Sloane woke up with the mother of all headaches.

Her hand was holding her head as she got out of bed and limped into the bathroom, she popped two pain killers into her mouth and a single antibiotic.

Sloane winced, she cradled her head.

Her temples were throbbing. Would this many grams give her a stroke?

Well it was either she dies in pain or she overdoses because her enhanced nerves couldn't withstand the effects of two painkillers.

Sloane gagged as she closed the cabinet. She heaved. Bending down like this everytime she needed medicine didn't do a lot to help her condition, should she organize these things out of here?

Sloane wiped her mouth with her sleeve, she'd do that eventually- she winced and held her head. Soon. Preferably when her head doesn't feel like exploding whenever she takes the most basic of actions.

For now, she's going to take a break and rest in her bed.

Sloane lost consciousness the moment her head met the pillow.

Her eyes shot open and she glared at the window. How long did she...

Sloane covered her eyes, did the light coming from the window get lower? What was going on with the wound on the sky? Is it finally night?

She moved and a hiss of pain dug into her head, she ignored it and reached for the curtains.

She hissed and pulled her hand back, she looked at her bandaged palms and yeah... Maybe overworking herself yesterday was a bad idea.

Still, splintered her palm may be, Sloane went ahead and pulled the curtains anyway, she needed to see what was going on outside.

It was day. There was light. The storm had disappeared and the skies were bright, the wound was still there, but its presence had lessened, when placed inside a blue sky, it was barely even visible.

But it was definitely still there. Sloane could spot the silhouette of the gash.

Sloane got out of bed and walked down to the work bench she hastily made in the kitchen yesterday.

She had been working on a crossbow before she had the bright idea to exhaust herself while fortifying her house and headache or not, she plans on finishing it today.

Making holes in the garter and then putting in lines upon lines of elastic bands had been a fairly easy task, she's done croquette before.

Sloane still fought for it thanks to the constant headache paired with the wounds on her exhausted hands but she did eventually finish it.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

After it was done, she tested the elasticity of the band and true to the book's description, it was harder to pull now that there were more bands adding tensile strength into the garter.

The ribbon-shaped way the elastic bands were tied was from the book, and according to it, it would make the makeshift string much stronger. Sloane decided to believe it even if she didn't understand the theory behind tensile strength support.

True to the mana channel's drawback, Sloane had leg cramps when she stood up to take a break. She grabbed a protein bar and a box of orange juice and ate them while walking back and forth in her living room.

Pain came for her legs with each step and it was like needles pricked at the inside of her things and calves. Sloane didn't mind though, as it could be easily ignored.

Sloane threw away her trash and stared at her work bench. She stood still while wondering what was her next step.

Besides weaponry, she also needed armor, she had something basic, but that wouldn't be able to do anything to protect her against the monsters. But then again, what would?

She washed down the gunk in her mouth with the remaining orange juice and crushed the carton. This one went to a different plastic bag, one she reserved for fertilizer.

Sloane considered the things she needed if she wanted to survive; food and water could be checked out, as she had stocked plenty of it.

She was working on weaponry, hygiene was not necessary, or it was if the monsters could track her that way, and her house was fortified.

So what else did she need? Sloane went to Anarchial Recipe for guidance.

Among other things she needed medicine, contact with the outside world, and waste disposal. For that last one, Sloane had already sealed her room's toilet after she used the last galons of water in its tank.

She did still have the two other bathrooms in the house, but one of them was in her parents' room so that wouldn't be used in... At least forever.

The backyard would be a good place to dispose of her waste, but she didn't just want to do it in the open, she had to find a way to cover it up. Or cover a part of it maybe? The entire backyard having a tarp all over it would be too ambitious.

So the backyard would be used for wastes, that's settled.

Should she reconsider her water supply? She still had a lot left but that wouldn't last for long. She had plants now.

Then there's the problem of heating and medicine. For the latter, she still had a lot leftover thanks to her needing a large stockpile every week but even assuming she pinches the amount she consumes, it would only last for another month at best.

Almost all of her problems could be boiled down to needing supplies which really only had one solution, didn't it?

Looting. That was what the book told her to do. And that's her best idea to solve her supply problem.

She needed to start looting if she wanted her supplies to last, and to do that, she needed a weapon to defend herself against monsters and fellow humans alike.

Sloane looked back at her work bench. Guess it was about time she works on her crossbow again.

After the garter, Sloane went ahead and grabbed a piece of wood to act as the weapon's body, she hollowed out a line along the center and that was it.

She then created a grip from a table leg she carved and then split in half.

The space inside the body and the grip were for the shooting mechanism, which she plans on making after another break. Her legs were getting cramps again.

She had enough scrap finish the crossbow, which was good.

After another half an hour of her walking in circles, Sloane then proceeded to sharpen her box cutter with the same smooth stone used for the cleaver.

Her... Personal tool had surprisingly held on after being used to stab two monsters to death and she plans on making it last longer than that.

Sloane placed the box cutter down and continued working on her crossbow, she grabbed the fishing kit her father used from the living room and dropped it on her work bench.

The recommended weight for hook used on the crossbow depended on the amount of paper that was shredded when testing the string and since all five layers were torn after she struck it for the second them, Sloane picked a 3 kilo hook. Two of them even.

They were supposedly meant to be used on larger fish, but in this case, they will hold an arrow in place until Sloane pulls the trigger and releases it.

The latch and hook connected the crossbow's center to the grip, while the trigger mechanism released the latch after it has been primed. Both used hooks.

Even with her benefits helping her out, Sloane spent a few hours, took several breaks, and wrote down rough schematics just to finish the entire thing, she also had to shave and hollow out the grip even further.

It was worth it in the end though, since she now had a weapon with renewable ammo.

All she needed to do now was connect everything and the crossbow was finished. But before that, Sloane went upstairs and checked her windows and what she saw made her frown, why was the sky raining blood?

The fact that she quickly ignored it was a testament to how used she's gotten to the apocalypse, it had only been a day since she saw that skeleton and yet she's already considering blood rain as something perfectly normal.

Sloane went downstairs and finished making the crossbow, afterwards, she went on and sharpened some chair legs into arrows.

She made 12 of them in total. They weren't shabby, thankfully, and testing one showed that they could puncture the decapitated head of the grinning monster just fine.

After this, Sloane decided to finish the day by cleaning her wounds and replacing her bandages. She drank pain killers and anti-biotics before bed and then fell asleep.