Preparations

When Eric woke up the next day, he was surprised to find that it was still morning. He usually slept like the dead until around 12 pm, courtesy of Erza, after each cycle.

He stood up to find that Ken was already up and the smell of something so delicious, he might have turned into a starfish to avoid tasting it, had taken over the room.

"It's not the worst thing she's cooked." Eric mumbled. He had eaten some pretty nasty stuff after the outbreak, some of which were Erza's handiwork, and had learned to be less of a picky eater. He'd have to retrain his stomach though...

Done with the random thoughts, Eric placed the now furless pelt back in his inventory and headed down to join his family.

"Morning, Uncle." the 6 year old chirped.

"Morning Eric." Ezra and Erza said nearly at the same time.

"Morning." Eric replied and Scylla fought the urge to wave in reply and settled instead for rearranging the strands of hair closest to Eric's nape.

Eric placed a hand on the wriggling strands as he stepped into the dinning room.

"How'd you sleep."

"As usual." Erza said from the kitchen followed by Ezra's "Pretty well." and Ken's "Like a baby."

"You are a baby, Ken. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Ken pouted at that.

Eric settled himself in the chair closest to the door to watch as Erza worked and Ezra sat stiffly looking like he had seen the worst of life despite his attempts to hide it.

"So I was thinking," the trio turned to look at the only legal adult in the room. " Mrs Conway's shop has a breakfast special every 18th plus... who knows when that old hag will let you come visit again. Today just so happens to be 18th..." Eric said, throwing a rope to the poor kids.

"Don't call grandma a hag!" Erza yelled as the others replied.

"Yes!" Ezra practically shouted with a look that said he could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

"I wanna go!" Ken exclaimed excitedly.

"But I'm nearly done with breakfast." Erza complained with a slight frown. Eric wore a thoughtful look for a moment.

"How about we put it away for tomorrow?" he suggested. It would be a simple thing to replace Erza's cooking with something more...palatable.

Erza threw off her apron with a scoff and stormed off. She always did have a temper. It might have caused her an early death if her ability didn't allow her to counter any 3 abilities she saw coming her way daily.

The other 2 went to change into something more fitting. Although their clothes made it seem like they were going to a high class restaurant where one could spend millions of dollars and still go home on a mostly empty stomach, it would do. Eric himself wore a plain shirt and jeans.

"Are you coming Erza?" Eric shouted to the girl.

"No!" she yelled back.

"Alright. I'll leave the spare key on the coffee table." Eric said in response. Erza was a complicated person. She didn't want people to help or try to persuade her yet she tended to get mad if people didn't try and Eric wasn't in the mood to coax her.

"Alright. Is everyone done?" Ken nodded while Ezra replied in the affirmative. "Then let's go." After leaving the spare key on the table as he'd told Erza, Eric led his brother and nephew out.

It didn't take too long to get to the cafe and despite the few stares their looks recieved, The trio had a rather pleasant walk.

"Hi Eric." Melissa, one of the waitresses greeted as the trio entered the cafe with the tinkling of a bell to announce their arrival. When Eric nodded, she turned to Erza and Ken in turn. "You're here for the breakfast special, aren't you?" she asked knowing Eric's habits.

She led them to an empty table where they sat in awkward silence. Eric had gotten to know his family better after the outbreak however, before that, their relationship was... near non-existent.

Eric and his older sister had been cut off from the family when their mother had married into the Brand family. It was his best friend's, Damien's father and grandfather who had taken him in. Now however, Damien owned a large company and they wished to foster a relationship with Eric to try and garner some profits.

If Damien could survive his awakening, he would surely be a force to be reckoned with. However, his ability used more energy than a newly awakened could provide and would thus eat away at his life.

While Ezra and Ken were eating, Eric took out his phone.

- Big Dummy, you up?- he typed. It took a while before he got a reply.

- I'm not up.- Damien replied - You're speaking to a robot.-

- Alright bot, tell Dummy to make time for a meeting. Don't kill him or else I'll hop into your residence to pull ears.-

- Ooh. I'm so scared😸.-

- I'll be waiting for feedback.-

With that out of the way, Eric focused on his meal. He would feign sickness the next day. From his many experiences, he had realised that they were best off not staying together during the outbreak.

Damien's people moved fast. As long as Eric informed him of the upcoming events before the next day ended, they could get the basics. It was too late to do too much but as long as he, Damien and Oscar got some stuff they could figure out what to do next.

Although he usually survived with the choices he made, he always regretted not being able to help his brothers in all but blood.

Before long, the kids were done and he took them back home. Erza wasn't there when they arrived but Eric didn't give it much thought. She usually went out to visit some friends of hers in the last days. It was the only reason she had chosen to leave the home she was raised in.

Time went by quickly as Eric ordered some stuff of his own. Food, camping equipment, a few solar generators, flashlights, water filters, gas masks, clothes for different biomes, night vision goggles, a few large vaults, some backpacks and some travel bags.

-I'm free tomorrow. You can come over in the afternoon.- Damien sent. Damien would have preferred a morning meeting however he knew Eric was likely to sleep till noon.

-Okie dokie.- Eric replied. He turned his attention to his laptop. He would need to download a few things for after civilisation fell. And type a few things down to keep Oscar's and Damien's information updated.

He paused for a bit to order some food when he realised it was getting late. He returned to the guest room to mess with his loot. After swimming around in his own thoughts for a while, he decided it would be best to leave his inventory space for things that were more difficult to carry and put everything away in the various drawers. The 3 large stones and 8 smaller ones went in one and the 11 pelts and horns in their own.

After that, he decided to call it a day.