I woke up with a bit of a jolt as I found a pair of eyes staring at me. I jumped back before I realized it was just Samantha.

"Woah!" I exclaimed as I nearly fell out of bed. "Samantha, why were you just looking at me like that?!"

"Honestly, I was making sure you weren't dead," she replied. "You slept in until 11:30."

I looked at the clock, then a post-it note on my bulletin board.

"Aw, crap! I have a commission due in 45 minutes!"

I sprang out of bed and immediately went to my laptop. I opened it and found it already on. I clicked on the icon for Adobe Photoshop and, as it loaded, pulled my drawing tablet out of a drawer. I plugged it into the USB port and found that Photoshop was ready. I sat down and grabbed my stylus, ignoring Samantha as she paced about my room and looked at my various collectibles.

I looked back at the bulletin board. The note said "commission for xX_DestroyerSwag69_Xx due at 12:15 7/29/17. He wants a picture of a giant printer with laser eyes fighting Godzilla."

"Great, something easy," I thought sarcastically to myself.

I began by looking at reference pictures of Godzilla. Then, I started to compose my scene, outlining the cityscape that the picture would be set in. I also drew a rough sketch of the printer and Godzilla. Then I did the lineart, then the coloring, and lastly, the shading. I added in some stock photos of explosions and fire as a final touch. I looked down at my computer's clock to find that I had three minutes left.

"Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!" I said.

I opened up my Gmail and composed my message. Normally I would have talked about how I did it and thanked him for paying me generously, but I only had time to type "Here is your image, thanks for the work." I then opened the image I exported from Photoshop and attached it to the message, before clicking "send."

I looked at my wall clock and found that I had finished with five seconds to spare.

I turned back towards Samantha to find her lying on the bed playing with two of my figurines. I smiled slightly as I realized that she was making Ryuko from Kill la Kill fight Rei from Highschool of the Dead, both of which are great animes in my opinion.

She looked up at me, saying "You don't mind me playing with your stuff, right?"

"No, it's fine," I said. "I just didn't expect someone your age to still play with toys of that sort."

"Then why do you keep them?" Samantha asked, before narrowing her eyes and adding "Is it something to do with how they exaggerate their… features?"

"Uh, no! No! It's just that … ah … they are worth money! Yes, that's what it-"

"You're a terrible liar," she interrupted.

I expected her to say something else after that, or at least act offended, but she just looked back down at the action figures in her hand and continued playing.

"So… do you want anything to eat?" I asked.

"Sure, what do you have?"

"I've got pancakes, cereal, and hot pockets."

"I guess I'll have pancakes," Samantha said after a brief time.

"Alright then, follow me."

We walked downstairs and into the kitchen, where I opened the freezer and pulled out a pack of frozen pancakes. I placed them onto a plate and then into the microwave. Samantha seemed amazed at this process, but said nothing.

I was not surprised by Samantha's reaction to the existence of frozen pancakes, as the game she is from takes place in an alternate version of the early 1940s. While the microwave oven was invented in 1945, it was expensive and impractical at the time. Not to mention, there was an ongoing zombie apocalypse in the game, which may have hindered the invention and distribution of such a thing.

The pancakes were done in three and a half minutes, so I pulled the pancakes out and put some butter on top before passing the plate and utensils to Samantha.

"You may eat wherever you like," I said. "I don't have a specific place where I eat, but you could go to the table in the living room."

"Okay," Samantha said as she walked in the direction of the living room.

I began to heat myself a hot pocket. My favorite was the pepperoni pizza kind, and that was what I had.

I sat down with Samantha once my hot pocket was ready and decided on what I would ask her about first. I had so many questions, but I knew she wouldn't answer them all at once.


Author's Note: I know I haven't been ending these chapters very well; they've all been unnessescary cliffhangers. It's just one of my flaws as a writer, wich I am trying to work on.