Dawn found me sitting at my desk, a spreadsheet and a couple of internet tabs open on my laptop, some random heavy metal band in my ears and still no plan.

The weirdo episode had woken me enough for trying to work but my brain was in automatic mode and couldn’t get anything correctly done. I had the outline of a schedule though, and it had to be enough for now.

I went back to sleep for a few hours before my call with Abby and Pierre. It was a well-deserved, much-too-short nap, but it did some good to my mental capacities and, with the help of a warm bath, I started feeling a little bit human again. Just a little bit.

My laptop started beeping, announcing an incoming Discord conference call right after I had put on a pair of jeans and an almost clean sweater. I had tried to look for a shirt, but couldn’t find any. I should probably clean my apartment, someday...

My hair still dripping from the bath, I put my headphones and my glasses on, not in that order, and accepted the video call.

“Wow, you look terrible!” was the greeting I got. These friends of mine didn’t really understand subtlety, apparently. “Thank you Pierre, that’s a good way to make me feel better… For the record, I didn’t sleep, didn’t have a coffee for the last 2 hours, and I’m wet. Now. Did you have any luck in your quest?”

I preferred to jump directly to the task at hand, rather than having to cope with more remarks on my looks or bad life habits. I had enough of these with my mother. Or my publisher.

“Yes, actually. I found a school willing to rent us their equipment for the summer and another one for autumn. So providing we start filming in the beginning of June, we would have cameras and microphones and mixing equipment and everything we might need available for six months. I just hope their prices aren’t too high for our budget, because we won’t find anything cheaper that’s still in good condition…”

May I digress a bit, here? I’ll tell you the truth. We had no budget. Because we had no money. Even if my book had done well, it only meant I was able to pay my rent every month and buy some food. Besides, therapy ain’t cheap.

It’s a necessity in my case as you might imagine from the nightmare, and it does a lot of good, but it cleans your bank account in no time. So, all three of us were broke. All our hopes lied in Abby and whatever she had found to raise money.

“Does any of you or anyone you know own a GoPro or equivalent?” she asked. “Because we might try a crowdfunding, but we will need something to show, else nobody will back us up… I’ve found a couple of websites that could be good, and there’s also Patreon and sorts of course, but without a video we won’t get anything it seems.”

Of course none of us owned a GoPro! Pierre didn’t even own a smartphone! He had one of those old flip phones he had managed to keep in one piece miraculously for years. But really, was this crazy thing going to die so easily, just because we couldn’t afford a camera?

Oh irony! We couldn’t rent one because we didn’t have money, and we couldn’t raise money because we couldn’t rent a camera! No. Wait a minute. My gamery-self owned a microphone for communicating in multiplayer games, and a webcam for when I was unable to go out but still needed therapy. It wouldn’t be ideal, but… Maybe we could try?

“All right, let’s try this. I'll lend y'all my room and microphone. Abby, we film you. Go write a speech or whatever, okay? I have clothes to lend you if you need, there might be something fancy somewhere in that closet. Haven’t opened it for… I can’t even remember. It won’t be as good as if a pro was doing it, but it might still work. Now. You guys come over here when you can, I’ll make coffee.”