I awoke to the annoyingly familiar aches of sleeping on a hard hallway carpet, although I was covered in a blanket and some sheets. It had a slightly-off smell to it, and I had no memory of grabbing a blanket before I passed out. As I sat up, I spotted Chez curled up nearby on the floor. He had covered me in his bedding and slept on the hard floor. I was touched. This little guy continued to endear himself to me. I struggled to my feet, and my grumbling woke up Chez, who immediately scrambled to his feet and ran over.

I patted his head and sighed, looking at the bandages on his face. Blood and puss had started to soak through them, and that meant I was going to need to put fresh bandages on. The lights overhead were still at their “daylight” brightness, and unless I had slept for more than 12 hours, it was most likely just a short nap. I was hoping that Chez’s bandages would last more than a single day.

I led him to an apartment I knew had a first-aid kit, and dragged him into the bathroom again. As I started the water, Chez gave me a resigned sigh and a pitiful glare. I had no way to explain to him the importance of cleaning open wounds, and unlike the stitches, he had no way of seeing an immediate benefit to enduring it. I removed his soiled bandages as gently as I could, and dragged him into a shower again. This one had a removable shower head, so it was easier to gently wash the parts of his ruined face that I needed without simply shoving him into the water stream. I used up half of a tube of antibiotic ointment, and re-bandaged him.

Skill Improved: First Aid First Aid has reached level 11

With Chez taken care of, and my legs too weak for a stairwell excursion, I took it easy for the rest of the day. I cleaned up my vomit, caught Chez peeing in a corner again, tried to show him how to pee into a toilet, and searched more of the apartments on this floor. I found some work boots that fit me quite well as well as some cargo pants which I had never thought I would wear. Countless jokes and memes I had seen came to mind, but now that I was having to wage an inter-floor war with goblins and didn’t have a magical weightless inventory, cargo pants seemed like an absolutely brilliant way to carry more supplies. Beside the clothing, two of the apartments I searched contained items that were so incredible they might as well be legendary drops.

The first apartment belonged to what could only be an archery enthusiast. The walls were covered in pictures of the man holding his bows, targets studded with arrows, deer and boar he had killed, medals and trophies, but these didn’t interest me at all. Based on the empty racks, the person that lived here had owned five bows, and three were still here. There were also more than eighty arrows and a few quivers. It was an absolute treasure trove for me, and provided the opportunity to slaughter goblins before they could get close to me. The only problem was I couldn’t string any of them!

They were all resting on their mounts with the strings only attached on one end, but I simply couldn’t bend the bows far enough with one arm to string them with the other. Strength had suddenly become just as vital as endurance.

He had left a variety of hunting gear behind, but orange vests and woodland camouflage were absolutely useless in these hallways. There was a large hunting knife in a mostly-ransacked closet. He had either forgotten it or took his favorites with him and left it behind when he left. I immediately ditched my flimsy kitchen knife for the sturdier weapon meant for stabbing and flaying wild beasts. It had a bone handle and a seven-inch blade. The weight of the weapon was comforting, the plastic handled kitchenware had always felt so flimsy. The blade even had a sheathe with a belt loop so I didn’t have to keep it in my hand or worry about it cutting through my pant-pack.

The treasure of the second apartment was just as grand as the first. There was a five-gallon tub of vanilla ice cream in the freezer. I was always more of a chocolate or rocky-road person, but there was something about knowing that I would never be able to go buy ice cream again that made finding any ice cream at all a treasured novelty.

“Ice cream!” I yelled as I did a victory dance with the five-gallon bucket.

“Arze cram?” Chez asked, tilting his head.

“What?” I stopped my merrymaking to stare at the little goblin, but he didn’t reply, “Ice cream,” I pointed at the tub.

“Arze cram,” Chez confidently replied.

I sighed. That sounded a bit too much like, “Ass cram,” which absolutely would not do as a name for something as wondrous as ice cream. I found two bowls and a couple spoons and scooped some into a bowl, “Ice cream,” I said sternly, handing my little friend the bowl.

“Arze cram,” Chez affirmed before scooping the ice cream into his mouth.

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“I-C-E,” I pronounced slowly as I took his bowl and added more to it.

“Arze,” Chez said as he reached for the bowl.

“No,” I stated, raising the bowl out of his reach, “Ice.”

“Arzee,” Chez frowned.

“Ice.”

“Aze,” Chez tried, gazing at the ice cream hopefully.

“Good boy!” I praised, giving him the bowl.

“Ice Cream,” I said as I dug out a heaping scoop.

“Aze Cram!” Chez shouted delightedly, and I dropped the heaping scoop into his bowl. Soon I would have to start working on sentences!

I laughed as he devoured his ice cream. I was getting so attached to the little guy that even his gaping, needle-toothed maw didn’t make me shudder in terror anymore. I simply enjoyed the look of pure happiness on his face and his cheerful mumblings in his own language, but then disaster struck. Chez suddenly dropped his bowl, clamped his hands onto the sides of his head, and started to wail.

“What’s wrong!?” I shouted as I rushed over to check on Chez, but he cringed away from me and gave me a betrayed glare as he sobbed.

Chez curled up into the fetal position, muttering, “Aze cram… aze cram.”

It took me a few moments before I finally realized what had happened. The poor bastard had brain freeze and thought I had poisoned him. I sighed and filled up a glass with some warm water.

“Chez,” I called out softly, but he only twitched and whimpered, “Chez!” I said in a stern tone, causing the pitiful creature to look up. I held out the glass of water to him, and despite looking at me doubtfully, he eventually poured the warm water into his mouth.

Chez relaxed now that he had received the antidote and stared at me with a mix of relief and distrust. He hid in the corner of the room when I picked up the bucket of ice cream, and I felt guilty. My lack of forethought and allowing him to wolf down ice cream had left him terrified of such a delightful delicacy. Just as I turned to return my sacred treasure to its chilled vault, all the lights in the room shut off.

“Well, fuck,” I groaned in the darkness as I started to panic. There was a very short list of things that could cause the power to shut off, and only two of those possibilities would have a chance of the power being restored.

If a breaker had been tripped, I might be able to fix that. If it was one of the ones on this floor, I could flip the switch in the maintenance room. Unfortunately, Chez and I were the only ones on this floor and weren’t using any electricity besides appliances that had been plugged in since the apocalypse began, so there was no reason for a local breaker to be triggered. If it was a breaker for a whole floor down in the basement, I was screwed. If some goblins had gotten into the walls and destroyed some of the wiring, I had no clue how to fix that, and any affected floors would be permanently without power. That left an issue with either the batteries or the solar panels. If the solar panels or the connection between the panels and the batteries were damaged, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. If the batteries were damaged, I was equally helpless. The only likely possibility, which was also the best case scenario, was that the daily power generation was simply unable to keep up with the demand.

Normally in the event of a disaster or malfunction that caused the tower to rely solely on its own power, all non essential appliances would be turned off, and each of the residents would be assigned a limit on their daily power usage. There simply was not enough space on the building to fit enough panels to keep up with peak usage, even when they replaced all the sun-facing windows with solar glass. I had hoped that my neighbors had turned off their AC before they left, but it was an unrealistic wish. Almost everyone had a “smart” home or, at the very least, an automatic climate control system. The power reserves had lasted so long that I had started to believe it wouldn’t be an issue, but now, I had to hope that was all that was wrong.

I stumbled out into the hallway, cursing the fact that I hadn’t thought to keep a flashlight with me and still clutching my tub of ice-cream. I sighed at the green glow of the emergency lighting. Unless the breakers for both the apartment I was squatting in and the hallway both blew at the same time, the whole floor was out of power, and that meant either a primary breaker in the basement, one of the other irreparable scenarios, or drained batteries. At this point, all I could do was wait till morning and pray that the new day’s solar generation was able to breathe some life back into the building.

I had a critical decision to make as I sat in the barely lit hallway. The power might come on soon, or it may never return. In my hands, I held what might just be the last tub of ice cream in the world. I could sit here and eat as much as I could without getting sick and enjoy what might be my final taste of this beloved treasure, or I could roll the dice and stuff the ice cream back in the freezer. It was already slightly warmed from sitting on the counter while I tried to teach Chez to speak and while I enjoyed my own bowl. Whatever freezer I opened to stuff it in would be warmed just by opening it and allowing the cold air to escape. If I kept it out to enjoy what I could, it would continue to warm and be even less likely to survive till the power came on if it ever did.

In the end, the only sensible thing to do was spoon half the ice cream out into a mixing bowl and stick the remaining ice cream back in the freezer I got it from. I savored every last spoonful of ice cream as I lay on the bed in the pitch-black bedroom.

It was unnaturally dead and silent. I always kept a fan, ac, or heater running. A slight breeze, artificial or otherwise, was soothing and at this point, not feeling one was unnatural for me. Even after turning off the lights, there would always be some appliance or electronics with a charging light or a power strip with a glowing power button, and it was practically impossible to find a computer that didn’t have at least one glowing part inside. All of the ambiance of daily life was missing. This was a pure, silent, and still darkness I had never encountered before. All I could hear was Chez snoring on his pile of blankets, and my own breath. Despite my exhaustion, it took a long time to fall asleep.