“What do you think happened to the ISS?” Steve asked after we arrived at the castle. The group had went to work right away.

Russo worked to reinforce the exits and figure out a way to block the windows upstairs, while others worked to clean out the rooms. Broken furniture was being dragged upstairs to the fire place.

We still had to figure out what to do with the bodies. But we had brought shovels.

I grimaced at the thought of Jason. If we kept his body, I might be able to bring him back later. Was that smart? Was it worth it? Did it endanger the rest of our lives?

I couldn’t know.

“I have no idea.” I said to Steve, pouring over the maps. We had dragged a dented and dated table into the center room of the bottom floor and I was pouring over it.

Half the group had immediately gone to sleep as we got inside, despite the dust on the floor. At least the first floor had no corpses on it.

I was glad Steve was seeing at least partially more himself after some sleep. He was still shaky, though.

“Don’t you wonder what’s up there?” Steve asked.

“I’m mostly focused on surviving, right now.” I said, starting to get annoyed at what Steve was focusing on.

“So am I! What if its a beautiful world free of any vampires?” Steve asked. He sounded excited.

“Then I could only fuck it up by going there.” I replied, self deprecating.

There was a tense silence for a moment.

We were organizing and separating the rooms. There weren’t enough on this floor for bedrooms. However, in the back corner of a room we hadn’t explored, we found a barred and sealed hatch leading downward into an unexplored basement.

We assumed it connected to the sprawling monster cave below and barricaded it even further. Come day time, I would descend inside with Russo. No one else needed to come and risk themselves until we cleared it out.

“Steve!” Bea said, leaning over into the room. There was a kitchen in the back, and she had been trying to hook up propane as a fire source for the stove so that they wouldn’t have to worry about constantly starting fires to cook. We would run out of propane, eventually, but no one wanted to talk about that yet.

“Yeah?” He said, turning awkwardly. He was much quieter now.

“Can you cook?” She asked.

Steve looked at me.

“I can cook.” I said, looking up. “What’s up?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Oh… uh… I’m not sure if that’s a good idea?” Bea asked.

“Everyone else is tired. Let me help.” I said, walking into the kitchen.

It was a wreck. Amber shouted as she threw stacked up, grease laden pots and pans out from the surviving cabinets.

“Disgusting!” She said.

One of the nursing students flinched near the grill. The propane tank had been attached to a burner that was hanging precariously beneath the grill, tied up with metal wire. A tiny flame came out of the top.

“I’ll help.” I said, grabbing one of the bigger pots off the floor and bringing it up to the counter.

A pile of supplies had been spilled over it. I pulled out a bottle of water and soap, lining the inside of the cast iron pan.

“Stop, you idiot!” Amber said, grabbing the pan and trying to pull it out of my grip. She failed.

“What?” I looked at her in surprise.

“You’ll ruin it! You can’t use soap on cast iron.”

I rolled my eyes.

“That’s not true anymore. That’s from when we used to use lye in soap.” I replied, spilling the water into the pot and starting to wash it with a brand new sponge. It took every point of strength I had to grind the grease out.

“We can’t cook on this set up. We have to get something better.” Amber said, giving up on arresting the pot from me.

“Everyone’s going to be hungry. We should make something now…” I said, scanning the room. We had piles of ramen and cans of food that had been scrounged up. I chuckled darkly to myself. I never did get to finish my ramen earlier. “We can worry about finishing the kitchen later.”

[Internal threats: Hostile monsters within city walls. Eliminate all hostiles to enable city interface. Monsters remaining: 61]

I had figured out how to set the alert to pop up every time it ticked up, and I had been watching it all night. An analog clock hung from the ceiling, and it was probably nearing dawn.

I got to work cleaning first the pot, then heating the water in the pot and using it to clean utensils. I had to waste more of our bottled water to clean it, forcing grease off of it. I didn’t ruin the pan, but I did ruin the sponge.

I poured the gray water into a bucket.

“Ready?” I asked Amber. She was staring at me.

“You’ve had your hands in boiling water for like five minutes now.” She said.

“Oh.” I said, lifting up and looking at my hands. They weren’t even irritated. “Sorry?”

I noticed that she had her gun on a holster on her side. She hadn’t had it when I entered the kitchen, and I didn’t know when she grabbed it. It was fine. I wouldn’t trust my life to a vampire insisting he wont eat me either.

“It’s fine. Get the water boiling again. Stop wasting all of it.”

I poured new water in. Amber opened a dozen packs of ramen, throwing it and the seasoning in. I helped open cans of chicken, dumping them into our ramen-chicken-soup.

Bea dumped half a bottle of seasoning in.

It smelled like some of the best food I had ever made. Yet I found myself enthused by the prospect of eating it. I stared at the hot soup, sighing remorsefully as Bea swirled it.

Russo swept in with a spoon, drinking a mouthful of it.

“Mmm. Needs more salt. Holy shit, did you dump half a bottle of seasoning in it or something?” Russo asked.

“Bea did.” Amber replied.

I got back to work cleaning the wooden bowls that were left behind in the castle. It showed signs of life, human life, like a long time ago this was a normal castle that regular humans had occupied. I wondered if it had a study or a library or somewhere I could learn its history.

The first sign of dawn coming was the sudden drop in the number of monsters in the city.

[Internal threats: Hostile monsters within city walls. Eliminate all hostiles to enable city interface. Monsters remaining: 49]

Twelve had died just like that, killed instantly by a force beyond their control. Most of the blood-thralls seemed little better than animals.

Light slipped through the cracks of the door to outside. The bottom of it was affixed with a towel. Everyone ate sitting in the giant foyer, on piles of blankets and against the walls.

I turned to the door. I had to know how bad the sunlight would affect me. Maybe progenitors would suffer less when exposed to the light.