After a quick and light dinner and as it was still relatively early Ava chilled out in her old bedroom. Her phone suddenly buzzing, she glanced at the screen. Flashing up with Judes name. She declined, then directly after her Aunt Lillian called and again, she declined straight away. Ava shivered, she remembered in her last life they use to call her a lot, back than she thought it was out of concern but know she knows better. Thinking it through they never left her for more than 24 hours in her past without contact, without them subtly hinting of them heling to reduce the burden of my parents' home and their things. Did they plan it that way? Constantly on at her so she never had time to consider any other option. Maybe they even took things she wasn't aware of. Her cousins' words about manipulating money out of her running threw her head. Moving forward and making sure they couldn't get anywhere near her parent's belongings resolved her to ignore them for now and then deal with them later once the disasters had begun.
The whole house was like walking through one long memory, it even smelled better than she remembered, old wood and her mother distinct but lingering perfume which seemed ingrained in the fibres of the house. She still felt the ache of their loss even though it seemed so long ago to her, but being back in this space really reminded her of the loss. Trying not to dwell on her parents' loss and the lingering grief she decided to focus on scrolling through her phone, looking up future forecasts and articles on extreme weather. She wanted to get a better understanding of each of the upcoming disasters she knew about and the potential of the ones she didn't after all she died in year 4 and there could be potentially another 100 years of disaster after that. A few hours later she shook her head, feeling her mood had dropped even lower than before after concentrating on upcoming doomsday scenarios and apocalyptic disaster message boards online. To snap herself out of it she went to take a shower before crawling into bed trying to slow her swirling mind before drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
Rolling over to avoid the light shining through the curtains Ava awoke, realising how refreshed she felt, she had slept in till past ten. Reeling with how well she slept she smiled, a restful night's sleep was a rare thing for her, so she felt full of energy. When she noticed the time, she got up and stretched, quickly washed up, and started planning her day of sorting through and boxing up her parents' belongings. The house was a generously sized 3 bedrooms fully detached house with a decently sized back garden, as her dad was an avid outdoors man the garden had sheds filled with various gear for differing outdoor pursuits including climbing, sailing, kayaking, canoeing, skiing, diving and archery. Since she was a child, her dad had dragged her out into the wilderness, teaching her basic survival skills as well as ensuring she had a well-rounded understanding of various sports and activities. Although since leaving for college Ava had unfortunately not done a lot of it, thinking back it's a shame she didn't try harder to make time to do these activities with her dad. He loved being outside no matter the weather and often said "There was no such thing as bad weather just bad clothes". Smiling to herself at the memory Ava thought the sheds were as good a place as any to start her clearing up.
After indulging in a pastry and iced coffee from her space for breakfast she headed into the garden, The grass brown and dying due to the summer heat as well as the current draught made her short walk dusty, but it only took a minute to reach the first shed. He father had 3 sheds in the garden, split for different uses. This first one was filled with archery gear, bow and arrows. Dad had compound, recurve and longbows, although her father's collection was quite large most was useless to her as she was only really adept at shooting the compound bow, having used it while growing up and then her father bought her a purple one for her birthday when she was 15. Seeing it on the wall clearly in pride of place, it looked like he had been maintaining it for her as it still looked as good as the day she opened it years earlier, she could see numerous sets of arrows and matching gear to go with each bow so she put everything into her space thinking weapons would make her life much easier later. Most people relied on knifes or blunt weapons in the apocalypse, long range weapons were scarce and guns only really in the hands of the army or government officials. Bows though more common and even though she had known how to use one in her last life, getting a hold of one was impossible for her so this time she would have an edge with her own arsenal of weapons, the bows were a good start and even if she personally wouldn't use all of them, she might need them later or could trade them.
Having emptied the first shed she moved onto the second shed which always had a slight musty smell as its where dad kept all the water sport equipment, including wetsuits, paddles, life jackets, oxygen tanks, sails and ropes. The boats were all stacked on one side, some even suspended from the ceiling and the relevant gear was on the other, with a table in the middle which had various tools and bags set on top of it. She didn't really need to look through what was here as she knew her dad was fastidious in his maintenance of his equipment and they would all be useful later during the disasters especially the floods. She swept it all in before moving onto the last shed, which was dads' workshop, it was the furthest shed from the house probably because of the noise dad would make while he used to work in here and it smelled of grease. She recalled all the hours she had sat in this shed while watching her dad tinker with whatever project he was working on at that time. Before he died it seems he was working on a motorbike as its various parts were scattered around, trying not to think to hard she moved all the bits together and along with all her father's numerous tools, she moved in a quad bike and dirt bike she had previously ridden into her space. She contemplated for a moment about putting the whole she in the field in her space but decided against it as it would be a bit conspicuous for the whole thing to just vanish.
Coming back in from outside she grabbed her dad's trailer and went to wash her hands. Before sitting down for lunch, she was starving having not eaten much for breakfast so she had a large bowl of pasta and meatballs, bought yesterday from an italian deli she was enjoying every savoury bite while thinking about how long it would take her tackle the house, it had taken a few hours to sort out the sheds so she hoped the inside would be quicker and easier as her mum was a strict believer in the "less is more" movement.
After letting her lunch digest, she started downstairs making a clean sweep of storing everything useful and sentimental into her space but not taking everything before moving upstairs. Her room was pretty much just the bare essentials as she hadn't lived here in years, and the third bedroom was similar as it was just a guest room that mum occasionally used to store things when needed so her biggest task would be her parents' bedroom. Which she remembered she hadn't been in since before her parents' death in her previous life. In her last life, she was so full of grief she couldn't even go into their room to empty it, so she let her aunt and cousin take on the responsibility. But this time she wouldn't let those people anywhere near this place let alone touch her parent's things.
Taking a deep breath before entering her parents' bedroom, she braced herself for the emotions she had put away so tightly to survive the apocalypse in her previous life. When the disasters happened she quickly realized she couldn't dwell on her pain and had to concentrate on surviving, in some respect she felt maybe she hadn't really moved on from their death at all but her mother was always the one pushing her to move forward and she knew they wouldn't want her to suffer because of their absence. Pushing the door open and walking in she noted the dust motes flying in the air, before scanning the room, her mum had always been a minimalist where as her dad was a bit of a hoarder so he got to hoard in his sheds but the house was done in my mother's style. Luckily this meant there wasn't a lot of Bric a Brac to pack away it was mostly just their things and their furniture. Moving around the room she had flashes of her being in here as a child or coming to steal stuff from her mums closet as a teenager. Now she walked over to the adjoining closet where her mum had always had a meticulously organised system present, she noticed the door was different, it had a lock which was never there when she lived in the house. Luckily the door was unlocked so she pushed it open and was shocked by what she saw, instead of the walk-in closet full of clothes she was expecting there stood a collection of antiques, paintings, jewellery, vases and books.