Day: 3

Days Left: 5477

Lives Saved: 0

"And thank you, for saving me earlier," said the young woman to the chimaera. "And all those times before. I don't really have any way of repaying you- apart from cooking."

'I am still repaying you' wrote Harmony.

"Ah, for trying to kill me?" Corinna smirked. "Stop worrying about it." She snuggled her forehead against her knees. "Regardless, just let me do all the cooking, please? I don't like being so idle. There's not much to do around here."

The chimaera nodded.

Corinna smiled. "Thank you." She stood up. "I'm going to the bathroom. And then I'm gonna do the cooking," Corinna headed to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

She was confronted by her reflection in the mirror.

Before she had avoided it, bearing only glances, not wanting to see herself- to see what the Eternal Abyss had done to her. But this time she faced it directly.

Her eyes were the same. They were still her own eyes. Despite all she had been through they had not changed.

She examined every part of her face and body. With how speckled and spotted her body was, it was difficult to determine whether they were freckles or dirt. Corinna splashed her face with water.

She took off her white dress and washed the rest of her body, turning around to inspect the scar on her back, where she had been impaled by an imp's spear on the first day. The wound had healed, leaving only a dark mark of skin and an indent. Corinna had never seen a magical ointment so potent as the one Harmony had used to treat her wounds. The claw marks on her waist had healed within a day without a trace. Such a deep wound on her back would soon likely disappear tomorrow.

"What was in that stuff?" Corinna turned fully around, feeling the indent of the scar on her back.

After drying herself, Corinna exited the bathroom to find the trap-door slammed shut; Harmony had gone down into the basement.

Heating up the water in a pan, Corinna began cooking the food packets, after she struggled to reach up of the cupboard, having to kneel on the counter to finally retrieve them. She looked down at the pan, at the boiling and bursting bubbles but her eyes would wander back to the trap-door.

What was down there?

What was Harmony doing down there?

Corinna read the back of the food packets, to amuse herself, and found that they could be heated in a microwave.

"If only we had a microwave..." She sighed.

Her eyes retreated back to the basement.

Harmony eventually returned to the surface and opened the trap-door to find Corinna crouched down near the entrance. Entwining her snake-tail around the ladder, Harmony balanced herself, preventing a fall caused by Corinna's sudden appearance.

"Sorry." Corinna stepped back. "I was just wondering what was down there. " She tried to look past the chimaera, down the ladder but saw only darkness.

Harmony was carrying a small stack of boxes, which Corinna took off of her before she attempted to climb up the ladder with one hand.

Corinna looked down at the boxes. "Board games?"

They sat back down by the fireplace again, where Harmony had left her whiteboard, and placed the stack of board games down.

"So you had board-games down there?" Corinna rifled through them, recognising almost all of them, apart from a few in foreign languages. "What else is down there?"

Harmony wrote on her whiteboard: 'BASEMENT'.

"I... kind of gathered that." Corinna laughed. "Well, what's in the basement?"

'STORAGE' wrote Harmony.

"Just storage?"

Harmony underlined the word 'storage'.

"You seem to spend a lot of time down there."

Harmony underlined the word 'storage' again.

"Surely there must be something else down there?"

Harmony underlined the word 'storage' once again.

"Can I go down there?"

The chimaera did not respond. She neither nodded nor shook her head. Instead, she wiped her whiteboard clean and wrote down something.

Corinna patiently waited, regretting ever asking.

She was expecting an answer about the basement, but instead, the chimaera had written:

'In two days there will be a blood moon'.

The young woman hesitated. "A blood moon?" She had a vague idea of what it could mean but feared that she would be correct.

'All monsters will be filled with bloodlust. They will kill try to kill everything they see'.

The young woman clutched at her waist and stared into the chimaera's toxic green eyes. "Even you?"

Harmony shook her head and wrote 'I can control it. Few can.'

"So, I'll be safe?" Corinna hesitated. "I'll be safe around you?"

The chimaera nodded and continued to write on the whiteboard.

"But it won't be safe outside." The young woman relaxed. "So we should stay inside on the day of the blood moon and protect herself."

Harmony touched her nose with a talon and pointed at Corinna with her other hand.

"Then we should gather supplies and anything we need tomorrow."

*

Harmony grinned, baring her teeth. Corinna had said everything that Harmony had just written on the whiteboard. She wiped it clean and wrote down the next message she wanted to say. One that she hesitated writing. After a moment of deliberation on whether not to show it to Corinna, Harmony spun the whiteboard around.

'After the blood moon you are free to leave'.

As soon as she had shown it to Corinna, Harmony instantly regretted it. The young woman's mask of expressionless and hollowness returned, her mouth activated on the verbal diarrhoea setting.

"Ah, of course, that is understandable- very understandable," said Corinna. "I have overstayed my welcome. It is only natural that a guest should leave after such a long time. Thank you- thank you for everything you have done for me. I am very grateful-"

Harmony wiped the whiteboard and clean and wrote as quickly as she could, to stop Corinna from having a meltdown.

"Is it because I asked about the basement?" Corinna continued. "It is, isn't it? I was too nosy. I'm sorry- I- I shouldn't have asked about the basement. I was just curious since you spend a lot of your time down there. I thought something important was down there- or something horrible- like a dungeon- a dungeon with a load of human prisoners. I've never seen you eat before so- so you could be bringing the prisoners food, fattening them up then you'll eat them- and that's such a horrid thing to think- of course, I don't think you would do that. I was just overthinking things. I'm sure that you would never do such a thing- and I'm just- I am sorry for thinking that."

Harmony finished writing and turned it around, but it was too late. Corinna had stood up and gone to the kitchen, still ranting in panic.

"I'll get the food ready." She retrieved two bowls out of the cupboard. "I should have already done this. Sorry I got distracted. I promise I won't do that again. I'll watch the food."

Holding up the whiteboard with the message 'YOU CAN STAY OR LEAVE', Harmony waved it around wildly, grunting and growling to catch Corinna's attention. However, it was a futile effort as Corinna seemed unable to hear anything over her own voice.

"Did you know that these can be cooked in a microwave? If we had one of course. It would be so much quicker. But, that would leave me not much to do, but I could help more with the cleaning. Although, my uncle has always said that cooking anything in a microwave..."

Lying down on the floor in near defeat, Harmony added onto the whiteboard 'I like having you around'.

Corinna returned back to Harmony, carrying two bowls of steaming food and placed them both on the floor.

Harmony held up the whiteboard in front of her for Corinna to read.

The young woman was now silent, which the chimaera thought was a good sign, only Corinna's emotionless mask was still on. Soon, she realised that it was because it was to prevent herself from crying.

"Thank you," Corinna said, with a flat and indifferent tone of voice to ward away the tears. She motioned to the stack of board games. "So, what shall we play?" 

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