it's a metaphor for consumerism, i think

MMmmmmmm im s;lllleeeeby

I couldn’t really sleep. Not really. Kind of right after Artemy left my bones hurt soo bad.

There was also this nagging feeling that I kind of was incapable of taking naps due to game mechanics or something. Something about a fatigue meter. Skip time not real. You know what I mean?

So anyway, I didn’t sleep, I laid there, groaning pain and being like oof ouch my bones. And then.. shock emoji. The other characters in my household came out of hiding.

“Dad..?” Aide’s voice was small beside my ear, and I felt a finger prod me.

“Darn. I think he died.” Catnip spoke up from where the finger was coming from. Queenieslay gotta test with her hands ig I can respect that,

“That’s the longest parent streak we’ve had for a while. Two days, that’s pretty neat.” Dandy pipes up from the head of the couch, I mean he’s probably looking down at me.

“I’m. literally alive.” I groan back and all of them react with mumbles of mild surprise.

“Wow. You don’t look very alive, are you sure?” Dandy continues, and I open one eye to look at him. Despite how he’s acting all tough and sassy he does look like, reasonably concerned, so I can’t rlly be mad at him.

“Ohaio Gazaimasu children” I said while sitting up, ignoring the violent stab of pain in my side “Are we all safe and good and cool?”

Aide frowns, climbing onto the couch and sitting on my legs “Are you?”

I hesitate for a second, then shrug “I mean I will be. today’s chapter is a filler episode chapter anyway where nothing important happens or gets like set up or anything so I mean we get to forget I have an injury for a bit and stuff. It’ll be fine.”

“Er.. Alright” Aide plays with the fabric of my pants.

Catnip looks unconvinced, but instead of prodding, she asks “Are you going to get out of that shirt? It’s.. uh, a new color.” I look down at the shirt, Peter’s shirt, which now had a big hole in it and also was now red instead of white which may not be a good thing.

“DARN (DAMN) yeah you’re right. It’s chill I’ll head by Peter Stamatin’s house later cos I need to go by anyway to make him come over here and not get the plague actually.”

“Peter’s.. Coming back?” Dandy asked, sharing a look with Catnip “You’re sure that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah why not? He’s my homeboy.”

“Is Peter.. our other father..?” Aide asked, looking up at me with big dog puppy dog eyes.

“Erm eh no he’s more like. your drunk uncle. drunkle.” I grimaced “Your second father is.. is um.. Okay you don’t have one of those I’m a single mother of three just like the bible envisioned or somethign I don’t know I don’t think that exists in the Pathologic universe but don’t quote me on that.”

“Uhh okiedokie.” He moved off of my legs as I slowly sat up and let out a groan. “So um.. dad, we had a question.” I grunted in response “Well uh, you told us to go kid things but we didn’t really wanna. Can we just.. go with you today? I mean you were gonna do something today right?”

Damn. I did not think that far ahead for today. Lemme just load in possible tasks real quick uhh. oh. interesting. sure.

“Yeah of course kids.” I smiled at all three of them “I was going to go be a good model citizen and get Lara Ravel a new water barrel because I’m nice and also nice.”