The Doll arrives at the front door of her house and unceremoniously dropped the stag on the step before laying down on the little porch herself, panting for breath as her internals slowly cooling down with each mouthful of fresh cold air. The Doll, after constantly jumping for 30 minutes straight just to get to her house as quickly as possible was incredibly tired. The action combined with the weight made it far more taxing than she ever thought it would as her energy reserves was down to 78% compared to when she first woke up with a full battery.

She laid there for a while, spread eagled as she tries to catch her breath while staring at the light bulb above her. Once the Doll's internals have cooled down, she sat up and reaches for the rucksack beside her to take out an apple. After looking at the glossy texture of the skin for a second, she then took a bite out of it and relishes on the crunchy yet juicy fruit. 

While snacking on the apple, she stares at the cobblestone walls absentmindedly before her eyes slowly begins to wander around, staring at anything that catches her attention until the apple she was eating entered her field of view and reminded her of the man she just killed a while ago. While she doesn't feel bad for killing the man since he shot at her first, she does wonder how he missed such an easy shot while she was standing still when he took that shot. Her jaw slowed down while she thinks about the cause of missing a stationary target at 150 meters while he has such an accurate rifle.

Looking down at the rifle laying on top of her lap, she runs her left hand on the rifle, gliding across the picatinny rail up to the receiver. Her finger tips dancing along the rifle until she touches the ACOG scope. She swallows the fruit she finished chewing and puts the apple aside for now. Picking up the rifle, she then looks at the knobs on the scope and her suspicions was confirmed.

The fool had the wrong setting on the wind adjustment and wasn't zeroed correctly. But now that the first question has been answered, next is she wants to know how he got his hands on a rifle like this. She brushes her thumb on the printed text on the receiver and sighs before getting up to continue the current task at hand, deciding that she could figure that out at a later date.

She hops a few times closer to the deer and leans down to take back her cane that she hanged on one of its antlers. She entered the house, leaving the deer for a little while to dump most of her stuff on the couches in the living room before making her way towards the workshop. Once at the workshop, she stops for a second as her eye was adjusting to the dimly lit room before hobbling her way to the double wooden doors where she unlocks the door that was only possible to unlock from the inside without the need of having a key.

Pushing the thick wooden doors wide open, dust flew in the air as the wind generated by the double doors disturbed the once stale air. The workshop that hasn't seen the light of day for who knows how long, was basked by the gentle light of the afternoon sun. While wearing her gas mask to avoid inhaling the dust, she followed the doors and dropped the metal rods at the bottom that stops the doors from moving. Exiting from the workshop, she wrapped around from the right side of the house to the front where the stag was still sprawled over on the cobblestone path.

Grabbing hold of the deer by the antlers, she then drags it towards the workshop where she would butcher it. Once she has dragged it inside, she then begins to prepare the necessary equipment in order to dismantle it. While she has no experience in properly dismantling a deer, much less an animal of any kind, she does have the knowledge in what to prepare for the procedure.

And so, the Doll went around the house, gathering every item she would possibly need. And by the time she came back, the workshop floor which was previously clear of any trash was now cluttered with knives, cleavers, basins, and a few buckets of water.

With her preparation complete, she takes off her her coat and hangs it on a chair by the workstation and replaced it with an apron before turning towards the deer. The cruel and pitiful sight of the deer hanged with a noose around its neck was in front of her. Not bothered by the disturbing and cruel sight, the Doll picked up one of the sharper knives and held it in an ice pick grip before lightly stabbing it in the stomach.

The knife's blade that was around 8 inches long sunk almost unhindered and stopped with just an inch to spare. With the blade inside, she then starts slicing down to widen the wound. The blood that was left inside slowly begins to trickle down to the basin below, while the intestines was already starting to spill out as she slices the stomach wide open.

When the wound was sufficiently wide enough, she disconnected the intestines to the other organs and scooped it out to let it fall on the basin below. Blood got on her face when it splattered on the basin that already has a pool blood. With the intestines gone, she then proceeds to remove every organ she could get her hands on until there was none left. After putting the basin of internal organs aside, she then lowered the disemboweled deer and removes the noose.

After fetching a big cleaver, a chopping block, and an ax used to split firewood, she first chopped the antlers off with the ax. Next, she then prepared a smaller basin and placed it right next to the chopping block where she laid the neck of the deer on top. She then swung down with a cleaver in hand. With a meaty chunk, the cleaver chopped almost a third of the neck. She hacks at the neck a few more times before swinging down hard to fully severe the neck in one swing. The head, now liberated from it's body fell into the basin below. 

Now that she is done chopping the head off, the only thing left to do now was to skin it and chop the whole body into segmented parts. She looks out into the town over yonder and sighs thinking that this is going to take a while.

 

Several hours later...

 

Basking in the comforting warmth of the hot water, she feels herself relax as the soap gets washed away by the water flowing down her body. After scrubbing herself with her bare hands to make sure there are no soap left on her body, she just let the water rain down on her and enjoyed the relaxing warmth for a couple seconds before turning the shower off. She stayed seated on her stool to let the water drip off her before she got up with the help of her cane that she brought in with her and exits the bathroom. 

While being careful to not hit the glass door on her way out, she notices that the washing machine has already finished washing and drying her clothes. She dries herself with a towel and excitedly hobbled over to the washer and took out her sleepwear along with the clothes she used for the entire day. She immediately wore her sleepwear after wearing a wrapping a fresh set of bandages on her left leg to avoid exposing it to dirt that could possibly start corroding her internals.  

She sat on the small counter, blowing her hair with a hair dryer when she saw herself on the mirror at the opposite side of the room. The Doll's hand went over her broken left eye, her finger tips ghosting over her eyelid as she remembered how she almost died when a piece of rebar and concrete fell on her during their escape from SF forces whilst their building collapses. Her Digimind going back to the scene of her partner's bloodied figure. Her anger rising at the thought of her partner getting hurt. 

As she replay the events inside her Digimind, she was snapped out of her thoughts when something produced a cracking noise. She looks down at the hairdryer in her hand and saw crack running along the handle. She loosened her clenched hand and turns it off. Shaking her head with a sigh, she starts to comb her platinum blond hair. The comb glides down the silver curtain that slowly turns purple towards the tips flawlessly. While making sure that her hair was neatly arranged, the reflection of a girl with a her lone purple eye was staring right back at her.

When she was satisfied with her hair, she made her way to the kitchen while sending a small command to the household AI to turn off the light in the bathroom and switch the ones in the kitchen on. Upon entering the kitchen, she was greeted with the vacuuming sound of the roomba meticulously cleaning the floor somewhere inside the room. Following the source to it's origin, she looks under the kitchen table where it was incessantly cleaning a particular spot on the floor. She shakes her head as she commands it to turn off through the household AI and picked it up again just like the first time she found it. She puts it away on one corner of the room and returns to her original goal of making something to eat.

As a side note. While it's true that she only has venison for meat, she also kept the liver since those are good for food as well. 

Getting a small chunk of venison from the freezer and one liver, she sets it on the chopping board before grabbing the other spices and condiments that she would need for this dish. But before she could begin, she wears an apron different from the previous one as it has a rather cute floral design. She nods in approval, before returning to cooking. 

As for what she is cooking tonight. She decided to cook one of her partner's favorite, a stew that she hasn't given a name yet. First off the list is to cut the venison and liver into small bite size chunks. Next was to prepare the pepper. Taking half a teaspoon of pepper pellets, she pours those to a pan to fry it, letting the natural oils of the pepper out while also enhancing the flavor. After frying it for some time, she puts those in a mortar with some napkin and lets it cool down and dries.

While waiting for the pepper to cool down, she pours some cooking oil in the pan she just used and once the oil is hot enough, she fries the venison that has some fat on it with a tiny amount of salt on the fatty parts whilst constantly flipping it over. After the venison was half cooked, she then fries the liver with some small drops of soy sauce while its cooking before doing the same on the other side. Meanwhile, she was crushing the pepper that has cooled down while watching over the pan. After also cooking the liver half way, she then cooks it together with the venison and pours some garlic and onion crushed and mixed together with oil she made from the side. She lets it sit in low heat for a while before sprinkling the pepper and flips it over to do the same on the other side.

After serving it on a plate, she excitedly sat down on the kitchen table and immediately took a bite. She hums in delight at how it was exactly as she wanted. Salty but savory. The Doll ate her dinner in relative silence, her fork moving to stab a piece of meat as her mind begins to plan her next course of action.

While she has no idea where she is currently at right now, since her last memory before going to Hibernation Mode was them in a cheap motel planning about their future actions once they get to a safe place and not in a desolate town like this, she does know that there was a city that has a military base that accepts refugees somewhere in the southeast. At least that's where they were on planning to go before that promise.

She shook her head and continued to mull over her list of problems and there are two major ones that stands out.

First on the list is her mobility. While it's true she can carry large amounts of gear no problem without her left leg and could travel just fine with the help of her cane, but in doing so would put a lot of stress on her only functioning leg and would be untenable in the long run as she also need energy to keep going and hunting will only keep her functioning for so long.

The second is the same as first one, her mobility. The fact that she only has one leg to work with during a fire fight, where the one who can outmaneuver the other is going to have the upper hand, is going to be her downfall. She was only lucky this time because her opponent was not that good of a shot, but she's not sure if she will survive her next encounter with a not so friendly human.

Speaking of humans. She remembered about the human she just killed this afternoon. She looks out the window as she puts the dirty dishes in the sink, staring at the trees silhouettes lit by moonlight and wondered about his identity. But after a while, she decided to just search for clues in his belongings instead of theorizing. She heads for the living room where most of todays haul was still left lying about.

Dropping herself on the sofa, the rucksack that was leaning on the backrest toppled over, the heavy contents inside hitting her left thigh. She frowns at the unknown object and rubbed the part where it hit her. Loosening the string on the collar, she then grabs the bottom of the rucksack and spilled everything onto the sofa. A lot of the miscellaneous items fell off because it slid on the small hill of random items.

After shaking the bag to make sure there isn't anything left inside, she then hung it on the back rest and begins to sort out whatever junk this man has to show. She first set aside the items she already checked earlier while keeping the items that are useful to her while throwing out trash like heart medication, some expensive looking clothes, illegal drugs, and other trash like objects into a fireplace.

As for the things she put aside, the only thing she found useful are the few remaining cans of tuna, a sheathed bayonet knife, a notebook that seems to be his journal, some boxes of shotgun shells, a long object that that's carefully wrapped in soft clothing and tarp, and a few other trinkets.

She laid those out before inspecting the most eye catching one of all. The bayonet knife. Taking it out of its rather elaborate white hardened leather sheath, the knife's blade mirror polish reflected the light coming from above, flashing her right in the eye. She shift blade to point it away and tests its sharpness by lightly pressing her thumb on the edge. When she feels it immediately biting into her skin, she was impressed at how it was almost razor sharp. Putting the sheath back on to avoid getting cut by the blade, she then observes the ivory hilt. The hilt which was made from horn of some animal, was carved into a spiral pattern to both provide a better grip and be more elegant looking. She looks at the bayonet for a while before moving on to the next most eye catching thing, the wrapped up mystery club.

Cutting the duck tape, she removes the layers of wrapping and was greeted by something she would never expect from a hobo to be carrying around.

There, under all the dirty wrapping of tarp and soft cloth, was an incredibly beautifully crafted shotgun based on the model she was very familiar with. Just to make sure she wasn't mistaking it for another shotgun, she hurriedly searches for the manufacturing stamps on the gun and saw that it was indeed the model she knew.

"Ithaca Model 37..."

She muttered under her breath as she stared at the gun, completely captivated by its beauty. The shotgun was based on it's earlier models as it still has a heat shield and a bayonet lug. But instead of just having a perforated sheet of metal wrapped around the barrel. This one instead has a beautiful aluminum floral grill painted in gold that, while looking absolutely ostentatious to anyone who happens to gaze upon it, also acts as a heat shield for when the barrel gets hot enough. Meanwhile, the parts that are supposed to be made of wood was instead similarly made of ivory with a marble glossy finish. As for the main receiver, it has a creamy white finish with beautiful engravings covering most of the receiver and barrel, save for the silver plate that is on the left side of the receiver where the information about the gun could be found.

The Doll carefully held the work of art, feeling the checkering on the pistol grip with her right hand whilst her left kept caressing the golden heat shield. As she stares at the heat shield to take it every detail, she notices that it was also depicting a flower garden of sorts upon noticing the small change in patterns in the middle section. The patterns changes from the floral design depicting several species of flowers to a more consistent wavy pattern with a few water lilies inside.

And on top of that. When staring really closely at the engravings, although a very miniscule detail. The depths of how deep the engravings aren't as consistent compared the ones that could be found in a precision tool or when a machine does the work. This small detail indicates that this was done by hand, and a human one at that.

She imagines how much a custom gun would cost and with one as beautiful as this. She then turns to look at the wallet and journal on the table, now extremely curious and scared as to who that random guy in the woods is.

Carefully putting the shotgun aside, she then grabs the wallet and took all the credit cards, ID cards, and licenses, out to inspect every single one of them. Even with a casual glance, she could immediately see that only a few of those cards belongs to that hobo and the rest belongs to someone else. She calms down once she saw the hunting license that has his picture, before his face got a new hole after she shot him. With her worry about potentially killing an influential person gone, she resumes her investigation.

As for the other one. While she doesn't recognize the name of the owner, from the black credit card alone with their name written in gold cursive letters, tells her that they are rich. And with a person as rich as this, it made her wonder if she was asleep long enough for new influential families to crop up. She moves on to the next card with the same name and found that they are also a hunter. Her brow raised a little in interest, but moved on to the next card. This time was an ID card from a security company.

Skimming through the personal details, she flips the card to check the back. Besides details about the company, she found nothing to help this current mystery she trying to solve.

The Doll then opened the notebook and quickly skimmed through it, not really into reading the guy's life experience, and quickly finished it after several minutes and immediately throws it into the fireplace with a disgusted expression.

Wanting to immediately forget what she just read, she turns to the assault rifle she just got and decided to inspect its condition. When she lifts it up, she was once again surprised at the weight rifle. She felt like she is holding an RPD instead of a rifle with how heavy it is. But when she remembers how many roles it was supposed to fulfill and the way it was constructed, she couldn't help but think that its only natural that it would get that heavy when it has everything you could put in a rifle. She once again reads the print at the side of the receiver.

"M27 IAR."

She smiles upon remembering at how her partner used to complain about how heavy it is and the Doll sometimes teasing her that she has noodle arms until she got mad and chase her around only to get purposely caught and have a tickle fight with each other.

Continuing her inspection, she pulls back on the charging handle twice to eject any cartridges that might still be in the chamber. After making sure the chamber is clear, she then turns the rifle to its side and pushed the captive pin located above the pistol grip and flipped it to the other side to pull the pin out so she can split the upper and lower receiver. Upon being granted a view of the internal mechanism, she quickly checked to see how dirty it was inside only to not find a single piece of dirt. She was a little surprised by this since she didn't expect a man who was a complete amateur on handling a rifle to be able to disassemble and clean a rifle like this. But. When she thinks twice about it, it might be just that he recently got this rifle and didn't got the chance to use it until recently.

Anyway, now that she found nothing wrong with the rifle, she puts it back together and returns it to where it once was. Next was the most thing she is curious about is the cans of tuna as those contains something that she is searching for. The expiration date.

Lightly looking around, she quickly found it and compares the date to her last memory with that person and found something alarming. She shakes her head in doubt and checks the date again to see if her eye was just glitching on her, but the date stayed the same no matter how many times she looks at it.

The dates, when comparing it to her last memory before going to Hibernation Mode, tells her that she has been sleeping for almost 3-4 years already!

She held her head and closed her eye shut, almost in denial of the situation as she tries to recall about their past conversations in order to hold down her growing anxiety.

"No... This situation has been accounted for. Yes... She mentioned that it might take longer than expected... Calm down... Calm down..."

She muttered to herself as she tames her disordered shallow breathing to a more slower relaxed pace. Her quivering hands was starting to settle and gazes at the tuna can slowly rolling on the floor.

In order to quell her doubts, she thinks back on the subject or the ones related to it, the modifications that she went through, performance checks, and the short offhanded comments she made during their past time.

Then, she remembered about her partner's promise to her. The gentle hand caressing her face as she looks at her with a kind smile, the resolute words she uttered, the oath she had made to her, and they swore to meet each of their ends promise.

Her hands clenches and scolds herself for being anxious just because she was scared that they were fully separated and their chance to fulfill their promise was delayed. She shook her head to clear her mind and decided to just clean up and sleep early to clear her caches. She could sort out the other things tomorrow and just get rid of the trash for tonight. She went to the kitchen and returns with a garbage bag at hand and sat down near the fire place to collect the trash.

As a side note, after she finished butchering and dispose of the internal organs, she decided to also clean the house while she was still dirty. Since she is going to be staying here for a while until she is ready to head out, might as well clean the place during her entire stay. 

After cleaning and tossing out the trash, she washes her hands before heading to the master bedroom upstairs. Connecting herself to the power cable she took from the storage, she lays on the bed and after adjusting herself because of the awkward thing that is now sticking out of her back closes her eye and slowly shuts down her sensory faculties. After a while, sleep takes her into her electronic dreamland.