Heart of Demise.

It goes like first grade.

I really needed to stop underappreciating public education.

"Haaaaa... Alright then, let me show you."

I flipped through the book until I reached the last few pages, where there were a few blank sheets. I never understood why books were like this, but I'm glad they are now.

"Do you have something to write with?"

"Write? Oh, yes, let me go get it."

She walked to the chest again, dumped the books in, pulled out a short, dusty pencil, and handed it to me.

"Thanks."

I started to write the alphabet to the best of my capabilities. Which, to be fair, weren't required to be very high for this.

"Alright, so, do you see this symbol here?"

"Yes."

"This is the letter 'A.' It either makes an "ah" sound, or the sound of the letter itself. Got it?"

"Mmm."

"Okay, this is a capitalized 'A.' This is for when you need to use the letter 'a' either in a name or at the start of a sentence."

"Why at the start of the sentence?"

"Er, it just works like that. Anyway, moving onto the next one--"

This process repeated for every letter. It was long, it was tedious, but it was bearable. It was a nice change from, well, just laying in bed, and I welcomed it despite the hassle.

"--Okay, last letter, Z. You're not gonna be seeing this one a lot, but it makes two noises: Zeh, and Zee. Got it?"

"Yes."

I let out a long breath and massaged my temples.

"Okay. Well, that's the entire alphabet for you. Here you go."

I handed her the sheet, now filled with annotations of the different noises each letter made. It was messy, but legible enough for her not to complain.

"Study it or something. We're done for the day."

"...What? That's it?"

"Yeah, it is."

I leaned into the bed and relaxed my body. Rivver skimmed over the paper as she went to go sit on her couch.

"That was underwhelming."

"I can't really teach you much if you don't memorize the alphabet. Just work on that while I go take a nap, or maybe eat some food."

"We don't have any food."

"..."

My face strained when I heard those words.

God, I miss being able to just walk to a fridge, open it, and have a plethora of potentially piquant provisions present themselves to me. I may be stuck in a literal hell, but, for what it's worth, the World Strain Complex has taught me to appreciate the little things more.

"Then a nap it is. Goodnight, Rivver."

"...Mmm, goodnight."

I closed my eyes and let the wonky chemicals do their work.

But, unfortunately, it wasn't happening.

Maybe it was a combination of the heat inside the cabin and the fact that I've been wearing the same clothes for over a day now, or maybe I just wasn't tired enough.

So, I can't sleep, and Rivver doesn't have any food. It also doesn't seem like she'll be going out to hunt any time soon, considering how she basically just came back half an hour ago.

I should've eaten more. God damn it. Well, there's only one thing I can do, really. But before I did it, I looked around the room and locked my eyes onto the rifle standing by the wall, and thought about how strange it was that a gun got in Rivver's hands in the first place.