Restless Nightmare- a Hermitcraft Murder Mystery

Chapter 42

Stress awoke to shouting outside her base. Ready to give a lecture once she got up, she stretched and slipped on some slippers and reached for the doorknob, eyes still adjusting to the sunlight.

"Iskall, Mumbo, what did I tell you about-"

She finally opened her eyes.

No one was there.

Stress glanced around, confused. She could've sworn she had heard Mumbo and Iskall arguing, which is was presumably what woke her up.

She stepped down onto the grass and scanned the area, and like earlier, no one was in sight.

"Weird..." Stress muttered, scratching her head. "Oh well."

She just shrugged it off and entered her base once more to make her morning coffee. Mumbo and Iskall were probably just pranking her as usual. Entering the kitchen, she took out a small cup and placed it beside the stove. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a jar and set it on the counter.

That's when Stress noticed something beside her empty cup. A full coffee cup sitting on the counter, steaming hot. She glanced back to her own empty cup, which was still empty.

"Where did this come from?"

Stress thought, in the process of tying her hair into a bun. She had woke up and immediately went outside, so when did she make the mysterious cup of coffee?

"Whoa, glitch in the matrix." Stress chuckled. She wasn't even concerned, or even a bit nervous about it, she just brushed it off, not really caring about the weird occurrence. She grabbed the cup and took sip.

"Free coffee, I guess."

A familiar taste came back. This was the exact type of coffee she made, yet she didn't remember making it. Stress didn't think much of it and went to get ready for the day.

A week had passed since the day she woke up from her coma. It was currently Tuesday.

Last week's Tuesday was pretty much a bad day, considering the fact Stress was confused as hell and had no idea what was going on. She didn't even know what was reality and what was not after her dream.

After staying up most of the night and her conversation with Joe at about three in the morning, Stress didn't get much sleep the rest of the night. So obviously Wednesday was quite tiring to get through.

Stress wasn't about to do any work, however, and decided to just binge shows and sleep in. She put her phone on silent and ignored all the calls and texts she got. She had a lot of meetings and events scheduled for the day, but didn't feel like going to any of them. She didn't feel like talking to anyone really. Ignoring texts and calls from her friends on purpose wasn't that mean, was it? Stress didn't seem to feel bad about it.

Thursday wasn't any better. Thoughts about the previous days wouldn't leave her alone. It seemed like everything she tried to do to forget about the dream only made it worse, the entire day was stressful despite nothing being done.

Friday was luckily a bit more productive, and social. She flipped her upsidedown personality back to normal and left her base, apologizing for her inactivity the past few days, making up a lie that she had a bad fever. Stress participated in a minigame with a few other hermits that day and hung out with some others, which seemed to distract her from her controlling thoughts. It seemed everyone was glad she was back to normal. Well, at least they thought.

Usually, Saturday would be a break from work, but not today. Stress had a lot of catching up to do. The day mostly consisted of resource collecting, shop restocking, meetups being held and deals being made. A pretty successful day by the looks of it, Stress had even earned a fair amount of diamonds.

By Sunday, Stress had completely forgotten about the dream. Well, not completely, but at least it wasn't the only thing on her mind. The majority of the day passed as usual. At evening, she attended a sleepover held by Tango. She had a great time. Her behaviour from a couple of days ago was only brought up and questioned a few times, but Stress just brushed it off and laughed, claiming it was just a bad mood.

If only they knew.

Monday flew by in a breeze. It was simple, like every other day. Building, crafting, you know, the usual.

And the current day, Tuesday. Stress had almost forgotten the dream, despite everything that took place. She was just like that. The incidents in the morning didn't seem to put her on edge, she just shrugged it off as if it was nothing to worry about.

Stress had finished her morning routine and slipped on a pair of old sneakers and left her base. She decided to go lecture Mumbo and Iskall first. Iskall, being the person he is, could be anywhere at the moment. Mumbo, however, was quite easier to track down. He had a simple morning routine.

Stress flew to his base. She landed by an area which seen to be in the middle of a terraforming process. Climbing up, she scanned the area, but Mumbo was nowhere to be found. She turned around and flew to Iskall's tree.

In the mornings, he most likely wouldn't be at his tree. He was an early bird, probably off to go do some work. Yet, Stress still decided to check it out.

She checked every room, and sure enough, Iskall wasn't in the tree. Stress sighed.

She decided to fly by Ren's for some answers. She circled the volcano, realizing she didn't actually know how to get in. Well, to sum things up, he wasn't at his base as well.

Weird.

Anyways, there was work to do and Stress got right to it. She turned around in the direction of her base to go make some progress but then remembered she ran out of sand. Off to go buy sand she went.