Heart attacks might not be great for his health but at least it had knocked out the more ‘supernatural’ theories he had.
That and the automatic flush gong off in the bathroom.
Unless these high-tech auto-toilets detected ghosts as well.
In which case, well…
“They were high class apparitions and deserved a high five for being civilized, uh, beings.”
… Waiting a few seconds and not seeing any ‘other-natural’ signs or complaints, he felt it was fairly safe to put those theories to the back and try something a little more future centric and a lot less fantasy.
He had of course thought of the possibility that he was being avoided, but he couldn’t come up with any reason why people advanced enough to build whatever this place was would need to do so.
Considering his new close encounter, it seemed he needed to reevaluate that line of thought.
There was always the possibility of generational degradation of knowledge, but he really really didn’t want to consider that scenario. It would mean he had been in that cryo-pod for a hell of a lot longer than he could even guess. Seeing as how the tech wasn’t so far advanced he didn’t understand it, smart money was on that not being the case.
It still wasn’t something he wanted to contemplate though.
That meant the only other possibility at the current point was a knowledge gap cause by a disaster, hence his zombie scouting, as disease or attacks were at the top of the list of possible causes. That or he was some kind of human zoo exhibit and his newest discovery was there to keep things interesting.
He could handle being an exhibit, it meant he would get more food when the stuff that was here ran out, though beyond that there wasn’t much reason to pursue that line of reasoning, as he would never figure it out if he wasn’t supposed to. Outwitting a game master in something this complex wasn’t exactly a productive use of time. The disaster scenario was not nearly as survivable, so it was better to focus his efforts there for now.
Not much he could do in either case until he got more information though. Just keep making a map and making sure he was paying more attention for small ‘visitors’ in the future. That and continue trying to decipher the literal writing on the wall.
He was making progress there, but events conspired against academic pursuits at the moment. With most of the doors being closed, his progress on the map was also going well and he would be done the initial sweep soon. At that point he would have to start opening things that may be better off closed and he wasn’t looking forward to that.
Maybe starting with the bedrooms, they only rarely hid the horrific science experiments.
<hr>
It seemed that automatic things had their perks in a stalking scenario.
What he had initially put down to lights flickering seemed to be his new visitor spying on him from afar. Hard to miss now that he knew what to look for.
She was damn good at hiding though, he would give her that. Since he knew about her presence now it was stupidly simple to plate up some not flapjacks and hide the powder somewhere high up. He just had to sit in one of the adjacent rooms that had a view of the mess hall with the light dimmed way down.
The auto lights seemed to ignore anyone in a room and he could actually control the light in the smaller individual rooms. He hadn’t figured out how to do so in the larger communal rooms yet, but he knew where the panel was. It was just a much more complicated thing than the smaller rooms. He wasn’t about to start randomly hitting buttons in areas that could end with gas explosions or electric overloads.
Still, even with that it was a simple enough trap to set and sure enough his little jump scare eventually came padding into the mess hall, quiet as a cat and twice as skittish of every little noise. She seemed to be holding a cat as well, or at least a stuffed version of one. It was adorable to watch her push the stuffed toy into the mess hall to get the lights to come on, though he shuddered to think of what kind of life led to her being that scared of an empty room.
Ah… he supposed she didn’t know it was empty anymore.
That little bathroom encounter may very well have ruined two sets of underpants, if either of them had clothes of any kind. It at least let him see that the little adrenaline shot was female, though he was quite far away to be able to get any kind of real detail.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Helped him figure out next steps though, as he watched her search for the powder, not find it and reluctantly head for the not flap jacks. If she was eating the powder as well, it was a good indication it was the only thing to eat around here. Probably best than to not let her have any more, as cooking it let them stretch their rations farther than eating it raw, since it was more filling that way.
He would have to redo his math as well, though he needed to find out how much she needed to eat before he could tell by how much. Making them all the same size and progressively leaving more until she stopped eating them all would be the best way to do it, though it was likely only two or three as he was only eating roughly double that.
Cutting the rationing in half would just see him delirious then dead as he was already eating as little as possible, so finding out exactly what she needed would let them stretch this out as long as possible. She seemed to have at least a little forethought as she didn’t seem to have much meat on her own bones, which meant she hadn’t just filled up on the powder before now. Assuming she was here before he woke up to begin with, which may be a mistake, but he wasn’t going to change that assumption for the moment.
Unfortunately for him, the next step to that was getting the girl to trust him. It made it very difficult to plan survival when half the survivors were stalking about the place like it was a deadly jungle.
It also made him paranoid. What did she know that he didn’t? The initial sweep hadn’t turned up anything that was immediately attention grabbing, but the girl was more than capable of opening doors, as she was tall enough to reach the panels. If she was stalking around all quiet like, there was a good reason.
If that reason was him that was fine. Seeing as how he hadn’t run into her before the bathroom incident meant she either knew of him before that and was avoiding him or she was already hiding from something else. He wouldn’t be able to find out which until he got her to sit and talk, so they really needed to have a discussion.
So that’s what he set about doing.
A bit of revenge stalking later, as she never stopped trying to stalk him, he managed to ferret out that she had stashes of something hidden around the various open rooms. They looked suspiciously like something he had stumbled across in the higher cabinets in the kitchen, though he had dismissed them at the time. They appeared to be edible though, so he returned to check things out.
They turned out to be some kind of sorta-chocolate bar thing. Not his favorite but calories were calories. They were good enough to lure the girl as well.
Better than not flap jacks at the very least.
A few days of trap jacks and watching where she went afterwards, he was fairly sure he could get ahead of her on her little expeditions. He had to channel all his efforts into being silent to do it, as she bolted at the slightest noise.
Quietly bolted too, the girl needed a damn bell.
Still, with a string from a picked apart bead sheet tied to an empty choco-stick wrapper, he set the ‘prize’ in a spot she would see if she came in his direction, while he sat back far enough to not be in view immediately. If she didn’t come this way, he could try again elsewhere but getting it over with was a ‘faster the better’ kind of deal.
He picked correctly though, and she poked her hand out round the corner, so he started pulling in the string. She rushed around the corner to catch the errant snack stick and froze when she saw him sitting there. He managed to get a good view this time, but she seemed about to flee again so his brain fumbled for something and landed on kid’s party tricks.
Too bad he wasn’t very good at them. Still, crumbled wrapper in one hand and the snack stick he was going to give her anyways in the other, he put on the best show he could to get her to stick around. A ‘disappeared’ snack stick dropping down his back where his other hand was getting rid of the wrapper got her to stick around as expected.
He did not expect a headbutt to the chest, but she was so light it probably hurt her more than him. Still, it dropped her in his lap and got her close enough he could ‘appear’ the elusive snack stick from the hand near her stomach.
Partly to keep her attention away from where she was and focused on the show. Mostly so he could make sure she didn’t appear to have any obvious medical issues to worry about, the food being his biggest worry in this place so far.
Though, once again she did the unexpected and grabbed his hand. Probably to snatch the treat, but he had been sure she was afraid of him and wouldn’t want to touch him at all. He filed that info away for later and took the chance while she was occupied with the snack to start massaging her scalp, checking if there was anything wrong there as well.
Best to use the unexpected situation to gain as much info as possible.
It seemed to spark an internal debate within his skittish audience though, so he continued with both hands to get her used to his presence.
That seemed to make whatever decision she was debating harder, but she eventually sprang out of his lap and landed unceremoniously on the floor. Her scrambling to stand let him get a good look at her back, which also seemed fine, and off she went with only a quick glance back at him.
The smirk he had at the plan’s unexpected bonuses probably didn’t help his chances of convincing her it was in her best interest, but it had gone so well he couldn’t help but be happy at the outcome.
She seemed healthy enough, so either the food had everything she, and by extension both of them, needed to survive long term, or she hadn’t been here much longer than him.
The lack of talking was concerning, but regardless, he needed to keep enticing her close so he could keep an eye on things, not least of which was how the rationing was affecting them both.
At least his new life wasn’t going to be boring for a while, she had managed all that and never once lost control of her stuffed cat.