Lillian woke up feeling refreshed, discovering she had tangled herself up in the makeshift bedding during the night. She could barely see the rest of the room, with only a small amount of light coming in from the window so she guessed she had woken up early. Untangling herself from the togas, she had the rest of her water, resolving to get some more before she left to try and get some food. Thinking of food made her stomach growl, as if summoned.


    It was going to be rough trying to find anything out here, she had not found any source of life at all in the area, beside the strangely untouched room she was in now.  It may have something to do with the shrine by the window, she questioned whether a god would care about keeping a place of worship clean though. When she had put the water in the bowl, she hadn’t felt any different except feeling like it was the right thing to do. She resolved herself to putting something else in it just to see what happened, and felt a very light touch settle on her shoulders and stay there. It was somehow comforting, but it still unnerved her, so she turned around, seeing nothing.


    Shrugging off the nervous energy she was feeling, Lillian turned again to look at the books on the wall. She wanted to check if the language she got the basic version of helped here. Lillian had studied Japanese in high school, and it had fallen out of her brain as the years went by. She could still recognise the script and some of the more basic elements. Looking at the spines of the books she was seeing, she could now recognise the lettering. She didn’t entirely grasp their meanings yet, but the longer she looked at them the more she noticed similar lettering conventions to English: the line that looked like an L with a spiral tail shared the same role as a Y, changing from vowel to consonant as the word needed. In fact, the longer she studied the lettering, the more she connected to English. The Common language shared English’s base components, an alphabet that combined to make different words, but the letters themselves never changed form.


    Lillian picked out a book at random to study further and took it over to the desk, placing it down and sitting on the stool. She realised at that point she had never opened the drawers and promptly opened the first one in the set of three. It held only rolls of a rough looking parchment, with the discolouration and pits that could only have been formed by processing wood by hand. She grabbed one of the rolls and unrolled it to check if it was blank before placing it on the desk. She opened the next drawer and found feather quills and ink bottles that jingled softly as the drawer moved. She grabbed one of each, setting them on the counter to take notes as she studied the language. The quill took a bit of getting used to, but she seemed to have some ingrained muscle memory from a source she couldn’t quite place that helped her adjust. In fact, as she worked, taking care to mimic the lettering in the book completely, her understanding of it grew. Almost as if the skill she had bought wasn’t giving her the knowledge she needed directly but guiding her so that she could learn herself.


    I’d rather not have anyone forcing knowledge into my brain, her brows furrowed at the thought.


    Before Lillian knew it, she had spent most of the morning following the small guidance her skill had given her and could pick out words from the book that made sense to her. From the title, the book was a dry recounting of the history of the world. It would be fascinating to go through fully, when she wasn’t starving. Her grumbling stomach was in fact the only thing that made her put down the quill and stopper the ink.


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    Time to go outside. It was strange, this place made her feel safer than she had been the entire time she had been in this world. It was anxiety inducing to think of leaving. She put a hand on her dagger to steady herself and started cursing. Fuck, I forgot to look at skills for the dagger!


    Lillian resolved herself to do some stabbing practice while she was out, took a deep, steadying breath and climbed out the window to the street.


    The zombies from the day before were still there, however, they all showed significant signs of decay, even more than they had yesterday. It had only been, at most, 16 hours but they looked like they were weeks old. The black goop that had started oozing out of them earlier was pooling under their bodies. They have off a feint odour as well but definitely not that of just freshly killed corpses. Something about their disease, or this world, was causing much more rapid decay than was usual. Lillian made her way over to the well, careful not to step in any of the goop just in case.


    The wells bucket was back in the water when she got to the well, but she didn’t remember lowering it. Was there someone else here? She scanned the area around her quickly but saw nothing, although that didn’t quite ease her worry. She was feeling very uneasy, like she was being watched. Hoping not to repeat a mistake, she was extra vigilant while raising the bucket out of the well. When the bucket was at hooked at the top, she filled her flask and quickly dashed back towards the safety of the building. She had her hands on the wall, ready to climb, when she had a moment of indecision. She needed food badly, she was already starting feel a little weaker and slower in mind and body. It would be all too easy to hide and waste away, so she didn’t have to face this new world. However, there was a fatal flaw with that plan. She wanted to live.


    Lillian gave herself a moment to work up the courage, placing her head on the wall and taking three deep breaths. She pushed off the wall, rocking back on her feet briefly before planting her feet. The feeling that she was being watched hadn’t gone away, which was causing her anxiety to steadily increase. Reluctantly, she the road opposite to the one she had come from yesterday to go down and started walking, keeping her hand on her dagger.


    As Lillian walked, she was careful to check side streets before stepping around the corner. The feeling that she was being watched was getting more intense and she was jumping at shadows. A bird cawing above her caused her to startle and look up. As she did, a sharp pain stabbed her side, and she stumbled. Looking down she could see a thin reed sticking out of her, just under her ribs. A crunch behind her gave warning. As she turned around to investigate, a blade missed her face by inches. They must have swung wide; her movements were nowhere close to being enough for her to have avoided the attack. She drew her dagger and stepped closer to the attacker; it was a man. He was wearing very similar garb to her, although more worn and stained. He had a scraggy beard and long hair tied up. His eyes looked hard and tired, staring at her dispassionately. Her movement towards him seemed to surprise him, however, as one of his eyebrows raised in response.


    The reason why Lillian stepped closer was to get close enough to use the dagger now resting uncertainly in her hand. She didn’t know what she could do from here so she stabbed at his hand, an impulsive action, in which she hoped she would force him to drop his short sword. He was faster than her clumsy and ill thought stab, however, and his free hand grabbed her arm holding the dagger and pulled her towards him. She struggled against his hold, but he was too strong, and she only got a headbutt to the face instead. She dropped the dagger as pain blossomed and she cried out, dazed. He let go of her then pushing her back, causing Lillian to lose her balance, ending up flat on her back.


    He pointed his sword at her. When it was clear she was not going to get back up, he walked closer and delivered a quick kick to her temple, knocking her out cold.