The Day of Reckoning

Chapter 2: New Home

Once I've gotten everything settled in the treehouse, I sit down at the coffee table and pull some food from my bag. I look around the treehouse one more time. This place has a lot of free space, and these shelves are perfect for stocking resources. I can put all my citrus grenades and smokescreens on one, put soom food and medical stuff on another. This was the perfect place to set up!

Thing is, I'm gonna need more food for myself. What I'm eating now is the last of my resources, so I need to go out and find some more. I finish my food and say to Alfie, "I need to go now. I'll be back. Make sure the cats don't hurt themselves, okay?" He chirps, a cute little response that assures me that he and the cats will be okay.

I grab my backpack and my satchel and climb down the treehouse, making sure to shut the door so that one of the cats don't get out on accident. It wouldn't be that smart to go too far from the treehouse, so I guess the best place to start looking for food would be the house in front of the treehouse. I hope whoever lived here doesn't mind me going through their stuff. I make my way into the house through the back door and carefully walk around, keeping my eye out for any Eldritch that may be in here with me.

Looks like the place is safe. "Let's start with the fridge," I say to myself. I open my backpack and set it down on one of the kitchen chairs before opening up the fridge. A lot of the stuff in here is either expired or just plain nasty. Although, I do find a jug of blue Frost Aid that hasn't hit its expiration date yet, as well as a bottle of lemon juice. I'll be taking those. I move on to the pantry, finding some canned food. That's not too bad. I collect it and put it into my bag with the stuff from the fridge.

After some more looking around, I find some fruits that seem to somehow still be fresh. Oranges, limes, a pineapple, a lot of citrus stuff. Good for food and making citrus bombs. "This house is actually pretty good," I say as I pack the food into my bag. I wonder if there's anything useful upstairs. I leave my backpack in the kitchen and head upstairs. Hopefully, this isn't a waste of my time.

I cautiously walk into the master bedroom. I see a lady's old corpse sprawled across the bed with her internal organs hanging outside of her stomach. What I assume to be her husband is also dead on the floor, with one of his hands and a large chunk of his leg missing. I move past them and go to the bathroom, although I don't find anything of use. I continue looking around, spotting a conveniently clean blanket in one of the other rooms. I'm definitely gonna take that with me. I fold it up and carry it into the next room with me.

The curtains are closed in here. That, paired with a majority of the sunlight being blocked by clouds, makes the room dark and hard to see in. I put the blanket on the bed and look for something I can take with me. I don't find anything, but then I have an idea. I could take these curtains back to the treehouse and make a little bed for the cats. That'd be cute.

I approach the window to take the curtains down, but my efforts are interrupted by an Eldritch! It leaps at me from behind the curtains, and I stumble back, caught off guard by the sudden attack. "SHIT!!" I shout as I fall down onto my back. The Eldritch pins me down and screeches before opening up its mouth!

Before it bites my face off, I manage to pull a citrus grenade from my bag and jam it between the Eldritch's teeth. I close my eyes and mouth as the lemon juice pops, taking over the Eldritch's sense of taste. It stumbles back and gags, giving me the opportunity to get to my feet. I arm myself with my spear and whack its face a couple times to distract it a bit more.

It gives me an angry glare and shrieks, but I pull out a smokescreen and toss it down to the floor. I dash out of the room and close the door, but the Eldritch destroys it and follows close behind! I narrowly avoid a claw attack to my back and try to smack it with my spear again, but it moves out of the way and swings its tail at me. I jump back to avoid it, but find my back against a wall above the stairs! Shit, shit! It lunges for me, but I duck to my left.