• ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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      14 days ago

      The books are all well maintained and free of dust. Whoever owns these books takes great care of them, as not even the shelves they’re sitting on are dirty. Despite that, they show no signs of wear and tear, as though they were bought from the store, placed directly on the shelf, and never read. Weirdly, none of the sides of the books have titles written on them; as you take the first one down to have a look through it, it catches on something. A little force, and the book tilts forward; an audible kachunk rings through the room, muffled by the walls.

      The book falls free after the noise, revealing a strange mechanism behind it, built into the wall behind the shelf and fed through a hole in the back of said shelf; a lever of some kind? In any case, the book itself isn’t all that interesting. It goes into incredible detail about the aerodynamics of butterfly wings and various experiments and extrapolations regarding their ability to cause hurricanes. Roll perception.

        • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 days ago

          The book is nothing more than what it is; a book about butterflies. You’re quite sure there’s no hidden code or secret key inside, not even one you’re not able to detect. You mean, who would even go through the effort of making such a detailed report just to hide something, right?

          In any case, you turn around and find the front door open. It’s strange, you think. Seeing the outdoors, the trees and the grass. You were sure you’d never be getting out of here, and yet there is is, the open door.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    13 days ago

    Sigh in relief as I don’t hear anyone saying “Hey, you! You’re finally awake! You were caught trying to cross the border!”

    • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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      12 days ago

      You whisper the ultimate cat call. It echoes over the empty cabin; nothing happens, and a profound sense of loss washes over you. You walk over to the shelf by the window and run your hand over it, staring at the one particularly worn spot on it for a moment. You walk over and check the litter box, but of course it’s clean. It always is nowadays. Old habits die hard after all. You cook yourself some breakfast and take a seat at the table, and try the call again. Nothing happens, as expected, not even when you open a can of tuna. Old habits die hard, but they die eventually. You spread the tuna on your bread and eat your meal, alone in the silence.

  • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    I go to the larder and gather ingredients to break my fast with some fried salt pork, eggs, and pan bread. Then I go outside to check the firewood stores. If they’re sufficient I’ll fire up the forge and begin work on a Damascus Billet that I have tentative plans to make into either a skinning knife or a small hatchet. With a Hickory Handle.

    • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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      14 days ago

      The larder contains the salted pork and bread, but you keep the eggs in the refrigerator to its left. Once gathered on the table, you head outside the door and check your firewood shack; it’s filled bottom to top with quarter cut firewood, of whatever varieties you could gather. You take a moment to thank your past self for gathering all this wood. The chill in the air shakes your bones, and you’ll need all the heat you can get to survive the coming winter.

      Wood, check, breakfast ingredients, check. You get to work on cooking up a quick meal, frying the pork and eggs on your stove; soon enough, the aroma of smoke and fresh food engulfs the entire cabin. You pat your belly; it was a filling meal, but soon after you start to wonder if you could sustain that sort of habit. Winter is coming. With winter, there’s less prey, and less meat. Maybe you should start rationing more?

      In any case, you push the thought of food out of mind for now, head towards the forge in the back of the cabin, and fire it up. This much should be fine, your wood stores are plentiful. There’s only one problem; your trusty anvil seems to have disappeared. You’re quite sure you left it sitting on the floor, right where the anvil shaped indent on the ground is, but it seems to have totally disappeared. Your plans for the billet are held back by the fact you have nothing to hammer on, which is odd because your hammer is still here. Where in the hells did your anvil go, and why just the anvil?

      • RangerJosie@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        My anvil couldn’t have walked away on its own. I think I’ll check for footprints and other signs of where my Anvil could have gone.

        • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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          13 days ago

          You search the forge top to bottom, inside and outside, searching for any clues as to where it may have gone. The most obvious clue you find is a note stapled to the outside of the forge door; you’re not sure how you missed it the first time around. In poor handwriting and poorer grammar, the note says “Ur avil were repossessed. mist paymont. -avil mortgage coppany.”

          This letter is obviously fake. For one, the premise is stupid. It’s inconceivable that an anvil mortgage company would just reposses your anvil off a single missed payment; they’d send an agent or letter reminding you first. For two, you’ve already paid your anvil-tgage this month, at least you’re pretty sure of it. Whoever left this note was making a clear attempt at delaying your search for the true culprit. You’ve got a sneaking suspicion who, or what, might have left this letter. After all, they’ve raided your supplies before. The real question is, why would they have taken the anvil of all things?

            • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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              12 days ago

              The squirrels. They’ve been your sworn enemy ever since you moved here, always raiding your pantry and gardens, but this latest ploy is befuddling. What use would a band of squirrels have for an anvil? And when did they learn to write? And how did they even move the anvil? It’s a deeply perplexing puzzle, quite a pickle you found yourself in. To be safe, you figure you ought to double check everything you own; maybe the anvil wasn’t the only thing they had taken…

              Food: ooooooxxxx

              Water: oooooooooo

              Firewood: oooooooox

              Ore & minerals: ooooxxxxxx

              Anvils: 0/10

              Hammer: 10/10

  • Feathercrown@lemmy.world
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    13 days ago

    I open the front door to take a look around. There is another room of the cabin. I look out the window. It’s a painted scene. I remove it. More cabin. I panic. I look up the chimney and see another fireplace. I tear out a floorboard and see through a ceiling. All that there is, is cabin. I take my first level in Wizard. We’re plane shifting up in this bitch. It would be very cozy if I had the option to leave and return at will.

    • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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      14 days ago

      Unfortunately, you don’t find a fridge in the room. You’re not sure where you got the idea from, as there never has been and most likely never will be a fridge in the room with you. Still, the image of a fridge against the wall haunts you like a particular bad sense of de ja vu; was there a fridge there before? Yes, you’re quite sure there was, and yet there wasn’t. You start to question your sanity; your psychiatrist would probably ask if you’ve taken your pills yet. Have you? They would have been in the fridge…

  • dwindling7373@feddit.it
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    13 days ago

    After processing the initial shock, I look out the window to get my bearing on where the fuck I am.

    • ComicalMayhem@lemmy.worldOP
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      12 days ago

      When you go to examine the bookshelf, you realize it’s not actually a bookshelf, but a painting on the wall designed to look exactly like a set of bookshelves from precisely the perspective you were formally at. Oddly enough, all of the titles are books you have read before, but none are ones you’re currently reading.