Today I woke up and did the usual: swept all of the toys into a pile to bring them back upstairs.
Then I swept the boys room and put away the toys. The familiar Bing! Bing! Bing! Rang out followed by
+20hp
+20hp
+20hp
It wasn't much but it was instead of 10 so I was satisfied. In no time I had made a bottle for Kat and purchased it from the system.
Today I would tackle the dishes, my nemesis.
Instead of +1 I got +11 every dish so that was also good. I felt more appreciated since like I said earlier it was Lokis dishes not all mine.
I left the dishes from his house on the countertop and they disappeared as if I was cashing in money and a bottle appeared later.
I wondered where he was getting the milk and I pictured Kats mother somehow giving it to me but then I wondered where she was.
Then my imagination went on one again and I imagined meeting her.
The room feels smaller than I expected. My palms are damp, and I resist the urge to wring them together. She's sitting across from me, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes a mix of strength and vulnerability that makes my heart ache.
I take a slow breath, trying to steady myself. This moment is bigger than me—bigger than both of us, really. She glances up, and our eyes meet. There's a quiet understanding there, a silent conversation of gratitude, hope, and maybe even fear. I don't know her story fully yet, but I can feel its weight, feel the love she's carried through whatever brought her here.
"Thank you," I say softly, the words trembling on my tongue. They're simple, but they hold everything I can't put into sentences. "Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for this child who means everything."
Her lips twitch into a small smile, one that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I wished I could have had her," she whispers, her voice steady despite the emotion brimming in it. I nod, my chest tightening.
My voice is firm even as it cracks. "And I promise, I'll love them with everything I have." I reply.
For a moment, the room is silent except for the quiet hum of the world outside. It's not an uncomfortable silence; it's heavy with unspoken words, but it feels sacred, as though we're weaving an invisible thread of connection between us—something that will always exist, even if our paths don't cross again.
As we part, she reaches out, her hand brushing mine. "Take care of her," she says, her voice barely audible.
I nod, swallowing back the lump in my throat. "I will."
I wondered in that moment why if she could send milk, why could she not scoop up her child then and take her away from me?
My heart ached thinking about losing kat. But I wasn't baby hungry before. Why was I now?
I focused back on scrubbing the dishes and then wiped off the countertop gaining 300 hp points. I moved on to vacuuming the couch. Gaining 50hp and cleaning the toilets; another 50hp.
Then I decided to scrub the walls.
Grinding grime I called it between feedings which were every two hours I had to gain another 500 hp and so I did.
Sometimes I didn't have enough hp and I would go to Loki's house. I grew quite used to it. I would help his wife Sigyn and we held a play date for her twin boys Narfi and Vali. They weren't really twins. She said she was keeping them for someone too.
I smiled.
Well anyways. Me and her would let the babies play and grinded grime together at her house for a while. I was paid double for doing that but I didn't get to do that unless my house was done. The system called it boost mode.
One afternoon at her house could gain me enough hp for a day and I could buy exp with it to buy things for the apocalypse without having to spend my real money.
It was called my system store and slowly I checked off things from my list.
Today I had earned 500 extra hp so I opened the system store to buy water and the familiar dropdown menu opened:
[select: supplies aquired tab]
>needed 30 gal/water
>already purchased 10
[Select: purchase more? Yes/no?]
•system price 40hp/gal
>yes
>no
[Selected yes]
>proceed
>go back
[Selected proceed: Please select quantity]
_6
[system updating]
*************
Congratulations you now aquired 16/30 needed gallons of water!
Please select water purification tablets needed:
*Standard water purification tablets (e.g., chlorine dioxide or iodine tablets): One tablet is typically designed to treat 0.5 liters (16 ounces) of water. This means you would need 4 tablets per gallon (3.78 liters).
* Always read and follow the manufacturer's instructions on the packaging, as some tablets may vary in dosage depending on the concentration of the active ingredient or the quality of the water being treated.
I skipped to the end and used my remaining HP to buy 26 water purification tablets. Which would get me just over 6 gallons of water purified in an emergency.
I was doing good. Ok then.
Besides that I would need to work on buying about 75 more and I could survive another month in the apocalypse cleaning water myself. Or I could gain some exp by learning water purification techniques. I decided to ask Sigyn about it.
"Hey do you know how to purify water?"
She chuckled. "Is this about the apocalypse stuff? You take that really seriously."
I nodded.
"Well we should go camping sometime. I can teach you I guess."
"Oh I would love that!"
I decided to mark that off my mental list of things I needed to learn to do. I'll make a camping category and then you can teach me all of the things I need to know.
She chuckled again. "Dear I would just bring a camp manual."
I frowned. Well I guess I could do that. I could buy a manual. "But unless I do it, it just goes as supplies aquired."
She chuckled again. "You can have mine. I have one from girls camp when I was a young girl."
I smiled. "Thanks sig."