Chapter 9: C009 – Perspective, Shift.

Waking up to the faint rays of light peeking through the window, I peek around making sure the place is silent. For the first time in what feels like years I hear chirping of birds in the distance. Its nice after having to constantly look over my shoulder. Maybe there are some animals out here too? I don't know, I've never hunted or killed anything besides insects, so maybe I'll find something if I stay here a bit longer?

I might be able to make some kind of traps with the broken wire fences I can see around. There might be some wire in storage somewhere nearby also. I'm feeling hungry, but it's probably best not to venture outside right away. First I'd like to find some wire I guess.

There was a building or two a little ways north from here behind this farmhouse.

A dilapidated sign showing the name of Mallow Creek Farmhouse still hung off the wooden porch, but that is all that is left of what was once a thriving farm. Most of the house collapsed over the years and the interior is just as bad. A few boards are staying up for some reason and the ceiling is made of thick beams with nails driven into them where they weren't already.

My journey to the tool shed nearby leads me along a short path with some trees. A birds nest hiding amongst the bare branches as the chill of late autumn bites at my face as I walk on.

On first glance the shed appears locked, a few shoves of the door yielded no progress, after trying to lift the door and shoving it with my shoulder it gives way and opens. Upon inspection there is no lock on the door, the entire thing seems to be made with the same material as the shed itself.

Some tools are lying about, I grab a whetstone to start working on fixing one of my blades. It's good to have a knife, especially when you don't know how dangerous a situation might turn out to be. It's one of the few luxuries some people had before the apocalypse.

Most of the tools are pretty rusty but they shouldn't be too hard to clean and repair. The whetstone works great for sharpening things, I have a knack for that sort of thing after a long amount of practice.

After doing some basic maintenance, I start to explore around the farm for my safety. Checking some of the nearby fields and double checking each of the buildings on the farm for any signs of people or anything dangerous. A pile of scrap steel and metal in one building, which I take for future use. There are some old boxes lying in a corner, the top of one of them has some writing scratched on it that reads Mallow Creek Farmhouse.

There's a few windows around the farmhouse so I take some time to look out each of them, the last one looks out into the valley and shows a nice view of the area beyond the valley. A river carving its way through one of the walls of the valley, the mountains looming in the distance. I make a mental note of the directions I can see with the windows as a cautionary measure against blind spots.

I head into the cellar now that I've gotten the chance to check it out. It's dark, and my eyes adjust to the gloom in seconds, it's not a pitch black but close enough. The door doesn't have a lock and there's nothing on the walls or ceilings.

In the center of the room is a wooden table that seats six people, a few chairs remain and are stacked in a pile of junk next to a broken clock that still keeps time on the wall above it. Some of the drawers and cabinets have stuff inside, I find a few bottles of water that were once full and a few books, the covers look old but the pages inside look crisp.

As I inspect the contents of one of the cabinets, something catches my attention. Something that looks like a letter, but I can't quite read what it says. I flip it over to see another letter. One is addressed to "Mallow," and the other is to "Mr. Jones". The paper they're written on feels thick and slightly yellowed. As my fingers run across the letter it seems like someone else's handwriting compared to the others. I wonder if whoever sent this stuff was related to Mallow or Mr. Jones? But I guess there's no way to tell for sure.

After clearing out the cellar and taking all the letters with me to the kitchen in the main building there are a few things I need to do. The first being to get a fire going. There's a gas fireplace in the kitchen that could be repaired but there is no more gas in it, so I head to the shed to find something to burn.

The wind whistles between the cracks of the shuttered window as I dig through the debris, there is a lot of dust and grime and cobwebs. After grabbing some things from one of the boxes that contains a hammer, screwdriver and a few other useful items. There are some nails left inside the broken toolbox, and I put them aside to use as well before heading back to repairing the fireplace.

The only fuel I find is charcoal and dry kindling, not ideal for a fire but it will do the job. I start stacking up kindling to get a decent blaze started, it will take a few minutes to build enough heat to boil water for drinking. I wish there was tea but its hard to buy things like that when in the middle of an apocalypse.

It finally starts to boil after a little while of working on it. My hands are getting dusty, as is everything else I touch. The air is cold now, colder than it was before I lit the fire.

It might be time to fill in Wall about what I've done today before I sleep. It was nice chatting to them.