I awoke slowly and in a daze, my left side aching horribly. Something was shaking me, and something was crying, but I felt so weak. I slowly opened my eyes to almost complete darkness and the faint silhouette of a frantic Chez, wailing while shaking me as hard as he could. I opened my mouth and attempted to speak, but my throat was so dry and parched that I couldn’t do anything more than croak or groan. I tried to lick my lips, but even my tongue was dry, and my lips were cracked. I blinked and felt my eyelids scrape over my dry eyes. There was a blue box hovering in front of my face, but I didn’t care. I needed water.

I crawled toward the bathroom, with Chez trying to help pull me along as best he could. It took far too long for me to reach it, and the smell of the bathroom left me dry-heaving, but I needed water. I pulled myself up to the sink, turned it on, and leaned in under the faucet, gulping down as much water as I could directly from the stream. I kept drinking until I felt sick and then crawled out of the bathroom and away from that horrid stench.

I lay sprawled out just outside the bathroom, with Chez fussing over me. I finally focused on the blue window in front of me.

Ability Improved: Hibernation Hibernation has reached level 6

I swiped it away, as leveling Hibernation after being wounded wasn’t much of a surprise, but then a second window appeared.

Ability Improved: Hibernation Hibernation has reached level 7

An extra level was always a bonus, although I wondered how badly I had been wounded for it to have leveled up twice. I still had no idea where the ability had come from, but I knew it had saved my life. My wounds healing much faster than normal was the only thing keeping me alive and able to continue fighting right now,

I lay there for a long time, and once my stomach had finally settled from the rush of water, I softly said, “Food,” hoping Chez remembered what that word meant from our lessons. Chez hurriedly stuck his chin forward and rushed off to the kitchen. He returned with an opened pack of dried mango slices, a box of frosted cereal, and a jar of peanut butter. I propped myself up against a wall and started with the dried fruit. I had a ravenous hunger. I felt as if I hadn’t eaten in weeks. I still didn’t have my phone, so I had no idea what day it was or how long I had been out, but this is the weakest I had ever been. Not even that first time I had been stabbed in the leg had left me so helpless.

My clothes were soaked in caked blood, and I knew I must have bled for a long time after passing out and not being able to maintain the pressure on the wound any longer. I focused on eating and resting while Chez frantically fussed over me. I looked at him and saw his bandages were absolutely disgusting. I hadn’t changed them yet on the day we arrived on this floor, and I knew it had been days since then. Luckily, he seemed stronger despite the lack of treatment. A few days of rest had done him good.

After eating far too much peanut butter and cereal with my fingers, I forced myself to stand. I felt dizzy, but I was more steady than I expected, and my thirst had returned. I went back into the bathroom to drink more before I was reminded why I had crawled out. The toilet was absolutely full of shit and was filled to the brim with piss.

I stared at Chez and realized he had done his best to only go in the toilet but had missed the vital step of flushing between visits. It was progress, but I stumbled over to the kitchen sink for my water rather than endure the stench any longer.

After I drank my fill once again, I tried to relax. My body was recovering rapidly as if I was a dry and crumpled sponge waiting to soak up food and water. So I rested on the floor in darkness while I waited for my body to make use of what I had eaten. Eventually, the apartment lights all blazed with light, and I figured it was time to start the day.

With light to see by, the apartment was very different from when I had gone to sleep. The kitchen looked to have been ransacked, and its contents split into three piles. All of the tastier items were in a seemingly untouched pile, while the pile of lesser foods had been torn into, creating the third pile of trash. I wondered once again just how long I had been out, for Chez to have eaten so much.

I glanced down and stared in dismay at my clothes. They were irreparably stained after the bloody mess they had soaked in, but luckily there was no one around to see. I stumbled back to the bedroom to hopefully find a change of clothes when I saw the bed. There was so much dried blood. The sheets had been soaked through, and there was a pool of dried blood beneath the bed.

It finally clicked in my mind how close I had come to dying. It wasn’t the fiercest fight I had experienced, and for most of it, I was in complete control, but that single shallow stab of a shitty wooden spear had nearly done me in. It finally became real in my mind that all it would take was a single lucky strike to end my life. I gently prodded my wound and winced as the tender flesh sent a wave of agony to my mind in protest. I desperately wanted to hide and rest, but I remembered the goblin children that had fled my floor. The beasts were breeding and would only grow in number and strength the longer this dragged on.

I found an excessively oversized shirt and some sport shorts that I could make fit by tying the strings tight. Bathed, dressed, and then dragged Chez into the shower. I attempted to teach him to bathe with mixed success, and when I peeled off his bandages, I was relieved. The infection had mostly cleared up, which I hadn’t expected at all when I had seen the filthy bandages. There were a few wounds, specifically the ones I hadn’t had any skin left to stich, that were still leaking some pus, but it was far better than it had been when I met him. All he needed was a rinse, some fresh ointment and bandages, and then a clean shirt.

After another quick meal, I started to prepare myself mentally and physically to venture back into the hallways of this damned tower. I had cast off my pant-quiver when I entered the apartment, and it was relatively clean, so I was able to keep most of my battle gear with me. I salvaged my blood-caked belt and knife sheath to wear, and I was as ready as I would ever be.

I slowly stepped out into the hallway with the spear-wielding Chez at my side. I saw no signs of goblin activity, and none of the doors nearby had been damaged. We circled the building and arrived at an unexpected scene. The planks I had screwed on had been broken through on both the left and right door, but not the center, and none of the other doors in the hallway had been breached. I knew some goblins were still alive, as one had tried to gut me from the left door when I was sealing them up, and I had assumed they would continue to break into other apartments while I was unconscious. The only other thing of note was the stench of death.

With Chez in better health, I told him to stay in front of the left door and gestured at the hole. Chez immediately straightened his back and stuck his chin out to agree before dropping to a crouch and pointing his spear at the hole.

I readied my spear and reentered the apartment I had cleared out before. As soon as I opened the door, the horrid smell immediately intensified, and the source was easily spotted. The corpses of the two goblins I had killed in the entryway were both bloated and discolored. Various body fluids had leaked out and filled the air with their sickening miasma. The bodies were not as I had left them. Both had been turned over on their backs and holes carved in their chests. I endured the stench to inspect them, and it looked as if their hearts had been torn from their chests. I carefully stalked to the bedroom and found the third corpse in the same condition.

I was confused, but answers would have to wait until the entire floor was cleared. I returned to Chez, who was still fiercely standing guard. I opened the door he had been guarding, ready for a fight, but there was nothing inside except for trash and a few piles of shit. I advanced through the apartment, with Chez at my side, ready for anything, but the place was deserted. We returned to the hallway and worked through the center room that hadn’t been breached since I had sealed it, but it was empty as well.

The goblins had escaped the left room, broken into the right one, carved out the hearts of the dead, and then must have abandoned the floor. I had won.

I took a moment to celebrate and then rushed off to power down the floor. After that, I knew I had to dispose of the corpses. I had some experience with it at this point, but the stench was far more potent this time. I grabbed some trash bags and awkwardly crammed the small bodies inside them before tying them off. I hoped the monster in the depths of the tower liked his breakfast gift wrapped. I double-checked that my keyring was in my pocket before I dragged them into the stairwell and whistled as loudly as I could, but the beast still didn’t seem to have made the connection between whistling and food. I shrugged and threw them into the abyss. Given the delighted roar that followed, the big guy down there didn’t mind gift-wrap or bloating at all.