Day 3?

I was having an extremely vivid dream.

Well, I was fairly sure it was a dream. It could be a hallucination.

Either way, means I’m not dead which is encouraging….unless it is some kind of afterlife…

I was in a weird expanse where it was difficult to describe how it looked.

It looked and felt like I was looking around a pond…made of void…made up of impossible black colours with a focal point of faint streaks of cyan blue, swirling in a floating maelstrom ahead of me.

In short, it looked like a portal.

And as I got closer, lines swirled around to form strange circuits and symbols.

It all looked a bit like formulae or maths, partly forming constellations that were constantly changing.

Wow, beautiful.

My senses suddenly became sharp and clear and I felt very much in control like I was lucid dreaming.

Woah, spooky.

As I watched, the urge to touch the maelstrom became stronger and stronger, mainly out of curiosity.

A specific section caught my eye and it was my favourite.

I couldn’t hold back any longer.

It’s just a dream, what harm could it do?

Reaching the maelstrom, I touched the surface in my section where the constellations made up a scraggly circle with a line speared through it vertically.

It felt like those moments where you stared up at the night sky, alone, realising how small and insignificant your life is, yet how amazing and wonderful and how impossibly-impossible it is you are living in that very moment, against all odds of existence.

My favourite swirled away, making me sad.

As I waited, the whole thing was continually shifting and changing into something readable.

Hmm. Almost looks like…

The swirl finished moving and formed into 4 bars with letters and numbers, and 4 symbols with letters and numbers and some text at the top of it all.

STRY.KYR - MAGN.1.375

[==1/10HP==]-

[==1/10MP==]

[==2%EP==]++

[==0%XX==]xx

What is this?

Below that were 4 symbols on tablets.

The first was a sword.

The second was a shield.

The third was a feather.

And the fourth was a circle glyph with tiny unknown symbols inside.

For fuck sake. I have better things to do then to indulge in fever fucking dreams with stupid puzzles and sodding symbols that look like it came out of an RPG.

Like that classic game First Realism Seven.

…

Where did that thought even come from??

I stared at the symbols blankly, unimpressed and quite frankly, disgruntled.

Then something hurt.

OW!..huh that is odd? I don’t believe I’ve ever felt ACTUAL pain in a dream before..maybe I’m waking up…

A painful cramp in my side & chest started flaring up, making me double over in pain.

As if in response, a new symbol appeared that looked like a…potatoe shape?....With a computer chip inside and there were tiny hexagons, donuts and crosses of various sizes gravitating towards the center of the…potatoe.

Great. Just Great. I’m probably dying of some goddam poison, I really didn’t have time for this shit…fucking potatoe what do you want from me!?

I looked at the potatoe and it looked back at me.

I felt compelled to touch the potatoe, maybe it wanted to touch me?

So I did it. I touched the potatoe.

And I instantly regretted my decision.

yyyOOOOWW!

HOly CRAP! What IS this pain!?

The cramps were quickly forgotten, replaced with something new and improved.

Searing. White hot. Wrong on a fundamental level. Chemical and sterile.

It reminded me instantly of when I’d taken a teeny bite out of a 7 Million Scoville unit chocolate bar at work once for a joke..but all over my body.

Am I seriously writhing in pain and sweating? In a dream?

I’d had fever dreams before but I don’t actually remember ever feeling sweat in my dreams.

I collapsed onto the floor, writhing in pain, gritting my teeth and basically having no choice but to weather the storm…but, eventually after what felt like hours, the pain had subsided.

Slowly, I got up, gulping down air, but carefully so as not to provoke any gods of pain.

I stared shakily into the maelstrom.

It now had floating text in it, the same look as if printed on a screen. I was confused…VERY confused at the content.

New Skill evolved:

Regeneration - Rate of [H]emostasis & [P]latelet efficiency increased.

HP +? per ? minutes on top of base HP +? per ?! hours.

Recycles damaged and infected cells.

Attribute points available [1].

Please assign attribute points in the next [??].

What.

The.

F-

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I jolted awake and immediately bolted upright.

It was dark again…

Piss it.

But thankfully the moonlight was coming through and I could hear a soft voice humming with some mewling and baby snuffling noises.

“M-marri” I croaked out.

I heard her gasp quietly at my voice.

“Godu!” she whispered.

“How are you feeling? Oh it’s so good to hear your voice..” she sniffed and I could tell she was trying to hold back tears by the way her voice croaked.

“Hey Honey I’m feeling…uh…really..good actually? Huh. Are you ok? Is Lone OK?”

This felt way too calm considering what my last memories were.

Wait, crap, my priorities were all over the place.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry, have you had some rest? I’m so sorry, you must be so tired I need to get up and-”

“Noooo hush now you big tit and go grab some water.” She giggled.

“You know, I think we have gotten really lucky with this little cutie-pa-tootie, he’s been such a good little chick. All I’ve had to do for the past couple of days is boob him to sleep and then keep him close and he dozes off, no problem at all!”

At this point going forward, I might as well just accept I was going to be perma confused.

Firstly, a couple of days? Were we still safe? What supplies do we need?

Secondly, why was Marri so cheery and calm? In fact, how come I felt so calm?

“Marri, I….I’m really confused right now. Have I been out for more than a few hours? And…, the last thing I remember was a fucked up fight with some really fucked up creatures.” I watched her face, waiting for an answer.

Truthfully, I wanted her to say that nothing of the sort happened and it was all some fever dream or maybe I passed out during birth.

The memories were too real.

And graphic.

She took a quick a deep breath before responding.

“Yes, well that did happen…but we are all ok.”

She gave me a soft smile, eyes glinting in the light.

“I managed to get you cleaned up and I disinfected your wounds and bandaged you up. So there shouldn’t be any chance of infection.”

Can confirm. I’d had my top changed into a new shirt and I could feel some bandages wrapped tightly around my torso and I had a bunch of plasters on my face and arms.

I felt quite fresh to be fair.

“And honestly, after childbirth I don’t think much can phase me right now. Not even killing some nightmare with my bare hands, or watching you do the same.”

“Maybe it’s my maternal instinct, because all I care about is making sure that this little one is safe and sound…with us. And you should be proud Godu. You lived up to be the brave, kind man I know you are, jumping into battle to protect us both!” She giggled quietly.

She was half joking but those words hit me like a truck.

“And you’re not that bad looking either..” She winked at me.

“But seriously, I love you, don’t forget that ever.”

An uncontrollable shy, dribbly giggle came out of me and I looked down and rubbed my neck.

But those words..I was so truly appreciative of them that, considering the circumstances, I felt elated and a tiny bit proud of myself for actually acting the way I had.

Which was still baffling since I couldn’t believe I was capable of such violence?!

The thought came with a brief sweeping wave of cold dread as realisation struck in.

Based on the damn fact that I’d killed someone…or if it was a justifiable defence against something?

Questions for when we were safe somewhere else.

I brushed the dread aside and focused on my main mission.

“I love you so damned much, Marri. And yeah, I’m with you 100%. We gotta make sure that strapping young man stays safe and healthy, no matter what it takes. He’s got all my good looks to live up to right?” I nodded with a huge smile, a little bit of shyness crept up when I realised I was being cringey.

“Ahem, oh hey! You definitely saved my life and protected Lone so well through all that too! Honestly I’m still a little shocked we are both able to talk about this calmly.”

It really was pretty weird that we were mentally stable right now, but I figured there was no point in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

And to be fair, I had been close to a mental breakdown..but that was before I realised Lone was in imminent danger.

“Ah well, you know what they said about new moms in the NCT classes. ‘Never come between a mom and her baby else you’ll get Tiger mom mode!’ ” She grinned.

I grinned back.

There was a comfortable silence where our thoughts drifted back to normal times…preparing for our first child, doing all the classes and buying the books but never reading them.

Who EVER reads those books anyway? Probably the good Fathers, that's who.

On that note, I got up, determined to be a helpful husband slash new parent.

But it came out in a verbal mess.

“Okaaay - so, how safe do you think we are and have you heard anything more? I’m just going to grab a drink and check what we’ve got but..do you think, anyone, staff or patients are around? And also are you sure you are okay? Do you need me to do anything? Change a nappy?”

She raised her eyebrows at my barrage of questions then answered with a slight frown, glancing at the door and window.

“Well Godu, nothing has come near the door that I’ve heard-”

I got up and went over to the bin I’d filled with supplies.

It was empty.

Making me look around the area puzzled.

“-but I’ve heard noises outside the window…that really scared me.”

I stopped and turned to face her and she nodded to another desk where the food and drink was arranged.

“Distant screams, shouts..I’m not 100%, but there’s been some explosions of some sort. It doesn’t sound like a war is happening but there’s definitely something terrible going on. It’s been quiet-ish since I woke up a few hours ago, however..”

She looked out the window briefly before looking down at Lone.

“And regarding Lone…well he’s only needed a few nappy changes and feeding, but I really do feel fine. In fact I feel very healthy…speaking of which, do you feel any sickness or dizziness? You scared me for a bit when you passed out! You had a few convulsions and fever for a bit. But once you settled down you slept very peacefully.”

She paused and her eyes glazed a little.

“I really was very scared that you weren’t going to make it at first, but for some reason every time I stared at you, you gave me this feeling ‘he’s okay, he’s got life still’. Very weird but it was very comforting. Do you still feel okay? You must be starving.”

Stopping my stocktake of the supplies, I did another mental sweep of myself. No sickness, dizziness..hunger…or fatigue…..hmm.

“Huh. I feel perfectly fine actually, I still feel healthy..only a bit peckish. Weird.” Shaking my head I finished counting what we had. “We’ve got 14 slices of bread, a large pack of cheese puffs, cashew nuts, 3 bars of chocolate, 10 pack of fruit’n’nut protein chew bars, 4 cans of cola and 6 bottles of water.”

“Oo erm, we did have a chocolate orange but…” Marri sucked air through her teeth.

“Ha - honestly gal, you’ve earnt at least ten thousand chocolate oranges.” Chuckling, I grabbed a couple of waters, a coke, 1 choccy bar, 4 chew bars and brought our little feast over to her bed.

“Well, let's have a little midnight feast” I strode over as Marri yawned, nodding to my proposal.

“Ahhhhww-huuooo. Phew, sounds good and mayyyybe you would be okay just watching over me and Lone for a bit whilst I napped? I’ve been co sleeping fine, but I'd definitely sleep a lot better if I knew you were watching over me!” she looked at me hopefully.

“Of course! Of course! Definitely, let’s eat up and then you get as much rest as you need. I’ve done more than enough sleeping, that’s for sure.” I warmly agreed, feeling relieved that I could take at least some sliver of burden off of her

We continued talking for a bit about some things Lone had been doing when I was unconscious, mainly farting and pooping, and when we had finished our snacks I checked the broken window (which had a trolley curtain propped against it now) and the locked door that had the barricaded returned.

By the time I was finished, she had fallen deep asleep.

Everything felt much more secure than the previous time, and Marri mentioned she’d not heard any noises since the fight so I felt a bit more comfortable.

Make no mistake, I wasn’t under an illusion that we were completely safe..I hadn’t forgotten the clacking noises…

I also had heard noises in the distance outside, things that weren’t our concern right now but were still concerning nonetheless.

I think we’d probably be OK to stay one more day, but we’d need to use that day to plan our next moves since we needed to think about food but more importantly shelter.

We would need to try and make it to the car and then back to the house.

That would probably be our best bet, but we’d need to be careful and I’d need to be 100% sure we were safe to leave this room first.

A decent plan but definitely something for the day time.

I sat down and started running through scenarios in my head, planning the routes I could recall in my head and if I could think of any detail that would help, such as emergency exits or potential shortcuts or even things I needed to avoid.

Electric magnetic doors most likely would be automatically unlocked, standard behaviour for fire, health and safety reasons…you’d hope.

Stairs are 100% the only way, preferably fire exit paths, since those always lead outside the quickest and usually to the car park's assembly points.

Avoid that bloody nightmare corridor.

Do a test run of the route first?

Fuck.

I couldn’t risk bringing Marri and Lone straight from the get-go, since I didn’t know who or what was out there and also if the way was even clear or accessible.

I’ll have to do that alone..

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