I close my eyes and let out a slow breath. It’s the first time since this started I don’t feel a weight on my chest.

  In the distance, people enjoy themselves. Someone found a propane stove and houses have been raided for food. They’re having a barbecue. This is probably the last time any food we come across will look appealing enough to eat. Even in a freezer, without power by tomorrow, it’s going to be melted and while edible, I’m not sure who’d want to eat it. If it can even be cooked.

  Who knows how to cook over a fire in this day and age? I don’t.

  They can have their party. The food would be nice, but the solitude is much better.

  An icon flashes in the upper right of my vision. Someone lying down in a red box that is slowly turning orange. I mentally sigh. I might as well start with that, since I have promised myself I was done ignoring the system.

  So, what is that icon about?

  The Icon has settled in the orange. I guess it’s as high as it will go while I’m working through this. With the mention of sleep, a question occurs to me and the system answers it almost before it’s formed.

  That means that not only could someone with a high endurance stay awake longer without repercussions, but unless needed less sleep and it was harder for them to suffer from severe sleep deprivation. Getting over that seems to be the only part not affected by how much endurance.

  From the conversations I overheard during the trek, ten seems to be an average. At twelve, my endurance means I need less sleep and can go longer. Unless there’s a maximum to the attributes, someone could end up basically not needing to sleep anymore.

  Had I wondered that?

  I dismiss the window and look at the tabs. I might as well go through them one at a time.

  Other than now having experience, this looks like the first time I looked it over.

  The next tab is my inventory, with the stylized form showing what I am wearing, as well as the twenty-five inventory spaces. There is an extra free one. I’ve gone through my trail mix bars from having to deal with everyone questioning me about how to organize the lodging.

  How did it come to them looking to me for decisions? I spent the entire trek doing my best to avoid them.

  I’m surprised at the lack of response from the system. I guess there are things even it doesn’t know.

  I bring up the next tab

  I want to object to the prognosis. I have an almost irrational need to argue that I am not an introvert, that I don’t have a bad temper, and that I am not paranoid.

  The paranoid me needs to have this stricken from my record so it can’t be used against me.

  I have hundreds of justifications for why I act the way I do. Ways to excuse my behavior. Explain how none of it is my fault. I’m a child of abuse. How can anyone expect me to be mentally stable? That’s not an excuse to put it out there for everyone to see.

  I bristle at the statement.

  “That’s not the comfort you think it is,” I grumble. The fact there is a way it can be done puts me on edge. The ways someone can use that information against me are incalculable. If my father were to ever find out he had this effect on me, not only would he rejoice, but he would take full advantage of the knowledge.

  The green bar drops and I’m on my feet. I need… I need to…

  With a scream, I punch the oak I leaned against. It hurts and the red bar flashes, but the drop isn’t noticeable. I high it again and again and it’s the yellow bar of stamina that stops me as it drops quickly and leaves me panting and leaning against the offending tree.

  I am screwed up in the head that I unleashed my anger on a defenseless tree. There are far more deserving people of it in the world; and one formless system. Unfortunately, they aren’t here, and it doesn’t have anything I can hit.

  I let out a breath as the yellow bar climbs quickly now that I’m resting. The red Icon resting that appeared the instant I stopped punching the tree is back to turning orange. I sit back down and do my best not to think of anything for a few seconds.

  Someone at the courier company who’d caught me pacing, after a bad meeting with our boss, suggested I learn to meditate as a way of learning to manage my stress. Now I wish I’d stuck with it. It had felt too much like I was wasting my time, sitting there counting my breath.

  My mother always advised honesty. Not the hurtful kind, she was a very tactful woman. But she was honest.

  I try that again. I do have a temper. I do have a problem with having people around me—although I question calling what I have being an introvert—and yes, I am definitely paranoid. Knowing it’s mild feels odd. I wouldn’t want to meet someone who has it worse than I do.

  I’m still pissed at the system for knowing all that about me, but I can look at the tabs again and not feel the need to punch the poor tree. I’m sure it’s grateful for that.

  The next one is a combat log

  I close the tab. It’s too much information about something I don’t even want to know about. I had to fight. I killed something that might have been someone before all this started. That’s more than I care to have done, let alone know about.

  Better get used to it. My father says and as much as I hate it, I don’t think I can contradict him. There were too many indications of violence on the way here. Anywhere there used to be people, it occurred. Deloy is proof it can’t be the system forcing them to do it, but Bernard shows that the shock can be significant enough for people to snap momentarily. What else did people turn into that they didn’t know how to react to?

  With slight trepidation, I open the next tab and I’m assaulted with a list of skills passing so fast I can’t make them out. Only the title of the tab tells me what I’m looking at. I mentally put the brake on it and I look at them. When did I ever learn horticulture? With a skill of one, it can’t have been much. Gardening is at four. Did that come from helping my mother in her garden?

  Lip Reading? I vaguely remember reading a book on it, back when I was a teen. An attempt at getting one over my father. If I could spy on him and make out what he said, I could use that against him. With a skill of two, I’m glad I don’t remember what came of it.

  I scroll through the list and it’s mainly that, things I either tried to learn or picked up in passing, except for those on in my first tabs, above five. There are a lot of skills in there. I can’t even explain how I learned to cook enough to be at level three. I certainly never cooked one meal in my life.

  The next one is magic, and it only shows a blue bar at the top. I don’t know any magic. Can I learn magic?

  Without another prompt, I think the system store open. Knowing how to go about buying skills I need will—

  I roll my eyes. Even the thing that destroyed technology isn’t reliable. Maybe things haven’t changed all that much.

  https://www.twitch.tv/thetigerwrites at 12:30 pm, EST.

  https://www.patreon.com/kindar I can always use the support/

  Google Sheet