His mind sloshed, the room spun, and Dor woke up comfortably, too comfortably in fact. On the hard diamond plate floor of the freezer, he found himself curled around the crate, hugging an uncapped handle of Kentucky Gentleman close. The handle of whiskey rested sideways against his chest as he laid in a pool of pungent alcohol. Though, for the bottle being sideways like it was, the pool wasn’t near as big as a spilled half-gallon of alcohol should have been.

There was no doubt he’d slept longer than four hours, drunk as he still was after waking up. Four hours of sleep was the compromise he and his body came to a couple of months ago. If he slept any longer, he’d need to drink way more than his body could comfortably tolerate. But with four hours of sleep, he could easily carry over the stable buzz he’d worked up the night before to a new day. Actually, his greatest fear was waking up sober, so he carefully regulated that sleep schedule. He didn’t even want to consider the hangover he’d suffer at the end of this binge. More like withdrawls long as its been.

Unfortunately, he broke the agreement he and his body made. Before passing out, he’d gotten so drunk that he’d overslept, he just knew it. He could feel it. Despite that, strangely enough, he was more comfortable than he should have been. Dor buried his cheek into the pillow and eased his mind. It took two seconds for that action to register.

Pillow? This is a freezer. Pillows don’t belong here. I’m sure of it.

Yet, he slept with a pillow for some reason he couldn’t comprehend. Sloshed as his mind was, his brain misfired fiercely this morning; so, he couldn’t make full sense of it, but the pillow felt good. It was well worn. Normally, well-worn pillows fell flat, but this one had gone through all the proper maintenance procedures, rotated and balanced with care.

A nostalgic musk filled his nose. It wasn’t quite musky sweat; truthfully, he couldn’t identify the actual smell. It was completely foreign; yet, bizarrely nostalgic. Me and Lulu and Dad, all crammed into his Dodge at five in the morning. Despite being unidentified, he could tell it was some kind of ripe body odor. For this strange smell, maybe a Folger’s coffee spiced with cinnamon would be similar? At least, if that coffee had been left on the counter for a week. Or a couple months. He inhaled the musky, cinnamon-infused, coffee aroma. Sugar, spice, and everything nice.

A whispy strand tickled his nose. He scratched it and pulled off a hair--a long, straight, black hair. My favorite style, but Lulu’s blonde so this isn’t hers. Claire has mousey hair, so not hers either. Then a cylinder in his brain fired just enough to make sense of it. No…no, no, no. Dor shot upright and scanned the freezer. All he saw were doggy treats, noodles, and the crate under the warm glow of the Edison bulb. He was alone. But he wasn’t alone last night, the monster came in here while he was sleeping. How? I--I locked the door.

His focus turned to the heavy door. It sat at an odd angle. At first, he couldn’t make sense of it, then he saw a crack at the bottom of that industrial aluminum door. He crawled over but before he could study it any closer, a note pinned to it with a nine-penny nail caught his attention. That huge nail had been drove right through the thick aluminum. And, he noticed, the wide head didn’t have a single hammer ding on it, just like someone had pushed it in with their bare hand.

The note hanging from it wasn’t a handwritten one; it was a printed page out of a book. The title was printed in the header:

‘Prometheus’ Jumpstart Guide: How to Skip Ten Thousand Years of Stagnation.’

‘Chapter 792: Firearms and their potential.’

Below that header, most of the page was a diagram depicting an expanded model of a pistol. Arrows connected the outlined components to their descriptions, but the gist was clear. That page explained exactly how a firearm worked.

She brought me a pillow and pinned a notice to the door?

He looked back at the pillow. It was soaked through. He’d carelessly dropped it into the puddle of whiskey; all that careful maintenance was ruined. She’s going to kill me. Except, this time, he meant it figuratively. She could have driven that nine-penny nail into his heart instead of the door if she wanted to. God knows, he gave her plenty of reason to be angry at him recently. He’d abandoned her here, all alone while he stayed the night with the old man; then the first thing he did upon coming home was shoving a chunk of rawhide down her throat before he ran out of the room while she coughed herself into a massive fit. What a piece of shit.

Then somehow, while he'd hid in the cooler drinking himself into oblivion, she’d brought him her pillow and pinned a notice to the door. Fuck, I’m a piece of shit. He crawled over to the pillow and slopped it out of the muck. It was already too late to save it, it was soaked through. He could run the pillow-case through the dish-sanitizer downstairs. That was how he washed all his clothes nowadays. But the pillow itself was too far gone to be saved; no matter what he did, it would always reek of whiskey, not cinnamon spice. And everything nice.

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As he lamented ruining her pillow, a huge revelation hit him. He’d been feeling sorry for that monster. His sloshed mind misfired so bad, it even began to empathize with that creature. What the fuck is wrong with me? Looking back through rose-colored glasses, he’d mistakenly empathized with the monster. That was easy to do. It was so easy to ignore all the reasons why he feared her in the first place if it meant an easy excuse to curse at himself. It seemed the only emotion stronger than fear was self-loathing. Ha. I just need to self-loathe up some courage, march back in there, and have a bleeding heart to heart with that monster.

He wrung out the pillow and carelessly dropped it right back onto the puddle, soaking it through once again. From the remnants of yesterday’s handle, he filled Sargent Berry and tucked it away in his puddle soaked jacket. Really, all his clothes were soaked. The only part of him that stayed dry was his head; the pillow supported it just high enough to stay out of the muck. I’ll get her a new one, self-loathe up some courage, and march back in there and have a bleeding heart to heart.

As he stood to his feet, the spins hit him extra hard today. He was much worse off than usual. Instead of a stable buzz, he toed the line of an out-of-control drunk, one he wanted to embrace. He didn’t fight the spins. Suckling Sargent Berry, his body sloshed just as hard as his mind and he zagged over to the heavy door. His foot stumbled on the diamond plate floor and he tripped, reaching out to the door to catch himself.

The door didn’t support his weight. Both he and it fell forward. He landed on top of its aluminum shell as it crashed into the kitchen, deflecting off a counter on the way. Dor was off his rocker and the other door was sheared off its hinges. He glanced back in confusion. It seemed, when she broke in last night, she literally broke in. She’d sheared the door off its hinges and propped it loosely against the wall, just waiting for a bumbling idiot to stumble into it. Whoopsie. I’m the bumbling idiot. That’s right, I’m a bumbling idiot.  Give me a hand here, self-loathing. I’ve got to face down a monster.

He staggered to his feet, nearly slipping off the polished aluminum as he walked off. The stairs were extra daunting today. That wasn’t due to fear, no he was a bumbling idiot and fully embraced that moniker, more than enough to overcome fear. An out-of-control drunk didn’t hurt either. The first step tripped him, yet again, and he crawled on his hands and knees up the stairs. That's the first step, admit you're powerless. At that point, he didn’t even give enough of a shit to stand back up. He wasn’t even sure if he could.

Dor crawled up the stairs, down the hall, and paused in front of Jimmy and Donny’s room. Eyeing the dirty clothes scattered everywhere, he moved on. No, their pillows would be real rank. She’d be less pissed with a whiskey-soaked pillow than a rank one. Maybe my old pillow?

He laughed. That was a really funny joke right now. His pillow shouldn’t have even been in the running. It disqualified at the start. Really, there was only one option. He crawled into Lulu’s old room and paused to take a deep whiff. He couldn’t smell anything. Her scent had faded and the only memory that remained in here was a pink curtain.

He grabbed her pillow off the bed and threw it onto his back so he could crawl unhindered. Just like a mad tortoise, he crawled out of Lulu’s room and down the hall to Claire’s room, wearing a pillow on his back like a turtle shell. Today, for the first time ever, he didn’t knock with a gun and he didn’t even knock with his hand. He knocked with his skull. Bang! Bang! Bang! You deserve that. Again, for good measure. Bang! Bang! Bang!

Then he reached up and turned the handle. The latch clicked and Turtle Dor crawled inside. Good, good, good, she’s hiding again. Good news! Disco stars twirled across an occupied comforter wearing a hole into the bed. She sat upright. Her hands fiddled with something or other under there, but he didn’t care to know what. He just crawled over, grabbed the pillow off his back, and threw it at her.

It bounced off her body and fell to the bed. She didn’t react. Good, good, good news today!

“Follow proper maintenance,” he told her without skipping a beat. That was easy! I spoke, I spoke to her! Dad was right. I was making an ant out of a molehill here. Or a mount out of an anthill or something. That was so easy!

He recalled the note pinned to the door. “You can’t have my gun either. You scared of it? Is that it? You scared that I can hurt you? Good! Cause I’m so self-loathing I could take down a monster or an anthill or a even a mole if I had to.”

He wasn’t being cocky. Right then, he was positive he could take down the lot of them.

As he turned to crawl out of the room, her hands quit fiddling under the blanket. Then, something other than her tail popped out. Just like a vending machine shooting out snacks, a hidebound canvas popped out of the comforter and plopped onto the floor in front of him. He couldn’t understand it. Dor reached out and picked up her prize. Cross-stitch? That monster has been doing cross-stitch under there?

Dull red and bright yellow thread contrasted to depict a half-finished scene on the canvas. Dor saw…Me? He saw himself with a cartoonishly large hand cannon pointed at his temple. Unfinished red lettering stitched above it: ‘Chapter 792: Firea—’

He wasn’t sure why he did what he did next. But Dor put the hide canvas on his back and wore it out, exchanging one turtle shell for another. 

The rest of that day, he finished his out-of-control drunk, and the next day, he sobered up, though not willingly.