I sat there for about an hour, stroking her hair and humming to her, until I was certain she was in a deep sleep. It’s probably longer than I needed to, since she was asleep within moments, but I let my eyes enjoy feasting on her beauty of her relaxed, sleeping form. Honestly, I should’ve gotten up sooner, but I really don’t regret sitting there as long as I had – the experiences of the last few days were horrific. It’s impossible to convey how much those precious moments of watching (and ogling) her helped heal my spirit.

But, no matter how much I wanted to remain where I was and live in the moment, regretfully I eased up after about an hour and I went over to the sink to make use of the daylight while I could. The rat corpses were already a day old, and I’m no expert in how long they can last before they rot and become completely useless, but I wanted to skill up and harvest as much as possible from them while I still could.

By noonish, I had harvested all of the tiniest rat, which I suppose were the youngest as they were only about the size of your average mouse. Honestly, from a skill-learning viewpoint, I probably should have saved them for last, but I didn’t realize that then. Larger animals are harder to move, turn and flip, and position and whatnot, but the smaller ones require much more precision and fine motor control skills. As I moved up to the next larger group of rats, which were about the size of what you’d expect from a normal rat, I started getting skill ups and harvesting meat and patches of fur much easier.

Sometime around 3 o’clock that evening, Isabella started stretching and woke up. “Good evening,” I told her cheerfully. “Be careful not to step on your glasses getting up. You placed them there at the bottom of the couch, if you remember.”

As I looked back over to the couch, she was just starting to get up and stretching with her arms arching high over her head while arching in a graceful cat-like manner. Her chrome-silver hair was disheveled and clung to her body illuminating her curves brilliantly, and I once again cut my fingers instead of the rats while staring in her direction.

“S’morning,” she murmured sleepily, and slowly she turned and walked into the bathroom. She didn’t bother to shut the door behind her, and the sound of water tinkling into the commode somehow made me laugh lightly to myself. A few moments later, I heard the toilet flush and then the water in the sink turn on. She was in the bathroom for several long minutes – much longer than what I ever would’ve thought that I girl could spend in a bathroom with no make-up, clothes, toothbrushes or combs – but the water finally turned off and she came bouncing out once again.

She piped up cheerfully, and energetically like I’d came to expect, “I feel better now!” Soon she was bouncing around in the kitchen and cooking once more, and the next several rats were much harder to harvest for some reason.

“Wow! That’s a lot of meat this time,” she exclaimed, while pointing to where I’d been putting the tidbits that I’d harvested.

“And a lot of nasty yucky stuff.” This time she was pointing to the trash can and mop bucket, which I’d gotten from the storage area off to the side, and both of which were now almost completely full of guts, skin, and fur.

“But, what’s all that stuff?” This time she pointed off to another pile which I’d carefully gathered and slid off to the far side of the counter, between the coffee maker and the toaster.

“That’s all part of the rat’s fur,” I told her. “As they get larger, they seem to develop quills similar to a porcupine. When I can, I’ve been trying to harvest some of those prickles from them. Prickles? Stiffers? Just what the heck do you call something like that again, anyway?”

“Quills,” she told me with a giggle. “They’re called quills.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I confirmed. “I suppose that’s the pile of quills that I’ve been able to extract. With the littlest ones, they’re just too brittle and fragile, but with this second batch I’ve been able to get a few from each one. I was thinking they might have some use as a makeshift needle in the future. The larger ones might even be used as a makeshift knitting needle or for leatherworking or something.”

Sounding surprised, she asked, “You know leatherworking?”

“About as well as you know cooking, I’d guess.”

She just giggled and then leaned over and stuck a hot piece of fried rat in my mouth. Hot! Hot! Hot!

For the next hour or so, we stood there and chatted lightly with each other while she cooked, and for some strange reason only known to her, she fed me the fried pieces herself while I kept working away with carving up rat parts.

Finally though, she moved the pan off the burner and asked, “What are we going to do with the rest of the meat? I couldn’t eat any more right now, but it’s not going to keep much longer.”

“Well,” I pointed over to the closet, “I was thinking that we could take some of those clothes that you like to avoid wearing, and we could use them to wrap some of the meat up in it.” She just giggled at me and didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. “After that, we could stick as much of the meat as possible in the freezer there.” I pointed off to the side where the mini-fridge was which the teacher’s normally used to help keep their lunches or drinks cold in.

“It’s not very big, so I doubt it’ll hold a lot of meat up top in the icebox area, but if we freeze the meat there it should stay good for quite some time. The rest we can put in the fridge area to help it stay fresh for a few extra days, and we can fry up extra so it’ll keep for a few days. I’m hoping, if we’re careful, we can stretch it out and make it last a couple of weeks for us.”

Her eyes widened and she asked, “A couple of weeks? Why so long?”

“A couple of reasons,” I told her. “First, there’s always the chance that the UN, or army, or someone will come to search for survivors. We’re right near the roof, so if they do, we should be easy to get to and evac out. Honestly, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but we can always hope that it does.

“Second though, and more importantly, we’re doing it for you.”

“For me?”

“Yeah,” I nodded at her. “I’ve learned a few things leveling up, and I’ve learned that improvements in one level can help you out in the next one. When my CON was ten and I leveled up, I gained ten life the next level. When I’d trained up my CON to twelve, I gained twelve life the next level. And, since it gets harder and slower to level as you progress, I figure its best to take advantage to train up your skills and stats as much as possible before you fight anything and get a level.”

“Hopefully you can learn some magic from that book in the next few weeks and train up your stats and skills a few times before we leave and have to start fighting again. I think a strong base will just help you grow stronger in the long run. While we can, let’s take advantage of the chance to improve ourselves as much as possible before we have to leave here again.”

“Thank you.” She giggled and suddenly her arms wrapped around me and two soft warm mounds pressed warmly against my side as she buried her head in my neck.

“For what?” I asked confused.

“Just for thinking of me.” She giggled into my neck and then wiggled her nose back and forth against my cheek before lightly biting me on the ear. Playfully she bounced back away from me, stuck out her tongue, and then bounced over to where she was sitting the night before and grabbed up her book, before returning to the couch to plop down on it, on her stomach. She reached under the couch to grab her glasses and put them on, wiggled a few times to make herself comfortable, and then she settled back into reading her book once more.

By 6 o’clock, I had skinned most of the rat-sized rats, and Isabella had gotten back up and was cutting strips off a couple of the dresses in the closet and was using them to bundle up as much of the meat as she could and shove it into the mini-fridge’s freezer. I couldn’t help but frown slightly to myself as I saw the stock of available clothes hanging up getting smaller.

It needed to be done, but it still bothered me to think that the world had changed this much in less than a week. A week ago, I never would’ve gave a second thought to seeing those clothes being dismantled, but now I inwardly cringed with each ripping sound. Things that we used to take so easily for granted, now were scarce – and limited – resources.

Food, water, clothes, medicine, safety, all these things were so important for us, and yet we used to take them all for granted every day. I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. And, after glancing over to where Isabella was working diligently, I also promised myself that I wasn’t going to take friends or family for granted anymore either.

Shaking my head to clear my rueful thoughts, I walked over and gently smacked Isabella on her behind, making her hop and squeal. She dropped the package of meat she was trying to wrap up, and as she bent over to pick it up, I couldn’t help but laugh to see the slight outline of my bloody fingers there. “I’m going out for a bit,” I told her. “I need to empty these buckets, and I want to do that before it gets dark this evening. There’s only an hour or so of light left.”

She just nodded back at me and then stuck out her tongue playfully. “Be careful out there,” she said a moment later, all seriously.

“I will be.” I grabbed up the trashcan under one arm, and held onto the handle to the mop bucket and pulled it along with the other. Isabella skipped over and opened the door for me, and I had to sigh to myself. I’m going to have to speak to her about properly checking for dangers before she just goes and walks into them, like I had before.

Easing on over, I stuck my head around the corner of the door and looked up and down the hall. Once I was certain it was clear, I went out and worked my way to the rooftop where I dumped the contents of both buckets over the edge of the roof. I didn’t even bother to take time to take in much of the view, as I rushed on back to the lounge and pulled the door up behind me. I was shocked, but Isabella had kept the door wide open the whole time I was gone.

Locking it, I asked her, “Why’d you leave the door wide open?”

Without stopping what she was doing, she answered, “I promised you; I’ll never lock you out of anywhere.” I was thinking to myself that locking a door and shutting a door were two completely different things, but somehow the way she spoke sounded so final and certain, I just dropped the issue. Just something else I had to be careful about, it seems.

Scooting the bucket and trashcan back over, I finally started working on skinning the cat-sized rats. These were getting much easier to work with, but I was still afraid that I was going to have to stop when it got dark again – but then Isabella did something once again that both shocked and impressed me. As the sun was setting, and I was starting to worry about how much longer I could try harvesting, Isabella came over and stuck the corner of a sheet of paper against the stove-eye and held it until it started to burn. Then, she stuck the burning paper down into a coffee cup and I was shocked by the sudden fire that flared up out of it!

I was astonished and gasped, “How’d you do that?”, to which she just giggled and smiled. “Woman’s S. E. C. R. E. T.”, she said while tapping her finger to her lips.

“Blah,” I emoted. “You can tell me.”

She just giggled and smirked at me, but then she said, “It’s no big deal really. I just collected all the grease from where I’d been frying those pieces of rat, and then I mixed in some of the hand soap from the bathroom in a cup. The grease cools down to make a sort of lard, and the alcohol in the soap helps it burn. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I made a few makeshift candles out of what we’d collected so far.”

She was beaming as she spoke, and it was my turn to reach out and pull her close into a hug. “Thank you,” I told her, and then I playfully slapped her on the butt cheeks once again and then I pushed her away and went back to working on harvesting the cat-rats and skilling up. She pooched her lip out at me and pouted for a moment, as if she didn’t want the hug to end, but then she finally bounced back over to the couch and got her book. Then she skipped over to her spot under the emergency lighting and sat down cross-legged and began to read again.

We both worked at our respective tasks until around midnight when the flame in the coffee cup finally died out. I was getting quite tired at that point, since I’d been up since sunrise, so I went over and gently tapped Isabelal on the shoulder to get her attention. “Come on. You don’t need to stay up all night trying to read again. Let’s get some sleep. We have some time before we’ll have to leave here, you know. No need to push it all at once.”

She got up, stretched in her cat-like manner again, and just nodded to me as she skipped over to the kitchen. “I’ll go to sleep in a moment,” she said. “Let me get this meat in the fridge first.”

Tired, I just nodded and went over and stretched myself down on one of the couches, figuring she’d take the other one when she was finished. As I was just starting to drift off to sleep, she bounced over and then climbed right into the same couch, on top of me! “Whatcha doing?” I asked.

“I was hoping you could hold me again, while I slept,” she whispered.

Sighing, I gave her a little push up and away. “Not while on this couch, I can’t.” Looking up at her, she was pouting at me, so I finally sighed and got up myself.

“Move,” I told her, and then I started to pull the cushions off both couches and into the floor. I dragged the coffee table out from between the couches and then pushed them both close together, wedging the cushions between them before I finally laid down on one side and held my arms open to her. Quickly, she climbed onto the other set of cushions beside me and she nuzzled down on my arm and snuggled up to me. I could feel her warm breath the soft warmth of her body as she pressed herself tight against me.

And like that, we both went to sleep and finished another day together; this time sleeping peacefully in each other’s arms.