joey doesn’t fight me on this. I can’t tell if the dog is sleeping or not. I have stealth. I mentally hit the hotkey but it doesn’t work. Why? I open my UI and try hitting stealth manually, and it still doesn’t work. No!

I can’t blow this chance. I revise my plan. I grab Joey’s wrist and he doesn’t resist me bringing him along. I go and grab my bow and send it to my inventory, and I push my nausea down as I move towards my family’s corpses to loot them. I see the monster dog stand and look at me. I don’t freeze. I start running back towards the intersection as fast as I can, dragging Joey with me.

We take the turn and keep going. We get to the open field and I drag Joey to the southeast corner. I kneel and have Joey kneel in front of me. I don’t see any sign of the monster. We wait for a long time while I cry. This place is awful. How is this real? I hope this isn’t real.

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I want to go home so bad. I just want to go home. This place is awful. I hate it. I hate those monsters. How long have we been in here? Too long. Way too long. I got to get out of here.

I haven’t seen any sign of the monster since we came to the open field. Joey is asleep. Something is floating near his body. I think it’s one of his free meals. I shift and the skin on my rear hurts. I remember what’s in my pants back there. It must’ve dried.

I don’t want to deal with this now. I still feel like…I don’t know. My body still feels tingly in a bad way. My stomach hurts. I’m tired. I just want to rewind time and go home. This game sucks. I want my mom. And my dad. And Carlos. I just want to get out of here.

I don’t know what to do. I start crying again. I lay down near Joey with my arm on his chest. He’ll move away if he realizes someone is touching him. I don’t care. He's all I got now.

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Joey wakes me up. He’s doing the jumping thing and his sign that he is hungry. It’s still daytime? My rear feels stingy. I point at the meal hovering near Joey’s chest and he doesn’t even look. I try to grab it but my hand goes right through it. How is this right? What if he was a baby? How could people feed babies if you can’t touch their free food?

I stand and grab Joey’s arms and guide his hands to the meal. It works. He drops it immediately, as soon as I let go off his arms. I bend down to look at it, to see how to open it. I don’t see any seams. It looks like a small, white box. It has a green picture of something like smoke on it. I don’t know how I am going to prompt Joey’s hands to open it if I can’t even see a way to open it.

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I grab it to see if there's something on the bottom. I’m holding it before I realize I can actually touch it now. There’s a raised arrow on the top I missed, pointing towards the front middle seam. I press it and the top just disappears. It has some sort of paper container, an apple, some uncooked broccoli, and something that looks like a really big meatball, but smoother. I see heat waves coming off the meat thing. The paper container is filled with liquid.

It takes me a minute to figure out the liquid container. It feels like paper but I couldn’t rip the top off. You have to suck on it. It is plain water. Yuck. No one ever drinks just plain water!

I grab Joey’s arm to have him sit, and then I hold the container to his mouth until he finally starts drinking. Then I put the tray on his lap.

I go to sit down but feel the pull on my rear. I want to eat before I deal with that. I get one of the three rations I have out of my inventory. It weighs almost nothing. Really, really light. It works the same as Joey’s meal, it seems to get heavier when you open it. Mine has a fruit I forget the name of – some kind of, like, a weird shaped apple – a ton of carrots and a smooth ball of what looks like warmed up chicken. I try the ball out. Not bad, but I don’t think it’s chicken. It tastes familiar though. I wish it came with more water than the little container thingy.

Way before I finish Joey gets up and starts making his want noises. He ate a little of the meatball thing but left the rest. Now that I’m done I look for the tray he left on the ground and it’s gone. What? Where is it? Did it disappear?

I stand up to look around and it’s definitely gone. I walk a few steps to the woodline to throw the remains of my little tray away when I step in something mushy.

“Gross! Joey! Did you poop right here?” He definitely did. “So gross! You didn’t even wipe did you?” I rub my foot on the grass trying to clean it. Great. Just great. More poop to clean. So gross.

I toss my tray into the woods and it hits the invisible wall. Why could me and Carlos shoot into the woods before? The trays can’t go through the walls, but arrows can?

Oh well. It should disappear soon. Hopefully with Joey’s poop too.

I hate this stupid place so much. I want to go home so bad.

I start thinking about how I’m going to clean the problem I made in my pants. For just a second I’m glad Joey is the only one here to know I pooped myself, and then I feel guilty and start crying again. And I think about missing my family and cry more.

When I finally stop crying I try to think of a way to solve my problem. I guess I could use the knife to cut my t-shirt for TP? Or the army pants or top? I start removing my armor. 30 seconds. The other equipment slots only take six seconds each.

I get an idea. One that won’t require me cutting up my t-shirt. The water near the store thing!

Joey is still doing his want noises. I ignore him and start walking towards the path to the water. I think better of it and grab Joey and bring him with me. Just in case.

When I get to the water I decide to check the store ball thing first. Holy moly! A waterskin costs a gold. Soap is five silver. Even a bucket is five silver. I can’t find underwear but the cheapest clothes are called peasant’s outfit, at one silver. Rations are the only reasonably priced thing, with a day’s rations costing one copper. Day must mean three rations, right? The recharges for the kits are pretty cheap, too, at one copper per charge for each of them.

Mom has all the rest of the money. Had. Has?

I don’t want to think about that. Not again. At least not until I clean my mess up.

I start undressing and look at the water. The door! Maybe that’s a way out. I get excited. We need to get out of here. This could be our way. I jump in the water, dunk my head under, and swim to the door. It doesn’t budge. I try everything. Go up for air and try again. I spend what feels like an hour on the door before I give up and get out and finish undressing.

We got to get out of here somehow. But I got to clean myself off first. And clean my clothes. So gross.