Day 2:

  I slept 12 hours and woke up feeling energized.

  My wounds already closed.

  Before leaving my room to go and fill my starving self, I could not help but to think back to yesterday’s events, the thrill during the fight, but more importantly this.

  ‘status’ resonated in my mind.

  But also the skills.

  Being able to see one’s progression is so satisfying.

  While eating, I thought back to the stat points, 22?

  I could triple my speed.

  After a few minutes of eating, I understood where they “came” from.

  Each level gave the same number of points, for example level 1 gave 1 point, level 2 gave 2 points and so on.

  Interesting.

  I focused on eating my bread and my eggs, leaving my mind to stray to questions like where those stat points actually came from, what would happen if I added them and so on.

  Speaking of eating, the electricity and the water had been cut during the night, so we were left with just one gas tank to cook.

  Water was a problem, despite telling my family to fill every possible container of water yesterday, water would probably last a week or two at most, and with my current plan may be less.

  I could feel my family’s gaze on me, they had something to say for sure, I forgot that this is not just a game to me but also their new reality.

  They patiently waited for me to eat, wise choice, which is not that common of them.

  As I finished, I did not even need to take my plate to the kitchen, they did it for me.

  They asked me to sit with them in what was left of the living room, just chairs, the couches used as barricades on the door.

  “So, Ryan, we plan to remove the.” I raised my hand stopping my father’s speech.

  Wow, it works, this whole scenario has made them so tame.

  I waited for a whole minute, feeling the tension rise.

  I already knew what he would say.

  “Continue” I stopped toying with them.

  “As I was saying, before you stopped me, we plan to remove the barricade on the door, to allow our neighbors inside the house, so that you could protect us all before the government can rescue us.”

  I was contemplating my status screen, half listening to his rumblings, help?

  Who? Me?

  I was barely protecting them because they were my family, but the neighbors.

  Ha, what a joke.

  I looked at each and every single one of them.

  My mother and my grandma looked at me with big puppy eyes, expecting a yes.

  My father and sister looked at me with pleading eyes, they knew, but they hoped they were wrong.

  “Be my guest if you want to remove the barricade.” I could see smiles blooming on their gloomy faces, if only they knew.

  “But I will not allow anyone to stay with us in this house, nor will I protect them.” The smiles faltering but still hopeful.

  “I am actually being kind right now” while looking at my father, with a grin from ear to ear.

  “Now my turn, what do you plan to do from now? Wait for rescue? by the government ?

  Please. Tell me your intelligence stat is not that low?”

  My father was the first to answer slightly irritated: “Well what more do you want us to do but wait? They are just goblins; the government will easily take care of them, and I don’t think this makes any of us stupid.”

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  I looked at him, looking into his light green eyes that I nor my sister did inherit.

  He really believed his own words.

  I was about to question them a bit more before my mother bested me.

  “Why won’t you help those people?

  They need your protection, there are kids among them”

  “Oh, I just don’t want to help those people.” With a smug grin on my face

  Then my grandma added her part:

  “But they are your fellow countrymen.” This began irritating me, my eye probably twitched at that moment.

  “My answer won’t change; I told you I am being kind by not simply killing them myself”

  They both began pestering me about how it was wrong, what did they do to deserve this and so on…

  I swear, a waste of energy.

  They kept speaking while I asked everyone another question.

  “Did anyone train and see if it worked on your stats ?”

  Silence.

  “Okay so you are all useless. Great! I am going to try this while you all stay here being useless.” Were my last words as I was already going in my room and closing the door behind myself.

  I thought for a few seconds about what to try, but I simply decided on a full-on body workout.

  I took my bench and dumbbells and began working out set after set.

  A dozen minutes later, while I was obviously still working out, my father entered and tried to convince me to be a bit gentler with everyone, but I did not let him finish his second sentence.

  “Out.” As I looked at him with an expressionless face.

  He left infuriated and his eyes visibly wet.

  I continued working out, and then my sister entered. I took a small rest, checking my stats.

  I had gained 0,2 in endurance, I should try to just lift heavy next, instead of trying to do reps.

  “You know, you really hurt them, even dad with your words back then, I know you don’t want to help our neighbors, but we are still your family, not your neighbors, could you try and be a bit more mindful with them?” she said with worry and a tinge of hope on her face.

  “No.”

  “But why are you being so petty? You know they really tried.” She continued trying to make me see reason, or simple empathy.

  “Look, I am being nice by tolerating all your bullshit, if you were not my family, I would not face all those goblins yesterday, nobody helped me among our neighbors.

  In this scenario you need me, but I do not need a single one of you, you are all dead weights on my shoulder, now leave me alone and go tell them that training raises your stats.”

  She stayed on my bed for a few more seconds, speechless, not expecting this, and left my room.

  I trained a bit more, lifting heavy raised my strength and endurance, did jumping jacks trying to raise my speed, it did but it also raised my endurance.

  I left my room, ready for another round of conversations.

  I found them, their eyes still red from crying.

  It saddened me a bit, but only for a mere moment or so.

  “I guess no one trained.” Still looking at this pitiful sight of theirs, I understood them, I could read every single one of them like an open book, but no empathy filled my heart.

  I looked at them, I was being too harsh on them, they may be useless but…

  There is no rational reason for that but.

  So I will just use the excuse of them being family.

  “Listen to me, you are correct to hope for the government to help us and you are probably right, but in most stories, this is just the beginning and either society survives and evolves, or we would be forced to form a new world.

  In both cases, we now have magic, look I can probably be twice as strong by next week.

  And if anything were to happen to me, you would all be in danger, that’s why I am being harsh on you, you need to train, and I can’t bring myself to trust strangers in an apocalypse.”

  Their faces began to slowly but surely light up.

  We began removing the barricades, I stopped in the middle and looked outside the window for the goblins, they were a few moving between each building.

  I told them to stop, and to wait till tomorrow, I explained that a goblin is stronger than an adult and that there were a lot of them outside and they could probably hear us.

  My father and sister began training seriously, my mother tried to avoid it using her now cured cancer, my grandma did the same, but as stubborn as a bull and having the additional excuse of being old, I tried to say magic, but I did not waste my energy on her.

  I simply trained for 3 hours in total. 1 hour amounted to 0,1 in every stat except for endurance with 0,2.

  I tried meditating to see if I could increase my mental stats. It worked, every 10 mins 0,1 in the 4 stats.

  And I meditated for 5 whole hours, I don’t know how I did it, but it was like being falling in a pit of different emotions, my emotions, like being sandwiched between a devil and an angel debating, I was sure of that.

  Also of thoughts, all-encompassing thoughts, from what I wanted to do in the near future, to my family foolishness, to how could working the upper body increase my overall strength by 0,1.

  But seeing the stats increase was exhilarating.

  There was an announcement from the government on the national news app.

  Reassuring people and telling to not leave their homes, that the military had everything under control.

  Yeah, let’s see when ogres or worse dragons start popping out, not even a nuclear strike would be enough.

  I went to sleep, tired from all the workout but also the mental strain of a family.

  This time I just had another weird dream, with fascists pinguins ruling the world.

  Day 3:

  I woke up feeling as energized as yesterday.

  As I sat to eat my breakfast, I heard my family moving furniture, removing the barricades of the door.

  Clearly excited to see other humans.

  Humanity what a broad definition.

  As I finished my meal, I heard the door open behind me.

  How stupid what if there were goblins hiding and waiting for them.

  Miraculously they were not.

  I quickly went outside but instead of waiting for the neighbors, I went towards the stairs, slowly descended the stairs, towards the lower floor.

  I sneaked around the puddles of blood and the piled dead bodies, one house door was open I peeked inside and here they were, 5 goblins feasting on some legs, with some women and girls gagged and bound next to them.

  It explained a great many things, they were probably bidding their time to reproduce.

  I slowly backed up away, returning to the 3rd floor.

  Sneak level 1

  The neighbors were still removing their barricades.

  I did not say anything to my family, just stood on the door leading to the staircase, waiting for too.

  A few moments later, when all the neighbors were out and everyone was talking with each other, a middle-aged man came to thank me for protecting them.

  I turned around, looked at him, took a deep breath, thought for 5 seconds of my answer, and I lied, simply said “no worries” I did not want to waste my energy on them, they would be probably dying either way in the following days.

  But trouble still found its way, not as goblins, but as a dumb old woman who couldn’t take the fact that I refused them refuge in our house.

  She began shouting and going fully hysterical, demanding I protect them as it was a duty of mine.

  The moment she raised her voice, I simply shouted for everyone to return to their homes because there were goblins below us.

  Most did not believe me, not even my grandma whom I had to force back inside the house, even her thought I could take care of the goblins.

  And indeed, the goblins rushed to our floor, and not just those of the 2nd floor, but also 1st one.

  So, a total of 8 goblins, the other 2 either dead or doing whatever God knows.

  I told everyone to barricade the door, 8 goblins were not 5, I did not have the advantage of a narrow corridor, and those goblins now that I could see them a bit closer were not as skinny as yesterday, so probably stronger.

  I ordered every member of my family to peek out of the peephole before barricading.

  “Look what I had to fight, look well you stupid mongrels, next time you won’t listen to me YOU will be facing them.” As I said those words the goblins managed to rush inside the old couple’s house before they could close the door.

  They screamed, wailed like banshees.

  As we finished putting back the barricades, I rushed everyone to a bathroom, that was just a long corridor with a small square inside, easy to defend with daggers in my hands.

  Time trickled by a boring wait according to me, stressful to them due to the screams and the vision of horror they had seen prior.

  “That’s the fate of delusional people like you. Now let’s hope they don’t try and break in the house.” Making them shake even more.

  Thanks, little goblins you did me a favor, but please don’t go inside or I will have to slaughter you.

  They did not come in the end, weird but who would say no to more peace and time to train.

  And that’s what I did for the rest of the day.

  During the dinner, the air of despair was so heavy it probably had its own gravitational pull.

  “Don’t worry, if we continue to train and reach 20 in each physical stat, we will easily overpower them, so don’t worry in a few days you won’t fear them, and by that time I will probably go down and kill them all myself.”

  I did not stay long to see if my words had any effect and simply slept for the night.

  New skills :

  Physical conditioning level 1

  Sneak level 1 .

  Meditation level 1.

  This time I simply did not dream.

  Too bad I liked dreams, as weird as they got they were signs of either something being wrong in my life or everything actually being fine.