The trip back was uneventful aside from the slaying of a blobtopus, and a near miss with a lizard in the parking lot. I managed to shoot it with Madeline’s rifle, and we hustled inside the building before the gunshot could bring anything to our doorstep.

I badgered Madeline into leaving some food at the door of that woman I scared earlier. She begrudgingly gave up some jerky and a brand of beer she didn’t like very much.

And that was our errands done. We weren’t going anywhere else that day. We ate a variety of frozen foods for lunch and dinner. I stuck to the TV Dinner classics: salisbury steak, meatloaf, turkey in gravy, etcetera. Miss Madeline ate anything and everything pizza themed, from mini bagels to bites to hot pockets.

Frankly, the diet of nearly pure processed food left us feeling a little queasy. A single greasy frozen entree was fine, but having to eat multiple at once in order to reach satiation came with unexpected dietary consequences.

It was still better than going hungry.

My dreams that night were as disturbing and vivid as usual. The only unusual thing about them was that they weren’t about my previous traumas. Instead of being haunted by the past I saw fleeting glimpses of impossible places that I’d never born witness to in my waking hours.

As I journeyed through fragments of a non-euclidian labyrinth, I eventually came across a large figure swathed in darkly colored robes. They raised an arm and an army of undead appeared, swallowing me in moments. The last thing I saw was a bright eruption of blue flame from the ominous figure’s eyes and then I awoke.

That particular dream felt unfortunately prophetic. I had been warned about a necromancer previously, after all. I shoved it aside with all my other concerns. Not like I could do anything about them given current circumstances.

Neither of us felt like being overachievers so we took the day off. Our only notable outing had been going to the little laundromat cubby on the third floor. We had to scrounge for change to pay for the machines, but we ended up being able to cover the cost.

On our way back we found that our offering to the anonymous woman next door had vanished. We decided to believe that meant she’d taken it when we weren’t looking.

My psychic powers also left me shortly after breakfast. Instead of renewing them I chose to buy some extra stuff from the shop. I bought a healing item, a barrier which I then used, and a couple rations.

Madeline did much the same, saving her barrier for later. We treated ourselves to a ration for dinner. The frozen food, snacks, and desserts we’d secured yesterday had gotten old pretty fast.

A diet of nothing but indulgent junk food just wasn’t what it was cracked up to be, unfortunately.

My ration procured a spread of Indian food. Or rather the americanised pacific coastal version of Indian food. That meant lamb vindaloo, chicken tikka masala, an accompanying pile of steaming basmati rice, and a whole lot of naan.

No words can do a decent Indian platter justice. The naan was stuffed with cheese and absolutely dripped with herb butter, the curry was creamy and spicy and rich, the meat fall-apart tender.

Happiness on a plate.

Madeline got a positively preposterously portioned cheese burger. It had three fat patties of ground beef, a heart attack inducing amount of cheese, as well as tomato, lettuce, bacon, grilled onions, house sauce, and long sliced deli pickles on a sesame seed bun.

It also came with at least an entire potato field’s worth of shoestring french fries. They were drizzled with truffle oil and topped with finely grated parmesan, roasted garlic, and fresh parsley.

She enjoyed it immensely.

We swapped a bit of our food, Madeline got a slice of my naan dipped in curry, and I got to try a couple of her fries. They were lethally bougie and all the more delicious for it. Madeline made pleased noises about the naan, the cheese stretching as she took a bite from her slice.

Overall, a truly excellent meal. We went to bed after playing some more video games, quite satisfied.

***

My dreams sucked, no surprise there, but they were the normal variety of suck, not the strange visions kind, which implied that my psychic companion had been influencing my sleep the night before.

Regardless, on day six we needed to go on another outing, lest we lose CR again for sitting too long upon our rapidly fattening haunches. The forty eight hour penalty meant we’d basically be sticking to a day on/day off structure for the foreseeable future.

What today’s destination would be was actually a matter of some debate. We had plenty of drinking water due to bottling and bagging efforts on my part, and we had enough food to last us a couple more days.

So that meant we needed to go out with some other goal in mind. We both agreed that getting into life threatening danger just for the sake of it wasn’t worth it. After all, dying because we’d decided to grind a few more trash mobs and ended up biting off more than we could chew would just be silly.

Best to set a concrete goal to achieve and then get home before things went sideways, we thought.

Madeline wanted to raid a pharmacy to see if we could get me more meds. I was a little reluctant to do so because of how most pharmacies worked. They either made the meds on the spot, or got them shipped in from elsewhere. Whether or not they would have my specific medication, we could correctly Identify that medication if it was there, or figure out the dosage would all be up in the air.

Granted, my medication was fairly common, and my dosage was a pretty standard amount, but that was no guarantee we’d find it.

Madeline still thought we should try it. I argued there were better uses of our time. Like figuring out what the fuck was happening with that game exchange across the street. We’d observed it from Madeline’s window occasionally for a while now, and while occasionally zombies would stumble out of it or the nearby alley ways, nothing ever entered it. Any time a monster got close, it would suddenly turn around and skitter in the opposite direction after crossing some invisible boundary.

No exceptions.

I thought leaving that sort of thing unattended on our doorstep was a recipe for disaster.

Madeline posited that even going near it would be suicide, and that it was best left alone.

Madeline eventually won that argument, as she did with most of ours. She pointed out that if I started having panic attacks in the middle of fights I wouldn’t be able to effectively investigate anything, nevermind that haunted media outlet.

Not only that, but given the sort of large-scale changes my life was going through at the moment, going off of my medication could lead to more than just an increase in panic attacks and a deprecation of my general mood. I could end up with a full on psychotic breakdown.

Wouldn’t even be the first time, honestly.

So to the pharmacy it was. The closest one was in an upmarket grocery store a couple blocks east. It was a rather small store that had been around since the 90’s, and had somehow resisted the encroachment of larger chain stores. That mostly came down to the local culture having a decidedly anti-corporate vibe, allowing smaller businesses to stick around longer than they would elsewhere. It was a large part of why I liked it here.

I re-Animated my supernatural-mechanical assistant, or Psy, as I decided to call him. He was just too useful to go without. That plus Madeline’s sword and the vibro-blade I hadn’t gotten a chance to test yesterday cost all my points. Miss Madeline went for a build that was more heavy on her Strike ability than Accelerate. She wouldn’t be needing to go up and down the stairs as much as hack through everything in her way today, was her assumption.

So off we went on another adventure.

***

Things went awry pretty much immediately. A lizard ambushed us when we were forced to cross a street. I managed to shoot it down before it could let loose a scream, but the gunshots got the attention of some nearby pookas.

They didn’t charge us immediately, as we were used to them doing. Apparently these ones were a bit more cautious. They slowly encircled us in a manner resembling wolves.

Which didn’t end up doing them much good, in the end. Madeline just used Accelerate to close the distance immediately and cut them down.

Deciding that I’d be easier to handle, the remaining pookas went for me. Focussing my altered sight I could see what they were going to do before they did it, so I didn’t have much trouble slitting their throats with a my sonically assisted knife before they reached me.

The fact that my telekinesis came with haptic feedback proved to be a bit of a drawback, however. I hadn’t noticed it previously, not being in a calm enough state of mind then, but I could precisely feel the sensation of the knife cutting through their fur, skin, and meat.

After our little encounter was over I ended up losing my lunch, absolutely ruining any chance I had of looking cool, or like anything other than the hot mess I was. I chugged some water, spat some bile infused phlegm into a nearby storm drain, and took some deep breaths.

“You ok?” Madeline asked, after casually popping a wheelie in her chair in order to hop a curb.

“As much as I can be. I just got grossed out.” I stood up from where I’d been hunched against a wall.

“You did get some monster blood on your face.” She said.

“Really?” I hadn’t even noticed that. I started wiping away at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie in an attempt to get it off.

“Other side.” Madeline directed. We did the whole song and dance of trying to explain to another person where a precise spot on their face was, and failed utterly as was customary. I eventually grabbed my phone and used its camera and a damp cloth to clean the mess off of me before it caked on. Madeline used a wet wipe to get the brownish streaks off her arms.

Once we were done, we moved on.

There were some more zombies, and one of them had a longbow, which was a bit risky. I preemptively diverted any fire that came Madeline’s way as she did her thing, and got another blobtopus that had been sneaking up behind us with some lasers.

Overall it seemed we were perfectly capable of taking on small packs of baddies without trouble. The only issue was the lizards. Taking one down required gunfire, and that brought attention.

Worse would be if I didn’t catch one in time. My paranaturaly imbued vision -which I’d given up trying to rationalize to myself in any scientific context- helped quite a bit, but it wasn’t bulletproof by any means.

We were going to get caught with our pants down at some point, but It was just a bridge that we’d have to cross when we came to it. Thankfully we didn’t end up needing to before we got to the grocer.

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Another lizard had been perched on the rooftop, but being a one story building it was close enough that I could get it with a flying blade to the gizzard.

We entered inside.

Somebody had apparently ransacked the place already, given the empty shelves and broken glass on the ground. The only things left untouched were the aisle for homeopathic remedies and the book nook in the corner just right of the entrance. We gave the latter a quick look over, and I grabbed an old science fiction novel for myself, exchanging it for a thick fantasy tome I’d just finished in lieu of payment.

Madeline grabbed a horror suspense work from a famous author she liked.

The pharmacy in the back was locked up tight, and appeared to be untouched. I was about to change that. I thought about melting the lock with a laser, but instead I decided to use my new knife on it in order to avert the possible risk of a fire.

After briefly taking it to the metal I quickly gave up. It made an awful screeching noise, even if it cut with ease.

Some mini-drones finished the job for me. We hustled into the back before some critter decided to check what was making all this racket.

I’d never been in the back of a pharmacy before. It was a bit surreal traipsing through a space I’d only seen bits and pieces of from behind a counter. We both got to searching the shelves after a moment's pause.

Madeline asked me what I was looking for specifically, and I gave her the bottle with the name of the medication and the dosage on it. After about fifteen minutes of searching we found what I needed, and I double checked that it was the correct substance measured at the right dosage.

We also found some of the same stuff next to it at half the dose, but I decided to leave it. I just couldn’t conscionably take all of it. Four months of meds would be enough, I arbitrarily decided.

Madeline helped herself to some antibiotics that she recognized as well as some painkillers.

She was apparently entirely over any apprehensions she had about looting. I just decided not to criticize.

***

On the trip back I made the classic blunder of letting my guard down, thinking the hard part was over. So of course a Lizard spotted us and I missed my shot trying to take it down. Soon I heard sympathetic cries from other lizards in the vicinity.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that we’d be mobbed in short order if we didn’t get moving.

We set off at speed.

Madeline quickly found she had to slow down to match my pace, even accounting for the detours she had to take for ramps. She tried to hurry me along just a bit faster, but no amount of vocal encouragement would allow me to match her incredible physique backed by the strange buffs of the display.

It also turned out that I wasn’t capable of maintaining a sprint for very long. Ordinarily I wouldn’t beat myself up about that, the fact that I functioned as a human being at all was impressive enough given my background, but our lives were at stake here.

I urged myself to move through the panting exhaustion and pain in my sides, feeling like a real heel for my lack of physical fitness.

We got caught by some more zombies and a bear-beast about a block from home. Despite the lack of any previously visible crevices or gaps on the bear’s wedge shaped head, it split open to reveal a slimy cavern lined with multiple rows of teeth. I swear I could see straight down its esophagus, a sack of some sort pulsing visibly deep within.

Madeline just decided to cleave it into multiple pieces on the spot, possibly as a panic response. I barely covered her back from an encroaching pair of undead by dividing the skull of one with my technologically advanced pocket knife, and shooting the other. The twenty-two long rifle wasn’t good for stealth, but that was a forgone conclusion at that point.

Miss Madeline mopped up the last couple of skeletons with a stab and sweep of her sword before we got back to fleeing. We could hear the scrabbling of claws at our rear, and the nails-down-a-chalkboard sound of the banshee lizards screeching never ceased.

We came face to mutant-face with another one of those praying-mantis-mushroom-men that had nearly wiped the floor with us the last time we met. It was blocking our way out of the small gap between buildings we found ourselves in. Madeline used Accelerate to dash through it, chopping one of its blade-like arms off at the joint as she did.

Her blade survived the encounter this time, thank god. She’d apparently used Strike to prevent it from snapping in half like it had previously. The funguy still had an arm left though, and it turned to bring it down on Madeline’s back. I ran up close enough to cut off the remaining weapon/appendage with my trusty floating vibro-knife.

Now that both arms were missing from the giant creature, I had just enough room to squeeze past it. It opened the large gash in its torso that served as a mouth in an attempt to bite me, but I just shoved it back with a bit of telekinesis, allowing me and Psy to slip past unmolested.

Madeline switched with me once I was out of harm's way in order to remove a leg from the thing, and we left it there to struggle. The back entrance to our building was in view now, we just had to cross one more street to get there.

If only. We had a whole train of mobs on our ass, and even if we did manage to slide into the lobby intact, we’d just be repeating the same siege again. Plus, I was thoroughly drained and lagging at that point. I’d been running for so long my vision had legitimately started to get dimmer. My heart pounded so intensely that I was worried my entire circulatory system was going to rupture at once.

My head hurt and thinking was impossible. I really needed to up my cardio regime. As in, doing any exercise at all was probably a good Idea. Still, I pushed on. I told myself that it would all be fine if we got to the lobby, because considering otherwise wasn’t going to get me to run faster.

I vaguely registered that Madeline had opened the door and was holding it for me. I tried thanking her after crossing the threshold, but instead I coughed repeatedly, until I completely collapsed on the bloodstained, laser scorched linoleum tiling.

My breath took a while to return, and it took even longer to get myself to stand back up. Once I did I noticed that the monsters were pounding on the back entrance as well as the barricade at the front.

“You ok?” Madeline asked.

“Not really. But that doesn’t matter as much as figuring out what we’re going to do now.” I panted. Madeline grabbed a couple of cold sports drinks from her inventory and handed one to me. It was one of the best things I’d ever tasted. Madeline drank deeply from her bottle of sugar water and electrolytes as well.

“I don’t know.” Madeline admitted after thinking about it for a while. “If we just hide in my room, there’s at least three doors they’d have to bust down to get to us. It could just blow over.”

I was tempted. I really didn’t want a repeat of last time. We both nearly died, and while we were both clearly a little more combat competent now, I still didn’t like our odds. Plus, having to worry about fighting a literal horde every time we went out wasn’t doing it for me. Personal responsibility only went so far.

“Honestly I vote we let someone else deal with it. We’ve borrowed enough trouble for one day.” I said. It was an uncharacteristic statement from me, and I could see surprise on Madeline’s face.

“Really?” Her tone was audibly incredulous, even over the banging and crashing of the barricade.

“Yeah. Let’s just see if we can’t block the back entrance and the door to the stairs before we skedaddle.” I confirmed.

I was done.

I’d stick to the scruples and ethics I could afford, and I was tapped out.

“Ok. There’s still a bit of unclaimed furniture in the front office. Let’s use that.” Madeline pointed to a sturdy looking office desk that remained in its place despite the absence of any chairs or other movable furnishings.

“How are we gonna get it out of there?” I asked. I suspected the only reason it hadn’t been already incorporated into the barricade had been because no one else could figure out how to move it either.

“I figure if you lift one end we can slide it into my inventory.” Madeline replied. That seemed a viable plan to me. It even worked, though I must qualify that it was still a struggle. At one point Madeline nearly tipped over her chair trying to lean over and lift at the same time.

Still, we got it in front of the back door, wedging one corner of the desk against a nearby pipe to stick it more firmly in place. While we were at it, we grabbed a bookshelf and transported it via inventory to the stairwell to thoroughly block off that door as well.

Then we got back to Madeline’s place and collapsed onto the furniture, me laying on the couch I’d been sleeping on and Madeline worming her way into her recliner.

We still kept an eye at the hoard from the windows of course, peeking through the blinds. But eventually they all dispersed, ultimately unable to penetrate our makeshift defenses. That mostly seemed to come down to a lack of motivation in the end. They got bored, unable to maintain their frenzy for very long.

It also helped that no more mushroom mantises showed up. If another one of those came by, I suspect it could have hacked clean through the doors, furniture be damned.

There was another bear, but it proved to be pretty clumsy. The poor thing kept getting bounced to the back of the crowd.

So that was another day done. We’d check on the lobby tomorrow and patch up the defenses if need be then.

***

For dinner I made rice porridge, AKA congee. I cooked it at a one to seven ratio of rice to chicken stock, and simmered some teriyaki flavored jerky in it for protein. It was passable, especially with the assistance of some extra toppings. In this case some fried shallots, and the last of my green onions and eggs.

We then turned in for the night early, exhausted. Madeline passed out in her recliner again. I could understand not wanting to be alone so I didn’t judge. I just took a shower, put on another episode of our favorite nature doc, and fell asleep on the couch after taking my meds.

My dreams were mostly a repeat of the one’s I’d had the night before last, though the sights and sounds were a bit clearer this time around. I distinctly remembered falling towards the ceiling, landing just next to a hanging light fixture.

I also knew where I was this time. It was inside the game exchange. It didn’t resemble the place even in the slightest, being all impossible angles and non euclidean geometry. But I knew that was where I was, with that sort of assuredness that only came from dream logic.

The surroundings got stranger as I traveled inwards. The walls spiraled inwards and wove in on themselves like a licorice stick as I walked. There was a kind of beauty to it, and I even enjoyed myself a bit.

It ended basically the same way, though. I got murdered by a mob summoned from seemingly nowhere by a hooded figure.

I woke up. Madeline was in the shower. I decided to try and make something nice for breakfast.

I was out of normal eggs, but I did have access to the powdered variety. I stuck some powdered eggs and the water needed to rehydrate them in the blender, and ran the machine until the mixture was even and free of clumps.

I also had some pancake mix left, and in the inexplicable logic of American convenience stores, they’d stocked some canadian bacon.

First was searing the bacon. Technically they were precooked, but a bit of browning would only help to enhance their flavor.

That left me with a bit of fond on the bottom of the pan which I de-glazed by throwing some thinly sliced onions in. I was going to caramelize them into near jam.

I got the pancakes going next. All plain and unadulterated this time, the plan was to have a blank canvas upon which we could customize to our hearts content.

I got through making a substantial stack of those, and put them under some foil alongside the sliced-ham-with-pretensions to keep warm.

I gave the onions some more butter and another stir, reducing the heat. They were just about ready.

Next up were the reconstituted eggs. Powdered wasn’t nearly as good as fresh in my opinion, but it would do in a scramble just fine.

And scramble those eggs I did. I made sure to use a nonstick pan because those things not only liked to clump, but glued themselves onto just about any surface they touched. Still, a bit of salt, oil, and heat and they were ready.

Madeline eventually left the bathroom, her hair styled in the loose waves she preferred and her make-up reapplied carefully along the scar across her right cheek. With the assistance of some foundation it was just a small line, barely two inches across. It didn’t do anything to take away from her good looks, but she was sensitive about it.

I stopped staring and revealed what we were having for breakfast. Her eyes lit up, clearly excited by the prospect.

I prepared for myself a large quadruple stack of flapjacks, topped with scrambled eggs, peanut butter, and maple syrup.

“Funny, that’s exactly how my uncle likes his pancakes.” Madeline commented. “I’ve never actually had them that way, myself.”

“I’m quite fond of it. I don’t think it’s for everyone though.” I responded.

Given the right procedure, my concoction would taste similar to a maple bar, but the combination of sweet and salty as well as the varying textures could be off putting for some. My mother always thought it was gross, for instance.

“Pass me the peanut butter, I’m gonna give it a shot.” I did as she bade me, giving her a butter knife to spread it along with the syrup.

I enjoyed my breakfast quite a lot. It tasted like childhood. I dipped a slice of canadian bacon in some excess syrup and popped it in my mouth. I felt my lips curl into a grin. Lovely.

Madeline liked hers too, though she went heavier on the peanut butter and lighter on the eggs than myself. She also demolished the majority of the cured pork product, making little sandwiches of sliced pork, pancake and caramelized onions with syrup.

Maybe not a high class sort of meal, but a good time nonetheless.