While August went off on his hunt, I settled down to meditate. He should be back in 6 hours and there wasn't much for me to do in that time.

Once I had changed Kashyap and Kyle's bandages and fed them both lunch I was basically free for the entire day.

For a long while, I sat down in the clearing, staring blankly at the clouds drifting above me. My eyes started to glaze over from the sheer lack of things to do.

Before now, I had never realised just how boring the end of the world would be. Since my phone had been turned into scrap metal, I had nothing to do. Even if it did work, the internet was down.

Now that I thought about it, it was strange that the power all over England was out. Not only that, my phone signal and mobile data weren't working either... before my phone broke anyway.

Could something as simple as animals and plants growing bigger take out all communications and power? Unless the giant monster with a city on its back had stepped on every single cellular tower and power plant, it seemed unlikely. It was only one creature, after all, even it was the size of a small country.

While I wondered how England could fall apart this fast, Kashyap stirred beside me.

He groaned and rolled over in his sleep restlessly. One of his hands had gone up to cover his face, where a bandage was strapped over his missing eye. On the bandage, August had drawn an eyepatch. I won't lie and say that it wasn't funny.

Even if the rest of him healed up good as new, humans could not regrow eyes. And being half-blind was considered a major disability back before the apocalypse, never mind now.

I was truly worried about how he might cope with the news when he woke up. So far, he had been asleep since the accident and the longer he stayed that way, the better.

If I'm being completely honest, I was half-hoping that he would wake up while I was away hunting. Then I wouldn't be the one left here to deal with the aftermath.

I passed the time while they slept by fiddling with the System's menu.

[Brightness (50%)]

[Colourblind mode (OFF)]

[Audio (OFF)]

[Language (Default)]

[Voice commands (OFF)]

[Corporeal (OFF)]

[Viewable by others (OFF)]

...

There were more menu options than I had expected.

First, I fiddled with the brightness. I moved it to 100%, realised it was way too bright and lowered it back down to 50%. As per usual, the default settings were the best.

Next, I tried out the audio function. When I tapped on the messages icon, the synthetic robotic voice I had expected to hear reading out my messages didn't appear. Instead, the deep gravelly voice of a man spoke softly into my ear.

[100 Ants killed - Achievement unlocked (Exterminator - Bronze)

Exterminator achievement offers 10% additional damage against insect type monsters.]

I quickly turned off the audio because it felt weird having a deep-voiced man speak directly into my ear.

The new achievement was quite interesting but not that useful. On the one hand, It was helpful to know that it was even possible to gather achievements. on the other hand, I had no plans to ever attack an Ant again, so it remained to be seen when this achievement would come into use.

All of the remaining achievements were fairly self-explanatory. Corporeal made the screen exist physically. When I stretched out my hand to touch the glowing projection, it felt like I was touching a real computer screen.

Language changed the language of the system - obviously.

Voice commands were presumably for the crippled. It would be hard to use the system if you had no arms for example.

Viewable by others was the same setting that August had used to allow me to see his system when he picked his class.

All in all, it was a slow afternoon. Fiddling with the system only entertained me for about 10 minutes before I ran out of things to do.

Finally, I got so bored that I went to find mine and August's packs. I began searching for anything to pass the time.

Deep within August's bag, beneath the strange assortment of knives and a worrying amount of historical figurines that he had no right to bring into the apocalypse, I found a deck of cards.

I tried to pretend I hadn't seen the scantily clad Cleopatra action figure and closed the bag quietly.

Now that I had a deck of cards, it was a simple matter to entertain myself... I just had to figure out a card game. I wasn't allowed cards back home so I didn't know any.

While I tried to figure out how to shuffle the cards like I had seen done on tv, I heard a rustling sound from near the campfire.

Kyle had gotten up from where he was sleeping, clutching his head and groaning.

"Uh... what's with this hangover?" He mumbled.

I made my way over to him, "What's wrong?" I asked.

Kyle looked up at me and his eyes glazed over when he saw me, "Who... who are you?" He asked in a frightened tone.

For a long moment, I stopped in place. I had to grab my jaw before it hit the ground. 'He hasn't seriously got amnesia like in tv... has he?' I wondered.

I started at Kyle and he stared back at me. After a long, tense moment of silence, Kyle's bruised face split into a grin and he burst out laughing.

"Hahaha, I've always wanted to do that," He said in between wheezing breaths.

While Kyle laughed, I stared at him with a lifeless gaze. My face was stony. I couldn't quite believe I had been tricked by Kyle... It was Kyle for Christ's sake!

"Awk, don't take it bad. I was only kidding," He said while nudging me playfully with his elbow.

Despite his attempts, my face remained stony, not a single emotion appeared in my solemn expression.

Finally, after waiting for the silence to last long enough to become uncomfortable, I looked up at Kyle who was still sporting a wide grin, "It's a good thing you were joking, if not..." I said dangerously.

The smile on Kyle's face froze, "If not... What? What would you have done?" he asked nervously.

"It's probably better you don't know, I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings," I said softly.

"No, you can't do that. telling someone that there is something important they shouldn't know is cruel. All I'll be able to think about for the rest of the day is what you would have said," Kyle pleaded.

I looked up at Kyle, who was practically wringing his hands, desperate for me to answer. For a moment, my face looked conflicted and then I shook my head slowly.

"No, don't bring it up again," I said seriously.

Kyle looked like he wanted to complain, but I cut him off by asking if he knew any card games.

At the mention of card games, Kyle's face warped into a wolfish grin. "Do I know card games? Of course, I do. You are talking to the poker champion of the music department here." He said smugly.

"Can you play with me?" I asked him innocently. Unaware of the carnage I was about to unleash upon myself.

I didn't even think it was possible, but Kyle's wolfish grin widened when he heard this, "Of course, I can, but what's in it for me?"

The look I gave him was the same look you might give a fireman who asked for a tip before saving you from a burning building. An equal mix of exasperation, disgust and resignation.

"What do you want?" I asked with a resigned sigh.

"If I win, tell me what you were going to do if I had really lost my memories," He said without a moment's pause.

Thus, I spent the rest of the afternoon being absolutely battered by Kyle in poker. At one point, I even tried to cheat by using my enhanced hearing to listen to his heartbeat, to try to tell if he was nervous.

But somehow, he caught on and began tapping a constant rhythm on his knee that put off my hearing and concentration.

First, I was forced to tell Kyle that I had just been messing with him and wasn't actually going to do anything if he had really lost his memories.

After losing the next few rounds, I was made to change my system settings to colourblind mode as well as viewable by others.

Now, I had a bright pink and red glowing computer screen that hovered in front of me for all to see.

Honestly, it wouldn't have been that bad as I didn't mind the colour much, but it became a serious issue whenever I lost the next few rounds and was forced to increase the brightness of the system.

Now, if I ever wanted to check my status, me, and anyone else within a mile would be blinded by a bright pink explosion of light. Opening my system would pretty much be like flash banging myself.

At this point, I would have to use my system only in enclosed spaces so as not to look like an idiot. Otherwise even people from space would be able to see my status.

Out of fear that I might lose the clothes off my back, I tried to distract Kyle from the game. I asked if his wounds were hurting him but he just shrugged it off, saying they were fine. I offered to make him lunch but he said he wasn't hungry. I even tried to take a bathroom break but he wouldn't let me go until the round was over.

Finally, out of desperation, I brought up something he couldn't ignore, "Earlier today, I discovered that herbivore animals won't try to attack you. Only carnivores and Omnivores. So maybe your mum wasn't hurt by her goldfish," I said.

Sure enough, this caught Kyle's attention. For a second, he looked hopeful and then he frowned, "I think goldfish are omnivores." He said glumly.

"Well... how about we start another round. This time I'm feeling lucky," I shouted, trying to cover up my blunder.

Suddenly, I remembered something about fish.

"Oh shit! I never told August not to go near the ocean," I swore under my breath.

"What's so bad about the ocean?" Kyle asked curiously.

"Just pray you'll never have to see for yourself," I said solemnly.